Ambrose was awoken by the sound of furious grumbling from somewhere nearby. He bolted upright, ready to do what he could in a fight but his body protested heavily. His body was in immense pain once more, having exerted his physical body more than ever had made the muscles sore, but also having stressed his soul beyond its limits during his desperate bid for survival left Ambrose with a constant aching throughout his body.
Looking around though he didn’t appear to be in danger, the darkness was still prevalent. Prism’s floating form was still the predominant light source, but the small floating orb still sat above the pond nearby, though its glow had lessened as it lay on the surface of the bloodied water.
At first Ambrose couldn’t see the tree ent at all, it wasn’t in its previous position across the lake. However when he followed the large footprints to his own position his eyes widened as he paid more attention to the solitary tree that was at his back mere feet away, the dirt in its immediate surroundings was displaced, bulging as if something had just been buried beneath it from where it had shifted the dirt to fit its root feet things.
The ominous rumbling echoed through the surroundings once more. Ambrose’s face fell into flat annoyance as he realised its origin, himself. Apparently he had consumed a rather large amount of energy, and his stomach was protesting the working conditions. The bodies of the creatures that had been killed before Ambrose had arrived, as well as the bear and wolfspiders that he had killed had vanished as expected, meaning he would need to hunt once more for food once his dwindled supplies that were waiting in the pile of loot ran out.
“Hey Prism, are things okay now?” He said to the stationary orb, rising to his feet.
A couple seconds passed before the orb responded, an odd pause that Ambrose noted.
“Oh Ambrose, you have awoken. The dungeon is in a somewhat stable state and will remain as such for the next … seven hours of your Perception. Unless of course you attempt to spend your dungeon contribution points.” She responded in her monotone voice but Ambrose couldn’t help but feel she came off nervous somehow. I must just be projecting.
“So what I am hearing is, I won’t have time to recover before I need to fight some stuff again.”
“The dungeon core is able to gain a mana reward if you have any form of breakthrough while in the dungeon, either Character or Skill breakthrough. Though it doesn’t appear that you are prepared to undertake either within the next few weeks, let alone immediately.”
“If I hadn’t needed to burn my Skills I probably could have gotten Running or Perception over the line within a week. But no, murder it is.”
“I will remind you that it is recommended you tackle the fort before the forest.”
“Thanks Prism, that’s the plan. Is there any chance of the sky coming back soon? It is going to be pretty hard to sneak up on a fort worth of the Gabrawls and whatever else is in there when I am carrying the only light in the area.”
“Turning on the basic light system will reduce the overall mana remaining significantly, though it, as well as other basic survival systems, will have to be turned on at your request so please be careful in asking for anything. I can however safely put the sky into night mode, the increase in mana consumption is minimal though so is the light it produces. Assuming immediate activation, the dungeon would still remain stable for approximately five hours barring variable factors such as creatures killing each other, you killing creatures, or you spending dungeon contribution points.”
Ambrose paused at Prism’s final words there, he had picked up that the orb was trying to hint something by bringing up the fort as the intended first area of the dungeon, the valley being a mostly safe zone filled with weak food creatures or non-hostile ones. Now they had brought up him spending some of his DP twice, the first time he had just thought she brought it up to remind him not to do anything stupid like buying something that would collapse the dungeon around them. But Prism wouldn’t mention that twice unless they were trying to get around the dungeon pact rules against assisting people, hinting that he had something he could buy or do with the points to assist their situation.
“Alright well let me get closer to the fort before you change anything.” Ambrose said, only offering Prism a small glance to indicate he had noticed. He wouldn’t take any guesses as to what he needed to say immediately, worried that if some entity was watching they would catch on to their manipulation of the rules and get them or the dungeon in trouble they couldn’t afford right now.
During their brief conversation Ambrose had been stretching, his muscles were sore and stiff from over exertion and ‘sleeping’ on the floor. As he prepared to leave he needed to know where he was sitting after burning his Skills, knowing that in his current state it was likely that he would need to lean on the Ability once more in order to fight anything. He was concerned with what would happen if any of the Skills happened to hit zero.
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BE AWARE OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE DAMAGED YOUR SKILLS
* Your Small Blades Skill has decreased in level: 11 -> 1
* Your Stealth Skill has decreased in level: 13 -> 4
* Your Dodging Skill has decreased in level: 4 -> 2
Note, Skill knowledge has not decreased, Skill experience needed to increase in level remains the same.
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Even using the Ability at such a low level had caused massive damage to Ambrose’s Skills, lowering multiple to a critically low point and eliminating the Ability as an option until he could raise the Skills back up to a more solid level.
“Alright so that’s out. Prism if we get through this can you please remind me to focus on my Character, I need to get a better control over how it functions.” He said looking towards the orb who merely pulsed in response.
