Chapter 163 – Mistakes
Letting Cumberlin live was a mistake. After their last exchange, Jack hadn’t seen the gnome for months. He thought he had won and was finally done with the Black Centipede, at least while on the second floor.
Then Jack earned himself a golf ball sized hole through his shoulder as an unseen attack ripped through his body. To top it off, whatever had hit him was extremely poisonous. That was Cumberlin’s first assassination attempt.
Cumberlin had been underestimating him before, but now he was taking Jack very seriously. He was starting to accept the fact that the only reason he beat him last time is because Cumberlin truly did not expect him to recover his mana. The little gnomish assassin was a master of his craft, and was very good at striking at Jack when he least expected it.
The second time Jack was a little more prepared for it, but still lost a leg in the process. The third time the little shit blew up his seventh favorite bar during karaoke night. The moral of the story was that Jack had underestimated the gnome. Cumberlin was taking his job seriously now, as were the assassins that were being sent after him. In fact, this was his most difficult fight with them yet, despite the fact he still came out heavily on top.
This was the first time Jack had seen Cumberlin’s face, he couldn’t help but be on edge.
“So…” Jack ventured, “You admit defeat. The fuck is that supposed to mean?” He threw another glance at the large Panther still stalking towards him who didn’t look like they were ready to give up at all.
“It means I have orders from the Black Centipede to quit wasting resources on you. You’ve won. You’ve outlasted his patience. He requests you complete your given task and move on to the next floor. No more interference,” Cumberlin said, the words cut and dry as though he didn’t really believe them himself. “Nasha, return immediately. You’re done here as well,” he finished with a look at the panther.
Jack watched the panther shift in the shadows, and as they fell into the shape of what looked like a woman. Onyx fur, deep orange eyes, clawed hands, clawed feet, and a cat-like face. A Clawsworn. Her ears were pinned down, as though she was disappointed with the decision.
“I have a friend who would loooove to meet you,” Jack tried, earning him a slight hiss as Nasha melded back into the shadows and disappeared completely. Jack searched but could find no trace of her mana signatures. Impressive.
“She is quite talented. It would have been disappointing to watch you kill her as well.” Cumberlins centipede strode forward, and the gnome glanced down at Jack’s handy work. Jack on the other hand lunged backwards, still not sure what Cumberlins game was, but keeping distance felt like the right play.
“So what. You send assassins after me for months on end, you even personally make several attempts at my life, and what, that’s it? I just show up to the Hall of the Black Centipede and collect my reward? There is no way there aren’t assholes up there who hold a grudge against me.”
“Not before you complete your task on this floor. I’ve been informed you are to complete the secret quest, no? You’ve already secured the city, what is the hold up? Don’t tell me you can’t beat Mortimaxx?”
“Could you?” Jack countered. If there was one thing he had learned while training under the Lich, it’s that danger level six Mortimaxx was not to be fucked with. Even with Jack’s absurd abilities. He was, of course, looking forward to their inevitable fight, but it was going to be a bloodbath through and through. Mortimaxx wasn’t only strong, but he had excessively deep wells of experience to pull from, and experience always was the great equalizer.
Cumberlin waved the question away, “I’m just the messenger. He’s also not the only one requesting your presence. Victor would also like to meet you.”
Jack stared at him blankly. “Victor sounds like a neat guy, but I’ll have to pass.”
“Victor, is the current head of the Black Centipede, I would advise you-“
“Tell them they’ll see me when they see me. Obsession is an unattractive quality,” Jack said, cutting Cumberlin off.
“Still as flippant as ever… A word of advice, control yourself when you do finally meet Victor. Mindalia was capable of restraint. Victor is not. You would also be advised to make haste off of this floor… things are headed your way that will make completing your task much more difficult if you don’t hurry.”
“Whatever happened to her? Wait. What things are coming my way?” Jack asked, but as the questions left his mouth Cumberlin had already disappeared into the shadows, which was an impressive feat considering how he had been staring directly at the gnome.
Jack chewed on his lip, scanning his surroundings for more lurking assassins or a trap of some sort while he thought about his next moves. The name Victor did ring a few bells though. He was the guy who ended up with the legendary race upgrade potion. A mountain of bodies was all that remained after he killed everyone to get it. Supposedly he was a Fairy or something along those lines. All of this new information just made Jack resolve to move the Hall of the Black Centipede further down on the places he planned to visit next. Maybe they’ll just forget I exist. Surely they won’t send anyone else after me if I just hit em with the Irish goodbye, Jack mused.
