Chapter 81 - Things Get Harder

Part 3 - The Upper Levels

“... and that was it. We thought the worst was behind us. We should’ve known better…” - Anonymous delver human DPS, ex-Climber, The Lusty Quam, S894SDAF72L71Y, popular establishment amongst ex-Climbers, known for its many services and offerings. 

Excerpt from “Life in the Depths – A Study of the Life Conditions in the Between-Nexus”

Status: Unpublished. Censored by the authority of Truth Praetor Alastor Ghabn

Notation: Level 4 Breach of The Tenets for Scholarly Conduct, Education and Enlightenment

Scholar Kuon Feeir, KUO274021097334283LDX – 2nd strike

>><< 

Things were not going well.

They hadn’t for almost two weeks now, ever since they had stepped foot onto that massive corridor.

Easily over 300-feet wide, according to Jul’s scouting, the walls and ceiling were covered in darkness, too far away for the meager light of the path to reveal.

The path itself guided them right through the middle of the massive empty space. With no other choice, the party had stuck to their source of light, even though it meant being out in the open.

And that was when the waves of guardians started besieging them.

“Hang on, Nar! Almost there!” Kur shouted.

Nar barely had the processing power to hear and decode the meaning of the sounds in the air down into words and meanings.

His sword blurred in his hands, and he fought through a throbbing headache of ranging [Instinct] and searing [NPC]. Blood dripped down his nose, and somewhere deep inside his mind, there was a split-second stray thought that popped above the chaos, to briefly wonder if that was a sign of his brain melting. But then it was gone, and it was just Nar and the three soldier guardians that he kept from advancing into the ranged DPS.

Luckily, it was the fourth time he found himself in such a situation. The first time, he had been forced to block the path of two soldiers, who had surprised the party from the back, emerging almost silently from their backs. Then, he had had not only to fight the soldiers, but also his disbelief at what his attributes now allowed him to achieve.

Well, at least barely enough to stay alive.

Lines of fire burned across his arms and legs, marking where he had been too slow, or forced to sacrifice a little HP for his life. The three guardians melded into a blurry whirlwind of death, and he was doing all he could to keep them from getting to him. Or to the others behind him.

“Ready!” Gad shouted.

“Do it!” Kur shouted back, above the chaos.

The sound of Gad’s newest skill, [Shield Call], rang across the wide, open space, reverberating against walls that were hidden in the deep darkness around them, and which the weak yellow light could not penetrate.

From Gad’s shield, a wave of sound erupted, and when it reached Nar and the soldiers trying to eradicate him, the effect was immediate. The three guardians stopped dead for a half-second, then, as one, they turned on Gad instead.

Sagging from the sudden pressure release, both mental and physical, Nar let them go.

Attracted to Gad’s wide AOE aggro, all the enemies within a 20-feet radius turned towards her. The soldier she had been battling, the three that Nar had scarcely managed to hold, and the six Soldier Guardians, rank 1, that had been running amok, trying to crush Mul, Viy and Jul, all rushed towards their tank.

Gad hunkered behind her glowing, hazy gray shield, and prepared to receive the additional blows.

The nine guardians, soldiers of rank 1 and 2, all tripped and staggered against one another in their mad rush to attack her. The longer blades of the Soldier Guardian 1’s and the thicker, heavier limbs of the Soldier Guardian 2’s, flayed and crashed and stabbed indiscriminately. They ended up doing much more damage to themselves and the one soldier that Gad had already been fighting, than to her.

For a split moment, he felt a pang of jealousy for her shield and her taunts, though he quickly pushed it away. Her path was not his path.

“Nar!” Kur shouted. “The ranged!”

Not wasting another second, Nar dashed towards the ranged fighters. Tuk, Rel and Cen stood nearby, in the center of the formation.

Cen was on the floor, obviously downed by one of the innumerable bolts that flew at the three Climbers. Rel had dropped on top of her, and was trying to keep her safe, while at the same time, occasionally shooting an arrow at their elusive, hidden enemies in the dark.

Tuk though, he stood amidst the pelting volleys. His rings of light, up to six now, flew in all directions, spreading devastation amongst the mass of bolters hiding in the darkness around the group.

These were a new type of enemy. They were smaller and slower than the poisoners, and they could only shoot one bolt at a time. However, they made up for it in sheer numbers and by the ability to shoot an endless stream of bolts, without needing an army of adjutants to keep re-stocking them.

This meant that dozens of bolts were flying at the ranged DPS without pause. And that made Tuk all the braver for his daring stand.

Kur’s order had been ambiguous. All he had meant was that Nar should take this opportunity, while Gad’s aggro lasted, to do something, anything, to free up the ranged DPS.

