Chapter Nine
It took almost a full day to finish looting all the swarmers.
It wasn’t even that the materials were that hard to gather, not with Chaos Thief. Every time Vester touched one of the arachnids his inventory absorbed chitin, meat, venom glands, and silk—so much silk. There was just too damn much of it all.
The silk was incredibly valuable, which meant none of them wanted to abandon it, unlike the meat.
Swarmer meat was… disgusting. The first time Vester pulled a piece of it from his inventory the translucent, pinkish, jiggling glob of slime in his hand had nearly made him throw up.
Worse, each of the bodies gave them thirty to forty pounds of the stuff.
That led to them selecting an area away from their camp and dumping the meat out to get rid of it.
By the time they were finished, they’d created a small hill and Vester’s nostrils burned with the stink of minty-ammonia.
It was a scent combination he hadn’t known existed—he would have been thrilled to continue living in ignorance.
The Party didn’t even have Skylar’s golems to help, because the Artifice Maker was stuck rebuilding Woody. Beaky and Splinter had suffered complete core destruction under the goliath scorpion swarm, so there’d be no putting them back together. Skylar had to craft new golem cores to replace them.
Woody, however, had been torn apart without its core shattering. Just swallowed, which wasn’t much better according to Skylar’s cursing.
Now she was working on integrating the puppet into the combat frame she’d been assembling in her workshop before they’d left. The djinn had cried when she’d realized that two of her cores were gone, and then cried harder in relief when she confirmed Woody had survived.
I get the feeling that Skylar didn’t have a lot of friends in that orphanage, Vester thought while tossing chunks of gooey flesh onto a pile.
When she learned she could make golems, she started connecting to them a lot deeper than one might expect.
Then again, maybe it’s that innate draw to view them as animate beings that gave her the class in the first place.
Puppetmaster is a rare class, and Artifice Maker is even rarer.
Vester didn’t blame Skylar for getting attached to her puppets. He’d known a guy who talked to his car, and while that had been weird, that dude had also known everything there was to know about keeping his vehicle running.
One small blessing for the Party was that the Great Dungeon began reabsorbing the bodies about halfway through their cleanup efforts. It wasn’t immediate, but the corpses, the dismembered bits, and the pile of discarded flesh started shrinking fast enough that the mountain had stopped growing.
By the time they were finally finished, Vester was too tired to do much besides eat the food Krysta had made them, wash himself as thoroughly as possible in the hot water he’d conjured, and check his Grimoire to see the results of their battle with the swarm.
The list of defeated goliath scorpions took five pages to flip through before he got to the Quest.
Quest Log: Swarm Maintenance
Contributions: 627 goliath scorpion swarmers slain. 125 goliath scorpion soldiers slain. 1 goliath scorpion queen slain.
Reward: +1 to constitution. Phantom Form level 4
Reward: Progression to level 47 Nightmare Weaver.
Vester dropped his free points into strength, then reviewed his character sheet.
Two levels felt meager compared to the sheer number of arachnids they’d faced, but Vester had to admit that the individual goliath scorpions weren’t that impressive in terms of abilities.
He also wondered if they lost some growth potential fighting from within Krysta’s Sanctuary.
I’m willing to slow down my leveling if it keeps everyone safe, he thought.
Vester Gambit: Elf
Nightmare Weaver: Level 47
Profession: Enchanter
Strength: 25
Dexterity: 60 (110)
Constitution: 33
Intelligence: 64
Wisdom: 64
Charisma: 31
Skills: Freeform Illusion (MAX), Phantom Form 4, Decoy Swap 3, Labyrinth Ward 3, Chaos Cock MAX, Chaos Thief 2, Aura of Illusion MAX, Remove Divine Curse, Fantastic Reality MAX, Inconvenient Illusions MAX, Deprivation Cage 2, Nightmare Field 2. Unfettered. Trickster's Cunning 1
Profession skills: Mana Manipulation, Inscribe Enchantment
Unique Ability: Nightmare’s Release
Gear: Avatar’s Raiment, Trickster’s Cane
Free Points: 0
Studying the changes to his character sheet, he resolved to swap back to constitution with his next few free points. He just wanted to hit thirty first. He was rather disappointed that he hadn’t gained a point in Trickster’s Cunning to elevate his wisdom higher, but he hoped he’d gain that soon.
