Collide Gamer

Floors were among the original varieties of Dungeons that John had unlocked. They held a fond place in his heart for that reason, even if he rarely ever had a reason to still run one. In terms of the balancing between the various kinds of I.D. and their primary purpose, Floors were best to acquire Loot.

John had very little use for Loot. The only stuff he could get out of Dungeons that he still cared about was found in Raids. Anything in regular I.D.s was just filler for him at this point. At least, that was his general experience with them. There was always the rare exception, like Velka had been.

There was a point to grind Floor Dungeons in the form of acquiring a bunch of items that were, while useless to him, powerful. Such items made for good gifts to other guilds, rewards for loyal supporters and bribes for selfish opportunists. He had to be a bit careful about what he handed out at times though. When the power discrepancy between an enchanted item and its wielder was too massive, the overpowering mana from the item could negatively impact that wielder. It was a bit like radiation poisoning, just without the threat of cancer.

There was a way around this: just grind lower level Dungeons. That made them even more worthless as a time investment and John had since been granted a way to not bother with this either: those with the Servant Lover’s Will mark could use Create I.D., with limited Loot Tables and general aptitude. Since all of the maids had this mark, all it took John to get a fresh influx of items was them foregoing their nightly cuddling hours.

A steep price to pay, John agreed, but easily done in a pinch. With that mechanic in his pocket, he would only run out of rewards and bribes if he tried to grease the wheels of an entire Chinese province.

So, Floors were rarely done. Their primary purpose was obsolete twice over and they were too time intensive to consider for an afternoon spin. Levels were just that much more valuable.

‘Wonder if that will change in the endgame,’ John thought. ‘Usually gear supersedes levels in importance at max level – which only makes sense. Given the quality of the gear I already have, I don’t know how much better it could get though.’

John put those thoughts into the waiting room just as he stepped out of the Intermediary Barrier and into the black space behind the Gate of Light.

“What do we feel like, ladies?” he asked, once his two companions for this run had followed him.

“I would prefer somewhere underground, dark, far away from even the potential of the daystar,” Claire responded instantly. “Maybe somewhere with lots of snuggles? Yes, we should cuddle a lot and a lot more and moremoremoremore…”

John snapped his fingers. “Speak properly, Claire,” he said with authority. The response he got was a clear swooning from the vampire maid. He had it all but verbally confirmed by her that the only reason why she still had her little outburst of obsessive repetition like that was because she liked the little hypnotic trance he put her in to stop her. “You are a kinky one.”

“It feels so good to give myself to you, Master. It feels sublime, it feels divine, it feels unlike anything else, and that feeling is mine.”

“And they call me crazy,” Siena laughed. As always, the voice of the midnight elemental was the kind of arousing that women around the world tried to emulate. They had varying degrees of success, Siena just had that husky, low, whispering cadence that made John’s brain feel like it was tugged in under a weighted blanket, the curvaceous body of the black-haired woman pressed against his.

“There is nothing crazy about you and I,” Claire swiftly responded. “In fact, those of us who bask in John’s light are the only sane ones in the world.”

“I can see why you let Layla do what she did,” John drawled.

The vampire maid just gave him a wide smirk. She was lucky the whole affair had ended in the life of Lyndell and potentially the entire Abyss getting saved from assimilation by chaos mushroom.

John had chosen this group configuration by partial recommendation of the dice. With two slots available, the number of combinations he had available was vast. He had rolled to give him the first person to accompany him, which had been Claire, then picked whoever he thought would make for the best assistance, which had been Siena. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁

The logic here was that Claire, with her artificial body and her many summons, would easily be able to hold the frontline. John would play the fights front to back, taking out enemies with his spells, while Siena would play them back to front, diving into the shadows to take out individuals.

It was a solid arrangement, made easier by the fact that combat rarely was the primary difficulty of a Floor Dungeon. Raids and Assaults were designed to actually try and kill John, especially when he went several hours into the latter. Floors were built to challenge him minorly, like all the base categories of Dungeon were.

“An answer to my question, please?” he requested.

“Let me look at that table.” Claire stepped up to John. She got close, much closer than she would have needed to read the window hovering in front of him. Grinding her plump bubble butt against his groin was definitely not required to read.

“Not now,” he chastised her.

Claire pouted, but changed from the open attempt to arouse him to simply standing by his side. “We are powerful enough to have fun while levelling,” she complained. “Just a little bit of kissing and touching?”

“I don’t like mixing combat and sex,” John told her.

“That’s not true,” Siena purred. “I remember when you carry-fucked Sylph mid-combat.”

“That was a Class Challenge, for one,” John retorted. “If you want me to be very clear in my words: I may physically enjoy having sex during combat and there is a thrill I get out of it, but by and large I prefer to not mix these things.” He crossed his arms. “It’s one of those borders around my degeneracy that I prefer not to cross.”

Siena openly rolled her eyes at that. She was an advocate of hedonism, so he didn’t take issue with the reaction. Claire was simply disappointed she wasn’t going to fulfil her maidly duties. “Combat it is then,” the obsessed vampire sighed, her posture shifting to something stiffer and more militaristic. The drill of an Ironborn was still within her. She loathed that origin, but she made it her own in service of him. “Alchemy, Angels, Aquatic, Avian, Demons, Elves, Ratfolk, Slimes and Wall Shadows, these are our choices to be slain for your glory.”

“Wall Shadows are a pain,” Siena declared. “Our party is not built well for Avians or Aquatics either. Ratfolk are typically a swarm of penetrators with a strong leader, aren’t they?”

John gave Siena a half-lidded glance at her choice of words. Her overly sexual voice transformed almost everything she said into an innuendo already, she did not need to go the extra mile - yet she did.

“Dissatisfied with my deep analysis?” the shadow spirit cooed.

