Chapter 38: The Immediate Plan

Bring him in. It seems as though it has begun again in our lifetimes. May the gods help us.

Case file 8934: Ashwood

They discussed Will’s Build, where he was going with it, and what the possibilities might be.

In the end, Will admitted that, while less exciting now, Sourdough could be upgraded to provide really interesting interactions with Relics, which was a cornerstone of his Build that he wanted to lean on.

Once Will added Sourdough to his Build, he needed to go out and buy consumables.

Before now, Will could barely afford the equipment he wore, and consumables were expensive and single-use, so the idea of buying some never crossed his mind.

But, now that he was kitted, starting to make a lot more money at the Climbing game, he could stop a moment and buy solutions to specific problems.

He sold the gloves of ferocity for fifteen ivory and went shopping. The other Relics he put back in his Phantom Hand for safekeeping, since they’d already been earmarked to sell to rich kids who could give Will their actual value rather than haggle him down to what he knew was a fraction of their real value.

Will stepped into a dinky little Consumable shop in Coalton, not particularly surprised to find a Jibleya manning the bar. It was a cute little rotund girl with skin shining like a berry.

“Welcome!” She said as Will entered, gesturing to the shelves lined with bottles of every color along with odd-looking Relics of every shape and size. Will saw a totem made with raven’s skull and bones, another that was a heavy-looking cube with unsettling writing on the surface, and what sounded like faint screams resonating through his eyeballs rather than his ears. There was a piece of clay depicting a snake eating its tail that gave Will an odd feeling in his gut, along with a minitature set of dolls depicting two medics carrying a cot.

There were tiny trees, a piece of chalk, a strangely durable soap bubble just sitting on the shelf, a barrel full of some kind of meat-pellets with a scoop and waxed bags next to it, a bag of elemental blasts a giant monster staring at him-

As he scanned the wares, his gaze landed on an honest-to-gods troll, a humanoid creature at least eight feet tall with a reach that covered half the shop.

Gotta have some kind of security in a place filled with this much expensive gear, Will thought to himself, but he wondered how the troll enforced security when it looked like any movement on it’s part might shatter thousands of gold worth of consumables.

He barely fit in the shop.

Will met the Troll’s gaze, and the creature started drooling.

You know what? I’m not interested in finding out.

Instead, Will found the Health Potion section, having decided to grab one of them before anything else, because the ability to recover after a deadly mistake had proven it’s worth.

Minor Potion of Healing : 1 gold

Stops bleeding, both internal and external. Arrests degradation due to major wounds. Seek immediate medical attention after use.

High drain on body’s resources.

Potion of Healing: 100 gold.

Stops bleeding and heals some wounds, starting with the ones closest to the application site.

Medium drain on body’s resources.

Potion of Greater Healing: 10 Ivory

Heals the majority of damage on the consumer’s body. Does not heal scars or missing limbs.

Light drain on body’s resources.

There were more expensive ones, but Will didn’t bother to look at them, since he couldn’t afford them yet, and it would be cruel to wave something that could restore his hand in his face.

If it even could restore my hand.

If Andover couldn’t do it, what were the chances a potion could?

Will went up to the cheery Jibleya and put all his cash on the counter.

“One greater healing potion,” he said.

“Sure! Anything else?” She asked.

“Gonna look around,” Will said, turning back to the display cases.

He started with the performance enhancing potions, picking out a Combat Enhancement potion

Potion of Fury: 20 Gold.

+10 Strength

+10 resistance

+ 10 Kinesthetics

Lasts ½ hour.

Heavy drain on the body’s resources after expiration.

There were more, many more, but Will was already running low on cash, and decided to check out the consumeable non-potions closer to the troll.

The Jibleya must’ve noticed that he was nervous standing within arm-length of the drooling creature, and spoke up:

“Willard, move to the other side of the shop, you’re making our customer nervous.”

Will gave a grateful nod as the troll lumbered past him. He could feel the very floor bow under his outrageous weight as ‘Willard’ stepped past him.

Will leaned forward and inspected what looked like an icicle of opaque blue. Even as he looked at it, waves of chilled vapor rolled off of it and off the side of the shelf.

