Steel glittered under foreign stars, stretching endlessly in every direction. Here and there silver domes and spires dotted the plains, marking the location of outposts and dungeons, but each and every one of them was leagues away. In between, the sticklike silhouettes of steel striders skated across the metallic fields hunting for any prey foolish enough to climb up out of the tunnels and caves that hid beneath everything.
“Are you sure we can’t take down a strider?” Kaleek asked, looking hopefully at one of the closest monsters that was only a league or two away. “Just one to blow off a little steam? I swear I’ll be good and listen to all of your plans Dorrik.”
“No,” Dorrik replied without any pause. “Don’t you remember how difficult the floor guardian is to get to level twelve? The twelfth level is an unassailable wall for many avatars. Class evolutions are no small matter, and the tower guards them jealously. It took us almost a month to gather the parts and marks we would need for a proper assault on it. It would be foolish to endanger all of that for a scuffle with a steel strider.”
“I suppose we did have a full team of six the last time,” Kaleek said reluctantly. “Even then it wasn’t exactly easy. Now that I think about it, you’re probably right. I can’t really think of another floor guardian that was as tough as this one.”
He reached up and scratched the fur behind his ear before giving a sheepish shrug.
“I suppose we should focus on the battle at hand.” he muttered. “I still want to fight a steel strider. They’re a lot more fun to take down than the brilliant oval. That thing is miserable.”
Kat reached up, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. There wasn’t much wind on the gleaming metal plains of the eleventh floor, but it was still bothering her. Mentally, she made a note to get a haircut.
“Tell me about class evolutions,” she interrupted, knowing that if she let Kaleek complain that they’d never hear the end of how he wanted to fight one of the elite monsters. Sometimes he was worse than Michelle. “I know that you’ve mentioned them before, but we haven’t exactly gone in depth as to what they are or how you earn them.”
“Class evolutions are hard to unlock, but well worth the effort,” Dorrik replied. “On the twelfth floor there will be something resembling a dungeon portal in the summoning hall. There are no restrictions on its use, but each person that enters is forced to face their trials alone. As for the trials themselves, no two sets are the same but they largely test your ability to master the powers that the dreamscape has granted you.”
“The difficulty of the test increases with your strength,” Kaleek added, seemingly having forgotten his small tantrum over the steel striders. “That means the three of us are going to have a lot tougher of a time than someone that used higher level companions to push them past the floor guardians. Still, it’s worth it. You’ll be able to drop the word ‘initiate’ from your class title and get a big spike in your power all at once. Better yet, the increase in power is retroactive so whatever bonuses you get will include your previous eleven levels as well.”
“How much power are we talking about?” Kat asked, her brow furrowing. On one hand, she could use the boost. On the other, her primary opponent right now was Mr. Jackson, someone that had passed the twelfth level long ago. It was hard to get excited for new powers that he had already earned and mastered years ago. More than anything, it was just a reminder of how far behind she was.
“How much?” Dorrik mused, tapping the fingers of his right top hand onto the scales of his lower arm. “That is a difficult question. A standard evolution to Elementalist Initiate would mean a modest attribute boost and an increase to your mana pool. Usually it’s almost a level’s worth of growth. Of course, that’s only if you get a standard class evolution.”
“Standard class evolution,” Kat replied, raising an eyebrow. In the distance, one of the steel striders’ heads jerked downward, shoving its angular face into a crack in the metal plains as it sought out some sort of squeaking and burrowing meal. “That makes it sound like there is a non-standard option?”
“It is part of what we have been working so hard to achieve,” Dorrik responded. He raised one hand to halt their party as he pulled a contraption of wood and gold out of his pack, consulting the compass to try and chart their course to the floor guardian. “No one knows for sure what triggers an aberrant class evolution, but they're much more common in situations where the avatar has been diligent and their powers are well developed.”
“Some knowledgeable individuals actually delay taking the trials for another level or two, but the data is inconclusive as to whether that is actually helpful.” The lokkel finished, nodding once at the strange compass before packing it away again and slightly changing their course.
