Chapter 152: Glorified Crossing Guard

‘Humans find monsters satisfying on a deep…fundamental level. Do you know why?’

Jason shakes head

‘Because they have rules. Every good, satisfying monster needs to have strengths, weaknesses, and a proper method of combating them that trivializes an encounter. They represent a threat and a puzzle all at once.’

‘But why do rules make them satisfying?’ Jason asked.

‘Because monsters with rules have been baked into our very bodies at the most fundamental level. Thousands upon thousands upon THOUSANDS of years ago, when we wore animal hides and hunted with stone tools, monsters were everywhere:

bears, crocodiles, axebeaks, tigers, gangs of flesh-eating baboons that carry away your children into the night.

All of them were monsters until someone figured out how to beat them.

Someone discovered what smells they didn’t like, what colors they couldn’t see. They blinded their night vision with torches, attacked them where they slept, at their most vulnerable.

 Someone with that rare mixture of cunning, curiosity and violence, took a risk to kill the monster that ate their little brother, that haunted their village, hunted their people with impunity.

It was when the monster’s weaknesses were fully understood, when the weapons that man brought to bear were uncontestable, that the monster turned into an animal.

Today’s monsters are an echo of those times. A deep-rooted yearning for a struggle against a force of nature that we’ve long since surpassed.’

-          Reese

So…we’re still fighting and dying to monsters by the thousands…Because we like it? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

-          Jason Salazar

-          A conversation overheard between the Prophet of the End and an immortal madman by the campfire

***William Oh***

“I’ve been expecting you ever since that Raid Boss. I didn’t even know we had one on this Floor.” Ghoul glanced over and spotted Will scanning the open-air crafting area manned entirely by undead.

“So most of the time I find walls to be an inconvenience, since I don’t need shelter or privacy, but there’s a place to sleep for visitors in the back,” Ghouls said, leading them around the Key site towards the back of the castle courtyard.

“So is there a reason The Tower is telling me to…kill you?” Will asked as they walked.

“Ah, yes. That’s probably pretty disconcerting for a first-timer. You noticed how the Eighth Floor doesn’t spawn much in the way of natural monsters?”

“Mm,” Will nodded.

“Well, the corrupted Miasma and the normal miasma are two different flavors, and the zombies created by corrupted miasma don’t really…like the taste of the regular stuff.”

“So the Key Sites never get taken over by anything, and nobody ever gets a Key Site mission to move up or down.” Will filled in the logic.

“Well, almost never,” Ghoul said, waggling his withered hand. “Grinder Slimes aren’t picky about different Miasma flavors. You’ll find a few of them here and there on this Floor, but they don’t move around much.

“Grinder Slimes?”

“It’s one of the first naturally occurring types of creatures that can grant a shield Ability. They use it to smash their prey against hard surfaces,” Mason said, the slender Nuker ramming his fist into his palm to illustrate.

“One of my biggest exports, actually.” Ghoul said, pointing up. “Anyway, since there’s almost no natural key site quests to provide transportation to the next Floor, that means you could be stuck on this floor for months, or even years.”

“You’re manufacturing a way for people to go up and down, aren’t you?” Will asked.

“I’m a glorified crossing guard,” Ghoul said with a rotten smile. “Nobody can get up or down from this Floor without my help. A little advice: If you can place yourself in a position that makes you indispensable…do it.”

“Seems the trick would be identifying those positions.” Will replied.

Ghoul nodded, motioning to a massive awning against the back wall, followed by a huge steel tank, and a little outhouse off to the side.

“There’s a nice spot to park your wagons that won’t get rained on. I’ve got privacy screens available on request. There’s some water over there, shitter’s over there. If you can, do us a favor and refill the tank for other guests who might not have water mages. Don’t have any food, Sorry. Can’t really grow it, don’t care to store it.”

“It rains here?” Will asked with a frown.

“Not too often, but sometimes.” Ghoul replied with a shrug. “So, how long do you have left on your acclimation?”

“Five days, not including today.”

“Oh, I guess you came straight here,” Ghoul said, rubbing his flaking chin. “That gives us plenty of time for another lesson!”

They had been wanting to use the Stronghold as an anchor point, a safe place that they could stash the civilians while they sent out Parties into the local environment to search for loot.

Now was the opportunity for the other groups of Climbers to break up with the Caravan and do a few days of exploring, looking for their own fortunes before coming back. Anything they found during that solo exploration didn’t need to be shared with the owner of the caravan, which was Will.

Will was already fairly certain he’d gotten the best loot and Sacrifices this Floor had to offer, so…

“That sounds fantastic. Once the caravan is settled and the Parties are organized, I’ll get back to you.”

Ghoul nodded and with a short goodbye, returned to his throne at the center of the Key Site while Will oversaw the parking of the Caravan.

Will barely needed to give any input, as Loth and June already had a firm grasp of the Caravan’s logistics, and Badur didn’t let anything slip by him, to a few people’s irritation.

When asked what he wanted, Will stated that his goal was to have everyone safe and back one whole day before their departure so they didn’t go into the 9th Floor ragged.

Those terms were acceptable to them, and in a couple hours, everyone had sorted themselves out into teams of ‘going’ and ‘staying’.

Every Party had a Ria going with them to ensure their safety, Jason went out with the rest of Will’s Party to poke around, and Loth stayed with the civilians to dedicate more time to breeding corrupted Miasma tolerant bugs.

Once everyone was settled into their tasks, Will returned to Ghoul.

