As soon as Karsish realized that he would need more soul space to learn more spells, he threw himself into his studies in order to get his skills and total level up. Which left Ander free to do what he had been wanting to do ever since he was reincarnated. Ander descended into the depths of the ruins. The place was vast with dozens of floors, each one covering the same area as any city. This meant that it was both easy to find prey, and very hard to run into the Crimson Stars. For safety, Ander stayed on the far side of the ruin as much as he could, and was able to find interesting things left behind by the elves.
Most of what he found were spider silk textiles of some sort or another. Most of the clothing was too small for Exodar use, as this race of elves seemed to be quite small in stature. But by the time he got to around floor 10, he was finding cloth products of all kinds. Of course, he took them all, from mattresses to curtains to towels to carpets and tapestries. And in all this time, not one piece was faded or degraded in the slightest. Those spiders they raised were quite something. Though Ander supposed that if the cloth was going to be degraded or rot away, it would have by now.
In addition to finding numerous treasures, Ander was able to fight a lot of spiders. It got to the point that he was starting to get a bit sick of seeing only spiders. Fortunately, at around the tenth floor, the spiders had an average level of 27, and his progress was being quite rapid. In his first day of real grinding, he made his extra two levels, bringing him up to level 25.
You have leveled up! You are now level 25.
+4 Conductivity
+4 Wisdom
+4 Regeneration
+2 Beauty
+4 Presence
+40 free stats.
Congratulations on reaching Level 25!
You may now choose a class!
Please go to your nearest System Relay Node to gain a class.
Warning: You may not gain further levels until you have chosen a class.
What the hell was a Relay Node? Ander shook his head. Of course getting a class wasn’t going to be so easy. Ander focused on the term System Relay Node to get some more information. To Ander’s surprise, no information came up. However, there was a sense of multiple objects almost forced upon his mind. He could feel three objects in the ruins beneath him, one in the direction of the town, and several more at the bottom of what Ander figured were the other two ruins. That at least gave him options. If nothing else, he could go back to town to get a class. But there was a relay node not all that far away on what felt like the thirteenth floor. Maybe the fourteenth.
Either choice came with risk. One had him moving through Crimson Stars territory. They might just realize he was living in the ruins if he made a mistake. But going down would have him fighting spiders between levels 30 and 33 if he had his guess. He could likely take those odds, but it would be a slow slog, and he wouldn’t be gaining any levels. Still, it would likely be faster than going back to town. And if he could find an atrium, he could make it down quite easily. In the end, going back to town didn’t appeal to Ander in the slightest, and so he decided to try the one on the ruins. He figured he would just have to find that Atrium.
The Atrums were odd multi storied rooms that had what seemed to be an artificial sun shining brightly over everything. Ander had tried to steal the first one he found, but found it gave off a tremendous amount of heat as well. Ander now stood at the top of one of those Atrums looking down to where it intersected with the thirteenth and fourteenth floors. The Atrium itself extended both higher and lower than where Ander was, and seemed to extend for miles in two directions. The Atrium was narrow about 50 yards across, and there were several bridges from one side to another, but never enough to block the sunlight from the lower levels. What there wasn’t was an easy way down. The atriums did not have staircases, and the only roads were the sparse bridges. The entire Atrium was made of balcony upon balcony leading into private residences, stores, and other buildings.
Ander was standing on a balcony that was part of what seemed to be a small boutique shop selling pretty things ander had no interest in. He took it all, including the shelves and a primitive register. At the balcony he was faced with a slight conundrum. There was nowhere reliable to tie off a rope. He searched his inventory, looking for a grappling hook or something. Which is definitely something a giant ship should possess. However, he was unable to find any, and was forced to substitute a large boulder that weighed around 600 lbs. He quickly tied a rope around it, and started down the Atrium.
The Atrium itself was kinda eerie. The spiders seemed to avoid the sunlight at all costs, but when the sun turned off for the day, they would come out in droves to feast. The Atriums were the only places that still hosted non spider life, and it was quite the ecosystem. Between the garden at the bottom of the atrium, the vertical gardens that ran up the side, and the numerous plants growing on the balconies, there was enough to create the thriving ecosystem. It was a harsh place, and Ander had been attacked multiple times in an atrium, but it did certainly lift his spirits to be in a bit of nature, even if it was artificial.
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Ander descended the first floor without issue, but as he passed the twelfth floor, he was noticed by a green tailed monkey. He had tangled with these once over the past day or so. They were smart, incredibly so. The way it sounded they had their own language, and made both tools and weapons. Ander figured that the only reason they hadn’t broken out of the ruins were because of the nightly spider swarms. The Monkeys were smarter than the spiders, and stronger than most of them. But there were simply too many spiders to do anything but hide when night time came.
Ander thought that the Monkey was going to ignore him at first, but then the monkey pulled out a sling from a belt pouch, along with some smooth pebbles. Ander started to slide down the rope quicker. They had the strength to do significant damage with those slings, and Ander didn’t want to get into a fight with the whole village of monkeys.
