Ch 222 – Odd Neighbors
"This Floor has been all but loot for you," Deacon snarked to Bonehead as they neared the end of Valorie's Ariadne's Thread trail. Taking that same moment as a moment of respite to Identify the ring that Bonehead had ended up receiving as the dungeon's completion reward, since he was the only one in the Guild who had a primary focus of his stats in mental attributes, with him being an Alchemist and all.
He'd ignored Identifying it earlier, as all of his accessory slots were occupied and he hadn't wanted to stop casting Blood Sense even for the brief moment it would take to Identify Bonehead's ring.
Rightly wary in his own mind that a Tier 2 climber might somehow detect that momentary lapse in his spell's upkeep if they possessed the right detection skills and use that opening to track them down, get in their way, or pull off something that could screw them over.
He was in no way risking another Hoarder pop-up again – especially when Tier 2s were roaming about.
He’d counted at least forty in the past six hours they’d been roaming around looking for more radioactive water to take back to their base.
Item Name: Rat Lord’s Signet Ring
Type: Accessory – Ring
Rarity: Rare
Effect: Allows the wearer to summon and command a pack of bubonic rats.
Description: A tarnished signet ring bearing the etched crest of a rat’s head. When worn, it marks the user as the Rat Lord to nearby vermin, simultaneously granting the ability to summon bubonic rats that obey the owner of the signet unconditionally. The number and power of the rats summoned scale with the wearer’s Intelligence and Wisdom stats.
Oh, that's really good for him, Deacon thought to himself as the four of them passed out of the narrow tunnel they had first all descended through hours ago, arriving in what should have been an empty cavern except for the faint golden thread hovering at the far end of it that traced back to the spool of golden thread secured on the back of Valorie's waist.
That is, if they were completely ignoring the massive gaping hole that had been torn into the left half of the cavern's floor by the enormous Tier 2 Stone Worm under the Hoarder's control.
"How big are the rats you can summon?" Deacon asked Bonehead.
If they were small rats, they could be good for sneaking and swarming, and if they were large ones, they would be good meat shields that would be able to defend both Bonehead and Valorie if a rogue or some creature similar managed to get into their backline.
Humming thoughtfully to himself while examining the ring on his finger more closely, Bonehead considered the question for a moment before answering, "Depends entirely on which size batch I want to summon.”
“I could summon three large rats that could serve as proper tanks,” he said while raising one hand, before then raising another, “and for roughly the same amount of mana it would take to summon them, I could summon twenty small rats."
"Does their power scale with their size, or can you control that independently?" Leon asked as they reached the opposite end of the cavern, where they could see an indent carved into the rock wall in the shape of an arched stone doorway with a thin rectangular outline positioned in the door a few inches from its top with several small but thick metal rods blocking the opening like bars.
That must be the coven's entrance, Deacon mused to himself as his gaze shifted back toward his group for a moment.
"Everything about them is variable according to what I need when summoning them," Bonehead answered while raising up the hand wearing the ring on his finger to show that he'd already gotten rid of the lower-quality ring one of the dog NPCs back on Floor Nine had crafted for him.
"From what I'm getting from the information this ring is feeding me, it's significantly easier to create twenty small bubonic rats and modify their disease potency to be very high, but it would cost approximately quadruple the mana to do the exact same modifications for just three of the big ones."
"Sounds best if you just use the large rats as guards and meat shields and reduce their disease potency as much as you can to conserve mana while doing the opposite for the small rats if you want to use them offensively," Valorie suggested while adding her own tactical analysis as she stopped funneling mana into Ariadne's Thread secured behind her waist, causing the glowing golden string wrapped around the spool to fade back into a mundane brown.
“Or if you can use the rats as scouts,” Deacon suggested. “If they’re able to relay things – if not, trap testers.”
"Do you even have any idea how big the large rats actually are?" she asked curiously as Bonehead had not summoned any of the rats yet since none of them wanted to risk the chance that the conjured creatures might somehow be sensed by a particularly insightful Tier 2 mage patrolling the Floor.
They were not risking drawing the ire of a Tier 2 after the Hoarder incident.
"Kinda have a rough idea," Bonehead shrugged as Deacon stepped forward and knocked firmly on the stone door three times in succession.
"It's like knowing what the length of a meter is in your mind versus actually seeing a meter-long object physically placed in front of you."
Valorie opened her mouth to blurt out something along the lines of 'What the hell does that even mean?' but was immediately stopped from doing so when the barred sliding peephole built into the door suddenly slid open with a sharp clack to reveal a pair of bloodshot, exhausted eyes appearing behind the barred opening.
"We've come to bring back the water," Deacon announced clearly while holding up the Azure Water Reservoir high enough for the eyes to see what he was holding.
The person behind the heavy door gave absolutely no outward reaction whatsoever other than immediately sliding the peephole shut with another clack, and after a few tense, silent moments passed, the distinct sound of shuffling footsteps could be heard moving around behind the door before the sound of many heavy bolts shifting and unlocking echoed through the cavern.
