Ander was elated. Apparently his assumption that the experience would be lost was unfounded. His trip through the 13th floor was enough to net him five whole levels! That took a significant weight off of his chest as he looked around his new soulscape. While the skies beyond looked endless, he could sense the boundary where his soul ended. Still, he felt that there was more than enough room for all the skills and spells he could want for the time being. Ander grinned in triumph. The immediate question however, was whether or not the class and those five levels would be enough to beat the boss outside. It still had 15 levels on him, and the Boss status. Ander couldn’t tell what that would mean in the actual fight.
Ander looked out at the floating platforms and noticed to his surprise that several of them were growing before his eyes. He hadn’t done an exhaustive check of all his skills, not by a long shot, and so he left his throne and went to investigate. Ander flew off the platform and over the intervening space, landing on one of the slowly growing platforms and the pattern taking shape there.
It was new. He had studied all the other patterns at length in his free time, and this one was different from all the rest. He had no real clue what the pattern did, he would have to use Minds of the Void to figure it out. Ander stopped at another growing platform to find another unrecognized skill. There were three in all, which made Ander wonder where they came from. The obvious answer was his class, but didn’t it say that his class had already been properly implemented? Ander shook his head and returned to the throne. As he sat down, Ander received a notification.
Congratulations! You have gained Class Skill: Cloudstep!
Skill: Cloudstep is Level 1.
Skill: Cloudstep
Epic
The evolved form of Skill: Flashstep. Allows you to teleport short distances. You must be able to see the target location. Unlike Skill: Flashstep, you do not need to be standing on a solid surface to use Cloudstep.
Ander looked to find that one of the three platforms had stopped growing. That was awesome. Apparently he had been overthinking things when it came to the class skills. He was content to wait for the others to be done, but he felt a sharp pain in his arm, and one immediately afterward in his good leg. Ander immediately left his soulscape to find that a swarm of those small spiders were covering him from head to toe. It was all he could do to keep from screaming reflexively. Ander commanded a gust of wind to encircle him and fling the spiders off, where they splattered against the walls.
Ander examined himself. He was in a poor state. The minute or so he had been in his soulscape had allowed Aeolian Vitality to do some work, but it would need hours yet to replace his leg. Ander loosened his tourniquet, and to his relief, no blood went spraying out. His skill had managed that much at least. He wondered whether or not it was worth it to try to recover here, or if he should make a break for it. As much as he wanted to fight the spider boss, the gap between them was just too large.
But it was the small spiders that eventually convinced him. They would wander in and bite him on occasion, and Aeolian Vitality would have to stop working on his leg and start working on the venom. It was actually a pretty good way to level Aeolian Vitality, as it started to gain levels by the handful. But it meant that it had no real chance to work on his leg. His estimate of hours would need to be amended to days if this went on. The next time he got bitten, Ander summoned a jar and trapped the tiny spider, storing it back as soon as he got the lid on. He did that five more times, and was pretty pleased with himself that he would have a way to level up Aeolian Vitality when he returned to camp. But for now, it was time to leave.
Ander peeked out between the rocks and surveyed the situation outside. He cursed under his breath as he saw the stupid giant spider laying webs over everything including the exits. Ander racked his brain for a solution, but couldn’t find any except to fight the damn thing. 15 levels. 15 god damn levels. One thing he did notice that he had missed earlier was that two of the spider’s legs were crushed beyond repair. Damage had been done pretty evenly across the rest of the spider’s body, and the two legs were on opposite sides. While there was some advantage there, it was not as much as ander had hoped for.
If the destroyed legs had both been on the same side, it meant that Ander would only have to destroy two more to make the spider more or less immobile. Now, he had to destroy three legs for that strategy to work. But Ander thought that with his new skill, he could likely make things work in his favor. Unable to come up with a better plan, Ander waited for the spider to come close. He didn’t know the range of Cloudstep, and didn’t want to push things if he could help it.
The Spider lumbered into the range Ander was comfortable trying his new skill and Ander cloudstepped. In an instant, Ander was next to one of its legs and was hacking down with a Wind Blade empowered chop. The horrible cry went up again, and Ander flashed away. Ander examined his mana bar and grimaced. He had not had time to regen fully, and Cloudstep was damn expensive. The same as a fully empowered fireball. It meant that he had to be careful about how he used it.
The spider didn’t seem to have seen where Ander had gone, and was lashing out in all directions with her remaining legs. Ander started to suspect something that was confirmed when the spider finally found him. As the legs started to fly toward him, Ander realized that the spider was far less accurate than it was before. Now missing three of its eight legs, it couldn’t properly stabilize its great bulk while on the attack. Ander flashed forward and took another of its legs. He then ran away and watched it flail ineffectually. Its health had dipped, but not as much as might have been expected. It could move, but barely. It had a terrible limp, and could barely get it’s bulk off the ground. Ander grinned. He loved cheesing fights. 15 level gap neutralized because he had a single skill that the enemy was entirely unprepared to handle.
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Ander let loose with several maximized fireballs, watching its health chunk away. Still, he realized that he would have to go in with his sword eventually. His mana simply wouldn’t hold out for all the damage he had to do. Ander flashed forward and took the final leg on the one side, and barely got out of the way as the spider’s bulk came crashing down. From there, killing the thing was simple. He simply went to the head and started hacking away at it with Wind Blade. The creature started to take massive damage quite quickly, and soon succumbed to its injuries.
