CHAPTER 19: ANOTHER LONELY CHAPTER

Jenna considered the table. Apparently she didn’t answer quickly enough, because it prompted her again.

You are the last remaining party member in the rift. Rita’s equipment is no longer bound to her and has been added to your inventory. Would you like to leave?

“I don’t think that I could have handled that last floor alone, let alone a more difficult floor,” Jenna said. It wasn’t a no, but that was entirely because she was tired of being weaker than she should be. If she could delve deeper, maybe that would let her make up the difference.

Difficulty is adjusted for number of delvers in party.

“Then why did Cora and Rita tell me that you could delve deeper with more people?”

Difficulty is adjusted based on roles party members fill. Quality of fit is not considered. As a result, if each member of party is stronger than median student with the role, party benefits. Secondary synergies are also not considered.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

Direct information about contents of rifts prior to first delve forbidden.

“Was that restriction just for me, or does everyone have it?”

No.

She should have expected that answer. After all, there was no way that she was the only one that the Pyramid had restricted this way. Even ignoring the fact that Jenna doubted the Pyramid was specifically cruel, it would be bad statistics to have a single point in the data set.

“Do people whose memories haven’t been taken have the same restriction?”

No.

Well that was nice to know, at least. It was a moot point now, but-. Actually, this might be a way to find out what the Pyramid had taken from her.

“Is there other information that is forbidden to me right now?”

Yes. Would you like to leave the rift? Time to decide: 10 seconds

Jenna was unsurprised that the Pyramid didn’t appreciate her line of questioning, but that just made her more determined.

“I would like to delve the next floor,” she said. Jenna moved to the door and opened it.

She was a little surprised to see that the beginning of the floor was still the same as it had been. There was a lone goblin standing in the hallway.

As she moved towards it, though, she noticed an immediate difference. The floors were no longer uneven, and the lighting was completely even and bright. It was much more like the combat room training she was used to than the two floors before.

The goblin fell quickly, though not as quickly as when she had Cora to take it out. It was stronger than the previous floor, which she had expected, but it was not as much of a difference as she had expected.

As was becoming a clear trend, there were two hallways branching off at the end of the hallway. She turned right, since that had worked both times before.

As soon as she opened the door, Jenna rushed through. She was expecting another five goblins, like she had seen on the previous two floors. Instead, there were three goblins, none of which were armed. It made for an easy combat, which felt a little disconcerting.

She finished combat just as the door behind her opened, and she spun already ready to take on the next set. These three goblins all had clubs, but they were only able to come through the doorway one at a time. It meant that she was able to take her time and set the pace of combat herself.

It was her second combat against club wielders. Fighting the giant goblin on the prior floor had showed Jenna how different combat against another blunt weapon was. All of the training that she had done had focused on fighting against sharp weapons. Most of the skills were transferable, but not all of them.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

By the time that she had dispatched the three club wielders, Jenna felt ready for another encounter with the floor boss. She took her time looting all of the corpses, pocketing more coins and one more ring. It also gave the impression of being Enchanted, though a quick comparison with the other ring she had made it seem as though it was enchanted with something else.

Jenna wished that she had paid more attention to what her former partners had been doing while they searched the floor for secrets. She tried her hardest, but she couldn’t find anything hidden behind any door or anything suspicious in the floors. Whether that meant that she was unable to search effectively or there were no secrets on the floor didn’t really make a difference. In either situation, she was left in the same situation.

She went through the exit in the left room and found another hallway. It was far shorter than the hallway had been last time, and there was a goblin standing in front of the exit. This one appeared better armored, which Jenna had to assume was a direct response to the way that she had been dispatching the goblins on the floor.

It had a well covered neck and head, and it seemed as though it would be fairly resistant to blunt damage. Jenna looked at the club in its hand. Apparently the Pyramid had changed more than just the number of goblins that she would need to fight.

The fight helped her refine her fighting technique even more than the last one had. The hallways was large enough for both of them to maneuver around each other, which made it a much harder fight. There was no good way for her to force the goblin to take blows, at least without taking blows herself.

Strike by strike, though, Jenna gained the upper ground. When she landed a solid blow on its arm, she knew that the fight was over. Its maneuverability had decreased, which only led to it taking more and more strikes.

Jenna managed to avoid taking any solid hits over the course of the fight. It was a relief to know that she was still uninjured, but she debated whether it was worth it to try fighting the boss. In the end, she decided to at least open the door.

The last boss had given her a chance to leave without fighting it on the previous floor, which she might take this time. When she opened the door, though, she did not see a single large goblin. Neither did she see a few armed goblins.

Instead, the room was filled with what had to be thirty small goblins. None came much above her waist, and none appeared armed or armored. When the first one rushed at her, Jenna’s casual swing sent it flying.

What followed was less a contest of skill or strength and more a show of endurance. The thirty goblins fell quickly, if her count was accurate. When there were still more goblins to go, Jenna broke out of the battle haze she had fallen into.

More and more goblins kept streaming into the room.

“Is there a number of goblins that I need to kill?” she asked, half hoping that the Pyramid would answer. When no answer came, Jenna decided to see if there was something that was spawning the goblins to come into the room. She began wading through the piles of corpses, feet crunching over the broken bones as she heard more and more bones break from each swing.

At the opposite end of the room, she found one of the hallways that the goblins had been streaming through. There was a room that goblins were filing out of, rushing to fill the empty space in the hallway. As she watched, batting the goblins away as they came through the hallway, the room seemed to be emptying.

Relieved, Jenna fought her way through the horde to the other hallway. When she saw another room emptying, she felt like she understood the point of the fight.

She focused on entering into the sharp space that she fell into during intense combats. It was harder than she was used to, probably because none of the goblins she was fighting were even a slight challenge. As the corpses kept piling up, she felt her arm grow tired from swinging the mace.

Jenna regretted every lifting day that she had skipped before entering the Pyramid. She focused on making each swing as efficient as possible, breaking goblins down rather than throwing them back.

By the time she was facing the final goblin, she was able to take it down with exactly as much force as she needed to cave its chest in. She ran her hand across her face, trying to wipe off some sweat. When her hand came back bloody, Jenna grew worried for a moment.

Looking at the blood covering every surface of the room, Jenna grew less concerned. Though, her blase feeling about the amount of death she had just caused made her concerned again. What was she becoming as she stayed in the Pyramid?

Jenna considered searching the room for any secrets. The amount of gore around her made that idea seem like a poor one. Instead, she looked in the two rooms that the goblins had been streaming out of.

She found a switch in the first room, but nothing seemed to happen when she switched it. Going to the other room, she saw another switch. She switched it as well, and she heard a grinding.

When Jenna returned to what she was beginning to consider the meat grinder portion of the fight, she saw that a doorway had appeared. That answered the question she had about how she would exit the floor of the dungeon. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she opened the door.

Congratulations! You have completed the third floor of the rift! Rewards: Available if you would like to leave now. Would you like to leave?

“Can I ask what the rewards would be now?”

Yes.

“What would the rewards be?”

Reward information forbidden at this point.

Jenna stopped for a second before she realized her mistake. She had grown exhausted from the three floors of delving she’d done. She had asked “can I ask,” which was a question of ability, not “will you tell me,” which is what she had wanted to know.

Jenna’s Status:

Jenna Fredrickson First Year Spells Known: First Tier: Hardened Glass Expected Years Completed: 7 Prediction Confidence: 45% Points: 5 Qualified to Ascend to Next Year? Yes