Kara and I took a week-long vacation to unwind. Or I took a vacation from my Guild duties since she was unemployed. During that time, she worked on fulfilling the requirements for the Stalwart Regenerator Class, mainly taking 20,000 points of HP damage in real combat. The critical injury requirement was in the bag.
We went to the City Dungeon, the source of most of the raw resources the city produced. On the third floor, we found the monster to tank. Some of the first floor's leaping horrors were capable of critical hits so we skipped them. The second floor, which was empty during my previous visit a few months ago, was populated by Wererats. They carried diseases and infected blades, so we also skipped that floor. I was thankful that this Dungeon had the omnidirectional glow effect, making lanterns optional.
On the Third, we found Lesser Ogres. They ranged from levels 20 to 26 and used clubs to bash at their targets. Kara would discover one Lesser Ogre, let the monster beat her HP until it was down to double digits, and then kill the monster. It was good for both the Class unlock and to give her some real combat experience. Kara would abuse our stash of HP potions to recover and then find the next Lesser Ogre. This approach allowed Kara to get the undivided Experience from the kills. I earned bonus Attribute points from my Parallel Progression.
My bonds and I kept watch for interlopers, be they monsters of other delvers thinking we would be an easy PK.
*
*
POV: Kara
After each fight, she checked her Class unlocks to see if she got it, but it never did. It took way more than fifty thousand HP of damage to unlock, proving that the information the Guild had was wrong. Worse, if it counted lifetime HP damage, the total amount could reach over a hundred thousand. But eventually, the Stalwart Regenerator Class appeared on the list. She immediately picked it up.
> You became a Stalwart Regenerator (Rare). As this is a subclass, you gain only 5 Attribute points per level.
> You have a debt of 37,000 Experience points. For every 1,000 Experience points you repay, the Stalwart Regenerator subclass will gain a level. No Experience will be awarded to your Main Class during this time.
> You gained the Trait, Enduring Recovery: You recover from wounds [10+sqrt(2*Endurance+Clarity)]% faster.
> You gained the Skill, Regeneration. Rank I Benefits: Wounds are R*5% less severe for purposes of recovery.
> Class Experience: You gain Experience by recovering from wounds.
"And we're done," Kara said. "Though the Experience debt is crippling."
A blue box popped in front of her.
> For recovering from wounds, you gained 1 Experience.
"Still crippling," she said with a sigh.
"It took way too long. What went wrong?" George asked.
"The information the Guild had was wrong. To unlock the Class, it requires more than a hundred thousand spent HP."
"Well, at least it didn't have a third hidden requirement. Or if it had, you passed it."
"Yeah. But I still wished the System told us what it was."
"It would make Class unlock information way less valuable."
"I don't think the guy in the Red Moon cares about that."
"Me neither. But he handles things with a hands-off approach. Hey, do you want to go down to the fourth floor? Monsters there are level thirty, we could farm them for a while."
"Yes, let me create the new Persona for this subclass. I'll need a lot of Endurance and Clarity."
*
*
POV: George
I waited while Kara messed with her System windows. She lowered the Attribute efficiencies for Strength, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma by fifteen percent each to pump Dexterity, Endurance, and Clarity to the maximum of 20% Attribute Efficiency on each of the three.
"Okay, lead on. Just let me remove my armor and bind it on the next persona."
She had to do that because we didn't have a spare set of armor and equipment for that new Persona. Once she was down to her underwear, Kara activated the transformation. Cotton clothes appeared on her body a few seconds later. She removed these and donned her equipment.
I scouted ahead to see if we could find the way to the boss room. After a few more fights with ogres, we reached it.
*
*
Two parties were camping in the third-floor antechamber one on each end of the massive room. From the looks of it, they were here for the long run. If they brought enough food and water, they could stay down here for months. The Lesser Ogres were edible but since they were humanoids, it was frowned upon. Not that anyone would enforce any rule or law in the depths of the Dungeon.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The doors were open but a fog blocked vision of what monster it was.
"Hey, you there!" The lookout shouted. "State your business!"
"Just passing on our way to the fourth floor," I shouted back.
People came out of the tents. I tensed a bit. William bleated and Sleepy growled. I wasn't fearing an attack. If these guys were here farming the third-floor boss for drops and Experience, they were at most level forty to fifty. And their Classes should be between Uncommon and Rare. Even if they were level sixty, with my overpowered pets and the rare bonuses to Attribute Efficiency we gained, we could tackle all of them. The two groups at once.
Doing the same calculation on their side, I just stated we were passing to the fourth floor. It meant we were strong enough to farm there and not here. That would make them believe our levels were higher than theirs. Added to the fact our group was composed of a strange chimera, two people, and one beast of burden, it forced that estimate even higher up. I bet they were estimating our levels on the sixty to seventy. We could very well be going deeper than the fourth.
They wouldn't believe I was bluffing either. Because if we were, we wouldn't enter the boss room. They could wait and see. Also, I wasn't wearing my Guild badge or the tabard.
"Easy guys. They aren't hostile." One of the warriors who came out of the tents said.
His reaction was expected.
"Thank you," I replied. "What's the schedule for the boss fight? I assume you are farming the boss."
"We surely are," the Warrior said. "But the mist is a damn problem. Three types of bosses come with the mist, and none of them is good news."
