By the time they finished the Dungeon, Aspen had picked up two more Deeds for increasingly restricting himself when fighting the undead.
The final fight had been tough to watch, and Aspen had come out of it bloody and wounded, but he’d come that much closer to his goal.
It was going to be difficult to find ways to further push Aspen forward, but he needed only a handful of Deeds to finally be able to advance.
Jake wasn’t sure they’d manage it all in this Dungeon, but when they changed Dungeons, hopefully they could think of new ways to push things.
Once they were out of the Dungeon, Aspen came over with a pouch of Wyrdgeld and dropped it into Jake’s hands. “Here, we focused on my Deeds, so you should get the Wyrdgeld. You need it the most at the moment.”
Jake instinctively went to argue but held up his hands as Aspen gave him a hard look. “Alright, I won’t protest. Thank you.”
“Not a problem,” Aspen said, flashing him a tired smile. “I’m pretty tired from all that, though. I’ll sit out the next delve.”
“Then I believe it’s my turn?” Gargan walked over eagerly, twirling his wand between his fingers. “I must admit, I’m eager to try and copy your success.”
“Well then, let’s give it a go,” Jake said, leading them back into the Dungeon as Aspen went to take a seat.
“So, what do you have in mind?” Gargan asked as he eyed the first group of zombies. “I suppose I can limit myself to just my Skill rather than my wand.”
“I was thinking of that and of only hitting them in the head, assuming you can manage the accuracy?” Jake asked, rolling his eyes at the affronted look Gargan gave him.
“If Aspen can manage, then I most assuredly can,” Gargan said, holstering his wand before putting one hand behind his back. “I will cast with only one hand, aim for just the head and use only my attack Skill, no others.”
Jake was going to say they should start off easier, but Gargan was already striding out to face the undead.
“Eager, isn’t he,” Nepthys said with a low chuckle.
“I can’t exactly blame him. The two of them have been stuck at this tier for a while. We were their big chance, and then we got stuck here with just tier one Dungeons.”
“He’s really going for it,” Alan said, letting out a whistle as Gargan snapped off multiple thin bolts of fire in quick succession, immolating the heads of the target zombies.
In no time at all, Gargan was standing over the last of the zombies and drawing out his Wyrdgeld with a satisfied smile.
“I take it that was a success?” Jake asked as they joined him.
“Indeed, and it was difficult enough that it wasn’t comfortable. I will push myself to use smaller and more controlled blasts with the following floors. Hopefully, that will be enough to keep it challenging.”
Gargan did his best to restrict himself, but even so, he only managed to pick up a single further Deed for the rest of the Dungeon.
They ran the whole thing twice more, once for Gargan and once for Aspen, but neither of them were able to gather more Deeds. Their self-assigned challenges had been Worthy at first, but they could only restrict themselves so far.
Alan did jokingly suggest that Aspen fight the zombies while lying down, but Jake put a stop to that before Aspen could get too intrigued.
There was making it difficult and there was asking to get killed.
These were only Beast strength monsters, so they wouldn’t kill him permanently, but it would take time for Aspen to recover. Time Jake wasn’t willing to waste.
“Here, this is yours,” Aspen said, passing Jake the final pouch of Wyrdgeld for the night. They’d given him the full amount from each delve, giving Jake enough to finally rank up.
He wasn’t going to do it, not yet. He’d build up his total first, so when he did rank up he could advance some of his Abilities. Then again, most of them were capped with how much benefit they were giving, so it might be better to save the Wyrdgeld for advancing further in rank.
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Storing the Wyrdgeld Aspen had given him, Jake decided to leave that particular decision for another time.
-**-
The next night they returned to the first Dungeon that they’d tried in this grouping.
“Alright, it’s your turn, Alan,” Jake said once they were inside the Dungeon. “The flying monsters don’t come down out of the sun as much, but I want you to try and hit as many of them in the wing as you can. Bow only, and without using your Skills. Well, any other than that exploitation one, as that might help determine if these actually are weaknesses.”
Alan nodded hesitantly before taking a deep breath and gripping his bow firmly before walking forward into the Dungeon.
Jake’s plan was for Alan to strike the creatures in the wing and knock them from the sky, which felt like it would work as a weakness. If not, then shooting them in the head while flying seemed like a valid secondary choice.
Alan did manage a few such shots, which was no small feat against the fast moving flying monsters, but ended up more wounded than Aspen had been on his hardest attempt.
