[D'sP] Tired Of Traps - Chapter 437

Jim’s team makes their way back to the entrance portal easily enough. It is from there that things get difficult. They hadn’t been wrong about the kobolds not being able to set up new traps. What they missed is other reactions that could be taken.

The kobolds might not be sapient, but even mindless beasts can find trails, let alone the more clever sorts. So, the kobolds had found their path towards the lake and concentrated their patrols around it. This was likely why they hadn’t been overly bothered during the night.

Not that the kobolds were all lined up in the trail. That would be both silly and stupid. No, the kobolds instead set up a series of ambushes. Shame for them that the ambush part didn’t exactly work.

Susan points to the left, “Another ambush in the bushes.”

And since they have been noticed, the kobolds don’t bother remaining hidden, charging out at the group.

Ruby raises both her hands and forms a knot of fire strings before tossing it at the group of around 20 kobolds charging at them. The knot collides with the ground right in front of them and bursts apart while maintaining their forward momentum. The resulting strings aren’t being controlled by Ruby, but that doesn’t matter.

Well, it does matter, but more along the lines of Ruby not controlling it means she can start on her next spell. A much needed spell as while in theory the group is perfectly capable of defeating the kobolds, they wanted to do so without tiring themselves.

Jay sighs, “Feels a bit lame just going around and giving a bunch of kobolds a smack to finish them. They can fight me, maybe not one on one, but I’m not twice as strong.”

Jim shrugs, “I think you’re underestimating your strength. You can probably take three or four of them. We never fight only a few of them. Though I am thankful, that experience isn’t based on something like last hitting or how much you contribute.”

Jay frowns, “How do you know that? The guides didn’t say anything about how it worked.”

Jim gestures at Ruby, “I’ll let Ruby explain. They didn’t not tell us, but it took some work to figure out.”

Ruby nodded, “I’m sure your guide said something about how experience is something personal? That you gain it by experiencing things and to just go and kill some monsters? Or if you were more of a production type, they might have said to grind out making a bunch of different things?”

Jay shrugs, “Pretty much that. All this talk about going out and experiencing what your skills are about or some such.”

Ruby smiles, “That’s a good way to describe! Well, if you want to confuse people who don’t know. I’m guessing this comes from them never having lived without it.

“What they mean is that the use of your skills is what matters. Killing something or making a thing does not grant you some magical energy labeled by the system as ‘experience’. Levels are a representation of personal growth.”

Jay, “So how is the system measuring it and why do you get so much more experience whacking a kobold over doing a complex sword dance?”

Ruby raises an eyebrow, “But does it? Oh sure, early on the kobold will provide the most for skill growth, but that is because while both are hard, the kobold resists you. A rich young master type can’t power level by having a mage stun a monster and them killing it. They’d get just as much experience as whacking away at a training dummy.

“Well, I guess if they try to hit a weak point, the monster will provide more unless the dummy is particularly detailed. And the interesting part of all of this? The system and magic have nothing to do with this happening!

“Oh sure, the system can guide the experience you gain. Inject knowledge to help you level. But the levels and such aren’t a product of such things. It all existed pre-magic, pre-system. When the universe was mundane, we all gained experience and stuff.

“The difference is that once magic is introduced, these gains are more easily externalized. Then the system? That guides your gains to produce a better effect. In theory, if you had a system in a universe without magic, people would still gain benefits such as expedited learning, even if you wouldn’t gain the ability to throw a fireball.”

Jay, “That doesn’t make sense! How does it all even work?”

Ruby shrugs, “I don’t know. Seems it is soul related. Which since souls are about the most universal of components must say something. From what I know, souls are pretty much omniversal in scope or at least, every universe within the known multiverse has them as a basic element.”

Jay, “So, how does experience from combat work? I get that working on skills will level the skills, but your personal level? What’s up with that?”

Ruby, “I will admit, personal level? Yeah, that seems to be an invention of the system. It is an arbitrary mark on your growth that the system uses to stabilize things. You don’t gain it from passive learning.

“A person isn’t going to level just from watching someone else do a thing, even if they manage to get skill levels from it. Which is where combat comes in. Though crafting can work, if at a slower rate.

“The key thing is the fact it is a challenge with push back. Think of experience like dust falling on your soul and personal levels are the system tamping it down to solidify what you’ve gained. The push back is that tamping, which is why things like crafting and martial arts katas provide very little towards what I’ll now refer to as character level.

“And also why me burning through a horde of kobolds isn’t causing me to jump ahead in character levels. I’m not getting six experience from doing the most damage, last hit, or kill a kobold. I get progress towards a new character level when challenged by an outside force and it can’t be the illusion of a challenge.”

Jim interrupts at this point, “Wait, it can’t be the illusion of a challenge? But what about fighting something while an instructor is hidden nearby or another similar method sometimes used to make a false challenge?”

