Wyn looked at the green rarity gloves in his hand. He didn’t have any desire to identify them, but they would do well to go towards the group’s trading pile of items. He had grown fond of seeing an item’s potential worth before knowing how well it could do at the trading hall, likely from John's constant desire for items. Pulling out an identifying eyeglass from his jacket pocket, Wyn looked through it at the gloves.
They changed into a pair of black, thin leather gloves that had holes for the fingers and thumb. A single, small diamond was embedded into the back of each glove.
Interested, he pulled out his parchment to see the gloves’ effect.
Transmuted Gauntlets – the wearer of these gloves may turn a coin into a single temporary projectile lasting one hour, such as a stone, an arrow, or a bolt. The coin is consumed and the projectile may not be turned back into a coin.
Wyn chuckled. That was definitely a unique effect. He doubted there was really any worth to it, but maybe one of Marcy’s students would appreciate it since it gave them a means to make more arrows. Even if it was expensive, they could use copper boots they earned while killing monsters.
“Any luck?” John asked, looking at the gloves in Wyn’s hands.
Wyn smirked while showing John his parchment. “Not exactly. Interesting ability, though.”
John barked a laugh. “That’s an expensive ability! I thought we were supposed to earn money while climbing, not spend it!”
“True, but it could be useful in a pinch! Marcy, do you think one of the Climbers you’re working with could use it?”
Marcy walked over and looked at the parchment between John and Wyn. She looked between the gloves and the paper and then nodded. “Actually, yea, that would be a great gift.”
“Wait, really?” John asked.
“Yes, really! They look nice and they’re magical, to start. There’s no limit to how many can be made, and even if it uses coins, they could use coins dropped from loot piles to help. One boot to make an arrow is cheaper than buying one, even if they are temporary.”
“Huh. Those are good points.”
Marcy took the gloves and placed them in the small sack on her back. “Of course they are. What did you find from the boss?”
John held out a small pouch and shook it. “Some gems for Wyn and a small pile of silver cloaks. Which is pretty sad from the entire third floor. At least Tasha and Cedric got lucky.”
Cedric held a bow that glowed with a blue aura. It was plain and unidentified. Tasha, standing beside him, held several potions in her hand, one of which glowed green.
“One healing potion and two mana potions, along with a rare potion,” Tasha said. “I haven’t identified it yet.”
“And I wonder if this will be part of a set since the boss dropped it,” Cedric said, holding out the bow. “Marcy, would this be too much for your students?”
“Yes, it would,” Marcy said. “I would only do green rarity items. Not something that strong.”
“I’d take it,” John said. “I still need to get my little sister a bow.”
“I almost forgot about that,” Wyn said. “Did she remind you when you went home during the solstice?”
John scratched the side of his head and smiled sheepishly. “She did, and not very kindly, either. My older sister was still pissed I lost her sword and my parents weren’t happy I exchanged the shield, too. But if that bow is part of a set, maybe I can get another piece or two as a gift.”
“She would love that,” Tasha said. “I think that’s a wonderful idea!”
They stored the items in John’s backpack, deciding to identify them later. Their goal for the day was to advance through the first tier, which was an easy goal as it was still midday. Then, they’d complete the second tier throughout the remainder of the first week. They wanted to be more familiar with the season and its floors before attempting to find more secret rooms, which required a lot of floor clears.
The fourth floor opened into denser forest, which was a welcome change from the swampy environment of the first three floors. The trees around them still had large canopies that blocked the sky above, but from the low light it appeared to be set around dusk. Wyn immediately grabbed his Mushroom Lantern and made a bright, orange light.
Marcy stepped forward, bow at the ready. Wyn frowned. It was rare to have enemies right at the start of a floor.
“Strange,” Marcy said. “I don’t sense any enemies around but something is definitely off. It’s hard to explain.”
“Traps?” Cedric asked.
Marcy shook her head. “Not that I can tell. That silence is eerie, too.”