“That’s why we’ve made sure to hit every dungeon,” Kaleek said, eyeing up the feasting strider wistfully. “Same with using smaller numbers to beat the floor guardians. Folks like Dorrik might not know the exact rules for when you get a fancy evolution, but if you put the time in to do a complete run, you’ve got pretty good odds at getting one.”
Kat nodded thoughtfully. She didn’t have any way of knowing how her human contemporaries had handled the twelfth level. Even if they had completed most of the dungeons, it was unlikely that the handful of earthlings that managed to make it to the twelfth floor had more than a handful of iron dungeons under their belts.
The one name she kept coming back to was Mr. Jackson. Everyone knew that he was powerful, but unlike most samurai, there weren’t any videos of him in action. His name was enough of a selling point that there was no need to produce a promotional reel for investors and clients. There wasn’t much beyond a rough description of his skills that sounded more like urban legends than anything concrete.
Still, as Kat ascended the Tower she began to put more and more weight on those claims. Her abilities were borderline unfair. Even the most advanced cyberwear could only make someone about as fast and agile as she was, and even then it had a tendency to push the user over the limit.
If Mr. Jackson was around level eighteen or twenty as the gossip claimed, and if he had evolved his class, it was possible that all of those rumors might actually be true. That helped her calibrate her expectations, but it didn’t really make her feel any better. As soon as Kat had some measure of confidence in her abilities, the world felt it necessary to douse her hopes in ice water.
She shook her head, trying to erase her morose line of reasoning.
“How much further do we have to go Dorrik?” Kat asked. “I seem to recall you saying that we were only one day out when we left the waypoint this afternoon.”
The lokkel reached up with an upper hand, shading his eyes from the strangely harsh light of the nightscape overhead. With his lower hand he pointed toward a distant silver hill.
“There,” he replied. “We are about a half hour out, but when we are around five minutes away from the brilliant oval we should begin our preparations. It will likely attack us from outside of our range and it is important that we are ready.”
“Other than light based attacks,” Kat asked, “what exactly are we expecting? I know that you’ve prepared gear to protect our eyes and oils to protect the rest of our bodies, but right now all I know is that it is big, shiny, and covered with legs.”
“Sound and light mostly,” Kaleek supplied. “It can change the shape of its skin in order to reflect the light its body produces, allowing it to make a sort of crude laser that can fire from almost anywhere. If you see the surface of the oval rippling, you should just assume that it's about to try and fry you. That means you need to keep moving and dodging at all times. The oils Dorrik has gathered will protect you from two or three seconds of direct exposure, but after that it hurts like crazy.”
“All of his fur ended up falling off last time,” Dorrik whispered loudly. “He charged the guardian after not listening to my instructions and caught a blast of light right in the face. It burned off half of his fur and he spent the aftermath of the battle throwing up from sun sickness as the other half fell out on its own.”
Kaleek just grumbled, but he didn’t seem to be arguing with Dorrik. That was all the information Kat needed to confirm the lokkel’s gossip.
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“The sound magic is about as bad actually,” Dorrik continued. “All three of us will need to wear enchanted ear protection. I passed the wax cubes that we will be using for that purpose when we left the way station, but it won’t stop all of the oval’s abilities. You should still expect its sonic attacks to create minor shockwaves and throw us about. Resist Magic will help Miss Kat defend herself, but it will also rapidly drain her mana as the attacks will be near constant.”
“You should try fighting it without hearing protection,” Kaleek said cheerfully. “Absolute cacophony. It’s like you’re standing next to a youth orchestra that just got their instruments for the first time last week, except run through a couple of megaphones. It never stopped making noise, and it wasn’t like there was anywhere you could actually hide from the sound.”
“Constant unavoidable damage and enough vertigo that it made all of us puke after the battle,” he finished wistfully. “The fight was miserable, but by the founders, that’s what a good and proper battle should be like. Awful and painful. It just makes the victory party afterward all that much sweeter.”
“So what should we do?” Kat asked. “Obviously I put on the goggles, melt the wax, and wear the cream, but after I’m done with my little spa date what’s the plan for the fight? Just wail on the floor guardian until it eventually gives up?”
“Yes,” Kaleek said quickly, drawing an irked squint from Dorrik as the lokkel spoke over him.
