Tower of Souls

”Ok. We’ve got an offensive Ability, now to distribute some Stats. This Floor just got a whole lot more manageable!”

”Don’t get cocky.” Cam reminded his clone, even as he opened his Status window. ”Most groups don’t push, content to farm Floors two or three lower than their level... and, even then, they suffer casualties.”

”Yeah... Either from Anomalous Floors, bad luck running into an enemy that hard counters them, or screwing up- getting overconfident, not preparing enough...” Eron shook his head with a sigh. ”That’s why one of the first lessons we were taught is that no Floor is truly safe, even one you think is clear or lower than your level.”

”You still thinking of taking a balanced approach?”

Cam rolled his eyes at the question; It hadn’t been that long since he had planned his general build... And, of course, his clone knew what he was thinking anyway. ”It makes the most sense. We need the strength and agility for wielding various weapons, the vitality for enough health we don’t get crushed the first time things go wrong, and the mental Stats for spells and mana.”

”I say focus Strength and Vitality right now. The extra health will keep me up longer, and a lot of our damage is coming from weapons, even with the new Ability taken into account...” Eron rambled, knowing they had both already had the same thoughts. ”Though, our lessons on Abilities said that something like Fan the Flames will deal increased damage the higher our Intelligence. I don’t think the lower HP is worth that trade off, but it is a reason to consider raising Intelligence before Strength.”

”Strength and Vitality.” Cam said, putting action to his words as he dropped six points into Strength and seven into Vitality, bringing both to 17- while he was tempted to more evenly spread his points, he knew that, at least for now, his physical Stats were still the backbone of his survival plan. After all, if mana ran out, he could still swing a sword... But if he ran out of HP, he would just die.

The effect was instant, as new power coursed through his body. While nothing about him actually changed with the new Stats- much to his regret, as Cam would have given quite a bit to not be so small and sickly looking-, he knew that his body now contained much greater strength. Compared to the 9 Strength when he first Awakened, the 17 he had was such a drastic improvement that he almost couldn’t believe it!

To say nothing of his Vitality going from an 8 back then to the 17 it was now.

”Did you do it already?”

Pulled from his musings over the increasing his Stats, Cam stared at his clone in confusion for a moment. ”Yeah... did your Stats not increase when mine did?”

”Nope. Guess that’s the downside of the whole ’clone’ thing. I probably won’t get the new Stats until you subsume and resummon me.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

”Not the worst downside to have; That Ability is kind of broken.” Cam chuckled, quickly taking back his clone before resummoning him.

”Yeah, says the guy that can just harvest Abilities left and right-”

”-except for the cooldown.” Cam finished for his clone by pointing out the drawback to their own Innate Ability.

”Speaking of, have you checked it to see how much time has passed on it? You do remember that time is kinda wonky inside the Tower, right?”

”No, I haven’t checked it. And yes, I remember that, regardless of how long it feels like to us in here, only a few hours will pass in Foundation City.” Cam replied, rolling his eyes at his clone. Still, he quickly scrolled down to check the cooldown on his Ability. ”It’s only been a couple minutes, but if it really is based on- Oh, shit!”

”It’s based on time relative to us- or you, rather-, isn’t it?” Eron shot back with a grin. Seeing the excited look on Cam’s face, he nearly wanted to cheer... if he wasn’t on a Tower Floor infested with kobolds, that is. ”Fuck yeah! That means we just need to slow roll it, take breaks between Floors...”

”Assuming we don’t start going crazy from spending weeks on end talking to ourselves.” Cam immediately brought his clone- and himself- back down to reality; While he had spent a lot of time alone since his parents died, and technically he did have his clone to talk to... that was still talking to himself, and he had never tried to go weeks at a time without interacting with someone.

Even if most of those interactions were negative ones from classmates- or getting mugged-, it was rare for more than a couple days to go by without Davis or Mrs. Elsbet talking to him, checking on how he was doing, or even just chatting to keep up his spirits...

How would he do with spending the next week, or two weeks, or possibly months with his only social interactions being from a clone of himself or monsters that just wanted to kill him? He had no idea...

”Ok, I think we should adjust the plan.” He said suddenly, surprising his clone- a fact that momentarily disoriented him. How could he surprise his own clone? They had the same mind, the same thoughts... unless his clone just hadn’t followed that particular line of thought yet? Once they were separated, they could obviously think about different things at the same time, so maybe Eron just hadn’t thought about it yet.

Seeing the impatient- and concerned- look on Eron’s face, Cam shook himself free of his speculations. There was plenty of time for that later. Now it was time to hammer out his new idea.

”We slow play it, try to avoid taking down more kobolds while we wait for the cooldown to come up again. For one, we want to farm as many Abilities as we can before the Floors really start to ramp up in difficulty-”

”-and it’s a good chance to test how we handle spending an extended period just talking to ourselves.” Eron finished with a grin, clearly confident they could handle it- which, Cam had to admit, he could kind of see. He knew he wasn’t exactly normal... otherwise, would he really be trying to climb solo anyway?

”Exactly.” He nodded, agreeing with himself- something he still found amusing, if a bit ridiculous. ”And if it starts getting to us, we can pivot to pushing forward and continuing the climb; I imagine we won’t be quite as affected by it while we’re heavily focused on fighting and survival...”

”It’ll still be a concern, I’m sure, but something we can probably ignore for the most part.” Eron nodded. ”So, back to the starting room? It’s less likely for the kobolds to wander down there than it is for them to pop in here...”

”Yeah. We can take turns keeping watch down the hallways... Though that does mean you’ll be stuck with keeping an eye out while I sleep...”

”I wonder if subsuming you when you’re exhausted will make it carry over to me...”