“What’s it like in one of these beams?” Will asked, studying the brilliant miasmatic light Ghoul was sitting in. The beam of light was emerging from a shallow basin at the top of the  steep cone that was eerily similar to the one underneath Basalt, where he’d created his Set.

“You wanna know what it’s like? Put your hand in and find out,” Ghoul said with a shrug.

Will knew a setup when he saw one.

“Pass.”

Ghoul chuckled and stepped out, the two of them made their way down to a sand-filled arena where teams of undead were hauling shelves full of Relics out to stand them beside the area.

“How do you control them?”

“Are you asking the secret of my Build or is it a more general question?”

“More general.”

“Magic.” Ghoul said, waggling his fingers.

“Okay maybe not that general.” Will said, crossing his arms. “Is that why your Stronghold is safe, because you can just turn away any undead that wanders too close?”

“Pretty much. Now, show me how far you’ve come with your cantrip practice. I want to see what you’ve done with it so I can get an idea of what we can work on.”

Will surveyed the arena, which was only a couple hundred feet across.

“I don’t think this place is big enough.”

“Confidence is important, but don’t oversell yourself. Gimme one of those earth-spikes,” Ghoul said, holding his hands out as if to catch one. “I can take it.”

Will shrugged and stomped on the ground, while using his Phantom Snakes to create identical ripples in the ground at five points around ghoul.

The six rippled coalesced into massive watchtower-sized spikes of earth that slammed into Ghoul from every direction, slamming into the nearby wall of the Stronghold and causing the entire compound to shudder.

“See,” Ghoul wheezed from between two pillars of earth. “I told you I could take it.”

With a wave from Ghoul, the earth shuddered in place and sank back into the earth.

Will watched as Ghoul’s chest un-caved, his legs straightening, arm reattaching itself.

“Okay. So you got a Relic that boosts your Passive by…a lot.”

Will nodded.

“Okay, lose the fancy stuff, I wanna see what your baseline improvement looks like.” Ghoul said.

Will hesitated.

The withered undead put his hand on his chest. “I give you my word as a Lord and the ferryman who has transported Climbers up and down The Tower for generations, that no one will try and steal your kit while it is in my demesne. I care nothing for the pursuit of more power.”

Will shrugged and took off his Set, stripping down to his underwear in the process.

“Whoo!” Anna hollered from the sidelines, waving a handkerchief.

When did she get there?

The five snakes recombined into their usual Phantom Hand, and the terrain beneath him lost that sense of control that he’d become used to as Aspect of the Immortal Serpent lost a huge amount of power.

Crack! With a pop of displaced air, a few of the things that Will was storing in his snake’s Dimensional Storage were released as the five instances of Dimensional Storage were combined into one. The items released were a couple weapons, bandages, and some of his consumables.

Things that he didn’t put a lot of mental value on.

That’s interesting. If it’s size is reduced, does Dimensional Storage organize things by how much value I place on them and release them in ascending order?

Will made a note to test it. How he would test it without interfering with the results were unknown. Perhaps he would ask Loth.

As if he hadn’t heard any catcalls, once Will was out of his kit, Ghoul simply gave Will a ‘bring it’ gesture.

Will brought the ground up before he stomped down, and the resulting pillar of earth wasn’t nearly as big or strong, a bit over three feet long and barely strong enough to pierce someone’s leg.

Of course, most people would be at least inconvenienced by a three-foot spike of earth through their leg. Not Ghoul.

Ghoul pulled his leg off the spike with a chuckle.

“It’s sharper than it was when we finished. Longer, too. I see you got the hang of focusing it. Huge improvement in control. Nice, nice…Anything else? Anything new?

Will kicked out with his leg, focusing on grabbing and layering the air, setting it on a collision course with Ghoul’s face.

Oh right.

As soon as Will let go of it, the cantrip began unraveling, because his leg slot was the only thing that made it work.

Still, Ghoul caught a blast of air to the face, staggering backwards and blinking.

“What was that?” Ghoul asked.

Will described how he could grab the air and layer it into softer and harder portions to make a spike out of regular air. It wasn’t as strong as earth spikes, and it was nearly useless without the pants, but it was invisible, which was its own strength. And the layering idea had been repurposed to make the earth spear sharper.

“Oh. OH!” Ghoul hooted with excitement. “That gives me an idea. I think we can create a couple new cantrips for you out of that.”

The rotting corpse hustled over to the rack of Relics in that half-trot you might see from an academic with an idea that absolutely needed to be written down.

“Control…air…layering…” Ghoul muttered to himself as he went through the Relics, donning two rings, a necklace along with the rest, seemingly building a Kit on the fly

When Ghoul turned back, he was bedecked in a mismatch assortment of Relics. If they had a theme, they seemed bright and…airy?

“Okay, this should allow me to replicate…more or less what you’re doing with the air there.” Ghoul mused, holding his hand above the sand and making a small dust-devil under his palm, muttering to himself as he did.

“What kind of cantrip did you have in mind?” Will asked.

“It’s probably best if I just show you what it can do.” Ghoul said, raising his hand before pausing. “You got healing potions, right?”

“And a saint of Holdna.” Will said.

“Hmm…we should get her. Just to be safe.”

“On it!” Ria said, turning away from the crowd that had been gradually growing, guiding Charnesa back to the arena.

Once the saint was there, Ghoul’s eyes twitched in recognition for an instant before he nodded.

“Alright, she should be good enough. Allow me to demonstrate the cantrip I’d like to teach you before you leave.” Ghoul said, raising his hand again.

Will tensed, ready to dodge some kind of wind-blade or something like-

The world went white as searing pain shot through Will’s eyes.

Will was blind.