So it looks like boosting myself uses thresholds of damage or something, so using it at a low level did about ten damage to all the Skills used to build my Character except the ones I was actively using at the point, which probably just means that I gained at least ten levels in each Skill, not that they didn’t decrease. Then I must have gained a level of Stealth for tricking and hiding from the bear. That then means common Skills get one hp per level, uncommon get five, Madness still hasn’t decreased so it gets at least eleven but it's more likely to be twenty five if it follows a basic formula.
As he thought over how his boosting Ability functioned, the more obvious the impact level breakthroughs could have, if the Ability was made of all rare rarity Skills he could boost for a couple hours at a low level with no punishment, though he didn’t have enough information to judge the recovery time. The overall effect had kept him going for around an hour while he was out of energy, allowing him to frequently swing the heavy weapon he wielded, though it was certainly easier to do now that his Skill level had to be higher this still was a huge boost. If that was the power that could be gained from a Character at the first breakthrough with only a single rare Skill as part of its structure, and with all low level Skills at that, Ambrose could only imagine how powerful the effects or Abilities one could gain from more powerful breakthroughs, glad that whatever magical effect they granted wasn't blocked by his Mundane limitations.
Ambrose felt that the fact that he had brought his Character and possibly his entire soul to the point of collapse by burning his Small Blades Skill to level one was the cause for the internal pains he was feeling. If he got his Skills to a higher and more stable level, he should be able to use the boosting Skill regularly with little cost beyond the Skill levels themselves. He did need to be careful how many he burned, unsure if evolving Skills maintained the amount of experience needed to gain levels from the previous version, or if had a set base amount it would revert to. If it was the former using the Skill was extremely dangerous, permanently increasing the difficulty of levelling what were meant to be his core Skills was a sure fire way to cripple any growth. If it was the later however, loosing levels in the common Skills wouldn't be problematic, if he intended to he could get around it by skipping evolution and just grabbing more advanced Skills to replace the ones he ruined once he could breakthrough again. The effects of most of the Skills wasn't even affected by the lowered levels as they mostly granted knowledge, something that specifically wasn't reduced. Either way, Ambrose would need to experiment down the line.
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Ambrose knew he needed to leave but his curiosity wouldn’t let him, using the seemingly free opportunity to Assess a pair of dungeon creatures.
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Dungeonese Tree Ent (Dungeon), Comparable Level
Tree Ents are the guardians of the natural order, protecting the environment they live in. As a tree ent born to a dungeon, their job is to protect the dungeon itself from problematic adventurers and to assist the distribution of mana throughout the area.
* Strength of Body: Higher
* Speed of Body: Lesser
* Strength of Mind: Lesser
* Speed of Mind: Lesser
* Strength of Soul: Higher
* Speed of Soul: Comparable
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“Well that explains why you didn’t squish me into fertiliser, thanks for the assist big guy.” Ambrose said, nodding to the tree ent, unsure of where the creature's face was in its more disguised form. He then turned to the other orb around their little pond and attempted to Assess it as well. Ambrose gazed at what he believed to be a small creature and found himself somewhat entranced by it again. He could feel his emotional damage resistance fighting against the creature, stopping it from increasing his curiosity further. Emotional damage resistance did nothing for the other effect that Ambrose was suffering from, as thoughts of getting closer to the creature wormed their way inside his head.
He stepped forward, feet squelching in the soaked mud, quickly turning to sloshing as his feet stepped into the lake, its waters still darkened with blood. The cold of the water stung, drawing his attention away from his thoughts just slightly, enough that he could question why he was wasting time wading out into the pond to get a close look at the creature while the background anxiety of the timer still hanging over their collective lives ticking down filled his emotions. Without curiosity overwhelming him, Ambrose was able to trigger his Detect False Truth and Remove False Truth Abilities to fix the false thoughts, cutting off the compulsion.
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Dungeonese Desire Wisp (Dungeon), Lesser Level
Desire wisps draw in creatures by manipulating their emotions and their mind, they then form a symbiotic relationship with another creature. The creatures are drawn towards the partner where they will score a fatal blow against the prey before retreating, the hope is that the prey will exert mana to try and survive, the wisp then feeds on the increase in ambient mana while its partner feeds on the victim.
* Strength of Body: Lesser
* Speed of Body: Lesser
* Strength of Mind: Lesser
* Speed of Mind: Lesser
* Strength of Soul: Higher
* Speed of Soul: Lesser
Ethereal: This creature is formed from mana.
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“You sneaky bugger.” Ambrose swore at the wisp as he jumped back out of the water. There were no signs of any partner creature or movement within the waters, likely having been killed during the ruckus caused by the sky going out, but one couldn't be too careful.
