Chapter 65
“You know he makes a good point,” Rue said as James silently seethed. He’d reached out to Z to see if the Knights would be willing to dive the seventh floor, and the response was counter what he’d expected. What he had been sure would have been an enthusiastic yes, was instead a no. To quote the veteran adventurer “it would seem suspicious if you only ever interacted with us.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.” James grumbled. “I was really looking forward to playing with them a little longer.”
“We probably would have brought them down if we went with them,” Rue countered. “We just hit level 80 with them. They’ve breached the 90s. Those levels, more importantly, those class boosts, are massive.”
She had a good point. During the last immersion, even with everyone purposefully sacrificing themselves to the dungeon to help James level, the Knights had managed to gain a few levels towards the end, once James had hit Tier 7. If not for their sacrifice, they probably could have even reached level 100, now that he thought about it. A level that he had no doubt would come with amazing perks. How he wished this was all just a game, and he could be excited for such a threshold.
“Yeah, that level gap probably doesn’t bode well for them.” Considering the mobs on the seventh floor were level 115, with the boss sitting at level 125, he had no doubt it would be a miracle if anyone could survive for long without being at least level 100 on the floor. Gear and skills could only cover the disparity in levels so much.
“But counterpoint to that,” James grumbled, pointing down at the screen they were currently watching. “Why take the Boss Slayers, if they weren’t going to take us.”
Sure enough, the screen they were both watching covered an instance of the fifth floor, where Z and his guild moved with only a slight amount of haste away from the safe zone town, towards the snowy forest of the fifth floor. Accompanying them, the five members of the Boss Slayers. All were in the high 80s, with Skar, their tank and leader, the lowest level of the party at level 87. Surprisingly, their healer, Olivia, had climbed to the highest leveled member of the party, having hit level 90. She hadn’t strayed from her path and was now listed as a Grand Cardinal of the Light. What would her class be like when she hit level 100? What was the level 100 class for a cleric who stayed purely on the light healer path the entire time?
She was the only member of Boss Slayers who had stayed pure when it came to their classes. The level 87 Skar’s class was listed as an Ethereal Paladin of the Void, whatever that was. Then Troll’d, the party’s ranged physical DPS, was a level 89 Catastrophe Slayer. Manly The Dwarf, melee dps for the party, was a level 88 Axe Dancer. He still had his floating Axe that he sometimes called Frank but had transformed from a small thing to a great, double-edged axe that dwarfed the well… dwarf. Manly was able to control the magical weapon at will, and it also had its own unique traits and abilities, similar to a summoned companion, but not quite as autonomous and free willed. The class itself seemed a strange mixture of Berserker, mixed with duelist, mixed with arcane knight.
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The final member of the party, GnoMore, was still one of James’s favorites. The once rogue had never gotten rid of his love for edgy clothes and typical rogue filled stereotypes. Instead, as his class continued to devolve more and more down a weirdly effective aoe magical dps route, he’d simply become… well… creepier. The level 89 gnome’s class was Pale Horsemen, and he road atop a ghastly, famished horse type mount that left a trail of plague in its wake. His features were hidden completely behind a strange combination of cybernetic and skeletal gear that James figured had mostly been customed ordered. He looked like a witch doctor and a plague doctor had an estranged affair in the alleyway of a cyberpunk village, and it was… weirdly, working for him.
Party analysis aside, James couldn’t help but feel jealous. He wanted to be down there with them. He wanted to be adventuring one last time with them. Which, sure, he could technically be doing still. Steve was taking care of getting the boss AI data collected and composed for the plan tonight. Fel was doing whatever it was she felt she needed to do, and everyone else was working on their tasks. The only thing left for James to do in the next twenty-three-ish hours, was to pre-record the message to be broadcast during day 5 of the Dungeon War. It was more a precaution than anything. They’d picked Day 5, to give themselves at least four hours in the real world, to complete their assault on the government facility. Originally the plan had been to give it during Day 3, when everyone first hit the Fields of Battle, but there would be a risk of playing their hands early. Additionally, since they wanted to ensure the most people possible were paying attention to the broadcast, Rachel and Matthew had argued they wait till day 5. The siblings were certain they could build up the tension during the Dungeon War, to ensure come day 5, everyone, everywhere, would be tuned in.
The most eyes possible, forced to be in immersion anyways by the government, would be on their dungeon. Meaning, they’d see the message, and learn just what the government was planning to do. Of course, if they were seeing the message at that time, there was also a good point that James and his friends had failed their assault. But, hopefully, maybe, spreading the message would enable enough of an outroar, enough of a commotion, that the masses would be able to somehow, from within immersion, trapped as they were, break free and thwart the government. At the very least, by that point in time, it wasn’t like knowing would put anyone in danger. The government, quite literally, couldn’t do anything else to them, at that point. Their prison within immersion, at the same time, was a safeguard against the powers that be.
James felt his mind spiraling as his mind took off, and he shook his head, turning his focus back to the present. He looked at Rue, and then down at the adventuring party, noting the players were taking their time, and actively hunting down mobs. That meant, they were planning to enjoy this run to its fullest. Meaning, first and foremost, they’d be clearing the fifth floor, in its entirety, before they descended to the sixth. James had informed Z about the seventh floor, and if he had to guess, Z, and the others, wanted to make sure they gained as much experience as they could, between the fifth and sixth floor, before they ascended to the seventh. Meaning, the seventh floor, the final battle, would be as spectacular a coup de tat as possible.
It also meant, annoyingly, that there was no time, like the present, to do what he’d been putting off.
“Let’s head to the training grounds,” James said with a groan. “We should record the message, while we wait for them to finish grinding out these lower floors.”
A camera appeared in Rue’s hand, and she smiled. “Let’s go.”