The boost to Phantom Form was fairly basic, but he still took the time to review it and ensure he didn’t miss any nuance to its growth.
Phantom Form (SS-Rank): Level 4
The Phantom Form is an intangible body capable of bypassing all physical barriers and is immune to all physical harm.
This incorporeal form is still subject to gravity and cannot bypass materials of sufficiently magical nature.
At S-rank, this skill lasts for 4 minutes per point of intelligence.
Duration increases by +1 minute per skill level.
Enchanted weapons and spells as well as certain environment effects can still affect the Phantom Form. This skill requires mana to use.
Nope, that’s exactly what I thought it would do, he confirmed while closing his Grimoire.
Not that two hundred and fifty-six minutes of intangibility is anything to sneer at.
That’s over four hours of ghost-time. Being able to move through any and all physical barriers and ignore attacks is a massive benefit.
Now if I can just avoid getting bits chopped off when magical material goes through me…
He hadn’t enjoyed having his leg amputated at the knee.
Initially, he’d thought he’d just bump into a material if he couldn’t go through it, and he’d had no idea the material could actually sever pieces off his body.
That drawback was definitely something to keep in mind—a lot of creatures had magical claws and teeth.
One more level upgrade for Phantom Form and the skill will be at its cap.
Decoy Swap and Labyrinth Ward are at the halfway point, both level 3, but Nightmare Field and Deprivation Cage are only at level 2.
Trickster’s Cunning is the worst at level 1, but it’s also my newest skill.
Well I guess Chaos Thief is only level 2, but…
It was hard for Vester to worry about Chaos Thief.
The looting skill was incredibly useful, but it wasn’t mandatory for his delving.
It allowed the Party to make out like absolute bandits when it came to harvesting materials and profiting off the dungeon, but the skill didn’t change his personal power any.
Nightmare Field, Deprivation Cage, and Trickster’s Cunning, however, determined his methods on the battlefield and capping them would affect his entire style of combat.
Nightmare Field level 3 would be a forty-by-forty cube, then eighty-by-eighty at level 4.
Level 5 would make the skill encompass a volume of a hundred and sixty feet to a side.
Since I can mold it the same way I do my Freeform Illusions, I could cover an entire battlefield in terrors that drain mana and stamina from everyone inside…
and they can’t exit the field without defeating their fears.
It was like his Labyrinth Ward on steroids, and Vester nearly slapped himself when he realized he hadn’t used it at all during the fight with the goliath scorpions.
Wasted opportunity, he thought, critical of himself.
I could have segmented the swarm even further and made it safer for everyone.
I can’t afford to make mistakes like that in the future.
Despite the fact that they’d come through the battle without many injuries, Vester knew he had to keep himself focused.
He needed to learn and do better. The next time they might not be facing such mindless creatures.
The blood elflings had a city—they were almost certainly capable of strategy and advanced tactics.
It was frustrating that his Party didn’t have time to just focus and train on their skills until they were instinctual, but the Church of Light kept pushing; between Denny attacking the house, Jack’s failed ambush, the raid on the Trading Post…
it wasn’t a good time to be an Adventurer unwilling to bend the knee to Peace.
“How did everyone make out?” he asked, looking around the subdued camp. Skylar ignored him, but she was focused on assembling Woody’s new body, and he didn’t fault her for that. Li Ra wasn’t visible, keeping an eye on the perimeter, so she wasn’t around to answer either.
Krysta was, however, and she looked up to offer him a smile. “I’ve maxed out my Repair the Living skill! I didn’t get any points for my attributes, but I gained two skill levels,” she announced proudly.
“That’s amazing!” he said, meaning it. Vester remembered that Krysta’s Repair the Living ability cleansed negative status effects, reattached amputated limbs, and provided powerful healing, so he was all for having that skill capped. “How effective is it now?”
“I still can’t regenerate completely destroyed limbs,” she said with her ears sagging against her hair, “but now I can integrate enchanted prosthetics into someone’s body without needing a potion to help. I can also heal inorganic lifeforms, so long as they count as true life.”
“Like an elemental?” Kora asked, leaning forward. The kitsune had bags under her eyes, and her tails were dragging along the ground from fatigue. Vester got up and walked over to sit next to her. Without asking, he drew out a brush and started grooming the four fuzzy appendages.
“Yes!” Krysta exclaimed, clearly enthusiastic about her new skill.
