Chapter 86: 6th Floor

William Oh conquered the entire Sixth Floor and never once got wet. And yes, I’m including the underwater nation of Gabben Sa’luud.

• Jason Salazar

When all was said and done, Will had picked out three more Relics to add to his Build.

Shortsword of Perserverence

+8 Acuity

+8 Resistance

It was a pitted and worn shortsword that didn’t have any special Affixes, but it had strong stat boosts for both of his most important stats, so Will kept it.

Turtle Shield of Dissipating Force

+10 Resistance

+5 strength

Attacks blocked will be partially dissipated into the environment. Scales with Resistance.

This one was interesting because when he’d had Reggie punch it, he could feel a large portion of the strike going down into the floor through Aspect of the Immortal Serpent. Somehow it was synergizing with that Ability to deflect more damage than it should’ve, so Will kept it, despite already having an offhand weapon.

He could rotate the Wand of the Trespasser out when he decided to engage in direct combat.

And lastly, the Assassin’s Amulet. The single best boost to his attack power that he’d found. Well, Reggie found it popping open one of the pearls, but still.

Dimensional Assassin’s Amulet*

+7 Kinesthetics

+8 Strength

+5 Acuity

25% Audiovisual Dampening while trying to hide.

Close the Gap: 5 charges, teleport up to 6 feet in any direction, damage output is increased by 200% for .5 seconds.

Will really wanted to sacrifice it to the Phantom Hand, but there were a few things stopping him from doing it right away:

#1: The empty finger was still regrowing.

#2 He was more in the market for a powerful defensive item like the Turtle Shield.

#3 It filled a very similar role that the Sparkfists did, increasing damage and speed.

Finally, Will was considering what sort of item he wanted to use as a seed for upgrading if he finally figured out how to use Sourdough to bake extra affixes into Relics.

The Assassin’s Amulet was very good, and if he made it any better, it would become priceless. So, Will decided to keep it as just an external amulet for now, storing it in his Dimensional Storage so he could either don or Sacrifice it at a moment’s notice.

Will flipped through the list of Kit everyone had added to their Build from the heist.

He had to actually write down what everyone had changed in shorthand in order to keep track of it all. Their Builds were starting to mature and branch out in interesting directions, and things were starting to get complex, managing a group of eight people and three emotional outbursts.

June:

Bow of lingering wounds, Treant sacrifice (magic wood someday?) Dimensional Quiver (chains).

Reggie – Mirthful Mouthgard, Immovable Warhammer, Psychic damage converter (ring), Hobocrab sacrifice (reinforce makeshift shields/armor/objects)

Mason – Dimensional Oyster Sacrifice, Nephir’s Relics (in bag) Staff of the Warmage, Sonic Belt. (add sonic damage to Nuker Abilities)

Alicia – Witch’s hat, Amulet of the Evil Eye, Ring of Curse concentration, shadow Parasite Sacrifice (lethal Curses) (not used yet)

Travis – Wings of the iber fly sacrifice(aggro boost), mouth harp amulet (aggro redirection), skunk pants, Mask of Manifestation (from Boar)

Loth – Cuirass of the cruel tyrant (Outsource Damage), Manacles of Leadership(buff/debuff tradeoff).

Jean – Beastmaster amulet, Headband of Mental fortitude, Gloves of Ferocity(unarmed claw attack), Cape of the Summoner, Ring of water breathing (fairly obvious).

Will – Swift Earth Pants, Shortsword of Perserverence, Weird coin, Dimensional Assassin’s Amulet, Turtle Shield of Dissipating Force.

Will hadn’t personally witnessed all of the item’s effects, writing down a brief description from each of his Party members for the things he hadn’t seen in action or didn’t have obvious effects.

The ‘weird coin’ was a gold coin that had been affected by the dimensional oyster’s nacre and could only land on its edge no matter how it was flipped. Will just liked it, imagining himself using it to win a bet or a do a party trick.

After they finished sorting through the last of the treasure, Will left it in the hands of Thea Oilton, with instructions to fence the hot items through The Ear Collector while the rest went towards hiring support crew interested in following William Oh up The Tower.

For Will’s Party, it was finally time to move on.

In the distance, a kaiju curled around the beam of Miasma being pumped up to the sixth Floor, absorbing as much of it as possible.

The creature was vaguely humanoid, its flesh seemingly flaking away as if it couldn’t quite contain the powerful blue energy burning through it.

“Alright, everybody gets a shot off, then Alicia can test out her new Build.” Jean said. Since they were all on the same party, they probably would all be offered Doors to the next floor, but nothing was ever certain. It was best to make sure everyone got a hit in.

They snuck up close enough for Reggie to throw a rock at the thing’s ankle.

Once it bounced off, everyone else assaulted it with their best ranged attack.

The Bakers threw their own rocks, hissing through the air with outrageous energy while June shot a magic arrow and Mason hit the creature with a conflagrate.

Loth tossed off a bullet wasp, and Will released a sling bullet from his hand, burying it deep in the monster’s ankle.

The kaiju boss reared up, blearily blinking its eyes, scanning the horizon before looking down at the antlike beings nipping away at its ankles.

It gave a furious bellow and grabbed a nearby hilltop, a house-sized boulder coming away under its grip.

“Anytime, Alicia,” June said, watching the boulder raise above their heads.

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The wide brimmed hat Alicia wore shaded her face, making her Blue-flame eyes glow all the more brilliantly in contrast. For an instant, that glow was magnified a hundredfold as a flash of light from her eyes lit her face and the underside of her hat brighter than the sun.

The giant gave them a confused look, the boulder slipping out of its hands and falling twenty feet away from where they stood.

The giant’s nose and eyes began to weep blood shortly before it slumped over and died, with that confused expression lingering on its face.

You are now a level 25 Resourceful Climber!

Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may advance to the 6^th Floor at your discretion.

+ 200XP

…

“…What just happened?” Reggie asked.

“I gave it a brain aneurysm.” Alicia whispered. “Don’t worry, he didn’t even feel it. There aren’t any pain receptors there.”

“So you just…make things die?” Mason asked.

“Well, it’s a sight-based curse of the Evil Eye,” Alicia whispered, tapping her eyeball amulet, “Plus two curse-boosting items,” She tapped her hat and ring.

“And because you can see their weak spots…” Will filled in the blanks by himself.

“Yes, typically you can only curse a whole person, but my eyes allow me to scale it down to just their cerebral arteries, which makes the effect much more concentrated. Add in the Witch’s Hat and the Ring of Curse Concentration…they go to sleep and never wake up.” She whispered.

“That…sounds cool…” Travis said, visibly pale.

Typically curses are resisted by Focus, Will mused to himself.

Interesting. A body-targeting attack resisted by a mental attribute. Which could be used to absolutely destroy fighter archetypes, but mages would be more resistant.

Neat. Scary…but neat.

“Be very selective about what you use that on,” Will said.

“If you used it on Mark Wyrd, you’d likely be the one to fall asleep and never wake up.” Loth said, picking up his train of thought.

“And magic Archetypes might be able to resist or counter.” Will added, nodding.

“It’s okay, there are plenty of nonlethal places to cause organ failure, like eyes, kneecaps, colons, genitals.” As she said that, Alicia glanced at Reggie and gave him a shy smile, her face eerily lit by her glowing eyes.

Will could tell that Reggie wanted to flinch, but a career of taking damage for other people made him more difficult to rattle.