Far above the ground, four figures popped into existence. There was some quick movement as Elise swiftly caught Ben before he fell out of reach, but after that it was just a slow and boring descent. Alexa reached us first, her and Miho flying ahead to talk to us.
By the time that Elise caught up, an excited Alexa already told us everything that happened on Maestro’s show.
“So, the show exploded?” I summarised things.
“Pretty much.” Ben said as he landed on the ground. “Seems like the aliens are having some kind of conflict amongst each other up there, though I wouldn’t have the slightest clue what it’s all about.”
“Can we walk and talk? I need a shower and a long rest.” Elise said as she landed, staring at me with dead eyes.
“Are you okay, Elise?” I asked.
She just grunted and turned to walk towards town.
“She’s been like that for a while now.” Ben whispered to me as I threw him a quizzical loo… Glanced at him for a moment with my expressionless face. “Cuddles died, and that had her really shaken. Then Thomas died, and she just broke. Cried uncontrollably right in front of Maestro and his audience. And I’m pretty sure there’s more to this, too.”
I looked at Elise’s back. She looked troubled, and just plain exhausted. But she was right, we really deserved a rest after everything that just happened. It was already night-time, and Livia messaged Alexa several times to be careful the moment she returned.
Darryl: Don’t worry about these night-time mobs, Livia. There’s now a whole bunch of spectres around that are buffing mobs with the Haunted status, we should be worried about those.
I smiled, by which I meant my unmoving face remained completely expressionless but I felt a little joy inside, as Livia immediately began to panic and tell Alexa to stay far away from those too. And then told us how those Haunted creatures really worked.
Livia: Listen up, Haunted creatures are essentially a mob possessed by a ghost, spectre or something else incorporeal. They cannot hurt you in their true form, that’s why they haunt a host. Unless you have a certain class, item or skill, you can’t even see their description.
Livia: They can possess any creature of their level or lower, so you guys are safe from most of them in that regard. But they level when they kill stuff, in fact most haunted mobs are semi-feral and start killing other mobs without fear or self-preservation right away. So be wary and level up a bunch to make sure you stay immune, because it’s incredibly difficult to get rid of a Haunted status. Without killing the host, that is.
Livia: When they are planted from the getgo, these ghosts are usually very samey and either a Boss, mobs that are unleashed by careless crawlers breaking some seals, or race-restricted in what they can haunt. They act generally the same and grant the same boost and powers.
Livia: These guard spectres on the other hand are a randomiser that throws the entire area into disarray. Because the story says that these spectres are random souls from creatures that died on this floor before it even began, every spectre has a different personality and powers. Multiple spectres can stack their powers by inhabiting the same creature. They don’t want to share a body, but once the area starts running out of mobs they will.
Livia: Oh, and if a crawler died in the region with at least one night between their death and the guard’s destruction, there’s probably going to be a spectre of that crawler amongst the spectres. It’s not actually the crawler, just a slightly more buffed spectre with their name, powers and level.
Livia: It’s always the same whenever someone kills a town guard, and it only gets worse the longer it lasts. You guys killed one pretty early but the third floor only lasts 8 days this season, so we’re not going to be seeing the Crawler Calamities that usually pop up on the last few days. Given enough time, some spectres can start rivalling Elites in how dangerous they become. But on the first day or two, they’re just regular mobs. With six days to go, some will become dangerous. But we’re not talking packs of Borough-tier mobs wandering around, or wild City-tiers.
Ben: Any tips on handling them?
Livia: Incorporeal damage, of course. Kill the host with Elise’s bat, and the spectre dies too.
Livia: They fear the guards. They don’t care about their host perishing and are usually pretty reckless, but they don’t enter settlements during the day. Whether the guards can do anything against the spectres depends from season to season. Sometimes the spectres are absorbed into the armour upon touch, sometimes the guards only kill the host. Either way, the spectres fear the guards and won’t enter a village to possess NPCs. Because that would result in the guards killing everyone while the spectre just keeps jumping from body to body, ruining the floor story.
Darryl: Livia, do you know what this special drop is that these creatures apparently drop?
Livia: Ectoplasm, but only in their true form. Killing the host, whether the spectre dies or not, will never drop the stuff. It’s a rare drop, but an extremely valued crafting material. Those on the 9th floor pay a lot for it. While it’s almost impossible for you to find a craftsman capable of imbuing a weapon with the stuff, it’s definitely worthwhile to do so. Wraithful weapons ignore all non-organic armour and damage only the flesh.
