Chapter 244: Confluence

After Harold rallied the giants and got them in the right mindset to venture beyond Steve, Will and Loth took that evening to make plans and shoot the shit.

“…If I was going to date a giant, I’d have to limit it to eight or nine feet tall at most,” Will said, laying down his maximum height limits.

“Why?” Loth asked.

“Because much bigger and your parts just don’t…” Will shrugged. “Match, anymore? And these giants are like a hundred feet tall. It’s out of the question.”

“I think if Harold were single, I might give it a shot.”

“HOW!?” Will demanded, prompting Loth to break into a cackle.

“I remember you had armor that could make you a giant. I could figure something out.” Loth said.

Will glanced up and checked on the progress of the Key Site.

Between Loth’s bugs and Will’s Abilities, they were able to move the island, albeit slowly to avoid building up too much momentum. The damned thing was hard to change directions.

Will’s plan was to get the giants out of Steve and use the Key Site as a breakwater in the event that Void blew up Steve.

Since the Key Site absorbed all the miasma around it, Will was hoping it would make a cone-shaped empty space behind it if a magical explosion hit the entire floor.

They would just have to angle it towards Steve and hide behind it and hopefully that would keep the giants alive.

Still, it would be best to just kill Void outright.

There were thousands of insects lifting the island, flying along behind them as they walked it back to the giant’s Island.

About a year ago, Loth had brought him a dozen or so high-quality carrying-capacity Relics, and he’d fixed her up a much better ring that allowed her minions to haul an extra two hundred and fifty pounds apiece.

“Why does your flying bug have to be so big if your Packhorse ring makes it easily enough to carry you?” Will asked.

“Speed.” Loth replied. “Plus some extra leeway above two fifty if I need to carry something while flying.

Good point.

“Why have you never considered cutting off your right hand and sacrificing it to your Phantom Hand?” Loth asked. “It’s fairly obvious that it’d give you another Phantom Hand. and if it doesn’t the hand’ll grow back anyway.”

“Oh, I’ve considered it,” Will said, studying the miasmatic structures lacing his right hand. “But I haven’t for a couple reasons. Number one, I’m terrified that it’ll remove my Class effects from my right hand, the way my left is unprotected. And second; because I don’t have a Primary Ability upgrade to use on it right now, anyway.”

“But…” Will said, raising his left hand and creating some rough miasmatic structures from it before emitting a bit of Charge into them.

88 Charges remaining

Fwoosh!

A burst of light and heat appeared above his hand.

“If I ever master unstructured magic to my satisfaction, it’ll probably give me the confidence to go ahead and do the other one.”

“Pfft.” Loth scoffed.

“What?”

“That’s the kind of safety blanket thinking that keeps people from advancing. Take it from me. You are never going to master magic to your own satisfaction.” Loth said, poking him with a sharp claw. “At a certain point, you must venture into the unknown without a lifeline.”

“Hmm.” Will considered it. There were several stretches while he was minding his own Stronghold that were long enough for him to grow his hand back. He could’ve even gotten it regrown by a priest of Andover before he sacrificed it to get it back in the same day. And that would’ve allowed him to at least test and see what kind of upgrade it would’ve given him.

But…

“Third reason. I’m not a fan of self-mutilation solely for the sake of power.”

Even if he could’ve found a way to do it painlessly, it felt like dangerous territory to become comfortable with.

“That’s fair.”

“How about you, any upgrades to the Bullet Wasp?”

No new upgrades, I’m saving the last two slots for the perfect one, but I did replace the bangle of storing with some nice gloves.” She said, wiggling her fingerless gloves. “High tier target AOE with chain side-effect. Way better than that chain amulet back in the day.”

“That reminds me,” Will mused. “Did you ever get your Advanced Class?”

“Nope. Gotta line up the dragon sacrifice before I do that.”

Will glanced down at Loth.

“And you’re lecturing me about not taking the plunge?”

“It’s different. It’s like how Travis went off underprepared and stalled out on the 12^th Floor. I don’t want that to be me. I have a plan, and am currently recruiting the party member I need for it. But you, you can cut off your own hand at any time without consequences.”

“Oh there’s consequences. What about the diminished sanctity of my body in my own mind?”

“Details.” Loth said, waving him off.

They chatted about life and Climbing, sharing theories about Miasma and Builds, never quite touching on the most hidden aspect of their Builds.

Mutual respect between Climbers.

Loth listened to him complain about all the crap he had to put up with as a Lord, lending a sympathetic ear while mining him for information about the Influence system, and everything that could be done with it. Likely with the intention of setting herself up to abuse it magnificently.

The chat came to an end as the giant’s cobbled-together island came into view.

The giants shouted and pointed at the small pyramidal island topped with a beam of miasmatic light as it floated towards them, unable to see the ant-sized human and gnat-sized kobold walking in front of it.

“You think your bugs could move that island?” Will asked, pointing at the mashed together island.

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Loth scratched her chin. “I’d have to do some math. Average depth of the island multiplied by the surface area of one of my bugs, times the mass of crystal. More or less than two-fifty?”

They put the Key Site down, then Loth went off to get some measurements while Will told Harold and Mann the plan to use the Key Site as an umbrella so save them from the explosion.

In a few minutes, Loth returned and gave him a thumbs-up. She unleashed a wave of bugs from her barrel onto the island, which began stretching wider and wider, making more surface area for her minions to grab onto.

Oh yeah, her minions have earth magic from the stoneshark. All the better to manipulate the battlefield and set up traps more quickly.

In a matter of hours, the island was flying buttward through the enormous inner expanse of Steve. Despite there being only two general directions anyone could go in a giant snake, actually navigating them was a bit tricky, especially with an enormous island.

The were pockets of air that were smaller than others, and folds of intestine that nearly sealed the route off entirely.

If it were just Will and Loth walking by themselves, they would be able to easy traverse between them, but they had to put their heads together along with the muscle of hundreds of giants to pry open new routes for their island to fly through.

Thankfully Steve isn’t alive. If the snake were alive it would surely be thrashing in pain as an internal blockage suddenly began forcing itself rapidly through its guts.

A few days into the exodus, Harold called for them to halt, pointing starboard (Snake-wise), where a cluster of moldering crystal islands sat in disrepair. Having been affected by Steve’s digestive tract for untold coils, they were in far worse shape than the giant island, which was regularly cleaned and maintained.