Everyone stayed still, listening. Wyn could see what Marcy meant. Normally there was at least a semblance of normalcy in the floor. In the woods, it was chirping insects, buzzing flies, or harmless wildlife running around. Water in the tower usually had small fish or frogs. It always reinforced the idea that the tower was a living, breathing system rather than just a challenge filled with monsters and traps.
But now there was nothing. The trees were still. Their small patch of open space was quiet, like a dream.
It made Wyn’s skin crawl.
“At least the path ahead is clear,” John said, pointing forward. The trees were split and spaced directly in front of them, parted by a clear path. It was well worn with dead grass, wide enough for three of them to comfortably walk but likely not fight.
Wyn pulled out his parchment and looked at the floor description. His heart nearly skipped a beat when he read it.
Floor 4
Group: 5/5
Primary Quest: You’ve made it out of the bog and found yourself at the heart of the forest after clearing out the goblin camp. But why were they there in the first place? Something brought in the goblins to Bog’s Hollow. Something helped arm and direct them. And something lies within. Or maybe someone?
Secondary Quest: You’ve entered the floor with a sub-optimal number of allies: 5. Rewards will be given on completion proportional to the number of members in your group.
The number ‘5’ was highlighted in a silver color under the Secondary Quest description.
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“What is this?” Wyn asked. “Everyone, look at your quest parchments.”
“I’m reading it, too,” Tasha said. “Another change for the season, I’m assuming. That’s interesting.”
John groaned. “This should have been up for us for months! We’d be rich by now!”
“Well, we can get rich, now,” Cedric said. “It’s still the first tier, so we should clear it easily enough.”
“And now you’ve ruined us,” Marcy said.
Wyn summoned his weapon as a spear. “Let’s start moving. Typical formation.”
Marcy and John slowly led the way as Tasha followed. Wyn and Cedric stayed at the backline. Their advance was slow but steady, and Marcy was constantly looking everywhere. Wyn focused on keeping an eye behind and to the right, while Cedric did the same but on the left side. If Marcy said something was off, then Wyn wanted to be ready for anything. It wasn’t often she was so alert.
After a few minutes Marcy abruptly stopped and fired a magical arrow ahead and to the left at their height. A small tree snapped and toppled over, carrying with it a fine string of some sort that pulled across the path. Wyn only noticed it from a brief glint of his lantern’s light. The string pulled on something further in the woods on their right, which activated a trap. Just ahead of them two dozen bolts flew through the open air, whizzing by in an eerily quiet hum. They hit trees that lined the left side of the path, and bright green liquid started to slowly ooze from the impacts.
Marcy and Tasha carefully walked up to the nearest tree and inspected it.
“Some sort of toxin,” Marcy said. “It looks potent.”
“I could heal it but it’s a second-tier spell,” Tasha added. “If we were a first-tier group we’d have to have a potion that reverses toxins, and even then it wouldn’t heal the injury.”
“Damn,” Wyn said. “Alright. So we keep moving steady. Obviously this is going to be of a sixth floor strength, at least.”
Wyn was relieved that both he and Arabelle had the means to counter the trap. There was no doubt her and her group would be going past this floor, but facing just a trap that powerful was not a good sign. If this season was going to be this strong, they needed to prepare.
And the other Climbers needed to know what they were getting into. They weren’t part of a guild anymore, but he could still let them or the city guild of the dangers.
Continuing on, they found two more traps along the winding path while not finding or even sensing any monsters. Both were similar to the toxin-coated arrow trap in the sense that they were deadly twists on classic traps. One was a pitfall trap under a bed of loose leaves covering a net, though the pitfall fell into an incredibly deep trap with green-tipped spikes at the bottom. The other was a tripwire trap where a series of logs swept across the path, which was serious enough. Except the additional runic trap on the ground under it stunned whoever was inside it, then placed a debuff that prevented magical healing for a short time. They learned of the nature when John inadvertently crossed the edge of it and Tasha was unable to heal his broken arm after being clipped from the nearest swinging log. It took ten minutes before the strange effect disappeared so he could be healed. If he had suffered a direct hit, his armor might have protected him, but a lesser prepared Climber would have likely died.
