Corvayne bound his way over an anvil, the giant hot on his heels slamming a burning hammer down where he just stood.
He pivoted, kicking up straw on the floor as he used [Cross Skill: Flow-Like-Water] to blast across the smithy and land two solid slices into the ashen giant's leg. The monster roared, then hit a patch of soap Corvayne's blade left behind and flailed, off balance. As it hit the ground with a thump that knocked some of his tools loose, Bell leapt onto the monster's chest and jammed her spear down into it's neck. It wasn't enough to score a kill and Bell had to abandon her most recent spear, darting across the smithy and grabbing a hammer to fend off the giant's grasping arm.
Corvayne grabbed a hot poker and turned, using [Expert Throw] to aim at the giant trying to chop Lady Blood Claw in half. He nearly got the monster's eye, which gave LBC an opening strike a seared wound she had started in it's chest. He then turned back to the giant he and Bell were on. It's hand was coming down to slam him into the stone floor, so Corvayne got creative and used [Juxtapose] to slide right past. The huge hand slamming the ground let him use Gravity to nearly reach the rafters. His shadow hands passed him his spear, and he activated [Leap Strike] and reversed his lighter gravity to slam into the Giant before it could get back on it's feet. He hit it's shoulder and created a hole that finally set the roaring monster to teeter and fall.
Checking on his friends, he heard gunfire as Mister I supported LBC with bullets and throwing out a blessing of Lythandies when the titanic blade her opponent was using clipped through her stoneskin and got the tall warrior bleeding. The giant had burnt guts hanging out, so it wasn't surprising that LBC just stepped back to let him fall over.
Looking over at Grunt and Spears, it looked like they had bleed the giant dry, Grunt somehow able to effortlessly take direct hit from the 15 foot tall monster's fists and give back just as well with his clumps of bats.
Spears called out. "Lady! Bind it. We'll give our charge another freebie!"
Lady Blood Claw instead threw out a scented cloud that darted for the giant, who a moment later fell asleep despite his massive wounds.
With this done it was time for the librarian they were escorting to claim another high level kill. Corvayne handed Dot a runed dagger they had found on floor 17 that seemed to work extra well on dying foes. "Try to manifest [Backstab] again."
The woman needed some help to actually climb on the sleeping giant's back, with Spears pushing the girls robed butt up to get her standing on the giant. Dot took a deep breath, then used both hands to slam the dagger down, shouting "Backstab!"
Corvayne felt it was tacky, but it seemed to work as the sharp tell-tale sound of the skill going off then was met with Dot being covered in gore. The tower folk was suprisingly blase about it, perhaps not having quite the experience with being completely covered in gore to recognize it was uncomfortable and gross. Instead she handed the dagger back and took up the current staff she was using.
Grunt dusted his hands, and like that the group got to looting. They had reached the 19th floor and decided to try to clear it. The smithy didn't have an obvious chest, but clearly had a bunch of magic in it, including an anvil with a jeweled surface and faint glow he was sure either Mosh could use or melt down. Adding to the anvil were two over sized smithing hammers. Grunt claiming both as he had nearly run down his baseball bats to being scrap metal.
Two of the giants had magic rings, their size making them work as bangles with a little grease to get Bell's arm in it.
"This ring stinks of giant sweat. We should have cleaned it before I put it on." That said she was able to lift one of the anvils, confirming it was a ring of strength.
The other ring made it's wearer lighter, so Corvayne slipped it on the anvil to store it. They looted a few ingots of metal that were locked in a drawer, then left the trashed room to make their way up the stairs to floor 20. Glancing out a window in the spiral stairway, Corvayne could see miles and miles. A few low clouds were at eye level too.
Corvayne called for a rest before they finished the stairway. First because they were going to leave Dot on the stairs while they established a foot hold: The monsters on the higher floors were more likely to have archers, javelin throwers, mages, priests, and sometimes assassins. The librarian wasn't totally defenseless but had gotten hit by an arrow on floor 12 and fainted. Mister I fixed it and confirmed that she had enough vitality that it would take ten times as much blood loss to actually take her out.
Still, he didn't want Mister I to overstep if the last floor they were on proved a step up. He suspected that the tree in question would be guarded by something nasty. So they would go slow and steady, and have the monk and Bell in back to keep Dot close but out of the action.
He took the last quarter of the staircase in the lead, Grunt not far behind. The floor seemed to have a garden theme, with stained glass windows shedding light on flowers and trees that grew and twisted to follow the walls and doorways. There were also places where the windows were open, letting a breeze drift in and birds as well.
