by Prax Venter
“Yes,” she said, her voice echoing to them from what seemed like far away. “I was reading my status icon. Jack, quickly come take my hand.”
He pushed his boots off the rough bark and made it to her in three long strides. Jack reached out, but his hand passed right through the glowing vapor.
It was subtle, but Jack could tell the cloud of mist tilted up to look him in the eye.
“This was the Aether option, and it apparently shifts my body and equipment into the titular substance’s pure form. I cannot move, or the effect ends. I cannot be harmed, nor can I harm anything. It lasts for ten seconds.”
“I’ve heard of these powers of invulnerability,” Thymus said, rubbing his beard. “Your father would know…”
The old mage trailed off when he remembered his old friend Harrak was not interested in speaking with him- or anyone for that matter. Learning that Thymus had hid while his wife perished had sent the grizzled warrior back into his downward spiral of isolation and self-destruction.
Lex shifted back to her solid form, and Jack reached out for her hand. Their fingers locked for a moment before he let go and broke the awkward silence Thymus had left hanging.
“Avoiding all damage is going to be amazing, and I can’t wait to see what amazing stuff the other two options do. Now let’s sweep this Floor so we can evaluate our new abilities. Remember, let me tag the first instance of a new enemy type, and as soon as I see a group of monsters, I’m going to try this new Omni Strike.” Jack locked eyes with them individually, including all of Alt’s, then nodded. “Let’s get to work.”
He led Lex and Thymus down the branch toward the central trunk, far in the distance, and it wasn’t long until they came upon their first enemy. At first, Jack thought the foe was simply a witch on a broomstick but then noticed the green-skinned woman had the head of a bird as they drew closer.
The witch-like hybrid creature squawked into the air as if she were a sparrow seeing a worm and launched upward on her flying broomstick.
Jack tracked her movements with his blade, and when she was in range, he melted the enemy instantly with his Mining Laser.
“I hope we find a whole cluster of these somewhere,” Jack murmured, as he picked up the 1 Value cloth shoes that dropped from the kill.
“Coven,” Thymus corrected.
Jack looked over at the older man with a half-smile. “Sure. Coven,” he amended. His thoughts turned to his next Path and wondered what destructive abilities he’d unlock. “It’s not until Hero Level 50 that we all go up to the next tier of abilities, right?”
“That’s right,” Lex said. He could tell by her tone that she was still disappointed in her self-only abilities. He thought about her skills for a while as they moved down the branch. Knit probably involved self-healing, which wouldn’t be all that bad as she was the one intended to take all the damage. And Sharpen probably gave her a temporary damage boost. He put off strategizing too hard until they were sure, but he still couldn’t see why she was so down on herself. Even that new ability under the Defender Path would… Jack stopped as his mind raced through a new abusive strategy.
Lex and Thymus looked at each other confused, then stopped with him.
“What?” Lex asked.
A smile grew on Jack’s face. “Do either of you know what the word synergy means?”
“I know what it means, Jack,” Lex said, growing impatient.
“Yes.” Thymus nodded. “A combination of two forces that produce an effect greater than the sum of the parts.”
Jack’s smile widened and pointed his finger at the scholarly, robed man.
“Exactly! Lex, your new Shout synergizes perfectly with this Aether mist form. I mean, you could conceivably lock down the Floor Boss for ten seconds while Thymus, Alt, and I rip them to shreds! Do you know how much damage we could do if we had an uninterrupted ten seconds?
Lex thought about his words, her eyes darting to the bark of the tree as she played out a few scenarios.
Alt spoke quickly in his mind while his teammates put the pieces together.
“With everyone’s current gear, just you and Thymus alone could output 1,100 to 1,400 damage in ten seconds.”
“I’d only be standing motionless…” the Bastion said faintly.
Jack walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders. “You have to let go of your preconceived notions on how this place works. You just became the perfect tank, damn it! Next enemy we find, you’re Shouting and turning invincible while we watch it try and hit you.”