The traps alone were so serious Wyn wanted to leave and immediately go tell the Tower Master about them. He planned to do that anyway but didn’t want others to suffer at the drastically increased difficulty. But they weren’t the only team that could handle the increased lethality, and they were no longer part of a guild that carried weight on reporting floor specifics. Others would likely be expressing caution.
Still, the thought continued to persist in his mind about what was waiting for them at the end. How would the rewards be for a secondary quest like this? What was the boss waiting for them? Could there be a secret room here because the floor was already so unique? There were a lot of questions, and completing the floor would be the first step to getting answers.
The five of them continued to progress and faced no monsters, despite advancing through the forest for over an hour. They moved slowly and faced a half dozen traps of the three varieties, but no monster challenge. The distance was likely a couple miles worth of travel, which was a little less than average for the fourth floor.
Eventually the traps stopped and the monsters finally realized themselves. They were larger, horrific abominations of what used to be goblins and beasts recklessly attacking the group. The beasts could barely be called beasts, and monsters were still the most appropriate descriptor for them. Each one was slightly different but all of them were like macabre combinations of various forest animals, like foxes, deer, wolves, bears, and more. They all varied, too, ranging from fast and small but less durable to slow and powerful and incredibly durable. Each of them shared glowing red eyes and stitched joints, though, which was an alarmingly strange trait.
Thankfully they were still dumb beasts and attacked without much thought, though each pack easily had a half dozen to full dozen attack at one time.
The goblin monsters were equally off putting, as they were similarly stitched together at joints as though each singular enemy was made from various body parts of different goblins. Most had unmatched arms and legs that weren’t the same builds, and all of them had slightly different skin colors that made the stitched together effect obvious.
Worst of all, all of the monsters were smart. They fought with the intelligence of second tier enemies or well-communicated Climbing groups, working in tactical tandem that betrayed their grotesque appearance. If it wasn’t for the goblins showing up with three or four in a single group at once, it would have been a far tougher match up with each successive encounter.
While the first hour was slow with mostly empty space and traps, the following half hour was a near-constant barrage of monster waves. It reminded Wyn of when they all advanced to the third tier by needing to advance through the ninth floor consisting of only monster waves in the outer temple with a dragon for the boss. They had only encountered a few monster wave challenges since then, and nothing had been as difficult.
It felt like such a faraway time but he felt secure in his team’s chances for this floor due to two reasons. One was that the enemies weren’t at the strength of a ninth floor, and more in line with the sixth floor while being less frequent with the wave encounters.
The second reason was that they all were far stronger than before.
John’s Saint Aura kept himself, Wyn, and often times Marcy all boosted physically which was a large benefit to their success. Tasha continued to keep Arcane Aura up on John and Wyn as well, making them able to meet and handle all of the beasts and goblin abominations nearly on their own with their strength and speed respectively. The others tore through the enemies’ numbers as the waves continued, and they advanced with consistent fighting but without major struggle.
Then, after a steady onslaught of monsters, they stopped coming as suddenly as they appeared. The forest path ended from the wooded surroundings into a circular, open prairie of sorts that looked out of place deep in the forest and at night. The glade was lit by intermittent torches placed at the tree line, though the most obvious source of light was by lanterns hanging on the modest wooden cabin centered in the area. Wyn didn’t need his lantern for them to see but kept the light active just in case.
Oddly, the area was still as silent as the entire floor had been except for the times monsters attacked them or traps were set off. It was pretty clear to be the boss area, though the portal wasn’t apparent. Wyn assumed it to be inside the cabin. The five of them stood just at the border of the glade, still on the path. The moment they stepped inside whatever was waiting for them would likely show itself.
“I wonder what’s inside there,” John said. He took off his helmet and wiped his forehead of sweat, looking around casually while they waited.
“Has to be the boss,” Cedric said. “The portal is probably inside.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Wyn said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a secret inside with my lantern.”