“Speaking of Black Centipedes… Wiggle, you hungry?” Jack asked aloud. His armor sort of melted and faded away into the shadows, leaving a centipede wrapped around his body. It was absolutely disgusting, but she was becoming incredibly useful so he couldn’t complain overly much. Wiggleworm crawled around his body, peeling her head off to shake her head excitedly at Jack. He glanced into his core and sighted on a three-fold mana drop.
A function of his core and the [Mana Condenser] module was keeping his mana drops nice and compact while inside his core. When he used his abilities or pulled the drops out of his core they would “come undone” so to speak and flood his channels, pumping through the amount of mana the drop represented. With some concentration, he could keep the mana drops from losing their form as he pulled it from his core, at least the tiny ones. Carefully, he pulled the drop of mana from his core and guided it through his channels. It felt like a spiritual kidney stone, or like trying to shove a marble through a straw. Generally very unpleasant. Slowle, a condensed ball of lightning mana appeared floating just above his palm. The little glutton bit straight into it, swallowing the drop entirely. She began to spasm as lightning ripped through her body. She let go of Jack and fell to the ground flailing about wildly.
Apparently, Wiggleworm was his familiar or something. In addition to her penchant for eating all things useful, they also could utilize some of their master’s mana to grow stronger and recover faster.
Familiars did have mana wells of their own but feeding her his own mana sped things up a fair bit. He wouldn’t be able to use her for another fight until she replenished her wells. The problem was Jack’s mana was all messed up, and even a three-fold drop was too much for the centipede to endure. Still, she took it like a champ. Sort of. Jack raised a half-concerned eyebrow as he watched the centipede convulsing and flailing back and forth on the ground, trying to absorb his mana. She hadn’t died from it yet at least.
While Wiggle dealt with his mana drop, Jack popped open his stat screen.
Statistics / Quests / Tower Store / Achievements / Blessings
Name: Jack Atlas
Race: Human Ascendent [Rare] [+4 SP per level]
Floor: 2nd Floor
Level: 20
Class: Storm King’s Executioner [Epic] [+5 Str, +3 End, +3 Vit, +3 Dex per level]
Core Type: Omni Core Mk. I [Epic]
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Stats —
Strength: 65 - [Adept - High]
Endurance: 38 - [Adept - High]
Vitality: 39 - [Adept - High]
Dexterity: 121 – [Journeyman - Intermediate]
Focus: 35- [Adept - High]
Willpower: 53 - [Adept - High]
Free Skill Points: 0
Achievement Points [AP]: 27,950,565
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Abilities [5/8] —
Lightning Centipede’s Bite [Uncommon, Apprentice - High]
Storm Step [Rare, Apprentice - High]
Lightning Engine [Legendary Epic, Journeyman - Low]
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Chain Lightning [Rare, Apprentice – Low]
Bolt of Judgement [Epic, Novice – Low]
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Passives —
Multiverse Common Tongue [Non-Upgradable]
Storm Stance of the Lightning Executioner [Rare, Journeyman - Low]
Sneak [Uncommon, Novice-Low]
Mana Channels of the Transcendent Berserker [Epic]
Throwing Weapons [Common, Adept – High]
Lightning Brand [Epic]
Mana Sense [Rare, Adept – High]
He had hit level twenty during the process of taking over the city. Progress had sort of stalled since then, but he wasn’t questing overly much, nor was there anything that really posed a genuine threat to him, outside of the occasional assassination attempt.
Thanks to the fact he could now generate three-fold mana drops rather quickly, the frequency at which he could use his abilities had risen dramatically which in turn allowed him to improve his mastery over his abilities somewhat.
Unfortunately, masteries for his abilities were sort of a dead stat. At least until he could push them to hire levels. At the low levels of novice, journeyman, and adept, mastery improvement primarily improved the mana efficiency of abilities. Since Jack was using mana drops, it kind of made it a moot point for him. Still though, some did bear subtle changes. For instance, with Storm Step, he gained far greater directional control, meaning he could pull the ability off in tight spaces.
His greatest mastery improvement had been in his Willpower stat, which was large in part due to his training with Mortimaxx. The lich barely ever focused on combat training, instead helping Jack figure out all the different ways he could use mana. With improvement in his Willpower mastery came greater control of the mana inside his core, as well as the ability to pull in mana faster. The stat itself was a bit of a general stat, the points helping out a little bit of everything from gradually increasing the size of your core, making your mana more efficient, helping you draw in mana faster, as well as improving your control. The fifty points he had earned from his achievement were actually paying off rather heavily, and for once he wasn’t completely annoyed with the Tower.
