33. Furiously Eating a Cookie

I stared blankly between the cookie in my left hand and the necklace in my right, bright blue light fading slowly. The flat brown cookie mocked me with a message in clumsily-written red frosting: “Oops. I-O-U.”

“I… But… Mythic…” I mumbled dazedly. My item went from [Mythic] to a cookie. A COOKIE?! How in the FUCK was that fair? It could have at least given me a spirit companion, like a sarcastic genie in a jumpsuit, or at the very least a sassy goose. Sure, the necklace was a rare item… But rare wasn’t [Mythic], not even close. Rare wasn’t even cool enough to have extra [punctuation]. It was bullshit. And what was that about Council restrictions? If those god damn gnomes at the top think they can… Ok, obviously they can, because they did. But if they thought that they…

Holy shit. Holy veiny, throbbing Tower shit fuck. Gnomes managed the Tower. They MANAGED the Tower. I thought that just meant they sat atop it and protected it. If this so-called Council had the power to restrict what loot did and didn’t spawn, why couldn’t they regulate what monsters spawned? Or… Or even how many humans spawned? I thought, like many others, that the lack of children in the Slums was because of the lack of mana available on the floor. And I’ve always thought that the mana density was low because there were too many people and monsters soaking it all up. But, what if the mana density was purposefully low, to force the population to stagnate? Could they really regulate how much mana was funneled into the Slums? If so, they could pretty much just flip a switch and stop people from reproducing… Were the Slums dying because of something as mundane as a line in a budget?

Save the Tower, climb the floors. Save the Tower, climb the floors. Save the Tower, clear the floors… The people higher up in the Tower can’t help, they’ll get sick from the lack of ambient mana, they said. Just clear the slimes… Just clear the way. Just fend for yourselves. Just slowly die out. Why did slimes still spawn, then? If the goal was to reduce the mana spent, couldn’t they just stop spawning monsters?

Focusing, I unsummoned Slimey and waited for my mana top off to summon Sunder. She was the only one that I knew of that might have the answers that I was looking for. It would drain my entire mana pool, but it would work. The more I experimented, the more I grew to understand my mana and its properties. It turns out that I had a pretty shallow mana pool, but it regenerated quickly enough that I could summon Slimey and keep him up for a long while since keeping a slime summoned didn’t require much effort. On the contrary, Sunder took all of my mana and more. Summoning my demon drained my mana pool in one shot, taxing my mana network, but also taking some of my body’s own energy and vitality reserves to supplement for the missing total mana required. Then, to make matters worse, her mana upkeep was substantially higher than Slimey’s, forcing me to constantly be in an almost mana-starved state as I kept her summoned. Sure, my mana increased bit by bit, but the toll that it took on my body kept me from keeping her summoned for too long. I recovered naturally, but it made summoning anything afterwards (namely Slimey) so much more difficult due to both the physical and the mental exhaustion. It was getting easier to cope with, both because I was getting used to the sensation and because my almost constant mana use was increasing the size of my mana pool. One day, I’d reach the point that Sunder would be trivial to summon. I wondered if I could summon both Sunder and Slimey at once, if I had the mana for it.

I bitterly munched on the crumbly cookie as I waited for my mana to cap out. Once I had completely eaten the sweet, a prompt bloomed in my vision.

[https://i.imgur.com/eqsDYJf.png]

Reparatory protocols initiated

Théo - you have been unfairly penalized due to factors outside of your control. As recompense, your future class upgrade prompts have been simplified. Read them carefully.

I held my breath, hoping for a second prompt to offer me some class or skill upgrade options. An increase in total mana? A book from my long lost brother that gave me instructions on how to clear each floor? A ring that conveniently rewound time after my death to right after I obtained my class, giving me the opportunity to use my knowledge of the past to rocket up the Tower? No? Was it too much to ask for more than just a slightly more elaborated line of text?

I threw off my blanket and stormed out of my room, the king’s property agent’s necklace or whatever in hand. I quickly doubled back, grabbed my shield, then stomped off again. I climbed a set of stairs leading out of the base, looking around at the other stone towers. Empty. I busied myself by watching the slimes fail at climbing over the defenses and by checking our slime traps, now monitored by one of Pyro’s brothers.

“Sup, TG?”

“Théo!” TG said, waving at me before striking a heroic pose with his hands on his hips. “I have been valiantly watching these slimes.”

“Any of them get through?”

“Not a single slime has dared show its face. They must sense my presence!” He puffed out his chest just a little more.

I always wondered how TG ended up so different from the brash Pyro and the bashful Hero. He was clean shaven, darker skinned and built like his namesake. Well, if there were Tower Gods that were broad-chested and muscular and not just shrimpy, nerdy gnomes who spent more time reading ledgers than working out. I found it hard not to like the guy, though his confidence definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. He had always done his best to project an air of heroism, working hard and training every day even though he had only recently received his class.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Any good loot?” I asked, reaching up and clapping him amicably on the shoulder.

“The best loot, a haul worthy of a legendary quest! I have looted foodstuffs, clothing, great weapons and wealth!” Indeed, he had a larger pile than Jean had been guarding the last time I checked in. There was even a wooden spear leaning against the wall.