“Absolutely not. During the first phase, Kaleek will try to keep the guardian’s attention while you and I disable a couple of its limbs. Once the monster is slowed by our attacks, you will use your gravity abilities to weaken its armor. Only then will Kaleek be able to batter his way through its armor. Otherwise, we will be stuck clanking and clanging off of its steel surface for a half hour, all while it tries to kill us.”
Kaleek rolled his eyes, but both Kat and Dorrik ignored him. That was usually the best approach.
“Limbs first and then armor,” Kat replied, nodding to herself. “Got it. Anything else I need to know about its limbs? I get that it’s made out of some brand of steel just like everything else on its floor so the armor part makes sense.”
“It has a lot of them,” Kaleek said, again unnaturally bright and happy. “As soon as you stab one, it tries to hit you with another three. A real headache to deal with.”
Kat glanced at Dorrik, and her companion could only respond with a defeated sigh.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
A bit over a half hour later, Kat could see exactly what Dorrik meant. Her skin was sticky from the protective oil and she couldn’t hear anything through the ensorcelled wax plugging her ears, but even in the dim visibility provided by the goggles she was wearing, Kat could make out the brilliant oval.
The floor guardian lived up to its name, looking a bit more like a classic UFO than an egg, but it still sparkled like a gemstone as it crouched on the metallic landscape just in front of the staircase to the next floor. It was covered in legs.
Kat counted at least eight on both the top and bottom of the monster, but they were so folded up on each other that it was hard to tell precisely where one limb ended and the other began. Each of its legs ended in something that was halfway between a hand and a foot with four sucker covered digits clinging to the slick surface of the metallic ground.
“Careful.” Dorrik’s voice echoed strangely in her head. It was like he was whispering from every direction at once, just out of sight. Of course, the lokkel was actually some ten paces away, both of his swords drawn.
“The guardian is five percent brighter. I think that it has noticed us and activated its bioluminescence.”
“HELLO?” Kaleek’s voice practically deafened her. “CAN YOU ALL HEAR ME?”
“Try thinking quieter,” Kat replied with a wince. Part of her wanted to mouth the words as she projected them telepathically, but she quickly suppressed the impulse. “If you keep that up, you’re going to deafen us more quickly than the actual floor guardian would’ve.”
“It’s impossible to go deaf through Mass Telepathy Miss Kat,” Dorrik corrected. “Although it might give me as the caster a bit of a headache, strong thoughts-”
Whatever he had been about to say was cut off as the glittering oval flashed with light bright enough to cause Kat’s eyes to water through her thick goggles. Without thinking, she cast Shadow, creating a thin layer of darkness over herself and Dorrik.
The enchantments on Kaleek’s armor, fortified by a double layer of the heat resistant grease, pulsed with power. Kat’s skin tingled as the beam of light burned through the Shadow and began melting her magical sunscreen.
She jumped into the air, abandoning Shadow as she triggered Levitation. Below her the pillar of light reflected off the metal ground, too diffuse to burn her, but still bright enough that Kat would’ve been blinded without her goggles.
Rather than worry about Dorrik and Kaleek, Kat pressed her crossbow to her shoulder. The comforting weight of the wood nestled against her cheek calmed her nerves as she lined the sights up on the floor guardian.
It was moving surprisingly quickly. Each of its leg-arms unfolded into double-elbowed monstrosities, almost the length of the huge monster's torso. They slapped against the metal, suckers grabbing hold in order to propel it toward the three of them at breakneck speed.
Kat pulled the trigger on her crossbow, letting mana flow from her body into the bolt as she infused it with Gravity Spike. The quarrel zipped across the gap between them in the blink of an eye, bouncing off the oval’s glittering hide and triggering the spell she had hidden in it.
The monster’s hide seemed to twist as a storm of gravity tore at it. Kat’s spell didn’t punch through its armor, but her heightened senses could make out some cracks and spalling where it had taken some damage.
It shook itself like a wet dog, and a second later a wall of air hit Kat like a hammer. It was a sound wave, even though she couldn’t hear anything through the wax, Kat could feel the vibrations deep in her chest as they half stopped her heart.
She hung in the air, stunned for a fraction of a second as she tried to restart her brain. In the distance, the glittering oval brightened, the surface of its body shifting as it turned itself slightly toward her.