She paused for a second, watching Vester brush Kora, but she relaxed when he gave her a nod to signal she was next.
“I can even heal intangible energy beings, like ghosts! I’ve never even heard of such a comprehensive healing spell. The only downside is that it’s so mana intensive I can’t use it more than once or twice outside of my Sanctuary.”
“The only reason I can use my Freeform Illusion spell the way I do is Trickster’s Cane,” Vester offered. “It gives me an eighty-percent discount on magic cast through it. Without my cane, I’d be lucky to keep an illusion going for more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
Kora nodded, her lips pursed. “That’s not uncommon for A-rank Adventurers and the rare S-ranks. Their power demands they specialize to accommodate it. There was an S-rank Sword Master who had only three active skills—the rest were passives.”
“What were the skills?” Reve asked, joining the conversation for the first time. The Avatar of Life had been resting in one of the tents, but now she emerged to sit next to Krysta. Vester smiled when he saw her drape a wing over Krysta to stop the pandali’s shivering.
“Cleave, Quick Draw, and Sever,” Kora said.
“She was very open about her build’s active skills, because they were all common among duelists and warriors. But she had them all in S-rank. Her Cleave could go through a near unlimited number of targets, but it drained stamina for each body she cut.
Quick Draw let her return her weapon to its sheath and then redraw it with incredible speed. It also allowed her to recover stamina each time she sheathed her sword. Sever is simply an empowered slash, but in her hands it could slice through even magic.
All her passives were focused around Quick Draw, and it was said she could kill an army in a single draw of her blade.”
Vester whistled. He had no idea if that story was embellished or not, but he could see how the combo would work out. With the right skills boosting her, every time the Sword Master slashed out from the sheath, the attack would spell death for everything in front of her.
That’s some straight-up anime bullshit right there, he thought with amusement. That’s exactly the kind of skill every teenage boy staring longingly at a katana would want… and I can’t blame them. I kinda want it myself.
He finished brushing Kora’s first tail and moved on to the second. “What happened to the Sword Master?” he asked.
“She lived over a thousand years ago, but historians agreed she ventured into a dungeon portal and disappeared,” Kora replied. “Geographically, the location she lived matches the location of the first entrance to the Great Dungeon, so we assume she made her way to a new dimension.”
“Oh, that’s in the Western Deserts, right?” Krysta asked, looking proud to remember that bit of Ordinal history. “That means she would have lived near the Fire Swamps. I’ve heard that place is pretty brutal.”
“Is that the land with the flying spiders?” Reve asked. That question alone was enough to make Vester decide he had no intention of going to visit the Fire Swamps. He didn’t care much for spiders in general, and he had zero interest in fighting any that flew.
While the Party chatted about Ordinal’s wildlife, Vester focused on brushing out Kora’s tails. The soft rasp of the bristles moving through her black-and-silver fur was soothing for both of them. He always found it pretty easy to relax while grooming his lovers.
Not a thought I’d have had a year ago, he mused.
‘Grooming my lovers’ would have been an incredibly creepy phrase before I came to a world with catgirls, kitsunes, and pandali—though Krysta isn’t native, so she’s ever rarer than the other races.
But I can’t help but think I’ve changed these ladies as much as they’ve changed me.
He took a moment to run his gaze over Krysta, Kora, Reve, and Skylar.
Before hearing about the things I learned from Non, Kora would never have assumed the Sword Master found their way to a new dimension.
Mythology said that those who reached level 100 and vanished into the dungeons were simply fighting deeper, sacrificing themselves to ensure the powerful monsters never broke free.
But now my ladies know that there’s a solid chance those Adventurers are still out there, walking on foreign worlds and traveling the path to godhood.
He was glad his Party all seemed determined to keep growing in power.
Ordinal was a nice world, though the Church of Light had been keeping him from truly enjoying it…
but knowing that his lovers wanted to continue their rise beyond the confines of this dimension was something he took great comfort in.
Because Vester thought he’d enjoy becoming a god, and he fully intended to bring all these girls along with him. Skylar glanced up from where she was carefully inserting a gemstone into Woody’s skull, and for a moment their eyes locked. They smiled at each other, then she went back to her work.
Not like they need my help to grow. I’m pretty sure if I try to slow down these ladies will drag me kicking and screaming into the heavens.