Shard of Primordial Ice: 15 gold

Upon striking anything after it has been thrown, explodes and freezes everything in a 20 ft radius explosion.

“Wow,” Will mused, moving on, inspecting items rapid-fire.

The tiny trees grew into bigger trees. There was a bottle of lightning, smoke bombs, seering stones, soft-body gum, a sonic attack bell that made a cone of sonic damage upon striking it.

On the next shelf was a tiny paper tent that created a larger one, useful on other Floors. Next to it were tokens seemingly made carved out of ivory coins that cleaned and maintained your gear for you.

There was a soul crystal that summoned a copy of whatever you could kill and put inside it.

Will was tempted to get that one for a moment, but upon thinking about it for a while, he realized he’d have to fill it, then get one summon of a creature he was weak enough to kill, and then he’d have to spend a month or so feeding the remains of the crystal with Relic dust.

Then risk his life to fill it again.

Sure, he could probably pay someone else to kill a powerful creature to fill the crystal, but wasn’t the point to spend less money, and be less reliant on others?

It would probably be less time consuming to just buy a pre-set summoning consumable each time.

There were edge case uses, but Will didn’t think they would be a major issue.

He moved on, landing on the shelf that he’d originally spotted with the creepy metal cube.

Will averted his eyes when the whispering in his eyes got too real.

No, thank you.

Whatever the cube did, it was mind-based, and Will didn’t want any part of it. The bird-skull totem beside it summoned a murder of crows to assault your enemies and peck out their eyes.

The two dolls bearing a cot were medic golems that would carry the bearer to safety to the best of their abilities, should the bearer be severely wounded.

Will’s gaze landed on the clay figurine of the snake biting its own tail.

Clay Idol: 50 gold

Break to summon an Immortal Serpent For 10 minutes. Obeys the user’s commands.

Will went back to the counter.

“Did you make the clay circle-snake thingy?” Will asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“It’s called an ouroboros.” The shopkeeper said. “And no, I didn’t make it, my grandpappy did.”

“Did he use Immortal Serpent Sacrifices to do it?” Will asked.

“Maybe. We don’t keep any Sacrifices in the store.” She clarified before Will could ask.

“Ah. I was just wondering where I could get one. It’s the first time I’ve caught sight of any information about where to get them.

She chewed her lip in thought.

“I’ll grab my grandpappy. One moment.”

Will tapped his feet and tried not to look scared that he was being left alone in the shop with the troll, who seemed really eager for Will to make a suspicious move and justify eating him.

Will stopped tapping his feet, standing stock still.

The troll gave a disappointed groan and rocked back on his heels.

A minute later a wrinkled, no longer taut-skinned Jibleya clattered down from above. The man’s shiny skin was covered in faded scars, and he was missing an eye and part of his ear.

He smelled like a tidal wave of old.

“Whaddya want?”

“I wanted to ask about Immortal serpent.”

“I’m sure you do. What makes you think I wanted to answer stupid questions?” The old man demanded.

Will put the three remaining Ivory on the countertop and slid it over to the old man.

“Whaddya wanna know, youngin?” The jibleya asked, his bruised skin stretching over a wide, gap-toothed smile as he pocketed the cash.

“What are Immortal serpents, do you have any Sacrifices left I can buy, and if not, where can I find one?”

“Immortal Serpents…” The old man mused, his gaze flickering to the clay circle on the shelf. “They’re powerful demons with a stunning amount of life-force. They look like snakes, but they’re huge, sapient, pissy, have magical Abilities, and they’re damned near impossible to kill. I’ve heard some of the more powerful ones on the highest Floors can even shapeshift and pretend to be human.”

Will’s brows rose.

“Can they regenerate limbs?”

“Well, they don’t have limbs, per se, the ones who shapeshift are only faking it. But yes, they do regenerate just about any damage you deal to them in a matter of minutes. They do have some cousins that can regenerate like the hydra and axolotl.”

“Cousins?”

“They’re rumored to descend from the same stock. One landed in the water, one in the jungle, one the desert, when the blood of Ouroboros battling Granesh seeded the lands with scaled creatures.”

“And do you have any Sacrifices?” Will asked.