Ander collapsed. The fight hadn’t taken all that long. But between his missing leg and the stress of fighting something so far above him, he was exhausted. He was simply glad that he hadn’t needed to fight the creature fairly. After a few minutes resting on the web, Ander sat up. He went over to the giant spider and tried to store it. That failed for some reason, and so Ander tried storing the legs. That seemed to work. So Ander spent the time trying to carve up the body into manageable chunks so that he could store it. Eventually the entire spider was in his cold storage. Ander was left wishing for normal item drops. That would make things so much easier. Stupid game.
Ander then went around collecting whatever he could find. Empty egg sacs, a full egg sac that was oddly undamaged, some webbing that he was able to pull free from the wall, the relay node, and finally, his leg. Ander pulled the armor off his leg and threw the rest away. His boot had been destroyed, which meant that he would have to go back to town to get a new pair if he couldn’t find one somewhere in his storage. But that was after his leg regenerated. Ander stood up, leaning on a gust of wind to keep his balance. He went to the upper level entrance that had been revealed by the falling roof and slashed through the webbing.
The process didn’t take long, maybe 30 seconds, and he was out and back into the maze of rooms and corridors. It wasn’t long until he found the evidence of his flight. Large sections of corridor covered in soot and spider parts, as well as cleanly cut spider corpses littering the place. Ander took what he deemed still good. He had racked up quite the appetite, and would likely eat a good portion of what he collected. Ander made his way back to the Atrium and lept from balcony to balcony with ease. His leap could take him forty feet straight up now, and he used it to get out of the monkey’s range before they had the chance to loose a single stone his way.
From there, it took Ander an hour to get back to the base. Traversing the winding ruins took time, though few enemies could stand up to a minimum fireball much less a maximized one. Ander’s mana was at twenty percent, but it was more than enough to deal with the minor creatures he encountered along the way. Finally, Ander came to the door to his treasure room and went inside, glad to finally be somewhere he could rest.
“What!” Karsish was there, helping support Ander’s weight in the next second. “What happened?”
“I got in a fight with a really big spider. It’ll be fine though, my healing skill will take care of it in a couple of days.” Ander gave Karsish a weak grin, and was surprised to see him shaking his head, a panicked look on his face. Worry immediately blossomed within Ander, and he looked around to try to identify the danger.
Sir Argvald was sitting on a couch in the living area across the room. He held a book casually in his hand, but his eyes were trained on Ander.
“Ander,” Sir Argvald said. “I have wanted to have a conversation with you for a while now. Why don’t you sit down.” His voice seemed friendly, but there was a hardness to it that did not allow for any sort of disobedience. Ander nodded to Karsish and they made their way to the couch across from Sir Argvald.
“What brings you here, Sir Argvald?” Ander asked politely. This was not the time to offend the man. Last Ander checked he was level 46, a level higher than the Spider Boss. Ander was sure that even fully rested and healed, Sir Argvald would prove a much greater threat than the spider boss.
“I think we both know why I am here, Ander.” Sir Argvald held his gaze with an iron tenacity that Ander had not noticed on their last meeting. “That said, congratulations on getting your class. That must have been a hard thing to accomplish in the two days of actual fighting you have done. Of course, I can't discount the slaughter of over a hundred good men.”
Ander winced. The look in Sir Argvald’s eyes was cold and angry, and Ander was not looking forward to what was coming next.
“First, what really happened that first night? They were right when they said that the monster explanation didn’t make sense. Nothing in the area was enough to take down those men even if they stumbled into a den half drunk. But I was willing to believe it until over a hundred men went missing, with far too little blood to account for their deaths. So, what really happened?” Ander racked his brain to try to figure out what to say. He couldn’t lie. He had no doubt that Sir Argvald would see right through it.
“Well, the three recruiters ambushed me in my sleep. They tried to convince me to join the Crimson Stars, but when I refused they attacked. I killed the other two men, but left the third alive when he no longer seemed a threat.” Ander searched Sir Argvald’s face, but it hadn’t changed.
“So you admit to lying to me.” Sir Argvald said.
“Well, to be fair, I was being held down by two Crimson Stars members and Cormal was in the room. I didn’t feel safe telling the truth.” Sir Argvald studied Ander for a long moment.
“I suppose that is fair. Not an excuse, but I can accept that answer for now. So what about the other hundred men?”
“Self defense like the first time.” Ander said quickly. Sir Argvald raised an eyebrow.
“Those were solid men with orders not to go into the caves after you.”
“Yet they did. They saw me from the entrance and they came in after me. They had their weapons drawn, and I was faced with a similar situation as before. Maybe they were trying to capture me. Maybe. It certainly didn’t look like it from my end.” Ander held Sir Argvald’s gaze.
“And so you killed them all? There wasn’t a single time that you could have escaped?” A pang of guilt went through Ander, but he forced it away.
“There was an imminent threat to my life, and I did what was necessary to ensure I would survive. Those men would have left with knowledge of my skills and tactics, ready for Cormal to send an even larger more knowledgeable force than before. Better for those men to disappear than to have to contend with ever decreasing odds of survival. Besides, far more men would have died that way.”