We reached a large door that held the dungeon boss inside. It turned out to be a necromancer that would have been a pain to fight if not for my incredible monster slaying spells. On occasion the Necromancer would animate a bunch of skeletal creatures from the mass of bones on the floor. After watching Burin struggle with my shadow playing around next to him, I decided to end it with a quick spearbolt to the necromancer’s face.

Experience gained.

I would have let the boss continue resummoning his small undead army, if they provided experience, but they did not, so I did not. The necromancer performed a beautiful backflip from the inertia of my spearbolt impacting their face before crumping into an awkward pile of limbs on the ground. After the death of the dungeon boss, all the necromancer minions fell to pieces, leaving piles of bones everywhere.

Burin was bent over with hands on his knees, panting heavily. “Nice one, Reigner.”

The room that held the boss was quite open with a large pit in the middle filled with bones to the point it was level with the surrounding floor. It would have made a nice pool room if it was instead filled with water and the room cleaned up a bit. Around the sides of the pit were rotten banners, chairs, and occasional side table. It looked like a viewing area where people would come to watch whatever happened in the pit. Picking a wooden chair that did not appear to be badly decayed I sat down and summoned a campstone. With all my dismissing practice I had ended up using more mana than I’d expected. I’m sure Burin would appreciate the increase to health, stamina, and mana regeneration. Since the campstone was now rank thirteen, it provided forty five mana back per minute.

A moment later and Burin came over and sat in a nearby chair while my cleaning and looting sprite flew over to the corpse.

Loot gained:

Floor Gem

Bag

Robe

Sandals

Small Bone

Long Bone

Tiny Bone

Broken Bone

Human Skull

Wolf Skull

Troll Skull

Apparently I had reached my storage limit in the dungeon, as the motes of light from the sprite bounced off my storage pack and formed into a pile of items next to me. Looking down I saw that everything apart from the gem and robe had dropped to the ground. I cast Summon Bag which could store up to 30kg with a weight reduction of 14% and started shoving the dropped items into it. A moment later I had a revelation. Here I am, manually placing the items in the new bag, when I had a sprite summoned for this very purpose. Willing my thoughts towards the sprite, it flew over and moved the pile of items on the ground into the summoned bag.

“While you are at it little one. Here is some more you can move into the summoned pack.” I pulled out all the looted bones and junk from my own storage pouch and watched as the little sprite continued to work.

“Oh, handy little spell ye got there.” Remarked Burin.

I gave him a grin. “That’s not all it can do.” I pushed my will towards the sprite and watched as it rapidly started spinning around Burin.

“Wha- What are ye doing?”

“Just wait a moment.”

A handful of seconds later the sprite stopped, leaving Burin looking like he just donned his armour and recently showered.

The dwarf ran his fingers over his face and down his beard, noticing that he no longer had rotten fur or muck all over his face and clothes.

He returned my grin. “Very nice. I have something similar but it nay effects armour.” He moved around to get a better look at his equipment “This is very nice.”

“Oh?” I was curious what he meant. “What does yours do?”

His mouth widened into a toothy grin. “Well… Since ye asked.”

Burin cast a spell and my whole body tingled like I was standing naked in a stream of water. The feeling was everywhere… Places where I don’t even want to mention. The sensation was not like any I had felt before. I felt violated on a fundamental level. It was such a shock that I let out a manly yell of surprise and almost hit my head on the ceiling from jumping so high.

I managed to regain my wits and landed on my feet and stood stock still as the watery fluid made its way over every crevice and surface of my body. The new experience left me breathing heavy. Sounds slowly returned to me after a moment of loud laughter echoing off the stone walls.

Looking around I saw Burin with mirth in his eyes and a hand covering his mouth, and my shadow hollering and laughing away while pointing towards me. Annoying. Here I was having a moment and he felt the need to ruin it with his sadistic sense of humour. Maybe my shadow was actually a copy of Khemrok’s personality since he managed to get under my skin so well.