He caught sight of the monster of the floor, a red skinned horned woman in a medieval maiden's garb. The overdressed woman spotted him as well, tittered, then pointed and aimed a beam of hellfire at him, blasting stone as Corvayne slid back.
He threw his cloak around himself and leaped around the corner high, aiming for the opposite wall to throw off the woman's aim. She snapped a second beam of fire, missing low, and he managed to close the distance and ram his spear into her guts before she could fire again. The woman snarled and tried to claw him before she burst into fire and vanished with a puff of ash. Corvayne was certain she was dead as bits of seared bone fell out of the dress, but he guessed there were more and fell back as another beam came screaming out of a door to blast a window panel open behind him.
Spears tapped his shoulder and Lady Blood Claw stepped up as well, casting a flame ward to absorb the damage. Spears barely bothered dodging, her watery nature making the fire do only glancing damage. The howls and feral demonic screams of maidens echoed through the garden. Grunt, for his part, used a wood door as a shield when he had to deal with fire maidens, using it as a ram and just crushing them. Bell collected their outfits, suspecting that they were fireproof and worth something even just as impressive clothing. Spears, on the other hand, found a thong that she told Corvayne to assume was cursed. It was certainly magic, practically glowing with disco light as he held it.
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He did not comment that it was warm, as he knew the monsters on the floor were unrelentingly hostile and he didn't want to link attraction to something that just wanted to turn him into a pile of slag. Probably fire enchanted. He'll go with that.
Monster underwear aside, they completed clearing a ring around a central room, finding the stairs up to 21.
"It's likely something akin to the giants guarding a central tree."
Lady Blood Claw nodded and drank a blue potion down, then cast Haste on him, Spears, and Grunt. Not wanting to waste the spell, Corvayne pushed the double doors open and strode into the room with the tree. It was a vast circular chamber, with high ceilings letting windows shine light from above the outer ring of rooms down onto a tree with no leaves but strange gold berries. The room reeked of ginger to Corvayne, and he sneezed once before controlling his breathing. At the base of it's gnarled roots he saw the guardians of the room. Corvayne sighed.
Four green dragons, the size of dogs, lifted their heads, each of them screeching.
"High armor, uses fire and can fill the whole room likely."
Lady Blood Claw pointed and started painting them with fairy fire, while Grunt took his hammers and strode in. Spears pointed and shot from her spear a beam of water, punching a dragon in the face but not simply blasting a hole into it.
He guessed Mister I and Bell were going to hang back and help whoever needed it, but he didn't have time to watch. Two dragons came rushing at him, immediately belching lines of fire as they ran. Corvayne's body armor threw out a bubble of water, throwing most of the flames off as steam. He leaned into it, using [Cross Skill: Flows-Like-Water] with his bubble blade to hit one of the dragons in the mouth and hind leg. Of course, he leapt as soon as the attack finished, with both dragons trying to smack him with their heavy tails. There was a crack where the creature's hit each other's tail.
Corvayne landed on one of the monster's back and then leapt off as the other shot fire. He used [Cross Skill: Juxtapose] with his blade to slap the dragon forward and land right at it's back. The monster's tail was in position to hit him but the dragon wasn't ready yet, and Corvayne used both hands to drive the blade into the monster's leg with [Backstab]. Once again, the blood from the wound frothed, and the dragon's leg was crippled as a chunk of flesh was blasted out. The tail limply smacked him away, and a moment later he was fending off the other dragons claws.
Spears summoned a wall of water that lit up from the other side as one of the dragons used it's fan of fire, trying to cover the room in searing flames and only steaming the chamber up as the water vanished.
Corvayne saw one of his dragons breathing in and used [Cross Skill: Storm Thrust] to hit it's jaw, sending it's fire into the wall. It forced Bell and Mister I back, with Mister I batting fire out on his robe and looking a little cooked himself. Bell pulled off a segment of her burning armor, then drew a pistol and fired a few shots at the vicious beast who was on their own.
Corvayne decided to hit it before it could engage Bell. He used [Cross Skill: Thresh] as a trip, his blade hitting the dragon trying to bite him and leaving a slimy film on it's front leg. The synergy of that attack with the weapon he had made the creature start scrambling as it lost friction on it's feet, and Corvayne turned and switched to [[Agility]] then ran like a rocket into the side of the dragon running at Bell, sword breaking into it's scales and pinning it to the stone wall. It hissed in pain then latched onto Corvayne's shoulder, or tried to. His armor foiled it's teeth and Corvayne used [Flow-Like-Water] to avoid getting cooked.
Bell followed up with a strength enhanced thrust to the monster's neck, her metal spear bending but managing to jam itself through the monster's tough hide. It started choking, and Bell let her ruined weapon fall and pulled out her pistol to start shooting it in the head.
