Chapter 39: Meet the Family

William Oh is gonna smash in here like a bolt of lightning on a clear day. He’s gonna cut through your ranks like a ballista bolt through softened butter!

You’ve poked the bear. You’re swimming with the hippos. You’re out of your league, out of your depth, and you’re gonna drown in a pool of your own blood!

He’s not gonna stand for this!

You don’t just kidnap a legend’s hype man and live to tell about it! I am critical to the advancement of the story! Hey! Get that away from m—

‘Muffled angry noises’

• Jason Salazar

Case file 8934: Ashwood

‘I don’t understand. How is The Prophet on their side this time? We were far too late to bring him in because we thought he couldn’t possibly be the right one. He’s supposed to be warning people about the end of the world, not singing its damned praises.’

‘He’s never been friends with one before. And five silver is five silver.’

‘…This is not a joking matter.’

Grinding on the 3^rd floor consisted of Flammenwulf hunting. One of the few spawns on the floor that retained its meat after the Miasma left its body.

That and the Lava Beetles.

Will, Travis and Carrie spent a couple days hunting the crispy critters. At first, it was a bit surprising dealing with wolves that popped and squealed like burning wood, and had a tendency to burp up fire on you, but once they got used to the creatures pack tactics, they quickly got the hang of things, turning a tidy profit on Flammenwulf meat.

Loth’s kobold minions acted as the flushers, waving big sticks with brightly colored fronds on them to startle the flammenwulf towards the three of them, at which point Travis would gain their attention long enough for Carrie and Will to execute them.

They managed to get to level 13 in the two days it took for Loth to become fully healed.

The relics dropped by the Flammenwulf were largely spent filling the keg full of Relic dust.

Very little of what those creatures dropped even came close to the power of the Relics they’d looted from Travis’s ancestral home.

Which was still on fire, judging by the smog to the northwest.

So, into the keg the Relics went.

Will spent two nights using the steel rasp to file down a single Relic into the keg, removing inch by painstaking inch of the sword’s handguard, until in a moment that he didn’t expect, the magic of the Relic unraveled.

The relic instantly turned into a powdery, ash-like substance. A flask of Miasma left the Relic, but the ash itself gave off an iridescent blue miasma-like color with faint flashes of blue as it crumbled.

There was still a little bit in there.

Frowning, Will reached down under the relic dust and found the metal shavings from when he’d been using the rasp.

Damnit.

Will dumped out the ash, cleaned the metal shavings out of the barrel, then went and bought himself a bolt-cutter and brought it back.

With a single snip, – made somewhat awkward with only one hand – the next Relic collapsed into dust, filling the bottom of the keg.

“There we go.”

Will fed the Relics no one wanted to…The Keg.

Once he was done, Will threw a smoke bomb during one of their hunts, using Sourdough as he did so.

When the smoke cleared, Will found a hard nodule with the same texture as the smoke bombs, lying where the smoke bomb had detonated.

The remaining 20%.

As he held it, Will was granted an inherent understanding of how Sourdough worked. He had three options:

#1: Use the nodule again to receive roughly 22% the effect of a smoke bomb. A little puff of smoke.

#2: Use Sourdough again as he used the nodule to receive 28% of a smoke bomb’s effect, with no nodule remaining. A slightly bigger puff of smoke.

#3: Bury the nodule in Relic dust to allow it to grow into a new smoke bomb, finishing in about 29¼ days.

Will buried the nodule in the Relic dust and watched as it began glowing. He held his hand over it and detected faint heat, like what might radiate off someone with a fever.

“It’s working!”

“Congratulations, you’re going to recreate a one-gold smoke bomb using several hundred gold worth of Relics over the course of a month.” Travis said.

“It’s to restore critical consumables on the highest floors where there are no shops, Travis. You know this.” Loth chided.

“…Fine. I know that. It’s just not that exciting.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Will said with a shrug, putting the top of the keg on before Loth’s bugs picked it up and stacked it along the rest of their luggage.

Loth took the Ring of Regeneration off and slipped the Wolf Pack back on, causing their luggage to go from a jog to a sprinting pace.