Ben: You mean like, I stab a knight and my knife would just ignore his armour entirely?!?
Livia: Yes, that’s right. And you can even stack that with the boons of one of your current blades, which is why it’s so valuable. But natural armour, certain types of armour and magical fields or effects still work. Still, extremely potent against specific foes and very valued by the 9th floorers.
Livia: There’s a few variants, but that’s the consistent trait they all have. If I recall correctly, Town Guard Spectres have the basic stuff, ectoplasm light which is easier to process but acts as a poison that only lasts for a minute or so, and an extremely rare drop. Greedy Ectoplasm creates weapons that occasionally drain attributes from the creatures they kill, adding these stat points to the weapon itself. Extremely coveted stuff.
Livia: Ectoplasm is really hard to harvest too, as it dissipates when in contact with matter. This season’s inventory system is going to make that a lot easier, but there have been seasons where it was impossible to harvest the stuff without dedicated containers to keep it in. Some factions were booking crawlers for shows just to slip them those containers so that they could buy the stuff later. You can’t just pick it up with your hands either, your skin absorbs ectoplasm rapidly.
Livia: But with this season’s inventory system, you can just pick up the object it fell on and separate it in your inventory.
Darryl: I see. Thank you.
Ben: So, grind these guys or leave the area?
Livia: Tough question. I’d say you shouldn’t grind during the night yet, spectres or not. You guys can handle it, but Alexa and Miho aren’t ready. As Alexa really needs to grind, grinding spectres with their buffed experience reward would be a good strategy.
Alexa: More grinding!? *Sulk*
Livia: You’ll need the levels and skills, young lady.
Alexa: Can’t I just collapse a building to get like a dozen levels, like Darryl did?
Livia: You could. If you find a building filled with mobs and a convenient fundamental weak spot.
Alexa sulked on my shoulder, muttering that she knew she had to grind but not looking forward to it.
Livia: Darryl, you definitely don’t need to grind any more. Unless you’re going to fight Borough Bosses, you’re probably not going to gain another level this floor. And doing so with a still unbalanced and partly underlevelled party is not a good idea.
Livia: Ben, Elise, you two could grow a bit but are fine as you are right now. It’s Miho and Alexa that really need to train. Especially their skills. You two have a good basis for damage and survival, but Miho needs to get at least one spell to lvl10 and Alexa has a lot to improve.
Alexa bristled.
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“A lot of skills, Alexa.” I said. “You want to do a lot and cover a lot of fields, that ambition comes with a lot of work.”
“I know. I really need to get stronger.” Alexa said. Miho nodded, and Tatiana nodded as well despite being the second-highest level in the group.
We walked on in silence until we reached Thomas. Nobody said a thing as Elise walked up to the mess and picked up the largest chunk of splattered flesh. She silently stared at it for a few moments before putting it in her inventory, and then turned around again. She didn’t even clean the blood on her hands on the way back.
We reached West Creek Town an hour later, the town deserted except for the mobs that now prowled the streets. The spectres were around too, haunting the weaker mobs. Their presence ironically made the place safer, as they and the night mobs were fighting amongst each other too much to notice our presence. According to Livia, the night mobs were dangerous because they were either ambush predators or pack hunters. If they didn’t kill you before you even knew they were there, then they were howlers that bring a whole horde down upon you.
We still ran into a few groups, but there were few ambushes and the rest were mostly lone mobs fleeing from the onslaught. We were probably also lucky and Ben steered us in a different direction once or twice to avoid bigger groups, but we were spared any noteworthy trouble.
As we walked around the town looking for a Safe Zone, I spotted several interesting spots on the map. There were well over a dozen shops here, all closed. It didn’t say what kind of goods they sold. There was a Club Desperado, but no Vanquisher. Two guilds, one for dwarves and one for wizards. There were also three inns, and we beelined it to the nearest one. The Thirsty Herring looked like a shady and decrepit inn. The way the water splashed around the tail of the wide-headed herring didn’t leave much subtlety in the phallic-shaped sign, but we didn’t care. It was a Safe Zone, so the beds would be fine.
Elise didn’t say anything as she walked in, she just kept on walking to the rooms and entered one. She only stopped at the bar to put down a few gold coins, to make sure the door would open for her. Then she just left.
