The Pinnacle Warrior

“Despite having fewer numbers,” Muti answered Astrid’s question about the party’s performance, “we killed the Boss in about the same amount of time as they did.”

“You and I did a lot better than their frontliners too,” Felix added. “They took a lot of punishment, but didn’t get hit with anything as bad.”

Astrid had to agree with that, despite the soreness on her left side still making itself known.

“Honestly,” Skandr said as he idly played with his cloud, “I think that Benedict serves as the big difference. Seeing the way that the Boss moved against the Count’s party, it was pretty obvious that the people that they have working in support aren’t as impactful as Benedict is.”

“I agree,” Astrid nodded. “As always, Benedict, thank you for all that you do for the party. It’s easy to feel or even be forgotten, but your ability to heal us while also harming the monsters has been more than valuable.”

“I don’t think I’m that impressive, so it’s nice to have you all inflating my ego. Sometimes,” he admitted, “I feel like I don’t do a whole lot for the party.”

“You have received your praise,“ Muti waved her hand dismissively, though with her helmet dismissed, her sharp teeth were bared in a, obvious smile as she said it. “Do not belabor the comforts to your ego.”

“Where do you get all these words?” Benedict demanded. “I’ve let it slip for this long because you’re an intelligent woman, but really? Belabor? I don’t even know the word, and I’m the Human who uses the most words in the party.”

“I believe that the word is cognate? A word which sounds similar in another language?”

“But the Human language doesn’t sound anything like the Barbarian one,” Benedict shook his head.

“Perhaps it does not to you,” Muti half agreed, “but to add to your question, the language of my people is, largely, a formal one. Much communication is made through the strength of arm, and superfluous words without the ability to back them is weak and cowardly, but making yourself understood through your words is a skill and a strength which more should value. To use your words is to better understand yourself. One trains with words to train their mind and one trains with their weapons to train their body.”

Benedict threw his hands in the air as the party harvested the mana steel from the ogre club as well as its ears and tusks. As they entered the passageway to the forty-first floor, Astrid pulled the brief out of her spatial pouch. The papers were dogeared and more than well loved, but this next floor would be the last one in which the brief continued to help the party. There were eleven more days for the party to delve and attempt to gain the boon from the Trials, but they would all be without direction from here on out. She couldn’t imagine that any of the other parties would have information more than a floor or two past herself, and she doubted that the Hiveguard had anything. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t seen anything from the insectoid people in a while.

“Eleven days,” Skandr said, his thoughts mirroring Astrid’s own, “until we are done. Tomorrow’s the last day we’re going to have any sort of foreknowledge of what’s in front of us. Do we think we’ll be able to get past floor fifty?”

“That’s hard to say,” Astrid shrugged as she dismissed her armor. This latest floor had allowed them to refill their water barrel, and she planned on taking advantage of a good bath tonight, even if it wasn’t a true bath. “The brief says that the forty-first floor was significantly larger than any that came before it. I’d imagine that will continue to hold true through the rest of the forties. From here on, Muti, we’ll rely more on your senses to make sure we’re not wandering.”

The Ambusher nodded her head in solemn agreement, and with that, the rest of the party went through the motions of preparing themselves to rest. Muti’s senses were far from failing them, but as the floors changed, she no longer had an immediate understanding of where the party needed to go. These floors, now that they spread for at least 100 kilometers, were true trials to get through. Perhaps the only consolation to that was that the party would almost certainly reach level 35 if they focused on killing drakes and rocs on the next floor.

“It’s probably for the best for us to maybe take an extra day on this next floor to make sure we all reach this next watershed,” Astrid said as she looked at her party. “We’re not sure what exactly the new challenge the Trials present is for passing the barrier that was the fortieth floor. As far as we know, it’s not hostile terrain, and the report we have said that there are pretty low level enemies to fight, even level 22. However, the brief also suspects that there were some of them that were past level 35. Do you think the floor guardians are going to be at least level 36? Because drakes and rocs both scale even more than feathered serpents. They don’t perfectly counter us like the feathered serpents do, but they’re a big threat.”

