Hari shot awake after stepping through the gateway that she thought of as 'Conduit' and saw both Brines and Bearer rummaging through a post-boss treasure chest made of shaped wood. She was still in the grove that resembled her home woods, a tinge of unwanted longing for home fighting against her better judgement. Hari tried to put her chin up and assess what everyone was doing.
Corvayne's workout obsessed former boss was writing down everything they pulled out of the chest, while Bearer-Of-Burdens was clearly borrowing a bar of gold from the materials. Hari turned away and tried not to laugh as Brines started tying a green elvish loin-wrap around his head like a bandanna. Bearer had found skimpy leaf armor which likely would not fit her unless it adjusted for her non-elvish figure.
Hari didn't think too long on her own more human-like endowments either. Instead she looked over at the fourth member of their party, the insect who had been teleporting and killing them at absurd speeds through this Tower.
Growl-Whine had her eyes closed, in a form that looked sort of like a serpent wrapped in beetle wings. An eye opened, and she saw parts of the insect fall off and turn to dust, reducing it to what she thought of as its basic 'goat sized cricket' form. It looked at her and waved. It knew the gesture was a greeting but its hand was sideways then started drawing in the rich soil aside the stone path.
Hari felt a new connection as the insect drew itself offering a triangle for a wobbly shape. It tapped its fingers together, then drew a six sided die with slashes on it.
“You took a chance!” Hari laughed. So, there was some way to swap out powers perhaps, and the spider was sacrificing part of what it had to roll for new ones. At least that meant she wouldn't be stuck with whatever she had just picked.
Hari tried to draw her ability, and she looked and saw the spider frozen.
“What's wrong?”
The Spider tapped it and circled it. It seemed excited, but then slowed and drew Hari, a simple figure with sharp ears, then drew a spider inside of her. It drew the two minds together picture.
“If that's what we need to do to save him, then...”
Growl-Whine drew a sun rising. Then a sun setting, then another sun rising.
Hari got it. “We have time. Okay, I'll try to strengthen it, and we keep working towards a communication power.”
Hari tried drawing a human talking with a spider in the bubble, and a spider talking with a human in the bubble. The spider disagreed, and drew a spider with a person inside them and rubbed it out, then drew an elf with a spider inside and circled it.
Bearer was looking over her shoulder. “Is it trying to knock you up?”
“Not on your LIFE miss Bearer!” Hari calmed down and rolled her eyes. “Whatever it is, I think it means we have an option, just not a good one.”
The spider made its way to the ramp leading up to a silvery gate, marked in elvish '11-15'.
Bearer didn't need help with translating that. “She wants to keep fishing for powers.” The woman followed, and then tried to start prying silver off the door before giving up.
Brines looked nervous. “Uh, what happens when the monsters get too dangerous and it... she can't help us?”
“I trust her.” Hari turned to Brines and put a hand on his shoulder. “You've gotten stronger too!”
Brines looked at her hand, and was visibly sweating. “I know! I'll just go and tell everyone about-”
Bearer threw an arm around Brines. “Jimmy, you going to be a pussy?”
He stood straight up and removed her arm by plucking her hand and lifting it off his person. “I'm just being reasonable.”
Her voice was even with only a hint of amusement. “Look at Corvayne. Reasonable is not how you get laid.”
Hari stepped between them. “Ignoring her wording, she's right. You want to be exceptional and a success right? For an adventurer, getting rich means taking risks.” She paused, then added sheepishly. “Also I think we need your auras to keep going.”
It was the first time she'd ever seen the man look annoyed with her.
The next few floors were fast and it felt to Hari like the spider had been taking it easy up to this point. Floor 11 was some sort of maze of aqueducts suspended in the air that Growl-Whine skipped in three well placed teleports, crossing a multi-mile gap to land them at a stairway. She didn't even see any monsters in the thirty seconds they were on the floor.
Floor 12 they only fought one monster in a vast dusty plain full of reflecting pools. It was a bird that seemed to shrink Growl-Whine as she got closer, but even sized like an actual bug she sliced the huge bird into pieces before popping back to regular size. Hari thought stairs were easy enough to spot, being almost the only feature in the endless flat expanse of dusty grass and clear water pools. They skipped every other shrinking bird to drop right at the small stone building with a square entrance to the stairs.