Kat cut the flow of mana to Levitation, dropping an eyeblink before another massive beam of light scorched through the air overhead.
She dropped into a roll to break her fall, springing up and shoving the crossbow back into its holster before breaking into a sprint toward the monster. It was still rampaging toward her, double jointed limbs snaking forward in a strange ambling gait.
To her right, a flurry of purple light marked Dorrik hitting the guardian with an area of effect attack. Dozens of violet shards struck the monster’s limbs. Where they hit, the monster’s glow faded, replaced by dull gray flesh.
Four of its limbs clamped onto the ground as it spun around, facing Dorrik as the rest of its torso began to sparkle brighter. That was all the warning they got before the front of the monster curved inward, forming the concave surface of a lens and firing another stream of light.
Dorrik’s body ignited with the purple glow of psi energy and he transformed into a black blur a half second before the bolt of light hit him. Kat didn’t have the time to watch. Dorrik would make it out of the scrape. He always had.
That certainty was unshakable. A rock that let Kat push forward despite the chaos around her. The fight was like a dance. She could feel the ebb and flow of the music. There was an unspoken tempo, earned through hard hours of bloody combat, that told her exactly where her teammates were and what she needed to do to complement their efforts.
As she ran closer, Kat couldn’t help but notice that the guardian was gigantic. It was barely a hundred paces away, and its torso was as tall as Kat and at least six times as long. Legs sprouted from its surface, the only part of the monster that wasn’t made from sheer glowing metal as they held it some three paces off the ground.
Kat drew her knife as she moved, letting a trickle of mana transform into a Pseudopod that reached into her bandoleer on its own and drew a second knife.
Kaleek reached the monster first. It swung a leg at him, the limb bending strangely as the floor guardian used its second elbow to jerk its sucker filled hand back toward the desoph ast the last second.
Its movements didn’t surprise Kaleek, and with a silent bellow he swung his greatsword to meet the monster’s attack. The blade bit deep, drawing a spray of purple-ish blood.
The guardian jerked back as if burned and another hammer-blow of air pressure hit Kat. This time, she was ready for the attack, plowing through it with gritted teeth. As soon as she shook off the last of her disorientation, Kat Leapt, sailing through the air toward the monster.
One of its arms swiped toward her, and Kat activated Flight, dodging just under the attack as she swooped toward the monster’s gleaming back. Below, another two arms tried to grasp Kaleek but a rapid flurry of swings, all far too quick for a weapon the size of his greatsword, kept them just out of reach as the desoph backpedaled away from the monster.
Kat touched down on the monster’s back. She could feel the steel of its gleaming hide through her shoes, but its armor seemed to writhe under her feet, shifting as in started to create another lens.
She dismissed Flight as heat began to rise from beneath her shoes, heralding the growing brilliance of another light blast. Kat half ran and half slid down the curve of the oval guardian’s back, coming to a stop on one of its arms.
With a deep breath, she activated Penetrate and stabbed her knife as deep into the root of the limb as it would go. Her Pseudopod whipped back and forth, stabbing her other blade in and out of the thick rubbery skin of the arm like a sewing needle.
It shook under her, and the light around Kat increased tenfold. Without her goggles, the surge would have blinded her, and even without the floor guardian creating a concavity and a lens to focus its power, she could feel the tingle of her defensive oils melting and evaporating.
She stabbed her knife into the side of the arm she’d been attacking and slid down the side of the monster’s sleek hide, both hands gripping her knife tightly as she used it to anchor her movements.
Kat jerked to a stop, her knife pulled downward about a handspan by her weight. Purple blood gushed from the wound, dying the sides of the floor guardian. Above her, a dozen other smaller wounds oozed blood of their own as the deadly bioluminescence shifted down the monster’s torso, chasing after Kat.
That was all she needed. Kat pulled her knife free, casting Overpressure on the base of the arm as she fell. Purple blood, geysered from the wounds, evaporating instantly in the blinding glow of the oval’s glittering flanks.
The arm shuddered and went limp, falling bonelessly to drag on the ground.
“That’s it!” Dorrik’s voice shouted jubilantly inside her head. “One down! Now only eleven more to go!”