“No,” John drawled and left that there. “Ratfolk could work, I agree. Personally I feel more like dealing with Alchemy creatures though.”

“I vote for whatever Master votes for,” Claire said.

“I did not see that coming,” Siena retorted, voice dripping with sarcasm.

The Tier 156 Floor Dungeon that appeared around them was fashioned from living metal. The smooth surfaces shimmered slightly under the light of the flesh lamps that were integrated into the sides of the room. It was a stark contrast to have these clean, gently flowing walls of mercury part around ugly, wart-like protrusions with a bioluminescent disk of enamel at their centre.

“I like Alchemy Dungeons,” John said as he looked around. “They are easily the most varied when it comes to the scenery. You never know if you get fleshcraft or metallurgy with them.”

“I find this quite dull,” Siena responded. “Novelty of materials aside, everything is either smooth metal or ugly wart, that’s it.” She tapped her spiked heel on the floor, testing the firmness. A quick nod assured she was happy in that regard.

Claire made a sweeping gesture. Fragments of black, red-trimmed mana separated from her limb, consolidating mid-air into a swarm of small spiders. “Go, my pretties,” she purred. They immediately skittered out into the four corridors adjacent to their starting location.

When they crossed the threshold, they were all made aware of the first mechanic of this Floor Dungeon. The previously slowly flowing walls rippled, then shifted into spikes attempting to pierce the spiders. It was a slow process, easily dodged even by the arachnids.

John firmly planted a foot outside the safe area. The walls around rippled just as clearly as before, the emerging spikes came just as slowly. The spikes lingered for only a brief moment, before retreating into the walls. “Not pressure related,” he said aloud. “It’s a simple mechanic to keep us moving, it would seem.”

The trail of spikes left behind by its skitters was the obvious hint that one of the small spiders was already returning. It made its way up Claire’s leg, her side, all the way to her earlobe. “Uh-huh… uh-huh…” Claire verbalized her understanding, while nodding. The spider dropped back off its mistress, who in turn addressed her Master. “Enemies right around that corridor. Some kind of semi-metallic jellyfish.”

“Let’s check that out then.” John gestured for Claire to take point. He followed after her and Siena, invisibly, first followed, then stalked ahead. ‘Her invisible movements do not trigger the spikes,’ he noted with a degree of interest. ‘So, the walls need to be aware of something moving.’

John called it invisibility, but it was more of a universal existence masking. Letting light pass through the body was just the first part of being invisible. Suppressing vibrations of the air, scents, and the aura one gave off were all part of proper invisibility, which Siena was a master of passively. A privilege of being an elemental, payback for how constricting her nature was in terms of the directions of her growth and reliance on a summoner to achieve it.

The corridor was broad enough that they could advance without the spikes Claire left behind obstructing John in any capacity. He was willing to bet that was going to change as they descended and/or that it would be some part of the boss mechanics.

The corner was more of a gentle curve. Because all of the walls were the same shifting texture, the lack of corners actually made it surprisingly difficult to estimate distances, even for John’s eyes.

The enemy that greeted them was more of a squid than a jellyfish. It had eight arms that it walked on, with two thicker tendrils extending much further. Its body was a bright red, a colour that rose and fell in hypnotic patterns all over its skin the moment it spotted the approaching duo.

‘Interesting lore,’ John thought and launched a Blast Ray at the creature. It reacted before he had finished raising his hand, touching one of the warts in the wall. Immediately the bioluminescent surface mutated into a crystal shield, used to block the arcane spell.

Siena revealed herself an instant later. The crystal-bladed tip of her tail pierced the squishy matter of the monster’s bloated head. Yellow eyes bulged, the mesmerizing pattern flared further. Even John’s magic-based vision ached when he looked at it.

The shadow spirit hissed and danced backwards, escaping both a shield bash by the Genius Squid and the spike that emerged from the ceiling. The monster’s other tendril reached out to a second wart, activating it as well, turning the glowing enamel into a lance. It held the weapon by coiling its tendril within the body of the weapon.

With the weapons drawn from the warts, the sources of light were now in the proverbial hands of the Genius Squid. They dimmed to the level of a glow-in-the-dark kid’s toy, possessing that same light green glow. The body of the squid turned even brighter, absorbing that luminescence. The colours flared, giving John a headache when he looked in the creature’s general direction.

‘I’ll take care of that,’ Siena’s voice reached his mind.

The Genius Squid was holding a defensive stature. One eye had drooped, the gash left by Siena’s tail making the flesh there slack, but the other stared with yellow intellect. When the entire form of the creature suddenly dimmed, it snapped to the midnight elemental.

Siena grinned, showing her fangs. A raised hand was filled with swirling darkness. Although her speciality was in stabbing over magic, Siena was perfectly capable of exerting shadow magic, being an elemental at the pinnacle of her kind – not only was she a shadow spirit, the choices of her evolution had mixed in plenty of light.

Threads of moonlight emerged from her other hand. They connected to the shadow the monster cast with its own weapons. A physical tug made the contemplating monster suddenly stumble forwards. A humble trick at their level of magic – yet so deadly if executed in coordination.

A wolf of prestigious size was born in the same instant, storming forwards. The Genius Squid had to respond with a stab, catching the disposable familiar in the chest. Its right arm thus lodged, the creature had no defences left for the vampire that immediately followed the member of her Household.

Claire’s conjured sword plunged into the gash already made and turned it into a complete split of the squid’s bulging head. A last shudder went through it before it collapsed, crumbling to dust before it had even met the ground.

“You’ll probably have to do that a whole lot today,” John told Siena, walking in circles all the while.

“A bit dull.” Siena shifted back into invisibility, so she did not have to deal with the spikes. “I prefer penetrations.”

Of course she did.