by Prax Venter
Black Knife Bandit -112 | 142/750
Black Knife Bandit -112 | 30/750
Jack’s vicious double attack left behind a deep wound and sizzling flesh, and the Bandit fell to one knee as he hurled one of his daggers at the young Dark Prism. Lex was there in an instant and took the desperate ranged attack on her shield before Haylee fired another Light Ray under the Bastion’s armpit. This hasty shot struck the bandit in the chest but was more than enough to finish him off.
Black Knife Bandit -250 | Defeated
Jack and the rest of his party swiftly pulled back and crouched against the trees once again, waiting for the inevitable mob of bandits to spill from the abandoned manor. Yet, as the minutes passed, no one came.
“Does this mean we lost the game?” Jack whispered.
Lex turned from her vigilant watch and shook her head.
“If there are more in there that have not been alerted, then I say no.”
“Agreed,” Haylee said.
Farah chuckled as she took a crouching step out onto the path.
“You people are a type of crazy I didn’t know was missing from my life. Everyone wait here while I go and check out the area.”
Jack nodded and watched as the lithe assassin crept along the trees with a fluid skill none of them could match. He gave Lex a quick smile before he opened his Inventory to check the recent drops.
He saw some new cloth foot-slot item that he passed to Haylee. They weren’t rare but were a minor upgrade, so she swapped them out. Jack turned his attention to the other items at the top of his Inventory and noticed a new dagger.
Bandit’s Painted Blade - [Dagger | Value: 200]
| Dmg: 80 |
| Max MP +42 |
| Hit Chance +0.23 |
| Crit Chance +0.24 |
| Sneak +12 |
~ Good for being up to no good.
He knew this blade was the perfect upgrade for Farah, and he planned on giving it to her instead of absorbing it, but this was the first time Jack felt a strong urge to keep a rare drop all to himself. Sneak was something he did want to build at some point, but movement speed and dodge were enough to worry about.
Besides, he’d already found a rare item on this rare Floor. He glanced down at the sparkling orange jewel attached to the back of his hand and wondered what he was going to do with slightly more coin added to his giant pile.
“After the Town upgrade,” Alt began telepathically, “you should see a few more options open up.”
Jack sent back another request for a hint at what Lex was planning to suggest.
“I’d rather not betray her trust.”
The being of pure energy tethered to him by his scabbard seemed to have no problem reading his every thought, and Jack had long since gotten used to his presence- even appreciated the instant clarification at times, but if he concentrated, could this mind-reading ability go both ways? Jack bent his will on pushing back along the link that connected them.
“Um, I’d rather… you didn’t.”
Jack’s mouth twisted into a devilish grin as he tried to worm into the AI’s thoughts, but he had no frame of reference for such an action. He could feel twisting chaos in the form of numerical data, and was surprised he could perceive anything, but there was nothing there that held discernible meaning.
He dropped his attempt when Farah came creeping back to the group, but Jack resolved to practice reading Alt’s thoughts more often- sending back the concept of ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’.” The Shadow Blade whispered her report.
“There aren’t any more bandits outside, but I heard talking coming from inside the building. Nothing indicated that anyone in there knows we’re here.”
“Good,” Jack said, opening a trade interface, “but I believe you dropped this.”
He plopped the rare dagger in the trade and watched her now-familiar sideways smile grow as she read over the stats.
“You sure know the way to a woman’s heart,” she said before putting one of her daggers on her side of the panel.
Jack accepted and then opened his inventory to inspect the blade before feeding it to Alt.
Behemoth Bee Stinger - [Dagger | Value: 150]
| Dmg: 69 |
| Max MP +9 |
| Hit Chance +0.20 |
| Crit Chance +0.19 |
| Dodge +15 |
He checked ARV Alternis after the absorption but only saw a few extra points in dodge. With a value of 150, Jack didn’t expect much.
“I take back anything bad I said about this Floor,” Lex said as she inspected Farah’s new dagger.