Floor thirteen looked like part of Cascadia but textured in yellow brick with a few of the more fantastic things from the city rendered as either Nel Ferral equivalents or as monsters. The main monsters were things that looked like car-beetles. They attacked by ramming and exploded in bursts of flame when defeated. She mostly saw this from looking back after a few blinks, having been curious what the popping sound following them was.
Hari was amused for a moment by what looked like a covered wagon train rolling along stone rails, but they didn't have time to goof off as they were in and out of the floor inside ten minutes, walking up stairs located outside a parking structure that hummed with insect cars idling inside.
Floor fourteen was a series of stairways inside a giant bramble and sword growing plant, sort of like being inside a sphere shaped from vines. The spider took two teleports and they didn't even see monsters before leaving the floor.
Floor fifteen looked different, the yellow and brown stonework replaced with grassy green cliffs towering in what felt like endless blue sky, clouds above and below and around them. The gritty air was impossibly clean, cool and crisp and alive. Growl-Whine teleported them across three isolated cliffs and then walked them through a doorway made of what looked like fat steel spoons. She paused for a moment and pulled out the 'phone' that let her paint pictures and made the device picture the inscription by the door 'Intent and Form Forge powers. A daring leap to one day fly.' Both Wick and Seru liked those little Tower puzzles.
She stepped through the door and was blasted by cold and for a moment disoriented as her eyes shifted from psudo day to a dim shadowy black and blue cavern. It wasn't made from stone, as Brines had a light that reflected off glaming surfaces including a grid of steel that was the walkway further into the dark. Looking down, she saw a slope of white snowy sludge oozing across stainless steel shapes reached out of the ooze like huge dark fingers. The cold dulled her sense of smell but there was something sweet in the air.
Hari was surprised that Brines seemed to instantly know what it was. “Is this a... milkshake floor?”
Bearer was already down a side stair to where the flow was. She knelt down and grabbed a handful of it then licked it. “It tastes like a potato milkshake with lots of sugar. Eww.”
Growl-Whine saw they were all through the door and started teleporting them again, flinging them through the dim light across platforms and bridges dripping with cold slime. The stairs up lead to a little boxy waiting room with uncomfortable chairs and metal tools that looked to Hari like a surgeons kit. The harsh lighting and white surfaces everywhere made her feel uncomfortable and exposed, and she could see from Bearer and Brine's reactions that she wasn't alone. The spider didn't even need to push them into the boss room.
They were on a ruined building then, shards of city floating all around them. Hari could see a figure glowing with energy but only for a moment before Growl-Whine vanished forward. The figure must have been twenty feet tall, but the tiny Spider flicked its blade out a dozen times while the figure started charging up energy. Hari wasn't sure how Corvayne had kept up with her at all when they had fought, as her last strike blew the figure apart in a wash of white light.
The journey to her garden found her laying in the grass, early in the morning before sunrise. There was mist everywhere, but the doors she hadn't been through were missing, and the ones she had stepped through felt... asleep. Perhaps they had gone too fast?
She opened her eyes to the group opening another chest and pulled out lots of healing potions and a dog leash as well as a bow and 3 daggers made of redish dwarven steel. Hari started testing it and found it was mostly commons with the bow being exceptional. They didn't have arrows with them so they just gave it to Brines to carry.
Floor sixteen was another stainless steel floor where the dungeon was made of gleaming chairs welded together. Rivers of frozen slush flowed through the chilled halls the metal formed. Perhaps the Tower had flavors it liked, as the air reeked of something cloyingly sweet to the point she was pretty sure she was tasting sugar just from breathing. They slowed the pace down a little as Growl-Whine fought boxy metal monsters that had ice-cream innards, breaking bone blades as she turned them into scrap.
After the second one, Bearer crouched and took an handful of icy mush and tried it. Given that she was still partially covered in monster blood stains , she looked positively deranged when she grinned.
“Oh my god! It's great!”
Hari came over and tried a mouthful as she was hungry enough and found that while it tasted amazing, she almost instantly developed a jarring headache. She started tearing up and pressed her hand against her forehead.
“Oh ho ho! The elf has discovered brain freeze!” Bearer slapped her back.
Brines teeth were chattering. “Can you get the sp-sp-spider to GO?”
Interestingly, the Spider tried not one but two handfuls before she chittered and started rubbing her head and flicking her oddly donkey shaped ears... perhaps also suffering from 'brain freeze'. A moment later Growl-Whine started teleporting off again.