After approximately a minute of continuous unlocking sounds, the final clack rang out, and the massive stone door creaked open just barely ajar, only wide enough for a pale, sickly-looking bare arm to poke through the narrow gap with its skeletal hand splayed out flat and waiting to receive something.
Glancing at his Guildmates for a brief moment before he quickly pulled up and read through his Floor Quest Panel one last time to confirm this was the right move, Deacon shrugged and handed over the Azure Water Reservoir into the waiting hand.
The very instant the pale fingers made contact with and grabbed hold of the reservoir's handle, the hand jerked backward violently while clutching the container protectively, and the heavy stone door immediately slammed shut with a resounding boom as many bolts began rapidly shifting back into their locked positions to seal the entrance.
As the stone door finished closing and the final bolt slid into place, all four of them were simultaneously greeted with a System Notification appearing in their vision.
Floor Twelve – The Undergrave:
Forty-nine years ago, the bombs fell and transformed life as everyone knew it, reducing the once-booming population of humanity to less than a tenth of what it was before the fires stopped burning and the fallout settled.
The land above became uninhabitable; the air, once plentiful and clean, thinned into something that poisons your lungs if breathed for long enough, and the water turned into a tar-like substance that kills within minutes of consumption.
Along with the catastrophic changes to the environment above, the creatures that once roamed the surface mutated into terrifying monstrosities that toppled the power structure humanity had sat comfortably at the top of for millennia and sent them careening to the bottom, where they now barely cling to survival, banishing what remained of the human population underground.
You have spent your entire life underground within a coven of scavengers that barely manages to survive from one day to the next, scraping by on whatever can be found or taken from the depths. Food is scarce, water even more so, and every expedition into the deeper tunnels risks never returning.
Three nights ago, the two lead scavenger teams staggered back to the coven, battered and half-dead, having barely managed between them to gather enough food to keep everyone alive a little while longer, though according to the coven's witch doctor, their injuries are severe enough that none of them will be venturing out again anytime soon to collect water.
Without water, the coven will not survive the coming days.
With no other choice, the coven head has declared that you and a small group of others will take the place of the injured scavenger teams and venture into the tunnels in search of water, and you've been armed with the coven's most sacred relic to carry back whatever you find.
You have four days to descend into the depths, locate a new water source, fill the relic, and return.
Fail, and thirst will claim not only your life but the lives of everyone in your coven waiting for your return.
Floor Completion Criteria:
▸ Fill the Relic with enough water to sustain your coven ✔
▸ Return to your coven within four days with the Relic intact ✔
Time Remaining: COMPLETED
Reward: Access to Floor Thirteen, Knowledge of Floor Thirteen’s Waystone Location
With 46 hours, 27 minutes, and 13 seconds remaining, Deacon noted as he smirked to himself at how much time they'd managed to save despite having taken the time to gather enough radioactive water to fill the dungeons of the manor and waste a full day in the dungeon.
"No actual Floor Reward though," Valorie sighed with obvious disappointment.
"There are still many places within the Manor that we have not thoroughly checked yet," Leon replied in a good-natured tone. "We have yet to properly explore and search through its South, West, and North Wings."
"Not to mention the Gardens," Bonehead added greedily. “There are two we haven’t checked, and I don’t think we fully checked out the one we were teleported in.”
"But all of that will have to wait until we reach Floor Fifteen and the heat dies down," Deacon immediately butted in, not wanting the temptation to return to their new Guild Base to take root and distract them from their main goal – Tier 2s still ran about in the Floor, still looking for the Hoarder, and perhaps even the water.
"During that time, while Bonehead milks what he can from Floor Twelve while dealing with the Magic Tower bullshit, the three of us can finish our Floor Thirteen quests relatively fast and then help clear debris and fix up the base and be done by the time he finishes."
"Anyways," Deacon said while shifting his stance and beginning to head toward the large gaping hole in the cavern floor, "shouldn't we all be heading down to the next Floor now?"
"Oh,” Valorie chuckled deviously as she quickly caught up to Deacon and began walking side by side with him toward the edge of the massive pit. “This is gonna be fun."
"Ah crud," Leon muttered under his breath as the four of them came to a stop at the very edge of the hole and he reluctantly pulled out a long length of rope from his Spatial Pouch that he began tying securely around his own stomach before doing the same to Valorie's waist, and she in turn passed it forward to Deacon who then passed the remaining length to Bonehead.
Once all four of them were properly tied together in a long line with the rope secured around each of their waists, Valorie let out an excited whoop and leaped forward into the dark abyss without any hesitation whatsoever.
She was joined immediately after by Deacon, who jumped in right behind her, followed closely by Bonehead, who dove in after them with a slew of curses, leaving his mouth, leaving a deeply regretful and audibly groaning Leon to take a deep breath and reluctantly leap in after his Guildmates into the darkness below.