Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety - The Class Struggle is Real

Congratulations! Your party has exterminated 14 Quilted Ants (Level 4-5)! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!

Another pop-up from Mister Menu after wiping out another wave of vine-addled ants.

With every turn in the floor we encountered formations of Quilted Ants that we had to fight through. They were never too much of a challenge though. With all of us working together and covering for each other, it was actually pretty easy.

The closest we came to any trouble was when an ant which I’d stabbed with Weedbane managed to pull itself closer to me and its mandibles bit into my greaves. Fortunately, I managed to tug my leg back before it could really get a strong grip on me, and I wasn’t hurt. Awen had helped me finish that ant off with a heavy bonk from her warhammer.

As it turned out, hammers and heavier attacks were better at killing the Quilted Ants than stabbing blows or even more of the magical attacks we had at our disposal. Cleaning magic only made things worse I discovered. Even wiped clean of vines, the ants were still angry with us and not having vines stuck to them only made them faster and harder to fight.

“Oh,” Awen said as we all took a moment to breathe. “I levelled up.”

“Nice work!” I cheered.

Awen earned herself a hug, a bunch of them, even! Though some of our friends were more keen on back patting than anything.

“Thanks,” Awen said. “It’s my Glass Cannon class. I guess what we’re doing here doesn’t really count as engineering.”

“The tricky downside of having a non-combat class,” Amaryllis mused. “Unless you engineer a way to fight people, I suppose.”

Awen nodded. “I’ve got ideas. But I’m just happy to get another level. It’ll help a bit.”

“Will you get a new skill?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Next level. But I’m looking forward to it. Another skill would help a bit, I think.”

“Well done, in any case,” I said. “I bet you won’t be the only one to level in this dungeon though.”

“Not with the amount of foes we’re felling, no,” Caprica said. “Should we keep going?”

“How many more turns do we need to take?” I asked Puffles.

The farmer looked up while rubbing at his chin. “Looks like we’re past the halfway point,” he said. “Maybe three more turns and we’ll be at the entrance of the tree.”

“Is that where the second floor begins?” Amaryllis asked.

“Yup, that’s where it starts,” he said. “Second floor’s not that bad. Just a lot of walking, but walking’s good for ya. The beetles are a lot to deal with, but with vines all over they’re not so bad.”

Beetles? I was a bit concerned, but I was sure it wasn’t that bad. In any case, we still had to get to the second floor before anything else. It was Amaryllis’ turn to take on the next wave while Caprica and Calamity helped.

Amaryllis stood near the front as we walked around the next intersection, and I heard her annoyed huff as she took in the passageway. Vines were strung across the entire space, some of them knotted around each other, others were so thick that it was hard to make out what was behind them. No, not vines. Evil Roots.

Then there were the ants. Dozens of them, caught in the vines like bugs on a web. The ants saw us too, then there was a lot of sudden and violent squirming as they started to fight to get loose.

A number of them succeeded, and Amaryllis started to zap them one by one.

“This is so wasteful,” Amaryllis said.

“You mean in terms of mana?” Caprica asked.

“Exactly. When they’re all bunched together I can make my spells jump from one to another and it barely costs anything more. But when they’re all spread out like this... it’s frustrating.”

“You could switch out,” Caprica said. “I’ll take these, if you want.”

Amaryllis zapped a few more. “No, it’s fine. For all I know the next time it would be my turn to take care of them, they might be even more spread out. Besides, I’d rather use the mana now and have more time to regenerate it than anything else.”

That seemed fair, and Amaryllis did clear out the ants at a perfectly acceptable pace. Once the last was a steaming pile of ash and we’d gotten a head’s up from Mister Menu that they were gone, I stepped up and used small lances of Cleaning magic to chop through some of the roots blocking our path.

Puffles was able to do the same by stabbing them with his pitchfork and concentrating. The vines would wither and rot away, then flop down so that we could squeeze on through.

The next intersection was Calamity’s turn, though we still formed a line in case an ant made it to us before Calamity could take it down.

It was nice having a few friends who could take out a bunch of lower-levelled adversaries all on their own. Strong friends, basically. Though it might have meant that the rest of us weren’t levelling quite as quickly. At the moment it felt like Awen, Caprica and I were the weak links while Calamity and Amaryllis were just really good at fighting and stuff.

Calamity’s bow twanged repeatedly, and I found myself flinching down as arrows zipped by. I wasn’t anywhere near them, but I could still feel the wind of their passing.

Ants went down, one-by-one, though sometimes Calamity managed to hit two with a single overpenetrating arrow. Soon, the next little bit of passageway was cleared out of anything that moved.