The rest of us didn’t say anything about it. Some of us looked tired, especially Alexa had all but fallen asleep on my shoulder as we traversed the town, so we decided against delaying our much needed rest.
“Tomorrow?” Ben asked.
“Tomorrow.” I confirmed.
With that, everything that needed to be said was said. We made eye contact with the fat minotaur as we placed some more gold on the counter, but that was the extent of the socialising we did before we entered the sleeping quarters.
“Girls only.” Miho told us with a stern look as I tried to enter the bathroom, and then closed the door on me. I looked at Ben, Ben looked at me, and we both shrugged.
The minotaur looked just as nonplussed about us returning as he had been about us leaving, and didn’t even bother asking us if we wanted something to drink when we sat down. The place was otherwise deserted, as Livia had joined the others in the bathrooms.
“It’s probably going to take a while for them to wash themselves off. Especially Elise is positively covered in blood.” Ben said. “But I can’t exactly go to sleep like this.”
I nodded. I didn’t really have the sensitive skin to notice the clotted blood, or a body that needed to worry about hygiene for that matter. But I wasn’t going to abandon washing myself this soon after my transformation. I guess we’d have to wait.
“Might as well check out what we got from our boxes.” I said, clicking the ‘Open boxes’ button. A few miscellaneous achievements, but most of my rewards this time were the good ones from the collapse, killing the guard and my involuntarily claimed Crawler Hunt Ticket.
Bronze Boss Box (1/11)
Robes of the Great Burrower Cult – Initiate Cultist x1
The robes were nonmagical and offered no benefits, but still. It fit and would obscure my features. That reward was decently good for a Neighbourhood Boss kill that I had nothing to do with. Ben was the one who killed Araman all by himself, I hadn’t even attacked a single cultist.
Though perhaps that was why I got this reward. We hadn’t killed any of the cultists, and thus hadn’t looted any of their cowls. Only Ben had one, and I doubted that we could pose as Araman that easily. But either the AI just gave me something related to the Boss, or they wanted us to finish up that quest.
Silver Stealth Box (2/11)
Gladius of the Silent x1
I wondered if I should give that weapon to Ben. It was thematically fitting for me, but Ben could probably get more use out of a short sword that silenced a foe when killing them. No death screams or gurgles, as long as the damage was enough to take them down. Even when including bleeding or poison.
Silver Demolition Box (3/11)
Shield of the Bull Rush x1
I didn’t understand the reward system. Destroying the tower, or as the achievement said 0.5km3 of area or more, seemed liked one of the more impressive things I’ve done thus far. But I got a silver box for it. Yet the reward was pretty good.
The stat increases weren’t exceptional, but the bull-head shaped shield barely larger than a buckler was pretty useful. It gave me a skill called Bull Charge and had an innate ‘Siege’ property that dealt more damage to objects, meaning that I could now run into a wall and probably go straight through it. The entire idea of the shield was to run through pillars and walls to get from point A to point B in the least subtle way possible, and/or collapse the place down upon me and my enemies.
Silver Weapon Box (4/11)
Ganderman’s Spear Bayonet x1
Long ago on a High Elven planet whose name I couldn’t be bothered to look up, there lived a zealous man named Ganderman. He made it all the way up to Senior Inquisitor with his fervent desire to protect the elven supremacy and eradicate all dilutions of his people’s divine blood. Many feared the name Ganderman, a relentless murderer addicted to smiting sinners! In his own circles, Ganderman was also known to be a zealous nutjob, but for completely different reasons. All the other inquisitors were kinda weirded out by his obsession with bayonets, which he used on his rifle, on his bow, on his sword, as a sword, as throwing daggers and even on his spoon when eating soup! This man was positively addicted to the idea of putting a knife on stuff!
This is one of the bayonets from the man’s expansive collection, yet another poor bayonet designed to be completely useless for someone not obsessed with the things! This one is meant to go onto a spear, because those definitely need a pointy piece of metal at the end! This weapon upgrade adds +2 to a weapon’s stats, can only be attached to spear-type weapons.
Kind of nonsensical, but useful enough. Stacking boons were always good.
Silver Lucky Bastard Box (5/11)
Wacky Weapons Lottery Ticket! x1
It was just a strip of paper with ten slots to scratch off. The backside of the lottery ticket said that the effects would be applied to my weapon for a minute or a single attack, with a roughly 50/50 split of positive and negative effects. It could deal additional frost damage for a minute, make the next attack a critical hit, inverse my weapon’s stat buffs or even create a neighbourhood-wide taunt effect.