A message popped up, pulling him from his thoughts.
[You have one new message]
Jack pulled open the city interface, scanning through it to the messages section
Hannah: Meeting with everyone. ASAP.
“Wiggle, let's go.” Jack threw a glance at the still convulsing centipede and sighed. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She melded back into a tattoo, but was clearly still in the process of digesting the mana drop. Jack could feel her writhing around on his skin and it was really fucking gross. It felt sort of like someone dragging a wet sock all over his body. Jack took one tentative step off the wall, sighting in on the suck below, and let himself fall.
The sector itself hadn’t overly changed much. It had gone through some slight quality of life upgrades, magical lighting and whatnot for the main roads, but outside of that it was still a rundown shithole. It was as though dozens of apartment buildings ranging from two to three stories had all been jam packed together. Like someone had built a toy city on a table and then nudged that table, knocking it all sideways and slanted. The layout was a jumbled mess.
The streets were wide enough, but the alleyways were dark and narrow, and you found yourself walking down them to avoid packs of zombies. Sticking to the roofs wasn’t much better, that was ghoul territory. At danger level six the zombies could sprint and were intermixed with several different variants of greater zombies. They had a degree of intelligence and could control their lesser versions. The ghouls stayed ghouls, just got a little bigger, a little grosser, and their claws became poisonous.
The real change to the sector would have to be the people within it. Despite the fact the city was in danger level six, they had come prepared for it this time. As Jack parkoured his way through the sector, the world's shittiest spiderman, he stopped occasionally to break up a group of zombies chasing after some climbers. They were usually either human, or summer elves. Occasionally there were some orcs, but beyond those three there was little diversity. It was no small secret that humans were more or less in control of this floor now, but that was an issue for bigger and better minds than his.
As Jack approached the sanctuary, the number of questers grew exponentially, until it was hard to not spot them. Devin had a pretty iron clad rule that you had to venture out in groups of a minimum of four if you wanted to quest in his sector. Jack got the occasional wave, or wide berth from people who recognized him. He approached a walled off section and turned left, following the wall until he reached a heavily guarded portcullis.
“Devin back?” he asked the guards.
“Who the fuck are you?” a younger looking guard asked, posting up with his halberd. He was yanked back by a rather burly looking guard and tossed to the ground, earning several laughs from the other guards.
“Sorry about him. The new recruits are pretty overzealous.”
Jack nodded, glancing at the kid who went wide eyed and pale as the words “Lightning Centipede” were mentioned in hushed whispers.
“No,” Jack corrected. “I go by Lord Thundercock actually.”
The group gave him several blank stares.
“Sorry, Lord… Thunder…cock?” one of the guards ventured.
Jack narrowed his eyes, cringing slightly. “Ya know what. Scratch that. It’s weird. Maybe call me Lightning McQueen. Or Death-Bolt the Destroyer. I dunno. I’m still workshopping names, just not the Lighning Centipede” he finished with a shrug.
He didn’t much like being called the lightning centipede, and despite his best efforts, the name was sticking.
“So, Devin, is he inside? Gonna have to steal him away for a bit.” Jack continued, changing the subject.
“Just got back,” the burly guard said, then made a motion to raise the portcullis gridiron. At the same time the guards fell into formation outside the gate. There wasn’t much in the way of zombie or ghoul presence thanks to rangers and mages atop the wall keeping things clear, but Jack could appreciate their steadfastness. These were the types of soldiers Devin had been training.
Inside the walls of the sanctuary was a night and day difference. Green grass, cobblestone paths. A market square with vendor stalls set up for trading. Several buildings ranging from weapons, to armor, to medical and general supplies. At the center of it all though was a large wooden lodge with a chimney churning out smoke. Behind that you could find a barracks that almost towered over the already impressive lodge. There were also quest boards everywhere with at least half a dozen climbers picking out their quests.
There were some requirements on things each Councilor had to spend their city points on, mandates determined by Cristopher, Hannah's genius boyfriend. The first of which was a well defended sanctuary where people could get a moment's reprieve and get some quests.
Jack meandered through the stalls for a brief moment, taking a look at the wares. There was little of actual value to be found out there in the sector so the equipment people were trading was… not great. Most of the swords and armor rang in at uncommon. What really sold was zombie and ghoul parts. Eyeballs, tongues, fingers, and claws could be found at almost every stand. What people were using them on Jack had no idea, but it made up the bulk of the market, and seemed to be selling well.