“No sir. Used the last one on that trinket over there.”

“Where can I find them?”

“You can find Immortal Serpents as Boss monsters on the seventh floor, and they presumably become more common above that Floor, but of course I’ve never been.”

“How far did you get?” Will asked.

The old Jibleya tapped the socket next to his missing eye.

“Seventh floor.”

“That’s respectable,” Will said.

“I’m surprised you’re still Climbing with that missing hand.”

“Looking for a way to grow it back,” Will said.

“Respect. But wouldn’t it be easier to just pay a Healer to do it for you? I’ll have enough saved up for my eye by the end of the year.”

“No.” Will said, thinking back to the high priest of Andover telling him that Andover couldn’t give him his hand back because it belonged to the Tower now. If restoring his old hand was out of the question, then Will needed to grow a new one.

And that meant get Aspect of the Immortal Serpent, then side-step to one of its cousins, like a Hydra or whatever the Abyss an axe-o-lot-er was.

Just like Loth was trying to build on top of his Bullet Wasp Ability by adding a Ripley sacrifice, Will was going to build up his Aspect until he could grow back his hand.

Or kill a lot of Hydras trying.

“Alright, you’re young, plenty of time to make stupid decisions,” The old Jibleya said, holding up his hands with a shrug. “Anything else you needed?”

Will scanned the surrounding eye-candy, none of which he could afford now that he’d paid for information.

“More money.” he muttered.

The old Jibleya broke into a chortle, tossing Will back two of his three ivory coins.

“For the laugh.”

“Much obliged.” Will said before slapping the two coins back down on the counter.

“I want the Clay Idol, the smoke bombs, one tiny tree, a bottle of lightning, a pound of the monster-attracting stink-pellets, three fireball beads, the Crawling Tar, Troll Glue, a rasp and a non-magical keg.”

The Jibleya hopped to it.

On his way back from the shop, Will spotted Travis, still at the same table he’d been sitting at the last time they’d seen him, just staring into the distance, a full mug of flat beer beside him.

Surely he went to the bathroom or something, Will thought…though it didn’t seem like it.

Deciding to take a chance, Will went to sit down in front of Travis.

The Master Decoy’s gaze looked straight past Will for a few seconds before they seemed to focus on Will.

“Whaddya want?” He asked.

“I want you in my Party,” Will said.

“Pass,” Travis’s gaze unfocused, looking past Will again.

“Loth and I want to kill the Wyrd Lord on the seventh Floor.”

Travis’s eyes brightened and he re-engaged. “Why?”

“Because he deserves to die?” Will said with a shrug. “What we’ve seen strongly suggests he’s behind the deaths of tens of thousands, horrific human experimentation and the destabilization of the entire economy.”

Travis waited.

“Plus if we kill him, we’ll get lots of loot.” Will admitted.

“There it is. How do you think two noobs like you are going to kill a Lord from the Upper Floors?  Rumor has it the man’s been to the twelfth Floor and back.”

“How? By forming a very powerful Party and making it to the top of The Tower. Should be able to snuff out Wyrd like a candle on the way back down.”

Travis barked with laughter then sobered up a moment later. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Sure am.” Will said.

“So your plan is…get strong enough to kill him?”

“What’s yours, wait until he dies of old age?” Will asked.

“What’s your immediate plan?” Travis asked.

“Carrie and I are going to do some Grinding until Loth is fully recovered, then my Party is going back to the bottom to say goodbye to our families before we tackle the Fourth Floor.”

Travis’s expression came alive as he began idly twirling a fork between his fingers, frowning contemplatively.

“That might work. I need to contact family outside The Tower. Back me up when I go to meet them, and I’ll join your Party, for as long as your goal remains the accumulation of strength. If you decide to rest on your laurels before we are capable of killing Wyrd, I will quit.”

“Fair enough,” Will said, offering his hand.

“Deal.” Travis said, shaking it.

Travis Oilton has joined the party.

Travis Oilton

Master Decoy Level 12

18 Strength

36 Kinesthetics

36 Resistance

12 Focus

18 Acuity

Charges: 9/17

Free Points: 0

Primary Abilities: Center of Attention, Taunt,

Secondary Abilities: Mirage