“Maybe this is where it will act more like the Dungeon itself?” Skandr hazarded. “After all, while the variation within the floors here is greater than what you find in branches, it still doesn’t have the diversity that it seems the forty-first floor does. The variation in monster levels is also similar to the Dungeon itself, with young, weak monsters alongside much stronger ones.”

“Having to learn how to distinguish between different monster strengths? That could be it. After all, there were the hidden, elite monsters on many of the floors that we’ve fought or avoided,” Felix said. “I feel like it will probably be more than that, though.”

The party continued talking for a while, each going through their own routines to get ready to rest. They agreed to push for level 36 on the next floor, which would almost certainly mean that they were going to be spending the night among drakes and rocs. Nobody looked forward to losing their safe resting spots, but getting their next Skills before striding into the unknown was more than attractive enough for the party to make that adjustment.

As Astrid stretched before she got into bed, she thought about how quickly they were progressing through Iron. According to their plan, on the next floor, they all would cross the halfway mark of Iron. On top of that, everybody would have their final Skills at that point. She, Felix, and Muti all had filled all five of their Skill slots for Iron, but Skandr and Benedict both had yet to do so. Though, Astrid supposed, Skandr could potentially choose to upgrade his enchantment Skill instead of taking another. With his enchantment Skill still untiered, there was no small amount of hesitation over what he would do. He’d already explained the options that were presented to him, and the party agreed that it was best for him to choose either a new Bronze tier Skill or higher or, if it was offered, an upgrade to lightning enchantment directly to Iron. Whichever of the two he chose, that would allow him to take two steps instead of one towards a superior evolution at the end of Iron.

“The best case scenario,” he explained, “is to get something at Iron at 35. It doesn’t matter if that’s Lightning Enchantment or something else, because that at least gives me the possibility of having five Iron tier Skills at level 43.”

“Plus the boon we’re all going to get in eleven days,” Benedict said with a grin.

“At one point,” Felix said, his voice low, “I thought that was a sure thing. I mean, a party of all very rares, except for our redheaded monster? Absolutely. But people are keeping up, and I managed to get myself crippled. Maybe we fail.”

Muti stood up and started to loom over the Guardian, but he cut her off, “I know what you’re going to say, and I’m being positive, that I’m realizing I didn’t have as wide of a view of things as expected. Other parties are much stronger than I could have thought, and I didn’t understand that. That’s all.”

After several seconds, she nodded and replied, “There are always peaks that others can look from that you yourself cannot. It is wise to see that.”

With that surprisingly measured response from the Barbarian of the party, the party took their rest and prepared to enter the forty-first floor.

***

Caelum

“You don’t have any information past this next floor?” The Count demanded, despite knowing what the answer would be. All of these plebians were bound to him, they wouldn’t be able to even try to lie with how stringent of a contract he had made with them.

“No, milord. The last floor that the Guild was able to find information on was the forty-first,” came the answer. With a groan, Caelum waved away the fool. He sat on his bed and angrily tapped his hand on the footboard. On the forty-first floor, he would need to get that redheaded wench and her party to contract with him, they were competent enough to get this far by themselves. Surely their strength would add something to his. It would be dangerous, as he knew he wasn’t going to be able to bind them all at the same time. Yes, it was somewhat of a disgrace that he would have to stoop to this, but with the experience taxes from his subordinates, he was nearly level 36. They wouldn’t be able to resist the call of his voice.

***

Come the morning, the Wanderers rose after indulging in a rest that was eight hours instead of their usual six. If they weren’t pushing themselves so hard, and Astrid wasn’t forcing the party to slow down just a little bit, they could have survived off of probably four hours a night, but exhaustion was where stupid mistakes started to be made. Astrid wasn’t going to lose a friend because she thought they shouldn’t sleep so much. After quick preparations, they quickly found themselves walking down the gently lit steps into the next floor. 

They stood on a hillside covered with loose stone, though they exited from a sheer cliffside. All around, the terrain was unforgiving, but not so harsh as to be called a challenge to people of their level.