She was moving more carefully, clearing spaces for them to land rather then just skipping past packs. Hari was able to watch her fight what looked like a trio of the metal monsters, dodging both rays of cold and globs of freezing goop. Watching the battle she could tell the monsters were timing their attacks to try to prevent Growl-Whine from dodging. It did no good as the little bug could just move through space while slicing enemies, but Hari felt it was important to address what she was seeing.
“The monsters not only are getting more abilities, but they are smarter on this floor.”
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Bearer shrugged. “I don't think we're even close to where it matters, they can't touch her.”
Brines however was more attuned to what Hari was getting at, already looking around for anything that might decide to go after the easier prey.
Hari herself teleported to where Growl-Whine had been by casting [Blink Strike] on a metal monster's body. Her blade could punch through the metal shell, which was good. The Spider had stopped a moment to expel an orange glob that steamed from its backside (she refused to speculate what else came from the hole it made weapons out of) then rubbed it all over herself. It smelled faintly of alcohol but radiated heat. Hari considered asking for a glob for a moment then just pulled out a winter cloak and sucked it up.
Bearer was walking over, stomping her work boots to get frozen crud off of them. “I'm glad she's here, I just wish she picked a beach rather then this frozen tomb.”
Brines spent the moment collecting a boxy metal shell from the monster. “She's been here before... right guys? So there's a reason she went this way. Thought I'm worried she's going to leave us in over our heads again and ditch us.”
“I think if we were a group of six we'd still be breezing through this, just not as quickly.” Hari was cheating a little by looking at things through [Investigate]. The colors were still nice shades of green, with a bit of yellow-green in the room they were in. That suggested they were still punching down.
The next few levels up to twenty were visually very similar. Dim, full of steel in blues and grays and white and brown icy mush, and mechanical monsters with hard exteriors and soft sweet goop for organs. Some places had open spaces where sort of pretty, with thin metal bridges weaved between dimly glowing blue lights shining on streams of milkshake falling from darkness above to darkness below. Others were claustrophobic steel caves, requiring the three humaniods to duck when Growl-Whine was teleporting ahead to kill metal monsters that sometimes let out shrill cries that sounded like metal screeching on ice before they fell.
Floor twenty was something like the hell floor, full of soft-serve golems that exploded into hardening slush when killed, and weird shades in freezing robes that would sometimes form more golems from ice cream streams, doubled with up pairs of shadowy claws weaving shapes of ice and flinging stinging shards of cold. The only saving grace is that the formations were random rather then tactical. Half the time the delicate wizards were in front of their minions and a single [Blink-Strike] would cut half a room down.
It seemed like Grow-Whine wanted them to take their time on the last floor, and so they explored the series of rooms and rises that corkscrewed around waterfalls of icy drinks and pillars of ice-cream that according to Bearer tasted like 'tires' or 'watered down beer'. Nobody opted to experiment a third time.
The first real roadblock was a set of perhaps four rooms that bled into each other to make a huge chamber, full of ice mages and golems and 'ice cream machines' as Brines had called them. The spider started teleporting at the ice mages, but the three of them had to fall back as streams of monsters kept diverting from the room to run at them. Hari tried to pick off the machines in the group so they didn't get blasted with ice magic, but they had to let Brines melt the ice cream golems to avoid them exploding, and while Bearer was somewhat resistant to cold due to her weapon, the same weapon often would make the dying blasts of golems worse. Even with Growl-Whine coming back to help it took them the better part of an hour to clear the room, with a chest that contained a few frozen health potions as the only thing to show for it.
They kept going and it was another hour or so into the twentieth floor when they teleported into another room, and Hari saw momement and pulled Brines and Bearer back by their collars as The Spider did an emergency roll away from what looked like a chair leg that telescoped from a point in the ceiling. The thing was as wide as a tree trunk and dented the metal floor with a halo of sparks.
Brines started to get up and was asking “Trap?” and Hari managed to grab him and roll away from the strut as it smashed the ground where he had been standing, and something like a steel golem spider unfolded from the ceiling, at least thirty feet tall.
Hari cast [Anchor] as fast as she could, and the leg held for a half beat before Growl-Whine teleported them back and started breaking weapons on the steel monster.
Bearer made a spitting nose after the Spider had another sword break and was extruding and teleporting. Hari watched as the monster lashed out with liquid metal tentacles wiggling on its underside. The flew like curving lances at the Spider, kicking up vast clouds of snow and broken metal as their agile ally danced away.
Bearer looked over at Hari then tilted her head up over the rock they were hiding behind. “I'm tired of letting it do all the work. We have elemental attacks right? I bet I can shatter its legs.