As I started moving again, I noticed that I felt refreshed. Like I had taken a long relaxing bath and had a great massage afterwards. My muscles felt rejuvenated and any fatigue I might have built up was washed away.

I turned to Burin with wide eyes.

He pulled his hand down showing me his smiling teeth. “Good aye? Does nothing for armour but it’s certainly better than a dip in black water.”

“That was…” I did not know just how to describe it. I have never been touched so forcefully and gently in such places before in all my lives. “Incredible” was all I could come up with in the end.

Mac walked over to join us by the campstone. “What spell was that?”

“It should have been wash self from a spell book but my class changed it into something called cleansing streams. It not only cleans the body it also revitalises and rejuvenates muscles, skin, and hair.”

“Incredible.” Mac sat down in the chair I was using a moment ago. “You could probably earn a living just by opening a spa shop with that spell alone. They are quite lucrative in the merchant sector… Could you uh.” Mac gestured towards himself awkwardly.

Burin grinned and cast the spell for the second time.

Watching it happen to someone else was quite interesting. Mac’s facial expressions were entertaining to say the least. His eyes widened in shock, he held the arms of the chair in a death grip, and his mouth opened somewhere between a silent scream and a moan of pleasure. After a moment he relaxed and slumped in the chair, breathing like he had just finished a marathon.

My shadow walked over to us, having composed himself “Haha, nice one Burin. That makes two victims now.”

I looked to my shadow and pinched my nose. “Oh, gods you stink. Did you fall into something?”

“What are you talking about?” He lifted an arm to smell himself. “I smell fine.”

Turning to Burin I cocked my head towards my shadow. “No, you really stink.”

An amused smile formed on Burin’s face as he cast the spell for the third time in as many minutes.

“Wait, no. You don’t ha-AAHH.” My shadow freaked out and squealed like a girl who just met her new puppy for the first time on Christmas morning.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

For good measure I also sent my sprite to clean up my shadow’s attire.

A moment later and the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of two adult men that just went through a new experience and were still coming to terms with it.

Burin turned to me with a satisfied smile. “Time for lunch?”

Because only one tower key dropped, we stayed in the boss room until the necromancer respawned and killed him again for a second time. I was starting to get a bit annoyed as I felt like I had slain quite a lot of creatures since leaving Teek’s and have yet to hit level eight. I assumed it was because all the things I have been fighting were now below my level.

There was no particularly good loot. The robe turned out to be strips of rags you could wear that would move creepily around you but did nothing else. The sandals were more interesting, giving a bonus to movement when standing on dead things. I decided to leave all the loot for Burin to sell. He needed the coin more than me and he was helping Torva out. Leaving his guild must not have been easy either. I wanted to do more for him and Torva.

As we left the dungeon or Dun as Mac liked to call it, we did not need to fight our way out as all the undead creatures were missing. Mac stated the undead perished whenever the necromancer was slain and would respawn once the boss is back up.

I was excited to check out the next floor. I could have used some time to rest but I did not want to camp out in such a cold environment. Burin decided to join me, and Mac, well he said he was duty bound to follow me for a while longer. I held up my hand towards my shadow. He looked at me suspiciously before giving me a high five. As our hands made contact, I dismissed the shadow and watched as he collapsed into motes of light. Interestingly I did not lose any health or mana and felt that I could resummon him again if I wanted to. I did not.

I remember being told that it was impossible to get past the fifth floor as a solo and I was curious to learn why. With my capabilities I don’t think anything could pose a challenge to me before reaching the triple digit floors.

Walking out of the tower’s dark corridor onto the fifth floor, we were greeted by the familiar sight of a tower knight sitting behind a desk. They glanced up towards us, nodded towards Mac, and then went back to whatever they were doing with the crystal ball that sat on the desk in front of them.

It was midday, the sun being right above us when we walked out onto the floor. Like the other floors there was a wall surrounding the tower with a market within the perimeter, however the market was much smaller than the previous floors. Most of the space was taken up by a large tavern building that was positioned on the path towards the gate.