Farah licked her lips as she in turn inspected Jack’s growing weapon.
“I still can’t believe I’m seeing a sword that swallows blades.”
“Did you find a good entry point?” Lex asked.
“All eyes on me,” Farah said with a wink and then slunk straight to the front of the abandoned manor. Near this side of the house was a pile of broken furniture and heaps of clothes- including an armoire filled with dirty dress pants and white button-down shirts just like the bandits had been using as a type of uniform.
A pair of double doors hung off their hinges at the front of this rotting mansion squatting in the middle of the swamp, and Farah led them straight through them.
“I told you!” Jack heard someone say from deeper in the house. “I cut stone, not create pigment!”
He sounded terrified. Jack heard a wet smack, and the man who had spoken cried out in pain.
“I don’t care,” another person said with a low growling voice. “You’ll figure it out or we’ll let the river carry you away.”
Farah led them through the expansive foyer and into one of the narrow hallways of the bandit’s hideout. The place was dimly lit and musty, and Jack hardly noticed the soggy brown carpet. His sole focus was on being quiet and listening for possible threats. If things went bad, there weren’t many options for retreat.
Farah stopped as she came to a bend in the corridor and peeked around the corner to check the way forward. After, she held up three fingers, then moved to the other side of the hallway so everyone else could see what they faced.
There was a man in a black beret tied to a chair and three bandits standing around him in a large living room. Two of the men looked exactly like the others they had encountered outside, but the one standing closest to their hostage definitely worked out in his spare time. Was this huge guy the Floor Boss?
“P-perhaps you should find some s-squids for their ink,” the bound Stonecutter said. “I’m fairly certain that you’ll find a nice shade-”
He was silenced by another weighty slap to the face.
“When’s the last time you saw a squid? We can’t be the Black Knife Bandits if our blades lose their black, now can we?”
Jack pulled back and considered their plan of attack. A large part of him wanted to rush to the captive’s rescue, but that part of him had been tramped down by experience. Taking out the larger guy first should be the priority, but how was he going to communicate this to his party?
Jack took in the filthy surroundings for an answer. The home had been exposed to the elements for years, it seemed, and the floors were slick with the mud of multiple floods.
He bent down, coated his finger with sludge, and then proceeded to draw three crude stick figures- one larger than the others. Then, he drew an arrow to the big one and labeled it with a “#1”.
He turned to see his party quietly staring at his child-like smears. He pointed to Farah, then Haylee, then the bigger bandit. Then pointed to himself before tapping all the figures- hoping they’d see he meant to follow-up with an Omni Strike. Then pointed to Lex and Alt as he held up his hand to his mouth and pantomimed shouting.
After he finished his silent orders, they were all still staring at him. Jack wiped his hand off on his pants and then thrust his finger outward toward their enemies.
Farah took a deep breath and then padded around the corner, fading from sight
as she did. Haylee followed after and drew her bow. Jack went next and Lex and Alt were right behind him.
None of the bandits noticed the Shadow Blade walking into the room and they were so focused on their captive that they didn’t even notice Haylee entering and then dropping to one knee just inside the room.
Farah kicked the battle off with her Ambush ability and the next few moments were beautifully orchestrated chaos.
Black Knife Bandit Leader Critical! -929 | 571/1500
Haylee reacted to the damage notification and followed up with a non-imbued Light Ray.
Black Knife Bandit Leader Critical! -502 | 69/1200
Their enemy began to react at this point, and Jack knew the plan was for him to Omni Strike everything, but on a whim, he stepped past Haylee and finished the leader with a single blast from his Mining Laser. Despite the enemy being human, Jack hated passing up the chance to rack up another summoned form for his list.
Now that things were in motion, Lex slammed her sword on her shield as she Shouted for the remaining bandits’ attention. They both snarled as they sprinted for the Bastion, their daggers drawn.
Between Farah getting in a vicious stab as they ran, Jack’s tardy Omni Strike combo, and Alt hurling sound waves, the final two bandits fell quickly.