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“Wow,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied, sounding very much like the cat who caught the canary. “And I levelled!”

“You did?” I asked. I grabbed all of my petty envy, squished it up into a teensy-tiny ball, then sat on it for good measure. It wouldn’t do to be envious of a friend just because they levelled up. I’d get my turn too, eventually.

Calamity nodded and adjusted his bow a bit. “I did. My primary class, too. One more level to go before it’s ready to evolve.”

“Can I ask what level you’re at?” I asked as we started forwards. It was time to start clearing out a path in the roots again. Calamity started to retrieve his arrows, discarding any that had bent or broken and only keeping their heads.

“Sure, I don’t mind. Nineteen and ten for me.”

Amaryllis hummed. “You got your second class to evolve already. So another level and you’ll be eligible for a third class. Impressive.”

“It would be more impressive if I had a good third class lined up,” Calamity said. “So far I’ve only done one dungeon, the one I used for my second class. I’ll be pretty stuck soon. Well, unless we get a class from this one, I suppose. Not sure if I want a Moth class though. No offence.”

“None taken,” Puffles said.

“What are your classes?” I asked. I couldn’t recall ever really asking him about them before. I knew he was good with a bow, and a good hunter and guide besides.

“Ah, my first class is Whiskerwrecker,” he said while giving his dwarven-crafted moustache (which unlike my prosthetic beard, he still wore around) a nice tug. “It’s, ah, good for getting up to no good, if you know what I mean.”

Caprica sighed. “I would have put good sylph gold down on you having some sort of Troublemaker class.”

Calamity laughed. “Not far off the mark. My second class is Longstride Ranger. That’s one I picked up in a dungeon a little ways to the west of Slagstead Watch. Nearly lost my head down there a few times. Lots of traps for a place with ‘stride’ in its name. In any case, that’s a ranger class. Good for using a bow and hunting things.”

“That’s cool!” I said. “And now you’re one level away from your main class evolving again?”

He nodded. “Mhm! I didn’t have anything lined up for a third though, but I figured I had some time. Maybe I could look around after a hunting season or two, then trek to whichever dungeon I chose.”

“I’m sure we’ll come across something good for your third class,” I said.

“I’d like that,” he replied.

“Did that Longstrider dungeon give you the class you have now?” Caprica asked.

“Hmm? Oh, no, I just got Longstrider as a class from it. The ranger bit was added when I hit level ten,” he said.

Oh, that made sense. Like how my Cinnamon Bun class turned into Cinnamon Bun Bun when I got it to level ten.

We continued onward once Puffles and I had cleared out a path. The route twisted, but we were right up against the tree by then, and I didn’t expect to have much more to travel before we reached it. This might be our last bit on the first floor.

This dungeon was downright strange, actually. At least compared to... wait, had any dungeon I’d been in not been strange?

I was still pondering that as we came around the corner and appeared before a whole host of ants. One of them immediately spat a wadded up quilts at us, but Awen slashed an arm forwards and caught it with a lump of glass that made it too heavy to reach us.

It was my turn to fight, and I was really looking forward to it! I wanted that level, so I locked Weedbane’s blade pointing straight up and away for maximum reach, then I bounced over to the nearest ant and got slashing.

I couldn’t take them all on, of course, but I could grow myself into a giant for a short duration to stomp onto the ant’s heads with satisfying crunches, which took care of a lot of them.

Those that got past were met by Puffles and Awen and Caprica, the three working together to get rid of the ants before they could cause any trouble.

I was running a bit low on mana by the time I finished, and I found myself wiping my forehead clean of a fresh layer of (very clean) sweat. Stomping was tiring work, especially on the knees and heel. Maybe I could invest in big boots with a strong heel.

“Done!” I said with both arms raised in victory. I let myself shrink back to my usual size, then bounced back to my friends. “I might need a couple of minutes to regenerate enough mana to push through those last few roots though.”

“I can take care of a few of them, miss,” Puffles said. “Won’t be needing as much magic on the next floor. Vines make it easy, even for someone who can’t fly like the most of you.”

“What’s the next floor like?” I asked.

“Mostly it’s a big ramp that circles around the inside of the tree. All you need to do is climb to the top and the third floor, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m sensing some complications that make that harder,” Caprica said.

“Well, there’s the rolling beetles, but we mostly fly over them,” Puffles said. “But with the vines all over, they can’t roll well, so it’s no trouble.”

I had the impression that it wouldn’t be quite that easy, but I was willing to give it a shot!

Well, just as soon as my mana recovered.

One more floor meant one more chance to level up! I was looking forward to it.

***