He spoke the words harshly and regretted the commanding tone he’d used. He saw it in her large eyes. Lex did not like to be yelled at. The notion hit him that no one probably liked to be yelled at and he saved the feeling into a new mental space he was trying to grow. Jack had stepped into the leadership role and had enough recent practice with self-awareness to know that he still needed to figure out how to do it well.
“I can’t activate Aether Tone again until the next Floor,” she said coolly, then sighed, her shoulders slumping. “But I do see your point. We need to test if I can have both status effects active at the same time.”
Thymus was nodding. “I’m sure we would have figured it out, but that is a very creative way to look at combining two skills!”
Jack leaned in and kissed the silky golden hair on the top of Lex’s head, then looked her in the eye.
“You and I are joined at the hip, so you better get out of this funk and start being the formidable warrior I know you are.”
She gave him a half smile. “Funk, Jack? You have the best words sometimes.”
He squeezed her shoulders and looked off into the distance. “Let’s get this funky party moving.”
The team tore through Floor 1 and its Boss, a giant speckled egg. Then they found metal walkways over vats of acid on Floor 2. The first thing Jack did when they all arrived was shift Alt into one of the bird-headed witches from the previous Floor. The summoned AI could move again, but he reported that the stats weren’t any better than his true spaceship form.
The group pushed forward until they found a glob of slime patrolling one of the suspended walkways, and Lex hit her sword on her beautiful shield as she let out a bellowing Shout. A barely perceptible sphere of shimmering light radiated out of her, striking the dripping ooze monster blocking their path, and the creature instantly began to crawl forward. A moment before it was on top of her, Lex sang a perfect note using her magically enhanced triple voice and shifted into glowing Aether vapor once again.
The slime monster extended its body until it was pooling around her knees and began to quiver, stretching pseudopods of gloopy slime up toward where her face would be.
The misty, blue Bastion turned to face Jack.
“I feel nothing,” she said in an ethereal voice.
“Great!” Jack said, moving in close and putting his face near the creature. He poked it once with his finger and took immediate acid damage.
Jack -1 | HP 262/263
Yet the slime still had no interest in changing targets.
“Can you count down the last three seconds for me?” Jack said, standing back up and drawing his sword.
Everyone waited as the slime monster thrashed uselessly, then Lex read off her status effect timer.
“3…2…”
Jack didn’t wait for 1 before blasting it with his Mining Laser.
Corrosive Jelly -82 | Defeated
Lex reached the end of her countdown and became solid once more. She looked up into Jack’s eyes, and he saw hope there again.
“The perfect Defender…” she whispered.
“We are going to make a killer Team,” Jack said. “Come on, let’s see how else we can abuse this loot-filled Tower.”
Next, they discovered that Knit was indeed a huge self-heal, restoring 50% of the Bastion’s Max HP. With her new shield and its extra healing bonus, the ability came out to 270 HP as instant restoration with no mana cost. Sharpen increased her Main-Hand damage by 10% a
nd they all agreed that it was the least useful of the three options on her new ability. Overall, Lex turned from sour to cheerful as they explored her new powers. Jack had to force himself from getting out at least one, “I told you so.”
It wasn’t until Floor 7 that they finally ran into a wide-open layout with no walls. The ground was nothing but loops and tangles of thick rope spread out in every direction. The sky was a muddy yellow infused with red points of light that had to be strange, distant stars. Scattered out among the rope were snake-monsters with absurd, muscular arms sticking out from their body near their head. Some were quite far away and only appeared as blurry black dots, but a few were close enough to see that these foes were armed with huge axes and round leather shields.
Jack drew his sword from his decorative leather scabbard, the blade whispering as its polished surface came out to do some work. He held as many of the serpent creatures as he could in a single glance and activated Omni Strike.
Jack’s hand flicked outward, his sword drawing a swift slice across the empty air in front of him. At the same time, multiple copies of his black-edged sword appeared for an instant near each foe, and the single cut gutted six different enemies at once.
Brutal Snake-man Hacker -58 | Defeated
… x 5
Jack stood dumbfounded as he saw random loot drop to the ground all over the place.