“They didn’t even know what hit them,” Jack said, sheathing his blade with a grin.
Haylee nodded. “I was expecting him to be the Floor Boss.”
“I didn’t see the Exit Orb,” Jack said. “But I was thinking the same thing.”
Farah crossed her long arms as she stepped in front of the bandits’ hostage.
“You the Stonecutter?”
“I am,” he said, hopeful yet reserved.
Lex stepped up next to her. “Do you need healing?”
“Are you here to rescue me?” the prisoner asked, craning his neck to see who else was in the room with him.
“That’s right,” Jack said. “There is a woman trapped in stone that sent us to find you.”
At that, the Stonecutter’s head lulled forward and he began weeping.
Lex gently laid her hand on his shoulder and started singing her wordless soothing song as Farah bent down and sliced through the ropes.
“Do you know what it’s like to finally find love, to find meaning- and then have it all taken away from you? Thank you, Heroes,” the Stonecutter said as he stood from the chair.
Farah crossed her arms again. “We do, actually.”
“Do you know that this is Floor 40 of the Tower?” Haylee asked quietly and all eyes turned to her.
“Of course,” the man in white overalls said as he bent to retrieve his scattered tools from one of the room’s corners. “Floor 40 is my home.”
Jack was not expecting that at all.
- 7 -
“Have you ever thought of leaving Floor 40?” Haylee asked, her gray eyes locked on the middle-aged man as they crossed the recently restored bridge.
“Hmm,” the Stonecutter pondered. “I really haven’t given it much thought.”
It was the third time he’d repeated the same response since the Dark Prism had started her line of questioning. For Jack, any doubts that these entities of pure energy were on the same level as those found in System Sana had been satisfied, but Haylee seemed especially driven to do exactly what he’d hoped she would; probe the edges of her universe.
“Have you ever tried to touch an Exit Orb?” She asked.
He shook his head. “My art keeps me far too busy for such madness. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to hurry toward my love hidden away in solid stone.” With that, their escort NPC hurried their steps. Jack shot a glance over to Haylee who seemed focused intently on the ground as she walked with the group.
The next handful of steps were spent in silence as they returned down the river, back through the forest along the blue mushroom path. To Jack, it all seemed so cramped and conveniently close together. Well, it was a pocket universe explicitly generated for them- and after they left, he supposed it and everyone here would simply cease to exist.
“My beauty!” the Stonecutter yelled as he sprinted toward the giant boulder that blocked the path through the Sundrop Forest.
“Dearest!” the muffled woman responded. “My destiny!”
Jack and his party moved onto the safety of the dirt path as the artist in the black beret fumbled in his deep pockets for his tools. “Can you still see me?” the woman in the rock asked quietly.
“Yes,” the Stonecutter responded, snapping his eyes up to focus on a specific point within the stone. He then produced a tiny chisel and hammer from his pocket, both made from glossy silver. “I will remove all that is weighing you down.”
Jack was going to ask about how long this whole sculpting thing was going to take- the ridiculous small tools were a bit concerning, but the Stonecutter started quaking, as if he were clenching every muscle at once. A soft red glow faded into existence around his form, and it drenched his white outfit in a deep red.
The air around them seemed to suck inward to the Stonecutter as if someone had opened the door on a passenger jet, and Jack clenched one fist around the hilt of his sword while the other shielded his eyes.
Before anyone could react, hammer was brought to chisel with a bellowing shout. The boulder instantly fractured into countless shards of all sizes, then the Stonecutter released the gathered power outwards. Everything that wasn’t a seven-foot woman wearing flowing silks was violently blown backwards away from them, tumbling to dust within the drooping pines.
And as promised, behind her were stacks of uniformly chopped cords of wood.
The statue turned her head, blinking her thin stone eyelids as she took in the world around her. They quickly found her creator.
“You saw me for me!” she said, bending down to embrace him.