The pebble whistled through the air like a firework and shattered against the rock next to Ander’s head. The shrapnel did some five damage in ones as it opened up small cuts in his skin. Ander slid down the rest of the way to a thirteenth floor balcony, and then summoned a large chunk of chalk he used to mark the balcony. He certainly didn’t want to lose his way down here. Problem was, the monkey was approaching. Ander dodged another stone, as the monkey started hooting in its odd language. That forced Ander to duck into the home whose balcony he was on. He would have to abandon the rope which would be gone when he tried to come back up. The monkeys had sticky fingers. But Ander was brought up short when he found what seemed to be a monkey family living in the house. The hollering by the pursuing monkey was getting louder, and Ander had no time. There were three large monkeys and a half dozen smaller ones climbing over the large ones. Two female, and one male if Ander had his guess, and not one pleased to see him.
The male started by grabbing a rock and throwing it at Ander. It was larger than the sling rocks, and thrown that way it was far slower. Ander dodged without an issue, to find a variety of items flying his way. A pulse of his wind control sent the items careening off to the side, and Ander dashed forward. He summoned his sword to his hand and swung at the male, who dodged in turn. Ander then blocked a series of punches from the male, and had to dive away from the incoming teeth of the two females. A whistling and a crack got Ander’s attention then, as he saw the other monkey coming in from the balcony. Ander lashed out with his sword, laying open a deep gash on the side of one of the females. This only seemed to enrage the now two males even more as punches and rocks came in ever faster.
And then they made a mistake. One of the flying stones hit the other female in the shoulder, and the crack of fracturing bone rang out clear for everyone to hear. The female started to scream, and was quickly silenced with a stroke of Ander’s sword. The two males were stunned for just a moment, but that was as long as Ander needed as he took one then two heads. Ander stopped for a moment, breathing heavily. If he had his guess, these were likely level 29, a bit low for this floor, but certainly a workout for him and his skill. But he had no time to really rest, as he heard hooting and hollering coming from back out in the Atrium.
Ander grabbed the corpses of the monkeys, different meat would certainly be welcome, and snatched up a bunch of things that had been left behind. He had no time to determine if any of it was valuable, and was forced to leave a lot of stuff behind, or be attacked by more monkeys. He liked to fight, and the monkeys were good opponents, but they tended to bring a village to fight literally anything they came across. And Ander was not about to fight 40 of those things at once.
Ander found what used to be the entrance to the home, which had been thoroughly barricaded with rocks and other debris. Ander quickly tore down the barricade, and slipped through the door back into spider territory.
And apparently, his fight had not gone unnoticed by the spiders, two of which attacked him immediately. They were both tarantulas, each the size of a pony, and for some reason they were working together. One skittered up the side of the hallway they were in, making a beeline toward Ander. The other shot a strand of webbing at him at high velocity. He dodged them both, shooting off an identify at each of them.
Broken Halls Tarantula
Level 30
Broken Halls Tarantula
Level 31
Ander would have to be very careful to keep from being absolutely annihilated by this duo. Ander jumped forward, summoning his spear to his hand and thrusting at the same time to catch the foremost tarantula off guard. It didn’t do a ton of damage, but it did poke out an eye. Ander dismissed his spear and resummoned his sword while the tarantula was in pain. He dashed forward, trying to take advantage of the opening, but jets of webbing forced him back. Ander slashed, letting several weak wind blades fly at the tarantula. They did nothing, but they succeeded in keeping the tarantula on the defensive while its partner rushed forward to attack.
Ander cast Wind Blade, hearing the sound of static come from the edge of his blade. A strand of webbing shot at him, but instead of dodging this time, Ander cut it in two. The spell on the blade prevented the web from sticking, and caused the two halves to shoot out to either side of him. As soon as the webbing stopped, he immediately lunged forward at the confused tarantula, who had not expected him to be so close. With two quick swipes, the tarantula was missing two of its legs. The tarantula gave off a horrible, squeaking, nails on a chalkboard sound, and the other tarantula leaped at Ander, baring its fangs.
Ander summoned the spear again and set its butt into a crack between two floor tiles. The tarantula neatly impaled itself, and was out for the count. Though it did continue to twitch and thrash ineffectually. Ander dashed past the dying tarantula, and the other tarantula wailed its horrible cry yet again. It then dashed forward to meet him, which took Ander by surprise. Ander brought his sword down onto the tarantula’s back, cleaving deeply and creating a fatal wound. But the spider did not die fast enough to stop it from latching on to Ander’s leg, and pumping him full of venom.
Ander staggered back, and his leg gave under his weight. It felt like it was on fire, and the fire was spreading up his leg. Ander summoned some rope from his amulet and tied it tightly around his upper thigh. His regeneration should be able to take care of it, but not if he allowed the poison to spread. Ander staggered back to his feet, and went to retrieve his spear. The tarantula twitched again as the spear disappeared from his body.
Ander closed his eyes and fought past the pain as he felt for the location of the relay node, only to realize it was another level down. Ander could do it. He just needed to find a place to rest a few minutes while regeneration did it’s work. Ander ducked as a rock whistled past his head. He turned to see three male green tailed monkeys with slings, and more coming behind them. Ander started to run.