Hari nodded. “I'll anchor it. Brines, if Growl-Whine doesn't go for it, try to fry the frozen section and destroy it with heat shock.”
Hari blinked to a spot where it would, in fact, notice her, and dropped [Anchor] on its leg, then used [Blink-Strike] as it slammed a dozen chrome tentacles into the slushy ground she had been standing on. She found her airfoil didn't do much aside from draw sparks from the steel, but it did divide its attention enough that Bearer-Of-Burdens could move in and slammed her frozen fists against its leg, activating her wooden hands to help deal with hitting steel dozens of times until the leg had gone from shiny to glazed in white.
The monster managed to hit her with another leg it swung around and she slammed into Brines rolling away in a tumble, but Growl-Whine understood what they were doing and slammed her blade into the frozen leg, shattering part of it and tipping the monster off to the side. Bearer sucked down a slushy health potion and ran in again as Hari ran over to the next leg and used [Anchor] again. This time the limb managed to pluck itself from the ground but Bearer dashed forward and managed to clip it twice before it pulled its now chilled leg up. When the monster slammed it down, parts of the leg fell off, and now the creature was lopsided and the next time it tried to use a leg to slam one of them it stumbled, its flat body listing back and forth as it scrambled on the frozen ground.
Hari felt warm for the first time in the dungeon as she ran again and used [Anchor] on the limb she thought it was trying to keep steady the most with, and this time Bearer got in four punches before the liquid metal on its underside drove them away.
Growl-Whine had decided to forego her usual weapons and had extruded a bone mace in the meantime, and shattered the third leg, causing the monster to spin when it tried to make adjustments. The blunt weapon was enough for the Spider to just beat the last two legs out of shape, eventually causing the monster to crumple to ground level where they could pin down the stabbing metal tentacles and slice them off, bleeding the monster out.
The slashing tentacles had left them all with nicks and scrapes aside from Growl-Whine. Or perhaps she regenerated much faster then anyone else.
Brines spent a few minutes crawling over the thing as they rested, but aside from taking a few pints of its chocolate ice-cream blood and some of the liquid metal tentacles to see if Mister I would eat them, there wasn't anything of note on the creature.
Bearer snorted. “Boo. Big monsters should have treasure.”
Hari was wrapping a banded on over a gash on her leg. “We were probably supposed to avoid it.”
Brines gestured to the room. “Well, if we couldn't teleport away, it would have stomped us to death before we could assemble and form a plan.”
Bearer gave the steel spider a kick with her boot. “Well, we stomped it first! Good job everyone!” She walked over and pulled Brines into a one-handed hug. The man looked pleased until he started reaching for a handful of snow the woman had deposited in his shirt.
“Why!? WHY?!”
Hari felt like the bullying was probably Bearer's way of flirting, but simply let them continue while she and Growl-Whine rested.
Growl-Whine got them moving a little later, and it was only a few short fights later they found the stairs up. Moving through, they entered another lobby, this one a series of steel cages above a burnt out medieval city some fifty feet below. It looked like a siege or raid had happened, with the only thing missing from a real fallen castle being bodies amidst the knocked over carts and broken weapons.
Bearer hurried to the boss door, looking more upset that Hari had seen her before. “I hate this.”
Brines looked around. “Yeah, The worst parts of prison and being an acrobat.”
Hari wondered if the landscape was real, but shook her head and focused. There was more fighting to do to save Corvayne.
Entering the Boss's room, Hari saw they were on grassy light blue hills, under a swirling sky of gray and gold light. They must have been high up, as clouds swirled around the frosty hills they were standing on. Hari startled as a titanic hand appeared out of the cloud, an icy gauntlet steadying a huge body that pulled itself out of the mists below and pulled out a huge two handed sword. It was hard to say if it was all ice, or frozen flesh, or dull metal.
The whole thing must have been over a hundred feet tall, its torso and giant helmeted head looming over them. Hari guessed that fighting it without some sort of ranged fire attack involved picking away at its armor.
Growl-Whine started making a few daggers, then teleported. The boss lifted its huge sword, ponderously raising it above its head, and Hari didn't need to be told to leap to the side as it came plummeting down, dragging clouds with it as it slammed into the hillside they had been on. The hit made her stumble a moment, and one of her ears popped from the change in pressure.