“We could only hope,” Marcy said. “But I have an ominous feeling about this boss. Like they should be on the second tier instead. It’s a strange feeling.”
“I wonder if the strength of the floor correlates to the number in the group?” Tasha asked. “If we came in with a full team maybe it would have been an average fourth floor power.”
“That’s a good assumption,” Cedric said. “It would take some more climbs to see if it holds true.”
“Climbs with less of us, too,” John said. “I don’t particularly like the sound of that.”
“You could hold your own with only two or three more people,” Tasha said, grabbing John’s armored arm. “Now that you have more protection and some healing, you’re a pretty good hybrid Climber.”
John smirked at the praise. “Not quite as good as Wyn in that area, but I appreciate the support.”
“Don’t doubt yourself,” Wyn said. “I would like to push our ability to clear it with fewer people but let’s see how the boss is, first. Let’s go with single boss formation and head in, then either push to clear or change to multiple boss formation depending on what we find. Tasha, go ahead and start us off.”
Tasha gave John a kiss on the cheek, then started casting Arcane Aura as John put his helmet back on. John activated his Saint Aura with Focus and Bolster, his two favorite skills. Wyn felt the familiar strength, toughness, and endurance boost while a two-layered magical coat of armor enveloped his body. He activated his own Sprint and welcomed the improved mental processing that came with his speed skill.
The need to apply so much preparation was probably excessive for the boss, but Wyn liked being better prepared than not. Now that they didn’t have information about floors provided from guild meetings, gaining that knowledge on their own safely was far more important. The general public of Climbers didn’t get floor information for several weeks into seasons, and even then it was far more limited than what used to be available to them. Being as protected as possible while discovering how bosses fought would be not only helpful but needed.
Tasha began to glow as she activated Invoker’s Might. She glowed white and orange in a halo effect, and the familiar radiant magic covered her body. Ethereal wings sprouted from her back and her eyes lost their pupils as they glowed with a dull white light. She drew a mana potion and drank it before nodding to the others.
Her equipment had likely evolved the most over the past several months. She completed the set to her robes and circlet with a ring and belt, forming the Radiant Aegis set. It was a purple rarity set that had the usual benefits of increasing mana and regeneration and magic power, but also drastically improved her support spells. Tier one support and healing spells basically cost no mana at all for her, and she could cast them so fast they were nearly instantaneous. Even better, though, was that she could summon up to five spherical motes of intense light the size of her fist, all of which she could control in various supportive effects. Each one lasted ten minutes, and she could summon all of them or one at a time.
Marcy activated her Master Avian Cloak and flew above John and Wyn at a range where the Sword Saint’s aura would still provide her a benefit. Despite the passing months she made minimal improvements to her equipment, though she was still just as strong as the others.
Cedric didn’t have the same kinds of magical preparations as the others, but he had the third Arcane Aura spell around him just in case. He stayed near Tasha who hovered in the air, serving the role of keeping minions at bay or applying stunning magic to the boss as needed.
Seeing that everyone was prepared, Wyn summoned his weapon as a glaive and stepped forward into the glade, ready to meet the boss.
The first few steps were agonizing as nothing was changing. The torches around the perimeter were still lit, and he could easily see from them and his lantern. But the cabin remained undisturbed.
“This is odd,” John said. “You’d think whatever is here would want to attack us.”
Just as he said the words, the lights from all of the torches flickered. The cabin’s front door slowly opened though nothing stepped out. It was about fifty feet away, but Wyn could see the empty doorway clearly.
Then, they appeared. And Wyn felt confusion mixed with dread.
The monster looked human, wearing a tattered and dirty robe and carrying a gnarled wooden staff that had multiple strings of objects hanging from it. They were hunched forward awkwardly, and their black hair was matted with bits of sticks and leaves as though emerging from the ground itself. Worse, though, were the eyes. Eyes that glowed yellow and piercing, with pupils that seemed to lock in on Wyn’s very soul.
Then the monster cackled, their deranged laugh echoing through the quiet glade signaling their inevitable clash.
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