Unconquered Tower

THIRTY-THREE

The group sitting around the tired were in the same, ragged, sad state as Taoya. Moira, Darren, and Tyler were all covered in healing bandages, exhaustion drained them of any vigor they could have had. Roan didn’t see the mob server anyway and they were all eating their own private meals that had been bought through the market rather than the steaks they could get from the chef.

“You are alive. Wasn’t sure,” Darren said blandly, looking up from his meal. The man had flashburns across his face and neck, skin bright red and nearly glowing.

“Caves are ready to evac and the dragon was purified. Taoya said it went bad here?”

“Wasn’t great. He informed you of who we lost?”

“Yeah. Harris was a good guy,” Roan said. He was careful of them as he moved around. He’d seen more than one person snap, lashing out while mourning. It would be unfortunate if it happened now while they were building something that could move them through the tower.

“That explosion, the one that came after everything else. What do you think it was?” Roan asked. He didn’t want to stay on the subject of their dead friends while he had been nowhere around.

“Grace and Nash most likely. We ran them out of their home and they had to have gone somewhere. We’re discussing what to do. Our defences here are obviously not surviving another night,” Darren said. Moira grunted in agreement, but her jaw was wrapped tight with blood crusted bandages.

“Use the chambers to heal through our mana saturation. Spend our loot on gear, and then get out of this level while we still can.” Tyler’s words were met with a solemn nod from Moira and a apprehensive one from Taoya.

“There’s too much opportunity left here.”

“I hate agreeing with Darren.” The man was a raging prick, but Roan could always trust him to be pragmatic.

“There’s plenty of opportunity to die. Being greedy on this level could lead to us entering the next one injured and spent. Or we can leave after healing up and loaded down with supplies. Money came easy on this level, we have no idea if it’ll come easy on the next,” Tyler countered.

“I don’t disagree with you, but have you seen the latest level completion?” Darren asked. Roan hadn’t looked yet but quickly brought up the alerts to see where they were currently at.

LEVEL 2 CLEARANCE RATE: 46%

HORDE OFFICERS SLAIN

LIEUTENANTS: 897/1,000

CAPTAINS: 127/250

MAJORS: 11/25

GENERAL: 0/1

HORDEMASTER: ???

“Not even at fifty percent yet.” The thought was unsettling. The last level had killed a lot of people, but Roan had figured it was a winnowing. Those who weren’t truly prepared had been killed and their results had spoken for themselves. They’d nearly fully completed the last level, but this one was proving to be much more difficult.

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“The general is worth twenty-five percent by themself,” Taoya said calmly.

“They are,” Darren said, nodding along.

“You want to do the same thing we did to the dragon to the general?” Roan guessed. Darren nodded along.

“You guys realize that there’s going to be nine hobs out tonight? We didn’t kill enough of them last night to stay here,” Tyler said, fighting against the turning mood.

“That could be difficult, but we need to increase our percentages,” Darren said. Moria mumbled something, growled in anger, then flashed sign language to Taoya who only grimaced.

“Moira said too many alchemists went through to the next level. We won’t have enough bodies to create more of the explosives, or at least not a lot of it,” Taoya translated.

“Fuck.” Darren shouted, slamming his hands on the table, rising fast enough to send his chair skittering backward.

“What’s the storyline of this level?” Roan asked. He’d brought this up a few times and seen people agree with him, but they hadn’t pushed this line of inquiry. All their eyes turned to him and he shrugged nonchalantly.

“This feels like a story, right? Take out the obvious mechanics to grind us away. The first level there was a corrupted life mushroom thing, right? Its corruption spread underground and caused the dead to rise. We clear it and come to this level and suddenly here’s a horde of hostile fighters being pushed out of their homeland, but the guardian of the level is also infected with corruption. A guardian that lives underground. Our enemy only comes out at night for the most part. What is this telling us?”

“Holy shit. Did you just come up with this?” Darren asked accusatorily.

“It’s been on my mind but we’ve been too busy trying to survive to think it out. Sure, we could just play it straight, fight out way through and get strong by killing any enemy that stands in front of us. But we can use our brains.” Moira chortled and then winced, touching her jaw in frustration. Darren sighed and wiped at his face.

“The site of the explosion. Grace and Nash figured it out, or at least guessed it,” Darren pieced it together.

“If it is them, and that’s a big assumption, but yeah. The guardian is roughly in the middle of the five villages and we all get attacked pretty much simultaneously, but I think that’s a mechanic. If you talked to the mob that issued quests it told you the goblins came from the caves to the east. That explosion was from the east. General isn’t dead though.”

“I like it. We evac everyone out who isn’t going with us and we punch them in the face during the day,” Taoya said.

“We don’t have much time then. We all need to get into the dilation chambers and get through the mana saturation. Moira, we need as much explosive as we can. Roan, you’re the only one not hurt. Once the pyres are lit I need you to organize whoever is left and organize. I don’t think there’s that many who can keep up with us anymore, but see if we can somehow get someone to guide us. Maybe ask Mayor Hana?” Darren said, taking the idea and running with it. Tyler sighed but nodded her head slowly but faster.

“I’ll be better at this than simply waiting for them to come and attack us,” she said as she got up.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Roan didn’t want to do any organizing, but with how few people seemed to be left in the village it wouldn’t take long and he could spend some time seeing what he could take with him.

It wasn’t stealing if the owners were dead.

The group broke up, heading toward the center of town, leaving Roan alone. He hadn’t been close with Harris and it seemed like this was more of a private event than they’d let on. Most of those who had stayed to defend the village were those from the sects or colleges.

Roan plundered the kitchen, finding several steaks in something that looked suspiciously like a refrigerator. The chef mob was pressed against the back of the kitchen, skull split open.

“Sorry, but I don’t think you’ll mind,” Roan said, figuring out how to light the grill and threw all the raw steaks on it. His spatial rings could hold the cooked food when it was done, but he was going to run out of room soon enough.

“Got to buy a bigger spatial ring or bag. Things are damned expensive. Wonder if I could enchant one or do I need a spatial core?” He found a few burlap bags that held softening vegetables and flowers that he would have needed the harvesting skill book to identify.

“So my town dies and you begin looting?” Mayor Hana’s question froze him, half of the pantry already in the bags.