"Would you be willing to sell the information?" I asked. I had a good idea from the Guild guides but Dungeons were devious, intelligent, and sapient. They could have changed the Boss types. Sometimes, Dungeons keep tricky monster types hidden for centuries, waiting to use them at a fortuitous time. Fortuitous for them.
The warrior laughed. "Sell? No. If you guys won't stick around and are willing to go in and clear the fog, we will give you the information for free. You are doing us a favor."
"I see." They were farming the third-floor boss and the fog put a halt on their activities. Without a way to earn an income, they were basically losing money sitting around. "Well, if you may."
"The first alternative is a Myst Elemental. With a Y. It is a monster that can only be harmed by magic," He said and gauged our reaction. Neither of us was a spellcaster. He didn't know Sleepy was our "mage". Or that I still had some elemental arrows in my quiver.
"Should be weak to the attacks we can use," I said. "What is its level?"
"Between forty to forty-five."
"Okay. What could it be next?"
"A Rusalka."
"The drowned fey?"
"Exactly. Similar levels to the Myst Elemental. The Third one is a Giga Ooze. Water, Air, Mist, Steam, or other similar element."
"Cool."
"Though the Giga Ooze is level fifty."
It matched the reports the Guild received from Delvers. Everything was fine. "Even better. Man, thank you for the information."
"No problem."
"If you get to the surface and visit the Guild, tell the bartender George will pay a round for your crew."
"Awesome. George, it was a pleasure to meet you. I'm Bjorn."
We shook hands. "Bjorn, I wish you safe farming. Let's go, guys. William, take point. Sleepy, charge up."
The four of us rushed into the boss's room. The doors closed behind us and I breathed in relief. Even if they suspected we were of a higher level, greed was a great motivator. They could very well attack us in a fuck around and find out kind of mindset.
*
*
The mist pooled. I tried to hear sloshing or anything and when I heard only a soft wind moving the mist around, I knew which one of the three we were facing.
"Sleepy, charge to the maximum. William, go around and see if you make contact with the boss. Kara, stay out of Sleepy's AOE. Sorry, love. You might need to sit out of this one."
She sighed. Nobody wanted to sit out of a boss fight but she had no way to damage the Myst Elemental.
William galloped around the room, while Sleepy's nubs started to glow, making the mist shine white. I drew three Earth element arrows.
"We will get you a sword with elemental damage first thing once we get out of here."
We didn't think about that. Big mistake.
William made contact with the Myst Elemental. I watched as around 400 HP vanished from his Status screen. It was ridiculous. If each attack did that much damage, the elemental would need to hit William more than a hundred times before it could crack his HP.
"Sleepy, go! Follow William's voice."
The brave Wolfertinger leaped with his rabbit legs and then took to the air. He flew straight to the bleating Tityron and probably landed on William's horn. Then a bright flash momentarily blinded us. My Scouting Skill granted me some protection from sensory impairment. Not a second later, a loud thunder shook us.
"Shield your eyes!" I shouted.
Other, less intense flashes of light rang as Sleepy burned MP to electrocute the Elemental. Soon, it was over. A notification rang.
> For killing level 44 Myst Elemental (boss), you gained 4,788 Experience points.
> Level UP! You are now level 35.
> You gained a subclass slot.
> You gained the Perk, Soul Siphon. Whenever you kill a creature with a level higher than yours, you gain a temporary boost to Clarity Efficiency equal to double the level difference plus one.
Good. "I leveled up." Checking the Status, Sleepy had also raised to level 33. The level difference between the Wolfertinger and me was about to drop to 1 or even get equal.
"Congrats."
"Bahhh!" William conveyed that the boss had dropped something good.
We went there to check. It was a Myst core. Basically a sphere of solid vapor the size of my thumbnail. It was smaller than the one dropped by the Shambler Requiem but this boss stayed alive for way less time than the grass one.
"Okay. I'm getting the Marksman subclass now," I said. I used the subclass slot vacated by Beast Master when it fused into my Main Class for this one since I didn't know if I would keep it.
> You became a Marksman (Uncommon). As this is a subclass, you gain only 5 Attribute points per level.
> You have a debt of 35,000 Experience points. For every 1,000 Experience points you repay, this subclass will gain a level. No Experience will be awarded to your Main Class during this time.
> You gained the Skill, Marksmanship. Rank I Benefits: Arrows you fire are R*5% more accurate, reducing defense chances.
> Class Experience: You gain Experience by scoring clean hits on enemies with arrows. This experience is a tiny fraction of the target's kill experience.
This was the arrow version of Swordsman. Though it was Uncommon only, it hardly mattered for a subclass with such great synergies to my fighting style. Though it didn't grant any Traits, that would weigh less if I decided to ditch this subclass for another. I'd keep the Skill (though it would lose a rank) and one Perk of my choice.
Normally, a person wouldn't cycle subclasses that way, but with Kara's Parallel Progression granting her subclasses that did put her in debt, I wouldn't want to gain more levels over her. It was smarter to get a Subclass that would put me in a similar situation and then pay the debt together, to keep our level differences closer. I would still repay mine faster and even gain a new level before I tried to do it again.
In any case, any considerations of dropping the subclass would only happen when the granted Skill reached rank ten. It would be a long time before that.