The tavern held a sign depicting two people fighting each other, one with a spear, the other with sword and shield. The fighters were standing inside a circle at waist height. I did not see a written name for the tavern so decided to just think of it as the Two Guys Circle Tavern.

There were many adventurers walking in and out of the two guys circle, heading either outside past the wall or walking into the tower. Walking past the tavern I headed out of the wall’s gate to have a look at the floor.

I expected to see a bunch of adventurers fighting creatures by the walls like what I witnessed on previous floors, but instead there were large colosseums built everywhere with stone paved streets running between them all. Looking around I could see that the tower was surrounded by them. Each one looked a little different, be it the architecture, or the statues decorating the walls. A lot of the statues were of warriors or creatures fighting each other.

“Welcome to the first wall.” Mac said from behind me. “I don’t think it will pose much of an issue for you, but many climbers end up remaining here for quite a while.”

Burin crossed his arms next to me. “Aye, I heard the same. Many from my guild… Well Ex-guild now, would complain about how long they took on this floor.”

Looking at the many different arenas filled me with some excitement. “Why is that?” I could see the entrance of the closest building and next to it was a wooden sign. Curious about the sign, I started walking over. The others followed behind me.

“Well, each amphitheatre can only be challenged with four or more people for one thing.” Mac said. “The other reason is one of endurance. Climbers until now have been able to easily back out to recover or wait to recoup before moving forwards. Here the only respite is failure. If a team does not learn how to manage their stamina and mana, they will quickly find themselves exhausted and unable to continue.”

Reaching the entrance, I could see that it was barred off with a thick metal portcullis.

Mac placed his hand against one of the thick bars. “Looks like this one is already in use.”

The sign next to the entrance read:

Rabbit Arena.

Rewards: Speed boost equipment.

Tavern Projected

“A rabbit arena?” I laughed. “That is the first roadblock for climbers?”

Mac smiled and pointed to another entrance that had stairs leading upwards. “Want to have a look? Each arena allows others to spectate.”

Following Mac, we headed up the stairs and into the spectator stands surrounding the arena. In the arena were a team of six adventurers positioned around a pedestal in the middle. Attacking the adventurers were a hoard of rabbits like those found on the first floor, only these seemed way more aggressive. The rabbits were launching themselves into the adventurers, using their heads to bash against them. It was quite humorous to see, especially since the adventures seemed to be having a hard time.

“They are completely overrun.” Commented Burin.

One of the adventurers cast a lightning spell that bounced from one rabbit to the next. The spell was effective as it killed off many attacking rabbits.

“Yeah, but the rabbits are not dealing much damage at all. They are more likely to brain themselves if you let them slam against a shield. I kind of feel bad for them.”

“Aye, but they be only tower creatures. Look there.” Burin pointed to the pile of dead rabbits. “They don’t leave corpses behind. They are all just a bunch of animated mana.” Looking at where he was pointing, I could see that the dead creatures were breaking up into motes of light, much like what happened to my conjured items after the duration ended.

“Reigner, can ye summon some of that corn snack?”

Sighing I conjured up some popcorn for Burin and Mac to share.

“Pretty handy to have a conjurer around” Mac said around a mouthful.

“Aye, I have known that since my first day in the tower.” Added Burin.

The adventurers finished off the last of the rabbits and stood around catching their breath.

“Is that it?” I asked. A few minutes had passed, and nothing more happening on the area floor.

“There is a small break between waves, but each wave becomes more difficult.”

Burin stood up and pointed to the edge of the area. “There, look!” I don’t know why he bothered standing, it did not give him an elevated view with his height.

At the edge of the area was a large rabbit, much larger than any of the horde before. It must have been six foot in height. Around the large rabbit, more ordinary sized rabbits appeared and together, rushed the adventurers.

Burin excitedly shoved more popcorn into his mouth as he watched with wide eyes. The massive rabbit charged through the adventurers like they were bowling pins. I could only imagine that it felt like getting hit by a train made of clouds. The rabbit, despite it’s size, just looked so fluffy and adorable. I don’t think I could bring myself to challenge this arena. Hopefully not all of them were rabbit themed.