Jack turned, making his way towards the lodge, waltzing up the steps and stopping at the door. There was a large window to either side which he peered through in search of Devin.
Inside the lodge were several large tables to relax and eat at. A full-service kitchen and bar. Rooms to rent out. Places to have meetings and recruit party members. Jack spotted Devin in a suit of impressive shining silver armor; helmet tucked under his arm.
Jack wanted to go inside, but had been summarily banned from the premises after a round of ‘Drunken Zombie Jousting’ which was complete and utter bullshit because everyone was having a blast.
Jack knocked loudly on the window, and Devin turned around, holding up his hand to signal he was going to be a minute.
So Jack knocked louder, and faster, even running his nails across the window to create that annoying screeching sound until the group relocated their meeting to the front steps of the lodge.
“Jack,” Devin said, a slight nod. His tone already slightly annoyed.
Jack took a moment to inspect Devin. He was roughly the same size and had become annoyingly handsome when he secured his race upgrade to rare. He had a square jaw and windswept blonde hair. He wore an impressive suit of polished silver armor that fit him like a glove. He moved naturally, almost gracefully in the heavy looking plate.
“We’ve been summoned. I thought we could go together, since I was already here and all, ya know, making sure we didn’t get eaten by cannibal locusts,” Jack said more to the group who all seemed less than impressed. Specifically, two individuals.
First was Natalie. She was a refined woman. Tall, severe features, brown hair pulled back into a tail. She wore a deep green mage's robe belted at the waist and had a staff that bent into a spiral at the top. She had been a banker in her past life and had a perpetual stick up her ass. She was the one who banned Jack from the lodge, and he took it very personally.
She represented Cristopher's second requirement for the city Councilors. They had to train a number two who could be relied upon to handle the sector when a sector councilor stepped out for meetings and the like. They would also be expected to take over when we eventually moved on to the next floor. Natalie glared at Jack with pure disdain, and Jack rubbed at his eye with his middle finger.
The second individual was the seven-foot ghost that hovered behind Devin.
It wasn’t actually a ghost. But an arbiter. When Jack had first arrived on the floor there had been a peculiar dwarf arbiter that he ended up killing with the reluctant help of Elera. Since then, every arbiter he had run into had been rather cookie cutter. Typically they were some type of vampire. The dwarf arbiter he had run into had been the personally built arbiter of the Twilight Lord who controlled the second sector of the city at the time. Another perk of being a city councilor was you could build your own arbiter and upgrade them.
That was the third requirement of Cristopher. Each councilor needed to have a fully upgraded arbiter that could be relied on to further protect both the councilor and the sanctuary they built. Devin's arbiter was called Kill, largely because that was the only word it seemed to know.
The arbiter wasn’t actually a ghost. Kill just wore a thick, gray tattered sheet that draped over their head and kind of floated around like a ghost. Beneath the sheet was more of a hellish sword wielding marionette situation. He wasn’t actually sure what the hell kind of nightmare Build-a-Bear Devin had created, but it did not appreciate it when Jack tried to take a peek under the sheet. Kill had about as much disdain for Jack as Natalie did.
“Yes, I got the message,” Devin said. “I was just informing them I would be out for several hours. This meeting is going to be a long one.”
“Oh god,” he groaned, turning to walk down the steps with Devin. “Hours? Think I can send a proxy? I’m supposed to meet some guys for a pickup game of basketball in a bit, so I don’t know if I can make it,” Jack lied.
“You should be happy. I heard Chris is going to make a pretty big announcement. Might finally get to move on from this floor.”
Jack had mixed feelings about that. He had wanted to leave for a while now, but things had become admittedly complicated, and it wasn’t going to be a simple exit from the floor this time. Although he was the only one who knew that.
The two men came to a stop in the barracks, facing a small, rounded stone platform polished to a marble finish. This was another one of Cristopher's requirements, and by far the most expensive of them all. It was a mini-waypoint of sorts. You couldn’t go to other floors with it, but it did allow you to teleport to other waypoints within the city.
There was the underground causeway, which was fast, but instant teleportation throughout the sectors was invaluable. It was why Jack was so well known in the city. Several strategically placed waypoints in each sector of the city allowed him to show up and shit on every singular threat. That was his role in all of this. Each member of the Bad Assassins had been appointed a city councilor seat, with Jack as the leader who would eventually challenge Mortimaxx for control over the city. In the meantime, though, they were working alongside Mortimaxx and even training under him.
Jack hesitated slightly before stepping onto the waypoint and teleporting to the Cathedral at the city's center. Things were about to get complicated.