“I could never unsee you,” he whispered in her ear.
Jack shared a glance with Lex, and he saw mirrored there his own confusion, recognition, and disbelief.
“And thank you Heroes!” she said, opening her eyes to cast her stony gaze to each of them. “Come, dearest love, we shall repay our debt by helping to carry wood to their hearth and home.”
“Splendid idea!” the Stonecutter said, then pocketed his tiny silver tools.
Without hesitation, they proceeded to load up the giant stone woman’s arms with more logs than Jack and his team would have ever been able to carry.
“That’s handy,” Farah said, hooking her thumb at the pair. “Imagine having to dump items to accommodate those useless logs. That is, if we weren’t with a man with very deep pockets.”
Jack smiled and shook his head. “Why not just pick them up and carry them in your arms?”
The lithe Shadow Blade frowned as she considered it. “I suppose…”
To prove his point, Jack took a step closer to Lex. He bent over and put one arm under her knees and one behind her back. Then, with as much strength as he could wield, he twisted upward, sweeping the Bastion off her feet.
“Jack!” Lex protested with wide golden eyes, yet she didn’t fight him. A moment later he was holding the love of his life in his arms as the statue woman held stacks of logs.
“I can’t seem to put you in my Inventory,” Jack said, feeling her dense weight steadily challenge his biceps. She was short, but she was stronger than she looked- and wearing full leather armor.
“Yes,” Farah said, her twisted smile spread across her face. “But you can no longer wield that big sword of yours, Jack.”
He planted one peck on Lex’s forehead then put her on her boots again. They all headed back along the path and moments later they returned to the clearing where they started. Waiting outside of her fairytale house was the grandmother woman that had sent them all over Floor 40, holding a plate of cookies. Next to her was the Carpenter who had repaired the bridge and he gave a big wave when he saw the Heroes.
“What is this,” Jack said, a smile growing on his face. “Some typ
e of party?”
“A party with too many guests!” shouted the Stonecutter from behind.
Alt Critical! -506 | Defeated
He spun to see the man in the black beret retracting his chisel from the fading robot dog. Behind him, the animated statue finished dumping her massive pile of logs in front of the path and then began stomping toward Lex. While Jack’s brain was trying to catch up with what was happening, he felt something sharp strike the middle of his back.
Jack -143 | HP 375/518
He turned just in time to dodge another spinning cookie hurled from the gray-haired grandmother- who now wore an insane, twisted face.
Haylee reacted quickly, and her attacks were always instantaneous, but the oversized stone woman used her flowing granite silk garment to intercept the Blue Shifted Light Ray before it hit its intended target.
Floor 40 Boss B -50 | HP 1040/1090
Jack drew his sword and blasted the old woman in the face with his crackling red laser as Farah landed an Ambush on the statue.
Floor 40 Boss A -152 | HP 602/754
Floor 40 Boss B Critical! -688 | HP 352/1090
A moment later Jack saw a flash of light come from the Carpenter and the Legendary Hammer of Yog they’d recovered for him.
Floor 40 Boss B +400 | HP 752/1090
He was a Healer. Jack looked over his shoulder at his party trying to outmaneuver the enemy’s rogue equivalent, the Stonecutter, who had his own sinister eyes locked on Haylee.
“Go for the Healer!” Jack yelled, hoping his Dark Prism would switch targets. As the words left his lips, he saw the carved stone woman bring her fist down on Lex. The much shorter Bastion deflected the blow with a raised shield, but the force of the attack left Lex wide open for a follow-up.
The statue sang a short mournful melody instead. Both Farah and Lex snarled and focused on ineffectively hacking away on the statue woman’s drooping silks, their blades igniting sparks which each strike.
The Stonecutter stabbed Lex in the side, but she ignored it. Her mind was forced to fixate on her target.
Lex -302 | HP 436/738
Haylee obeyed Jack’s order and shot a Light Ray into the Carpenter’s hand, but he quickly reacted with another heal on himself.