Alt’s amused voice spoke directly into his mind.
“Now might be a good time to bring up my offer about auto-looting drops on my next complexity upgrade.”
He agreed.
“Mother of Demons…” Lex’s rare cursing caught his attention.
Jack sheathed his sword. “Now that’s how you sweep a Floor,” he said with a cheesy grin then grew serious. “Guys, Alt has told me he might be able to modify how item drops work after his next level-up- when do you think that will be?”
The AI was currently in the form of an animated blue dress that tried to strangle its victims and spoke up now, floating forward.
“At our current progress, the day after tomorrow. Probably around Floor 12.”
Jack continued. “After that, he should be able to deposit all monster-dropped items directly into my inventory. I wanted to talk with my two teammates before we just did it. I know loot is an immensely important subject as it is directly tied to your personal growth. So, here’s my proposal. Alt turns it on until we are two Floors from our highest point. This way I’d get to suck up all the crap like that…” Jack paused to gesture to the Floor 7 items spread out on the rope ground. “But when we get to the good stuff, everything falls where everyone can see it.”
Lex looked over at Thymus and then shrugged. “I trust you, Jack, and I don’t really look at items anymore. You’ve been bringing me upgrades already. I say keep it all.”
The old mage stroked his gray beard as he thought about it.
“Oh!” he said with a start when he realized they were waiting for him to voice his opinion. “I say enable this reality-bending spell as soon as you are able, Alt. I was just stunned at the concept, and I have no apprehension regarding Jack’s desire to dole appropriate upgrades to the group. The time it will save! How can one be disappointed when Demi’s delicious dinner is but one step closer?”
“Sounds good,” Jack said with a firm nod. “Make it happen, Alt.”
The three Heroes and Alt pushed through the rest of the Tower and up to the Floor 25 Boss with no problems. Due to Lex’s Shout and mana-free invulnerability combined with Jack dealing 82 Dmg a second with his new and improved Mining Laser, they burned every Boss to the ground with room to spare.
The final creature within the ancient sand temple that was Floor 25 was just up ahead, and Jack felt a smile spreading across his face. Today’s last Boss appeared to be a shadow in the shape of a hand, and Lex had just run out to Shout her challenge.
Instead of confronting her directly, the shadow monster slid up onto the ceiling and fired a stream of white lightning down at the defiant Bastion. With a burst of a three-note harmony, Lex phased into her invincible mist form, and everyone else jumped from behind a huge sandstone column to pile on the damage.
Jack activated his death beam, Thymus plopped down his heavy-hitting turret, and Angry Sun Alt sent black eye-beams of pure crackling energy upward toward the Boss.
Floor 25 Boss Critical! -170 | HP 605/775
Floor 25 Boss Critical! -324 | HP 281/775
Both Jack and Thymus’ turret came right out of the gate with an early critical strike, and the massive damage output drew the shadowy hand monster away from the stationary Bastion, even with the forced attention from her Shout.
Its two-dimensional form slid along the carved stone ceiling, and once it was within range, spidery fingers of white energy flashed down on the ranged damage dealers.
Jack -75 | HP 215/290
Thymus -75 | HP 195/270
Angry Sun Alt was able to zip away before getting caught up in the Boss’s area-of-effect attack, and with him dealing twice Jack’s Main-Hand damage, the three of them quickly burnt down the monstrous shadow before anyone took another jolt. The Boss exploded into a colorful shower of glimmering sparks, and Jack felt a rush of euphoria as he hit Hero Level 26.
“I couldn’t hold it with all that damage,” Lex said as she trotted up to them, then turned to Alt. “I must thank you again for showing me my group’s remaining hit points. Before, I would have panicked- watching the Boss move to attack my whole party like that. Knowing the actual damage you took and how much health the Boss has…” She trailed off, still in shock over the advantage the AI had given her. Jack finished her sentence.
“Knowing allows us to play smart, not hard. Today was a breeze and the world is out there for us to conquer.”