It did not take long for the large rabbit to cause so much chaos that the party of adventurers were split apart and bombarded with fluffy furballs from all sides. One of the adventurers panicked and ran to the middle of the area to slap their hand against the central pedestal. Once their hand landed on the pedestal all the rabbits dissipated into thousands of motes of mana that soon vanished into the air. It was quite the sight to behold.

Burin laughed, spraying bits of corn on the stone steps in front of us. “Bested by a bunch of rabbits.”

“You could say they did very pawly” Mac commented.

Burin choked on a bit of corn and took a swig of water from a flask before staring at Mac. “What did ye say?”

Clearing his throat, Mac continued. “Team work is important for this floor. If you attempt it with people you don’t know or trust, it adds a whole new layer of difficulty to overcome.”

Looking down, the adventures had split up into smaller separate groups as they made their way to the exit.

Yawning, I stretched out my arms and stood up. “Well, the others won’t be here for another five days.” When I told Sera that I would meet them in a week, I meant seven days. Instead, I found out that a week on Aurni was actually ten days, leaving me with an extra three days to myself. “I might explore this floor a bit. For now though, I think I’ll see if there is a room I can rent in the Two Guys Circle Tavern and have a rest.”

“The two guys what?” Asked Mac.

“Well it’s sign hanging by its door is that of two guys in a circle.”

Mac let out a chuckle. “It’s meant to be an arena. The place is called The Arena, and it’s an Inn, not a Tavern.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A tavern don’t have rooms for sleeping, while an Inn, does.”

“Okay, well I shall go check out the Arena… doesn’t that get confusing here?” I gestured to the arena we were currently sitting in. “Having an Inn called the Arena around many arenas.”

Burin nodded. “Aye, does seem a bit confusing now ye mention it.”

“Hopefully its hospitality is better than its naming sense.”

“Aye. I’ll meet ye there later.” Burin hefted the large pack on his back. “I’ll go back and sell all this and go see to Torva.” He looked to me. “Wait for me before challenging the area. I don’t want to be stuck here.”

Chuckling, I patted the stout dwarf on his shoulder. “Don’t worry friend. I’m not going anywhere.”

Burin looked to Mac. “And what of you, Tower Knight?”

Mac looked to me and said “Reigner has the good fortune to enjoy my company for a number of floors yet.” He did not seem particularly joyful when saying it, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him.

“Well, let’s go see what drinks are to be had in The Arena.” Mac’s eyes lit up like the alcohol obsessed knight he was, and Burin’s face dropped a bit, likely feeling he was missing out.

A thoughtful look came over the dwarf’s face. “Ye know, maybe I could stay for just one ale… or three.”

“How about I come with you to get Torva to the Tower Knights, and then we can both get a drink after?”

“That’s not a good idea” Mac interjected. “There is a reason why we did not ban you from the tower. It’s quite important you remain inside, for a while at least.”

Burin let out a sigh and flashed me a grin. “Don’t worry about it, Reigner. I’ll grab Torva and Till and bring them both to the tower. After that, I’ll come find you.”

Burin started heading back towards the tower and I noticed Mac watching him closely. He glanced at me, noticing me noticing. “I might only stay for a few drinks before assisting the dwarf. I’m worried that Merry might be on duty. She hates climbers. But you need to promise me that you will remain at the Inn until I get back.”

Grinning to him I held out my hand for him to shake. “I promise to stay in The Arena until your return.”

Shaking my hand, he looked at me with suspicion. “Just to clarify, the Inn named The Arena not an arena… Damnit, why do you have to make everything difficult?” He let out a sigh. “Just try not to get in trouble while I’m gone... and absolutely do not kill anyone… Even in self defence”

“Relax. What trouble could I possibly get into in an inn named The Arena next to many arenas?”

“I need a drink.”

Letting out a laugh I slapped him on the back. “Let’s hop to it then!”

Mac tried to hide it, but I saw a smile trying to break through his stony façade. I learned something new about him today and it explained a lot... His sense of humour sucked.