Tower of Souls

Kawe Archer’s arrow struck your clone(Eron) for 14 damage.

Kawe Archer’s Twin Shot struck your clone(Eron) for 14 damage.

Kawe Slinger’s stone struck your clone(Eron) for 14 damage.

Kawe Slinger’s Twin Shot struck your clone(Eron) for 14 damage.

Cam stared at the series of notifications for several seconds as he reviewed the fight, for a number of reasons- and Eron barely being able to limp away from the fight wasn’t the biggest, considering his clone had already died before... and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again, if needed.

Two enemies, each using a single Ability, took away a third of his clone’s HP, practically in an instant. Just that fact alone made it obvious that, should they have foolishly charged forward like moving targets, they could have easily been taken down; Even considering that Iron Skin could have blocked most of that damage, that would only work as long as they had enough mana to cast it... and if all four of the ranged enemies had been left free to fire at will, the excess damage that Iron Skin didn’t block would still add up quickly.

Without a dedicated tank and healer, fighting smart was clearly the only option; Thankfully, the treehouse proved flammable enough for their plan... But Cam knew they couldn’t count on something like that working every time.

Glancing up at the tree that once held the structure- the completely unblemished tree, as if the burning treehouse hadn’t just collapsed from among its branches-, he knew that not everything in their environment was the same: The wood treehouse could burn, but the trees didn’t...

He knew, at least theoretically, that this was the case from all of his reading during school. There were plenty of accounts of people using the environment to their benefit... But there was also plenty of warning that not all of the environment behaved as it normally would. On some Floors, the walls and floors were basically immune to outside interference, while in others, it was possible to dig. Or tear down walls, break doors, roll boulders... The list went on and on, but one fact remained...

You never knew how much you could interact with anything in the Tower until you tried it. And he had gotten lucky that the treehouse would burn.

That was something he needed to keep in mind, and a lesson he would remember thanks to this fight, but the worst part of the notifications-

”Are you just going to stare, or are you going to grab the Ability so we can move on?”

Cam sighed at his clone’s comment; It wasn’t that Eron was really impatient, just that the body would soon be reabsorbed by the Tower and disappear, so he only had limited time to grab it...

Harvest Ability(Twin Shot)?

”Do we really want to, though?” He replied, glancing at Eron. ”I mean, if we do, that means waiting a week to grab another... for an Ability we can’t even use right now. It sucks that the Spearbear didn’t have an Ability...”

It wasn’t that Twin Shot was a bad Ability- far from it, in fact. As a low level Ability, it was well documented as actually being a fairly strong one. In essence, it launched a copy of the arrow fired at the same target, basically doubling the damage- and, with its low mana cost, it was very mana efficient, making it great for sustained damage. With a good bow and some good arrows, someone with an Archer Class and this Ability would easily be able to do more damage than anyone else of the same Level...

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But that was the problem. The bow and arrows. Even if he ignored the fact that they didn’t have a bow, arrows were always the main factor holding back Archer Classes; Good arrows just didn’t drop enough to keep an Archer supplied, regardless of the fact that people from the Families and Guilds were instructed to save those drops for their high rarity Archer Classers...

”Yeah, I get it. We don’t have a bow, and arrows are scarce- except for the ones crafted in the city, but those are basically trash...” Eron continued, deciding to play devil’s advocate... for himself, which he found funny. ”But, even with those trash arrows, Archer’s still keep up with everyone else, and we’re almost guaranteed to get a bow at some point...”

”It’s a solid Ability long term, giving us an efficient ranged option once we have a bow... and, I hate to say it, but if the rest of this Floor is the same, then most of what we’ll be seeing are Archers and Slingers; Odds are we won’t see a better Ability before the Boss.”

Shaking his head, Cam stood up from the body, holding up a hand to stop his clone’s argument. ”All good points... but I’m going to wait until I see the next group to decide; if it’s more of the same, I’ll go ahead and pick it up to start the cooldown.”

”That’s fair... And, hey, at least we got another drop!” Eron grinned, holding up the spear; While the enemies they faced, and the weapons and equipment used by those enemies, didn’t always have much of an effect on what dropped, sometimes their weapons or armor would drop.

No one had really figured it out, despite centuries of study into the subject, and Cam doubted anyone ever would understand it.

The spear... didn’t look impressive. Just four feet long- perfectly sized for the Kawe, if short for most people-, the metal point was crudely forged, and had numerous knicks and small dents, while the haft was weathered and cracked... with what looked like mold growing in the cracks- which Cam imagined was the reason it was named ’Moldy Spear’.

Still, it did better damage than Eron’s dagger, and had better reach; Also, it was interesting because, based off of its weight, he believed it was a melee weapon focused more on Agility than Strength- and it could be wielded effectively with one hand.

There were a few Classes he knew of that favored such short spears, often pairing them with a light shield or buckler... Or using them as a thrown weapon, which was another benefit of the spear.

Unfortunately, Twin Shot didn’t work with thrown weapons. He didn’t know why, but there was a similar Ability for thrown weapons that did the exact same thing.

”So... on to the next group? I mean, after my HP regenerates?” Eron asked, clearly eager to try out his new weapon; While Cam had trained with a wide variety of weapons- everyone was required to do so in school, as they never knew what Class that would get... if they were lucky enough to Awaken one-, training was a lot different than actually fighting monsters.

He was sure Eron could handle it, and he still carried the dagger as a backup...

”Yeah, no reason not to push on once you’re topped up.” Cam agreed easily. ”And the sooner we see the next group, the sooner we have a better idea of what the rest of the Floor is like.”

”Well, it was worth a shot at least.”

Harvest Ability(Twin Shot)?

Cam grunted, staring in annoyance at the notification in front of him; The second group of enemies had gone almost exactly like the first. Eron scouted ahead, found the treehouse with Archers, Slingers, and a single Spearbear, then he set it on fire.

The Kawe panicked almost exactly the same, taking a good bit of fire damage before jumping; It was mostly luck that the bears had jumped off in roughly the same places, though Eron ended up with two Archers shooting at him while Cam dealt with the Slingers, rather than both of them getting a mixed pair... But, otherwise, the fight had gone pretty much the same.

The only difference being that Eron actually remembered to use Iron Skin this time, and took less damage because of it... Something that Cam would be more than happy to tease his clone about... If they weren’t the same person.

It was a lot less funny when he would basically just be teasing himself for being a dumbass.