Ruby, “That’s a tough one, because character level, unlike skill level, is gained from external pressure. You can sit in a room and grind away at a skill forever. You’d reach the limits on your paths, sure, but that wouldn’t stop the skill from leveling. Though don’t ask about paths, we currently don’t have a clue about them, especially since we’ve only heard that you can cap out how many path points can be spent at a specific character level.”

Jim, “Okay, I won’t ask, but back to the challenge. It is an external challenge. Why would having someone nearby dampen that?”

Ruby shrugs, “Challenge isn’t determined by you, me, or even the system. It is all based on your soul, which is beyond even the systems control. All the system does is target the pressure from the challenge. So yeah, the soul knows if something is a legit challenge and given souls aren’t exactly rational things, who knows how it works?”

Jay, “Oookay, well, as long as it isn’t some sort of last hit nonsense.”

Jim nods, “That sort of thing caused enough grief in video games.”

Jay, “Okay, can I just say? You guys refer to video games and such way too much. None of us from my planet rightly know what you’re on about.”

Jim laughs, “Fair. It was a relatively recent invention, all things considered.”

And they chat about the differences between their world’s back in the pre-system days. All while back in the core room, Doyle turns to Ally, ‘Is that why leveling as a dungeon core is so slow? Things simply don’t challenge us? Which if true, is supremely ironic. After all, we provide challenges for others.’

Ally shrugs, ‘I hadn’t heard that sort of explanation. It doesn’t sound wrong, but their explanation about those having grown up in the system being used to is likely the reason. Since it does seem to be soul-bases, why would anyone look into it? Can’t mess with the soul, even the system is basically just arranging things as it falls onto the soul and not stirring stuff up.

‘Or at least, it does so rarely and at a significant cost. That’s why you can’t undo stuff like paths or remove skills. Honestly, it is also likely why you don’t have much choice when it comes to gaining skills.’

Doyle, ‘Blarg, silly soul nonsense. Let’s focus on the delvers getting bashed by the kobolds.’

Which they were. Ruby was quite capable of blasting through masses of enemies, but not all the ambushes involved the kobolds coming from one direction. In fact, there generally wasn’t one location that could hide them all at once.

Jim lets fly an arrow that glows, “Jay, back up!”

Jay hops back and the arrow pierced through the two of the kobolds that were in front of him and then another behind them. “There’s a mage behind the second tree back on the right!”

Jeremy sprints out from hiding and once past the tree, snap throws a wooden spike. It doesn’t kill the mage, but causes them to drop the spell. Then Susan was there and putting another wooden spike through the back of the neck.

Jeremy flung more wooden spikes out, distracting the back line of the ambush. Without their support, the front line of kobolds falters. Jay took advantage of this to pull back his poleaxe and let’s swing.

It doesn’t kill the entire front line, but more than three of them are out of the fight. Which is more than enough to swing the battle. Not that they were likely to lose, but the kobolds no longer have a chance to drag it out and waste more of the party’s stamina.

Jim looks around, “Well, we’ve finally made it back to where we left off. Only took a fifth of the time.”

Susan raises an eyebrow, “Only? More like ‘how did it’! We cleared the place of traps already.”

Jim shrugs, “Oh sure, we could have ran here if you don’t mind the kobolds nipping at our heels. Though on the upside, if we have to do this again it should be quicker. There are only so many kobolds and I bet we killed maybe 120 to 140 kobolds since we got here.

“All previous times we’ve basically run out of kobolds at around 80. I’m betting the lake is supposed to have a good hundred and we’ve actually drawn away some that should have stayed there.”

Susan sighs, “This is way too many monsters. It feels like the sixth floor all over again. Though at least the sixth floor involved more moving around.”

Jeremy laughs, “I never thought I’d see the day you got tired of traps.”

Susan, “I’m not tired of the traps. I just want to be done with these specific traps!”

Jeremy shrugs, “They’re simple kobolds. Can’t really help that they’re copy pasting their traps.”

Susan lets out an exasperated sigh, “It feels like I’m playing one of those sim games. Every trap is like a collection of parts and they have such a limited number of parts! Oh sure, they get moved around by the terrain, but the actual parts? The same thing over and over. I’m just glad they seem to have more variety than the previous kobolds.”

Jeremy looks around, “Yeah, I think that has more to do with the terrain. There is only so much you can do on the first floor. More of a surprise when there is some sort of tripwire across that last area. Besides, these kobolds have the area to wander around instead of standing like abandoned manikins. About the only other kobolds that do that are the couriers on the 13th floor and they aren’t allowed to dilly dally. It is just back and forth between the mithril mine and encampment.”

Susan shakes her head, “You’re probably right.”

To The Wall - Chapter 436

No Turning Back - Chapter 438