Chapter 190: 10th Floor

“Report.” Caddock said as Orev Harti appeared in a puff of feathers. He could tell from the man’s expression the mission had failed, but the details were important.

“William Oh made a new Build in order to catch us off-guard.” Orev said. “A Thorns Build. The backlash from Walten’s Ability exploded Argus.”

“So he expected us to target his weaknesses and shifted strategy. Thorns, huh? With lifesteal? A thorns-tank Build?” Caddock asked, peering down at the map and the ambushes they had laid.

“Yessir.”

“Traps, environmentals and debuffs should do what we need. We’ll need to raise our emphasis on CC. William’s core build is about increasing the potency of Relics, not thorns. He doesn’t have any passives that will trigger thorns from indirect damage or debuffs like the Wyrd family. It’s not his specialty, and we should exploit that.”

“The way I see it, there are two options:” Orev said, holding up his fingers. “Either William Oh chases me here in the next few minutes, which gives us no time to set up a counter, or, he simply makes a different Build and returns with that.”

“He’ll come today.” Caddock said, resting his chin on his hand. “Mr. Oh’s entire career has been built upon giving other people the bum’s rush and catching them off-guard, denying them time to prepare. He favors swift, devastating attacks to hobble his opposition followed by methodically cutting off their options or fading away entirely. A natural guerilla fighter. He has no patience for the siege, and he never has needed it.

This month-long delay was extremely out of character for William Oh, which is why we foolishly let him get away with it.

“And he’ll have another Build or two that you didn’t see.” Caddock said, glancing up at Orev.

“Sir?”

“Mr. Oh has a crafting Ability that allows combining Relics. The affixes of the end result are diminished compared to the original, but his Dimensional Storage allows him to slot Relics and drastically boost their effects. He’s combining affixes that create soft-sets and putting them in his Dimensional Storage, allowing him to switch between powerful soft-sets at a moment’s notice.”

“There’s no way he only made one during that month.” Caddock said, rising from his seat.

“Take care of the civilians,” Caddock said. “Everyone not on that duty to their stations. Tell them it’s time to enact the plan, and to be ready for anything.”

The messengers darted out of the room, and in a matter of moments Stronghold became a hive of shouting and stomping feet as they rushed to enact Caddock’s plan.

A few minutes later the first explosions and roar of flames began to echo through the fortress, underpinned by the screams of the civilians ousted from the new homes.

Caddock strode over to the balcony and watched his Stronghold burn.

“One way or another, William Oh isn’t leaving this Floor.”

On the Ninth Floor, William Oh was making his own preparations.

***William Oh***

“It looks like one of those deformed hands you get when one side of the egg freezes.” Loth said, inspecting Will’s left hand.

Will had grown over six inches over the course of the battle, and his left hand had not grown to match, leaving him with a tiny left hand dwarfed by his right hand.

If Will grew to the sizes he was intending to grow to, the difference would become even more extreme, and he could imagine the hand popping like a squeezed pimple under the pressure of his massive frame or accidentally getting torn off against the environment while battling as a two-story monster. Or burned to char by a Nuker ability the rest of his body resisted.

Gods…damnit!

Will had taken great pains to prevent his hand from turning undead on the 8^th Floor, using a sack full of Loth’s bugs to filter out the bad air long enough for him to pass through unscathed, and now he was faced with the choice of cutting it off AGAIN or abandoning this Build.

Is it just my fate? Will thought with an inward groan.

It wasn’t really a choice at all. Either tidy it up here or let the pimple-sized protrusion get mangled in his battle with Caddock.

Will paused for a moment.

No, this could be a good opportunity. Will wasn’t a crazy bastard who enjoyed cutting off pieces of himself for any advantage he could muster. That was one of the reasons he didn’t like a Thorns Build reliant on receiving damage, despite it being excellent in terms of performance.

But he’d used his hand before for a Sacrifice. Maybe…the Map? Will was suspicious of serendipity, but in this instance, he would take full advantage of it.

“Alright.” Will said, holding out his left arm and taking out a Greater Healing potion with his other.

“Let’s tidy this up. Just behind the line where it starts getting bigger.” Will didn’t want a patch of low-Resistance skin bursting under strain. Best to get the whole thing off for now.

Loth raised a scaly brow.

“You’ve got Thorns on.”

Translation: You’re going to have to do it yourself, or take off the armor and reset your growth.

Will paused.

“Well. This is gonna suck.”

No wait, injury pain is delayed. As long as I can get it done and healed quickly…

“…Wish me luck,” Will said.

“Good luck.”

Will shaped Phantom Hand’s armor into the sharpest blade he could possibly imagine and began sawing away at his own hand.

It took longer than he’d hoped due to his Resistance, but Will was able to get the hand off before it started hurting, immediately downing his Greater Healing potion to seal up the wound.

“That’s the least painful time I’ve ever had my hand cut off,” Will marvelled. At least the stupid-looking bucket helmet was good for something.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Congratulations.” Loth said.

Will grabbed his severed hand and held it up to The Tower.

William Oh’s Hand Sacrifice for Map

User gains an alternate mode that provides a detailed map of their own body. Abilities and manifestations created by the User show up on the overland Map as well.

That is more than I was hoping for.

Do you wish to Sacrifice William Oh’s Hand?

Yes.

Map has been upgraded. Review the description for changes.

Map*

Passive:

You have a map.

This map is a mental construct that contains an accurate record of terrain you have perceived. Your current location, heading, Abilities, and manifestations therof are displayed on this map. You may summon this map and dismiss it at will, and it will only be perceivable to you.

The map has an alternate mode that displays an in-depth map of the user’s body.

Toggle: 7 Focus

Manifest a physical copy of the map.

Will mentally commanded the map of his own body to appear. It was a perfect naked copy of himself in his mind that he could turn and shift any direction he could think of, giving him the ability to see every angle of himself, even things he normally couldn’t, like the back of his head, back of his teeth, inside or behind his ears.

He could expand the view as far as he wanted, viewing things as though his eyes were right on top of any part of himself without any loss of focus. It was a strange sensation, because he should’ve been unable to focus his eyes, but it was a mental map. It was not limited to what his eyes could process.