“Nothing on this side,” Benedict said as he evaluated the sky.

“There are no monsters nearby that I can sense,“ Muti gave a more complete answer. “None of the monsters reported as present on this floor could hide from me.”

The party continued on their paths, agreeing with Muti’s sentiment. Giant, four legged drakes and eagles the size of horses were not particularly stealthy creatures. The Wanderers made their way into the mountainous region, looking around themselves to be sure that there was nothing laying in wait. After nearly a full minute, they were convinced of their momentary safety, and each person prepared themselves to move along.

“Can you sense any nests?” Astrid asked Muti. “According to the brief, both the drakes and the rocs are nesting all over the floor.”

“Not nearby, but there is the scent of blood half of a kilometer from here,” Muti answered.

Nobody had to say anything as they fell in line behind Muti, and her Ambusher’s Aura combined with Dread Master allowed them all to make their way forward in near silence. Interestingly, Astrid found that on such potentially noisy ground as this, Ambusher’s Aura didn’t just dampen the noise that she made, but instead subconsciously directed her to set her feet where the stones underfoot wouldn’t slide or cascade over themselves. 

It didn’t take long for the party to reach the site of the bloody fight. Brown drake’s scales were scattered around where gallons of blood had been spilled, and dozens of feathers, each one at least 50 centimeters long, filled the area as well. Astrid couldn’t tell which of the two monsters had won the fight, but Muti took only a few seconds before she came to the conclusion, “The drake was carried off. Most of the blood belonged to it as well. The trail of blood leads in that direction.”

As the Ambusher pointed, Astrid rolled her shoulders to make sure she was loose and gestured for her friend to lead the way. First, Skandr took the time to activate a set of enchantments that he had made on his boots to allow him to keep up with the rest of the party. He’d spent nights fine tuning the enchantments to be something he constantly carried on his boots instead of having to apply them when he wanted to move more quickly. With his attributes the way they were, such a small drain of mana on his reserves was valuable, since the majority of the mana to power the enchantments actually came from the time that he had made it, as well as when he refreshed them at the end of the day at camp. 

The rest of the Wanderers got in position as well, Benedict holding his flute at his side, ready to raise it and begin playing at a moment’s notice. He had long since made it apparent that everybody would prefer to take slightly more time to travel to ensure he was as close to full on mana as possible in the case of something beginning to turn against the party’s favor.

After maybe five minutes of jogging at a deceptively quick pace, Astrid estimated that the party had made it nearly three kilometers into the floor in the space of ten minutes total without pushing themselves to go too fast. Then, Muti stopped and pointed at a surprisingly well hidden nest on a cliff‘s face. Considering the size of the birds that inhabited the nest, Astrid expected the place where they reared their young to be huge, noticeable from a kilometer away without issue. Instead, it would appear that the monsters carved a steep incline into cliff faces where they then laid their eggs, where the nest could only be easily seen from above. With Muti’s sense of direction, she’d pointed it out so everyone could see the darker pocket of shadow where the birds nested. There wasn’t any sign of movement, but they all trusted Muti’s mind.

“If possible,” Felix said, looking at Muti, “it would be best if we can approach from above.”

“Deprive them of greater space to maneuver, yes. We will try, but to do so will rely on you, Skandr. How confident have you become in your featherfall spell?”

“Reasonably confident.” As he spoke, Benedict’s fingers subconsciously flashed through a series of sigils. “It should be able to keep us from having to climb down the face while also moving faster than a regular climb would be. But we haven’t tested it intensively, you know this.”

“I trust you. I will lead the way, then we will fall. Skandr and Benedict, you will descend in my arms, that I may use Shadow Leap to get you to safety if necessary.”

“Felix and I can depend on our bodies’ toughness and Skandr’s spell if we end up getting pinned down by a roc,” Astrid agreed. 

“Then let’s get in position,” Astrid continued, looking at her party. “It’s time to meet the forty-first floor’s inhabitants.”