Corvayne heard three bangs but was turning to parry the dragon he had thrown a slippery patch under. It had recovered and managed to claw him on the arm. Corvayne saw the other claw coming in, no doubt to set up a bite and fireball, and so he used [Judo Throw] to twist the claw on him and get under the dragon and throw it on it's back, knocking it's breath out of it and exposing it's underbelly. Corvayne stepped back as Lady Blood Claw landed an overhead two handed weapon skill on the dragon from stealth, nearly bisecting the monster. The last dragons were also in trouble. Spears had a bubble around one's head, and it was frantically clawing at it's face while Spears let it's tail hit her and pass through harmlessly.
Grunt... was trying to also choke his dragon, perhaps to make sure they had intact hides. After one pitiful rattle his died, and Spears dragon was limp, eyes rolled up.
Still, they made sure each was really, really dead before letting Dot enter the room. Corvayne spotted what looked like a silvery loop on a high branch, and offered to get it for the Librarian. Instead, she rolled up her sleeves and arduously climbed up, only slipping and hitting a lower branch once despite her likely low strength.
"I have to do this myself at least."
Corvayne suspected the determination she was showing was because the group had helped move closer to awake, but he wasn't sure of the mechanics of it. What he was certain of was that he liked helping people more then performing some sort of love-them-and-leave-em operation. He thought about how hurt he had been with Wick and Hari, and didn't want to do that to some girl.
She managed to take the loop, and placed it in her pack. It looked like she noticed and pulled a note out from the top of the tree as well, which probably meant if they wanted there would be an additional step to helping her. Maybe they'd talk about it later, once they were out of the tower. They still had to dip down to the basement now and find some skulls. Grunt had communicated they probably only needed, say, 4 skulls, rather then 7. At that point, Corvayne had cast an eye on the party to see if anyone who had known the secret to obtaining a subjob would look guilty, but everyone aside from Spears and Dot looked away.
Whatever. He caught Dot when she fell out of the tree on the way down, ignored her blushing and Bell glaring, and lead the way downstairs.
Some of the monsters had returned to floors he was sure they cleared, but they were few and sometimes still getting their bearings, banging into walls rather then bee-line for the group.
They had a discussion, while making their way down, about how they planned to use their loot. Corvayne's ring was starting to hit it's weight limit, and while they had enough black crystal on hand to buy a cheap one, they could also just try selling some of their excess at the market.
Lady Blood Claw turned that idea down. “I want to ID everything. You have the devil's luck with magic gear, and I am not passing some artifact on for a handful of gold.”
Dot stepped in. “There are rituals to help uncover items basic properties, names, rarity, but you would have to hire an expert and they take a few days to work.”
Bell groaned. “We have experts at home.”
Spears put an arm around her, and Bell glared but didn't move it. “Bell, honey, we took you rather then Hari. Wouldn't you say that was a good idea?”
The princess flushed and Spears patted her back, work done. Though, Corvayne noted, they hadn't figured out how they were going to handle the excess they had picked up in this tower.
Mister I offered his suggestion. “Instead of very expensive storage rings, we should look at magic bags. They are not as convenient and mostly reduce rather then remove the weight, but I had seen evidence of affordable ones we could haggle down.”
Lady Blood Claw raised an eyebrow. “When did you go shopping?”
“Oh! I was looking for protection at the night market.”
With a jolly smile, he showed off a ring. “A ring of defense! It protects against attacks and some minor maladies.”
Spears put a finger to her mouth. “Does it also ward off children out of wedlock?”
Mister I shrugged. “I dare say that's not a problem Monks need worry about.”
Corvayne wondered if that was a deflection that no one would believe or a real statement about something his class could do in bed to prevent having progeny. He decided he didn't really want to know for sure.
After sharpening their skills on harder fights in the upper floors, the sluggish undead in the dark basement were no match. The floor itself looked to have bottomless pits off to the sides, though Corvayne dropped a light and saw that it was simply a quick way to find additional horrors in deeper floors of the basement.
Instead, they collected 4 skulls with nary a scratch, mostly due to Spears using water to pull the skeletons apart.
They had entered when it was dark, and strolled past the barricade and out into the streets to see the sun setting. The tower-folk librarian started insinuating she needed a place to stay, so Corvayne bought her a room at the hotel. They'd do the ritual tomorrow then figure out how to get the book. He found he was tired after an extremely long day of fighting, and so they ordered room service, took a bath after polishing the food off, and Corvayne barely had time to put on simple night clothes before he fell onto the bed and passed out, satisfied at a job well done for the day.