The ball of fire that was the Angry Sun turned its black half-moon eyes on Jack and spoke directly into his mind.
“As inspirational as that is, I feel I must continue to manage your expectations regarding the challenges ahead.”
Jack took a deep breath, then addressed Alt’s chiding words by speaking out loud to his team.
“Although we could easily push to the next level today, we should stick to the plan of climbing one Floor a day. Sure, we’ve got powerful new abilities, but there’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”
And they didn’t.
The next day, the team climbed the Tower up to Floor 26, and both Jack and Lex found some incremental gear upgrades on their way up to Hero Level 27. The day after that, they were standing on the dried-up sewers of Floor 12 when a blade dropped after defeating a bipedal salamander with a glowing bo-staff. Jack crunched his boots into the brittle leaves gathered at the bottom of the cavernous stone pipe in a quick jog to check its stats. He saw the gleaming edge of metal and knew this would be the one to push his imaginary friend that lived in his leather sheath to the next level.
Sharpened Longsword - [Sword | Value: 57]
| Dmg: 24 |
| Def +5 |
| Hit Chance +0.01 |
| Crit Chance +0.2 |
“You were right,” Jack said, pulling the item into his inventory. “I’m glad I didn’t just feed you my dagger the other day.” He was tempted to rush the process, but the AI convinced him that his own gear upgrades should take priority. His eyes involuntarily flicked over to Alt’s current Value in his HUD.
Alt Value: 14,961/15,000
The normally chatty Alt was quiet now, however, as he waited for Jack to move the item over and into his Main-Hand equipment slot. Jack’s own excitement was noticeably boosted by his link to the sentient science vessel tied to his mind and didn’t make either of them wait a moment longer. With a thought, he moved the blade and increased Alt’s complexity once more.
After Jack felt the disembodied echoes of someone else’s intensely shifting emotions, Alt spoke telepathically.
“Oh, this all makes so much sense now…”
Jack looked over his shoulder to Lex and Thymus, and the ostric
h-like creature standing next to them. The six-foot summoned bird was covered with iridescent blue feathers, and his big red eyes lost their focus as the AI controlling them adjusted to his expanded system access and restored data.
“Anything good?” Jack asked, then remembered he could check for himself. With a thought, he opened his Path interface panel.
PATH: Data Summoning [0/250,000]
► Call Alt – [Activated | Once per Entrance | read.Mainhand(remote deletion pr)]
~ Summon ARV Alternis to help you fight.
► Alter Alt – [Activated | Once per Floor]
~ I’ll take the form of a chosen Monster previously defeated by Mining Laser
► Elevator Alt – [Activated | Once per Entrance | //c “This ability summons the party up to and including Floor 25. All HP loss, MP loss, Items gained, Coins gained, etc. will be randomly approximated yet statistically accurate.”
“No way…” Jack mumbled.
“What?” Lex asked her brows coming down.
“Oh, it’s a big new ability,” Jack said, looking into her golden eyes. “Mmm, but the more I think about it…”
Jack played out what it would be like to have breakfast, only fight for a few Floors, and then pop out for dinner. If they did this, they’d potentially skip substantial chunks of their lives. And if they only had a limited time together… He refocused on the short blonde woman waiting for him to continue, and he suddenly didn’t know if he wanted to tell them about the ability at all.
Alt spoke at a faster yet understandable rate within his mind.
“I think your penchant for creativity is rubbing off on me, Jack. Here’s a counterpoint, you move up the first few Floors until you find a good one, like the pinball level, and spend the equivalent hours there instead. Then skip to 25 when you’re ready.”
“Jack!”
He refocused at the Bastion in mismatched leather armor. Could they really spend hours lounging on a beach instead of fighting?
“Sorry,” he said, finally getting a grip and turning to include Thymus in the conversation. “My third Path gained a new skill when Alt leveled, and it puts the instant loot collecting thing to shame. I don’t think we should use it today, but once a day, I can warp us up to Floor 25 or below. Our HPs, Mana, and drops would all be calculated and applied instantly.”