“Did it work?” Jake asked as Alan killed the last monster, jogging over to pass his friend a healing potion.
“It did, I got three from all that. Two from wings and one from a head. I know it won’t always be so many, but it feels good.”
“Well, take a minute to yourself, and then let’s do it again,” Jake said, carefully patting Alan on the shoulder while doing his best not to hit one of the long cuts on Alan’s back.
Floor by floor, they worked their way through the Dungeon, finishing with Alan having earned another ten Deeds. The danger and difficulty of what he was doing seemed key to earning them.
The rate at which Alan was earning the Deeds slowed drastically as they went, but it was still a productive delve.
Leaving Alan outside to rest, they went back in to do the same for Gargan. Fast moving targets and tight blasts of fire brought Gargan another two steps closer to his goal, but it took the whole Dungeon to do so.
“This doesn’t seem sustainable,” Jake said as they rejoined Alan. “The rate of earning them is dropping fast. I have a feeling that if we want Alan to get there, we’ll need a tier two Dungeon.”
“Agreed,” Nepthys said. “I think we can get Aspen and Gargan over the line this week, though. That will give us an edge if we end up heading somewhere else.”
“Will you be restricted at all?” Jake asked, glancing over at the two classers. “When you get to the third tier, I mean.”
“Well, we’ll have the benefit of ascending to the next tier,” Aspen said, sharing a look with Gargan. “Which should increase how much Wyrd we can hold. We’ll be able to rank up again, but the benefits of doing so will be suppressed until we get to a higher Realm. Then, once we’ve gone ahead, we’ll be suppressed if we come back.”
“Good to know,” Jake said, rubbing his jaw in thought. “If we can get both of you over the threshold, we can then hit a tier two Dungeon so I can do the same. Alan will hopefully be able to match us, and then all we need is to kill some Corrupters for Nepthys.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Nepthys said with a laugh.
“Yeah, you might have a point. Still, this gives us at least the outline of a plan. One that we should be able to finish before Gordon gets back.”
“In that case, I’m going to go again and see if I can’t get a few more Worthy fights,” Gargan said, heading for the entrance.
Shrugging, Jake followed after him, ready to assist if things went badly.
-**-
The next day they returned to the muddy Dungeon, hoping that the adverse conditions within it would help get either Aspen or Gargan the last few Worthy fights they needed.
As best Jake could tell, despite the wording of the requirements, an encounter with multiple monsters would still count under normal circumstances, but splitting the contribution made it unlikely to be enough.
Now, by making the baseline difficulty of a fight much harder, they were just able to reach that threshold.
Jake watched as Aspen struggled to stay on his feet and dodge the sprays of acid while fighting bugs with a butter knife. While he was glad they’d found a path forward, he was also quite happy that he didn’t have to take part.
None of this looked pleasant.
They finished the second delve of the night with Aspen only a single Worthy fight away from meeting his requirements to ascend.
With a crazed look in his eyes, Aspen drew them immediately back in and all but threw himself at the bugs, slaughtering them aggressively as he hunted for that last Worthy Deed.
Jake and the others followed the trail of destruction that Aspen left behind him all the way down to the Guardian floor.
“Nothing!” Aspen roared as he ripped the badly damaged butter knife out of the final monster, the flames coating it flickering away a moment later. “I just can’t quite get that last one!”
“Any ideas, Jake?” Alan asked, and they all turned to him expectantly. “This was your idea to begin with. Is there anything else we can try?”
“We need something to make the fight harder, something that will push Aspen more than any of this.” Jake frowned thoughtfully as they gathered the Wyrdgeld and went through the exit. “The only thing I could think of would be some other type of restriction, one we haven’t done yet. What that would be, though, I don’t know.”
“Wait, I’ve got it,” Aspen said, uncorking a healing potion and taking a deep swig before leading them back to the start. “I need to treat the whole Dungeon as a single encounter, rather than doing them individually.”
“Alright, and what does that mean?” Jake asked, though his interest was piqued.
“It means that I go in alone, with my knife, a single health potion and that’s all. I make it to the end without using any Skills other than to summon my flames, and without resting or I die trying.”
Jake knew there was nothing in there that could permanently kill Aspen, but he still didn’t like the idea. “This feels reckless, are you sure?”
Aspen took a moment to centre himself, inhaling deeply before letting out a slow and steady breath. Meeting Jake’s gaze calmly, he nodded. “Kalinkos is the god of fire and dedication. I have the fire, now I prove my dedication. I will do this, and I will succeed.”