That could’ve meant wading into the darkness with his superior senses and [Speed], and directly destroying the bolters. However, as fast as he was, he knew he could not compete with Tuk’s rings and Rel’s arrows. So instead, he ran towards the two of them.

“Tuk! Rel!” he shouted in warning, letting them know he was coming.

“Cover our left side!” Rel shouted. “Tuk, let’s focus on the right. One side at a time!”

“Got it!” the trugger replied.

Nar took position right behind them, blocking with ease all the bolts aimed at the two of them, and for their part, Tuk and Rel worked quickly to clear up the left side of the party. Tuk’s [Sight] had improved tremendously, and Rel’s was still good enough to penetrate the darkness in front of her, so they made quick and short work of all the bolters, with shining rings and glowing arrow tips.

“Turn left!” Rel said, once they were done.

Rings and arrows of light flew into the darkness, wrecking and destroying everything.

The guardians' strategy had not changed once in the two weeks since they had found themselves walking on that enormous corridor. The soldier 1’s focused on the melee DPS and the bolters on the ranged DPS. As for the soldier 2’s, they just ran amok through the party, unless Nar and Gad kept them occupied. Fortunately, they seemed unwilling to use their anti-aggro skill.

It was a very strange tactic. More than once, they had commented on how much more effective the enemy could have been, if only they’d allowed themselves to be more flexible with their targets. And they knew that the guardians were, at least to some degree, intelligent enough to do it. It was a mystery, but one they were happy to see continued. Things were hard enough as they were.

“Nar!” Gad shouted. “Almost time!”

Nar risked a glimpse to where the melee fight was raging. Mul, Viy and Jul had managed to bring down four of the soldiers 1’s and two of the soldiers 2’s. But Gad’s taunt was almost over.

Her shout had not been a call for help, nor for him to drop what he was doing. It was a warning to keep attentive to the soon to be freed soldiers again.

“Guys?” Nar asked of the two ranged DPS.

“Going as fast as we can!” Tuk said. “They move too fast!”

 “Let’s try to wrap it up!” Kur shouted. “I’m triggering my boon! Now!”

Nar felt a surge of energy spread from his mind and down into his whole body. Suddenly, the bolts flying his way seemed to slow down, and he had to adjust his sword mid swing to not overshoot the projectile he had been about to intercept.

Kur’s new boon, [Fighter’s Boon], was an interesting, and incredible second addition to the party leader’s boon set. It granted the party a significant 15% increase to the attribute that most helped them in the moment, and it lasted for a full seven seconds. And if that wasn’t good enough, the skill only had a 5 min cooldown, meaning that it usually saw at minimum, two uses per fight in the new, and much more drawn-out battles they now faced on the Upper Levels.

For Nar, it seemed to target [Reflex] most of the time, as he was still pretty much focused on the tanking side of things, but the System gave them all different boosts.

The already blazingly fast rings and arrows whistling past him shot out even faster, and Rel and Tuk performed a semicircle of destruction, wrecking the bolters whose projectiles Nar intercepted.

“5 seconds!” Gad shouted.

Damn… Nar thought, glancing at the big guardians. There were still four of them alive!

Already he was starting to sense the first whispers of danger. One of the four must be planning to head straight for him, but what was he supposed to do? Tuk and Rel were still reliant on his protection, and he had learned the hard way what happened if he simply withdrew it.

The first, and the only time he had left the ranged for the bulky, armored soldiers, had resulted in both Rel and Cen getting shot, and going under the sleeping poison for the remainder of the fight. It had been a nightmare of a long, drawn-out battle from there. No one had escaped it with their HPs intact, and there had been more than a few close calls.

Even now, three fights later, the party was still having trouble adjusting to the new, open, multi-enemy fights that they now faced. Nar had no idea what to do.

“Kur!” Nar shouted, in between bolts.

Getting his party leader’s attention was about the best he could do, though he doubted Kur wasn't already aware of the impending disaster.

Gad’s aggro ran out as he shouted for Kur. The soldier 1’s lashed back at the melee DPS again, and the soldier 2’s went straight for the ranged. Gad, torn between which group to help, made the decision of trying to help both groups at once, and taunted one soldier 1 and one of the soldiers 2’s with her two individual charges of [Shield Call]. Unfortunately, that still left two soldier 2’s on the loose, and they headed straight for the Rel and Tuk.

Nar, tied down by the unceasing volleys of bolts, had his hands tied.

“Rel, get those 2’s!” Kur shouted.

He threw himself valiantly into their path, but they ignored his weak scepter blows, pushing past him without even registering his presence

Rel got an arrow up and filled it with [Aura], and shot at one of the incoming guardians. The arrow went through the plated armor as though it were made out of jell-o. However, the other soldier still advanced, and grew before her.

With her eyes growing wide, the archer backed away from the approaching, growling, hulking machine, and her arrow shook in her hand.