She still had patches of scales that weren’t the same texture as the rest of it, but internally she was completely recovered. They hadn’t reached level 15 yet, but they would have to come back through the 3^rd Floor on the way up, so there was no reason to stay until they capped out.

The four of them followed a bus going to the nearest Key Site, helped with the clear, and declared their intent to go down a Floor.

Will had a bit of an issue stepping through the Door, but he muscled through it, not interested in toppling off the side of a cliff again.

They landed in a clearing on the mountainside this time, proof that The Tower enjoyed messing with him, specifically. They cut their way through some harpies, skyhare and kaith to the nearest Stronghold, then said their goodbyes to Carrie.

Two days later they dropped down to the 1^st Floor, and a day after that, they were back in the Hunting Grounds.

After a brief proof-of-life visit with Gertrude where he ensured that she wasn’t spending his hard-earned ivory on gold-embossed habits, Will and the rest of his Party headed to the big city, further away from The Tower, in the temperate ring where the population was much more dense, attracted by the mild weather that allowed crops to grow in abundance.

They didn’t see Jason on the way out. Apparently he’d been scouted as a crier for a popular printing press in The Ring and had started a career in propaganda.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Good for him…Reminds me of Bri’s bullshit story.

Will hoped to the gods the tale was legitimate and his younger protégé at the orphanage hadn’t been snapped up by predatory lords ever-so-eager to give disposable children valuable classes out of the goodness of their hearts.

Hopefully his con-artist father had made him wary of promises that were too good to be true.

Will stretched out on the crates of supplies and watched the world slide by.

Given Loth’s massive bonuses to speed and carrying capacity for any of her minions, they were able to pack up all their belongings in crates and have bugs carry them. Loth’s newest barrel was far bigger than she was, wide as a man spreading his arms, and nearly as tall. The squat barrel was subdivided by biome, each layer stacked on top of the one beneath it, just like The Tower itself. There was space for new insects up to the fifth floor. Once they got past that, Loth might have to get another barrel.

Less than an hour into their trek from Ashwood, Will had the brilliant idea to relax on top of the crates as they traveled.

Sure, the crates were uncomfortable, splintery and jostled around a bit under him as the insects navigated uneven terrain, but with an application of his bedroll and several nails to pin it down, Will was able to make them relatively comfortable.

Loth immediately outdid him with a silk hammock stretched between the crates, cooled by the breeze as they glided across the scenic landscape.

Will abandoned his amateurish design for a hammock, and the two of them watched in fascination as the familiar desert landscape ever-so gradually faded into farmland and cows. Cows and the occasional merchant caravan gawking at their self-moving pile of luggage supporting three hammocks.

Travis was not watching in fascination. His interest seemed to fade the further they got from The Tower.

A few days later, they lazed their way through the thickest of the farmland, and farms began giving way to a more urban environment.

It was Will’s first experience with a three-story building.

“look at that,” Will said, tapping Loth’s shoulder and pointing at the massive structure.

“That is a post office,” Travis said, rolling his eyes.

“A post office…” Will said, staring.

“Coool…” Loth said.

“You guys wanna see a big building?” Travis asked.

“Obviously,” Will said.

“Turn left here,” Travis said, pointing.

Their hammocks swerved on the street, weaving around pedestrians and large wagons of goods drawn by enormous draft horses that took equally enormous dumps.

Travis kept directing them for a half hour, the surrounding buildings gradually growing more and more gilt as they went.

They came to a halt in front of a massive wrought iron gate barring entry from a mansion that looked honestly…a little much.

I mean, what purpose does this enormous waste of money even serve?

There were little statues of water-monsters spitting water into pools of water, a garden…tittering young women wearing robes playing tag with each other on the grass.

On the other hand…I can see the appeal.

“Lady and Gentleman, this is the Oilton manor. It previously belonged to my father, Henry Oilton, but since his death, it will most likely pass on to-“

“Travis.” A voice called from the other side of the fence. It was a hollow-cheeked man of middle age. He would look like a scarecrow if he weren’t also short.

“Harold Oilton,” Travis said, motioning to the small, but angry-looking man.