It would apply to any weapon I wielded, so I couldn’t just switch out my spear if it turned out to be a negative effect. It was still a good reward, as I didn’t rely as much on attacks as others and could just wait out the minute even in combat if I had to.
Silver Quest Box (6/11)
Lanat’s Super Soaker! x1
Caustic Super Soaker container x5
The weapon seemed to be a well-made water gun, sturdy and probably with a much stronger and longer spray than the ones I used to play with as a kid. It had a winding lever on the side instead of a pump. I had five containers that fit perfectly, with a symbol on the side that I assumed was an alien warning label for strong acids. I didn’t know if they were refillable, or took other liquids.
Gold Weapon Box (7/11)
Town Guard Longspear x1
This was a pretty damn good weapon, looking at the stats. No skills, but a flat 25 Strength increase. I already had some skills for spears, and I’d train those just as much without the weapon skill buffs.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to use it, though. Specifically, if I even could use it. Despite my high strength, this was still a Town Guard Greatsword whose handle had been replaced with a 2-metre-long spear. It wasn’t even a smaller or sleeker version; the spear tip was literally a Town Guard Greatsword. Those things were huge and bulky.
I assumed that the spear wasn’t going to break under its own weight, but it would probably be incredibly heavy to swing and thrust this thing. And pretty worthless once enemies bridged the distance. Sure, the hotbar and instantaneous storing and collecting of items allowed me to switch out to another weapon quickly, but still. Even a fraction of a second mattered in the heat of battle.
Gold Armour Box (8/11)
Seraph Breastplate of The Enduring Sentinel x1
A shining breastplate appeared. It was almost as if someone hollowed out a marble statue’s torso straight from Ancient Greece and added some silver metal lining to it that added wing-like pauldrons, a belt and a collar, without obscuring the Adonis-figure muscles.
The stats were great. Some Con, but the skill and innate effect were what mattered. The skill was called the Seraph’s Aura of Enduring, granting every ally within 10ft of me some damage reduction and sending 10% of all damage they took to me. The innate ability was that I reduced all damage I voluntarily took from others by 40%. It wasn’t part of the skill, so it would probably also apply to the damage I took with my crown. I hadn’t had the opportunity to use it a lot yet, but this would certainly make it easier to start using it every chance I got.
Gold Adventurer Box (9/11)
Crawler Biscuit x100
Health Potion x50
Healing Scroll x10
Gold Lucky Bastard Box (10/11)
Bingo Bongo Punching Bag Ticket!
This one was less favourable, in that I didn’t even get a choice to use it or not. It was a bingo card, with several kinds of damage and body parts. Every time I got hit on the right spot or with the right kind of damage, the corresponding spot would be stamped.
It actually said what my reward would be on the sides, so I guess it wasn’t as much a gamble as a matter of luck or making sure enemies hit certain parts of me. There were a few full heals, an hour of regeneration and the big reward for crossing everything off was 5 seconds of invulnerability. But there were also a lot of strips that would instantly reduce me by half my health, make the attack ignore my armour, or render me vulnerable to that element for an hour.
I assumed that most people would try getting all of the good things, and then rip the ticket apart to make it stop working. The description even said that was an option. I thought about just ripping it up right away just to be on the safe side, but decided against it. I’d look at it tomorrow.
Platinum Adventurer Box (11/11)
Health Potion x200
Mana Potion x100
Healing Scroll x50
Mass Healing Scroll x1
Mana Scroll x10
Pretty good haul this time. No gag items that I’d throw into my inventory to ignore forever. Of course, I didn’t have any achievements that were normal, lame or which I got knowing how to get them.
“So, you got some good stuff?” I asked Ben.
“Yeah! I mean, I got two Platinum boxes! Killing that guard and instakilling a higher-levelled boss! Of course I got some good stuff!” Ben said. “I’ll try them on tomorrow, but now I’m stoked to try them out! Damn, I shouldn’t have opened them just before going to bed.”
Ben told me what he got, and I shared my gains with him. By the time we were done, the girls were ready and we gained access to the bathroom. They left a bit of a mess in there, but we ignored it as we began to clean the blood and gore off ourselves.