Nar knew she wasn’t going to make it, but at the same time, he couldn’t just leave those bolts alone.

Outside of his control, his [NPC] kicked into overdrive.

It was like someone grabbed a fistful of sharp aetherium and rubbed them all over his brain. All the information from his [Hearing], [Sight], [Smell] and [Instinct] flooded and raged into his mind, and his [NPC] and [Reflex] exploded in agony to help him make sense of it all. And in that one painful, slowed moment, he knew what he had to do.

The perceived time slowness of his [NPC] faded away, and the fight returned to its normal speed, and with it, Nar moved.

He caught three more bolts, the ones that had been accurately aimed at Tuk. Then, he spun on the balls of his feet, and darted forward, towards Rel and the soldier.

Unfortunately, his plan took him right through the path of one of Tuk’s rings. It was unavoidable. The ring tore a line of blood across his left side, and his steps faltered. For a moment, the pain was almost too great, his body shrieking from the aura infused cut, but then he pushed through.

He had underestimated the pain, however. He turned away one of the soldiers' blows, but the other one caught him across the side. The same side that Tuk’s ring had just teared open.

Nar braced for impact, but he was still sent a couple of feet back, reeling and blinded by pain.

Before the guardian could do any more damage though, Rel put an end to it, and the limb that had threatened to wrap around Nar’s neck dropped heavily on the floor and did not move anymore.

With only time to spare him a look of worry, Rel re-joined Tuk in finishing the last of the bolters.

Nar didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the fight, but it was brief.

Soon enough, Jul was at his side, helping him down onto the floor.

“I’m okay,” Nar said, holding onto his side, even as his HP got to work. “Don’t worry.”

That double whammy had only blasted apart half of his remaining HP. That he was at 67/220 HP was no big deal at all.

“Just sit down!” she ordered him. “And don’t do anything!”

“I won’t… I won’t…” he muttered.

His head was going to split open any moment now, burst open by his racing heartbeat, and the ravages that his [NPC] had done to him. The attribute had damaged him, being responsible for a good chunk of his depleted HP bar.

Fuck… Nar thought, holding his head.

Waves of nausea blasted him, threatening to spill the cracker and a half, and all the jell-o he had drank that day, onto his lap. His ears rang with a high-pitched tinnitus, and his vision faded in and out, blurry and with more dark spots than sight. And as a final touch, blood leaked down his nose and ears, and he tasted it on his tongue.

What in the pile am I doing wrong? He asked himself.

Every time [NPC] triggered, he was left absolutely shredded by it.

He didn’t know what he was doing wrong, or if his body was simply physically incapable of sustaining the burden of the accelerated thought process for too long.

Their current theory was that he was simply using it too much, however the guardians weren’t giving him much other choice. The fights of the Upper Levels had so far proven to be beyond any encounter they had had with the machines so far. Everyone was stretched thin, and everyone was forced to use their [Aura] just so they could survive.

Nar had expected the difficulty to continue increasing, but that had been a massive, unexpected leap…

Pain needled deep into his mind and with a groan, Nar let all thought slip from his grasp, allowing himself to go blank. That earned him some relief at least.

His side still radiated pain, but his HP was hard at work there, and all the rest were mere scratches and bruises. He didn’t even consider them injuries anymore.

“You’re using it too much!” Jul chastised him.

Nar scoffed and winced in pain. “No choice?”

One soldier of rank 2? Sure, he could handle it without his [NPC] triggering. Two soldier 2’s? That was already pushing it, and he needed some help from the attribute, but it was still within manageable limits. But with three of them, and bolts, and having to decide his next move in order to keep the party alive in the interval between seconds, and sometimes split-seconds? No.

He had no choice but to be increasingly reliant on his [NPC], even as it greedily drank from his HP.

Without it, even if he had the [Speed], the [Agility], the [Reflex], the [Instinct] and everything else, he just couldn’t make full use of it. It was too much. His brain couldn’t just couldn’t keep up with his attribute enhanced and speed focused body anymore… And it had quickly become apparent that his [NPC] was at the core of his path. Without it, Nar just couldn’t bring it to its full capacities. And so, he always ended up destroyed.

So far, neither Kur nor Gad had come up with an answer for him, and the guardians showed no signs of slowing down, or decreasing in number.

By now, he had long let go of the hesitations and regrets about his path and choices that had plagued him earlier in his Climbed. He was fully committed to his path now, and into figuring the way forward. The way to make it work. But as of now, he still didn’t see it. 

Jul dropped next to him with a sigh. He could tell she was staring at him with her big and unhappy eyes, but her silence was evidence enough that she knew he was right. Until he, or they, figured it out, or he got stronger, he had no choice but just keep doing it and paying its cost.

>>>>>>> Next chapter