Hari checked to make sure nobody had been splattered then helped Brines up. Bearer was already running for the far side of the clump of hills as the monster turned its blade sideways and slashed. Hari had to brace herself against a hill as the arena shook, and once she saw the knight withdrawing its blade she looked and saw it had cut through two of the hills and was halfway though a third.
Brines slapped his hand. “It must be a race to kill it before it wrecks the-”
He stopped as there was a noise like a thunder crack. Hari froze too, as the monster had stopped. She was confused until she saw there was a hole in the boss wide enough that one could probably ride a Forest Wyrm through. The spider shuffled through it almost casually and chewed on a broken dagger, as if it was perhaps a carrot, as the huge knight started to fall apart, ice melting as it reached for the sky. The spider, stepping off it, jerked a hand back and hissed something, then looked almost crestfallen when Hari was confused.
“Sorry I don't under-”
Hari was falling a moment later, the garden rushing up at her again. This time it was late in fall below, a dizzying array of oranges and reds awaiting her. She landed and found she was wearing a dress made of blue threads. The mouse eared woman was there this time, resting a staff in the crook of her hand. When she tried to get closer, it felt like the figure would slide away, never letting her move within thirty feet.
“You wear the dress of winter already.” It should have been easier to see the woman's face. Perhaps Hari's eyes were not working as well, it was hard to make out features besides the gray mouse ears and pink eyes she had.
“It was fitting given the floors I went through. What is this place?” Hari looked down and watched the fabric of her dress turn orange, slipping back to fall.
“It's your mind trying to comprehend the true form of the Tower and your powers. You can't interact with it in a way that's clear, so you lie to yourself as best as you can.”
“Lies outline the truth.” She didn't say that Seru used that line to get her to try makeup. The thing she was speaking with might be some sort of Goddess.
“Are you prepared to change yourself for power?”
Hari nodded. That was always what she wanted to do. “The risks are worth it. Who are you?”
“The voice of the System, made manifest.”
“I want to save him.” Hari stated, feeling more resolve.
“There are many paths to do so, more then trying to become a Wizard's vessel or a Wizard itself. But telling you would open you further to his Curses.”
Hari stopped. “They can spread?”
“He has slightly infected you with your interactions. Mainly that you would have to shred your soul some for the same power he is developing.”
Hari looked over to the black gate, eying the dark thorns curled around it. She turned back to the figure.
“What do you care about me? Why do I have this, now?”
“Because I hedge my bets, even my best ones. You know, even I am a hybrid of something old and new. That being said, do not rush. Even if you only take the gift a moment to save him, it will change you forever.”
The figure vanished, leaving Hari frowning and considering the gates. One obvious new one was a iron gate leading into a frozen garden, snow falling beyond its wrought iron bars. It should have been out of place, but there was a serene beauty to the winter beyond.
Turning back, she kept looking, and saw again the gate of the six star offering. In the gate now, instead of kneeling the woman was holding the star with the being offering it. Partnership.
Hari squared up and marched through the gate, and came out to Growl-Whine spitting out bone weapons all over an iced over pond. Brines and Bearer were huddled together around a fire Brines had started with his dagger and the remains of a wood chest they had looted.
“What is she doing?” Hari asked, pointing at the spider and its impossible pile of weapons.
The Spider stopped, then reached under itself and pulled out something that looked like a humming six point star. It was dripping something like orange fluid, possibly her blood since Hari had never seen her harmed. Hari felt it. If she touched it, something would leave the bug and enter her. Perhaps most of if not all the entity that had been helping them. Hari had spent too many hours listening to the system to doubt her instincts on what she had become. A vessel for those stars.
It looked similar the pointed star they had been chasing at that mine before she had died the first time.
“Not yet Growl-Whine.” She found herself saying, and perhaps her look or tone helped the creature understand because it put the sphere away with squelching sounds.
The monster then created some silk and bound the weapons into bundles, then gave each of them a sack and took one herself, then shuffled over to a patch of clean snow and started drawing with a dagger.
The spider drew five more webs, a little skull for a boss... then five more webs and a huge skull. The spider drew four figures, then erased three of them. The message was obvious: ten more floors would be too risky. They had one more shot at getting a power, or Hari would accept the orb and probably warp herself into a bug hybrid or something. It wasn't clear through her power what would happen exactly, but there was a sense of merging, of making herself open, and change.
“One more set of floors.”
This time, both Brines and Bearer nodded, and carrying a bone and silk arsenal, they walked up to challenge the path to floor 25.