Ignoring the non-hostile creatures, Ambrose began to head towards the clearing where all his stuff had been dropped, clearing out the pair of Skill notification glass panes that were waiting for him as he walked.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE NURTURED YOUR SKILLS
* Your Assessing Skill has increased in level: 10 -> 11
* Your Cruelty Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 2
* Your Item As Weapons Skill has increased in level: 6 -> 10
* Your Large Bludgeons Skill has increased in level: 2 -> 10
* Your Madness Skill has increased in level: 3 -> 5
* Your Observation Skill has increased in level: 5 -> 7
* Your Speech Skill has increased in level: 7 -> 11
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED A SKILL
You have gained the skill Slapstick Trickery at Level 1 (Rare): Make your enemies work against themselves, make them trigger traps, hit each other, or otherwise suffer as they fall for your tricks.
* Enemies are more likely to damage themselves when falling for one of your tricks.
* Enemies take increased damage when falling for one of your tricks.
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Nothing was out of the ordinary or even particularly interesting. The new Skill was certainly going to be helpful but like many of Ambrose’s other Skills would require more Skills to be at a higher level to be of any real use. Have enemies fall for traps? You need to have traps. Getting enemies to hit each other was also not something that could easily be achieved either, his melee combat and dodging Skills weren’t strong enough to pull it off without blinding one first. Reflecting as he walked, this opinion changed as he stretched his definition of a trick.
Thinking it over Ambrose was actually somewhat shocked he hadn’t gotten the Skill earlier. If you went with making enemies working against each other aspect the description mentioned and stretched it to themselves, Ambrose used tricks in almost every fight. Against the Loobin group he had used the body of one as a meat shield and to trap the tongue of another. Against the Dungeonese Sheep he had technically tricked it into hurting itself. Then against the Ousted King and the Tongue Punisher his use of Speech to make them angry and less thinky likely counted too. Suddenly Ambrose found himself ecstatic with his new Skill, the perfect damage boost to put into his Character during his next breakthrough.
As various plans for how to build himself to make the best of his new rare Skill as well as his others filtered through his mind, Ambrose wandered out of the forest, grabbed a couple more of his things, and headed down the valley towards the fort as he snacked on his minimal food supplies of mystery rations and the now many years old packed meals he had been left by Mariella, rejuvenated by the dungeon after many years of non-existence. Though the future was a topic for another time, only giving himself a couple minutes of happy daydreaming about becoming some overpowered monstrosity who could kick Mundane's ass, before switching back to the mental task at hand. What the hell did Prism want him to buy?
Their previous conversations replayed in his mind. Dungeon contribution points were given to Residents of the dungeon for its growth, a split they earned from the additional mana they generated from basically any action. These points were physical coins usually kept safe by the dungeon and were essentially just mana the dungeon reserved… Of course! If the dungeon had to give me back all my stuff that includes the DP, Prism is just telling me to spend them so that the dungeon gets that mana back.
“Prism I don’t know how many DP I have but I would like to spend them, I require something extremely important that I am sure is extremely intensive and likely expensive.”
“Ambrose I..” Prism said, trying to stop Ambrose from buying something that would collapse space around them.
“I want to purchase compliments. That's it, you just have to give me compliments. I want to spend all my points on this. No other conditions or rules.” Ambrose responded by talking over the orb, a smile on his face.
Prism paused, whatever intelligence was powering his companion was indeed overloaded, attempting to process the oddity that was the Sponsored of Mundane.
“Ambrose, you are… unique. Despite the chaos you have caused you have shown great intelligence in how you have fought various creatures, all who stood above you in power. You have shown great aptitude for crafting. You… ”
“Thank you Prism, I think you can save any more for another time, spread them out ya know.” Ambrose joked at the orb as they clearly sputtered to find things to compliment him on. “I think it's probably time to turn the night lights on anyway.” He said, pointing to the sky. The pair had travelled for over an hour by the time he had actually worked out what Prism had wanted. He may have spent more than a couple minutes fantasising.
Small patches of starlight began to fill the dungeon as small sections of the sky lit up with the blue light of small stars. The fort was still several minutes away, small torches could be seen on the large wooden structure that sprawled out over the bottom of the valley. Despite the fact that this was meant to be a downgrade from the castle that had existed in previous iterations of the dungeon, the fort was larger than most of the castles Ambrose had seen back home. A sprawling mess of wooden framing, walls, and palisades could faintly be seen in the distance, stretching outwards and upwards, becoming as large as a small city block. It only made sense when one considered that the castle had originally taken up the whole level.
No longer forced to rely on Prism for light, Ambrose hid the orb away in one of the side bags he had recovered from the loot pile. The fort was likely aware of something heading towards them at this point, but at least this way Ambrose would be able to sneak up without giving away his exact location. Based on the hints Prism had given him and the fact that they had access to his sheet, Ambrose was pretty confident in what he was looking for. In his current condition he wouldn’t be able to do more than a couple swings before collapsing from the pain it would cause, something that Prism had to know, they would also know about his inability to use his boost any more. That meant that there was a single fight or opportunity that could pull the dungeon back from the brink for a good while. Ambrose was looking for another miniboss.