“Nice, man!” I exclaimed. “A few more rows of these and we’ll be swimming in loot.” I smiled, dreaming about piles and piles of copper coins, puffy white shirts and pink drumsticks. We talked for a little while before I checked back above ground. I finally found what I was waiting for.

“Thwain!” I called out as my friend was extending his wings, readying to take off from a few towers over. He leapt, but instead of flying away, he flew towards me, landing gracefully and dismissing his midnight black wings.

“What’s up, duder?”

“I’m summoning Sunder. Got a minute?”

Thwain shuddered a bit, but nodded. “It’ll probably take more out of me than a few minutes, but I’ve got plenty of time, I guess.”

We exchanged pleasantries, Thwain sharing that more people were using the portal from the Slums and that nobody was using the mystery portal. He still hadn’t found any others. I updated him on the slime trap progress and my cookie fiasco, then summoned Sunder. She gleefully drained Thwain, letting him pelt the mob of slimes below to heal up between… Extractions… I also had Sunder hold my shield while I punched and kicked it (the shield, not the demon), hoping that it charged soon.

I repeated my recounting of the last 24 hours to Sunder while she worked on strengthening herself at Thwain’s expense. I showed them both my new necklace, but neither of them had anything other than speculations as to what it did.

“So, Sunder. If the Council can (probably) stop the monsters from spawning, why are slimes spawning almost immediately as they die?”

She spent a moment greedily drinking in Thwain’s life essence before stepping back and replying. “Mana return. We all generate mana, some more slowly than others. From slimes to behemoths, every living creature in the Tower inherently generates mana.” She paused as Thwain unloaded his pistol into the slimes below, rivers of red doing their best to perk him back up. Before she could continue, I raced down into the base and to the storage area, snagging two slime pots, then rushing back up the stairs.

“Ok! Sorry. Slimes generate mana?”

She nodded. “Exactly. As soon as a slime is spawned, it begins generating its own mana. When you kill a slime, you’re not only dissipating the entirety of the slime’s built up mana, but you’re also venting mana from the use of any of your skills.”

I punched my shield faster as I grew more frustrated. “So, you’re saying that the Council might have, what? Increased the spawn rate of slimes?”

Sunder nodded again, bracing herself slightly behind my shield. “There are two factors, from what I’ve observed. One: the floor is oversaturated with slimes. They physically cannot spawn until slimes are killed or more space is made. This means that there is most probably a backlog of unmaterialized slimes just waiting to be spawned in. “Number two,” she said, raising two fingers on the hand that wasn’t gripping the shield. “The rate at which slimes spawn in was most likely boosted, both in order to help clear the backlog and to maintain a steady chokehold on this floor. There does not seem to be more than a second or two between the death of a slime and the spawning of its replacement. This is highly irregular, even if there’s a backlog.”

I cursed and redoubled my violence towards my own shield. It helped calm me considerably, though I almost felt bad for Sunder. She was draining power directly from Thwain, which helped hold back my pity. When my shield glowed green, I waited for Thwain to be drained once more, then flipped the shield backwards and sent a pulse of green energy through me and into my friend. A certain amount of bone weariness that I was feeling went away. Thwain slouched a little less, as well, but he wasn’t looking so hot. I brought out both slime pots, handing him one before consuming one myself. It was like taking a nap, followed by downing a strong cup of coffee, plus the clearing of a slew of mental clouds. I felt as if my eyelids shed a few pounds, as well.

“If there’s a backlog of slimes and an increased spawn rate, what do we do? Do we just give up on this floor?” I was beginning to feel my rock hard shaft of hope for a better future grow a little limper as we discussed the floor and our odds at changing anything.

Sunder shook her head. “No. Killing slimes essentially generates mana for everyone around you. Any mana spent on keeping the slimes alive is released back to the Tower. The Tower itself takes a portion, the floor takes a portion, you take a slice, increasing your class, your skills and/or your stats, and a small amount trickles downwards to the next floor.”

“So, the slimes generate a net gain in mana, and the Tower uses that mana to spawn more slimes,” I recapped.

“That, and to reward the Council for their diligent work in keeping the Tower up and running. Either way, you’re helping multiple areas at once, just by killing slimes.”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s worth it when you put it like that. The Tower is suffering because we can’t keep up with its demand. If we could, it would be thriving right now, I bet.”

Thwain shot a few more slimes, then downed a slime pot. Instantly, his eyes grew much brighter and his slouch disappeared along with the bags under his eyes. I felt bad for him, so I had Sunder stop draining him. Instead, we hurried into the base, getting Sunder to drain everyone we passed. She took a hardly noticeable drop from each person, not even enough to prod them into taking a nap. Still, every drop counted, at this point, especially if killing slimes wasn’t going to raise her soul strength and we were lacking enemies to massacre at the moment. Well, on the first floor. We hurried along until we had found everyone except for TG. I didn’t want to diminish his attention span while he was keeping the base safe. We also never found Pyro, but he was off, digging his hole to the south-east.

My mana pool had risen to a fraction of its total by the time my network of mana veins couldn’t take it anymore. The strain of keeping Sunder active was just too much for prolonged use. After everyone had donated a little health, I dismissed her and slipped on my new necklace. It was time to figure out what it did.