The Outlands

The first floor went much the same as Cub’s Den had gone, except Tess was behind Alice and Eyfura while the older women sprung the traps ahead. There were only goblins at this point, but they were disgusting enough to make her wish that there were kobolds as well.

Well, provided the kobolds were cleaner. Regardless, the goblins were short and stunted, with proportions that were just…off. They weren’t even consistently off, either. Sometimes one of their arms was much shorter than the other, their necks were of dramatically differing lengths, ears weren’t always quite aligned, and they often had large dents and bumps on their body.

Their clothes weren’t much better; they were ragged and dirty, covered in stains and only patchily covering their bodies. The bodies themselves were green and, like the clothes, covered with dirt and grime. And they stank, too. Tess was glad that she had opted to turn off Keen Nose when not actively using it, because even without it she could clearly smell them from yards away.

Fortunately, as the info sheet had said, they weren’t anything to write home about when it came to actual combat ability. They generally had a front line/back line thing going on, but since none of the front liners were able to notice Tess, she was able to slip in and take out the back liners with a single strike each. Mopping up the front liners was a little more difficult since they were moving more, but a few well-aimed blows would finish them off too.

The only real thing of note that happened on the first floor was when they reached the exit. They were about to go through, but Alice stopped them. “Tess, have you absorbed that core yet?”

Tess started. “Oh, right, I forgot. Sorry.” She took the core out of her bag, “Let me do that real quick.”

The core was far and away the largest she had ever absorbed, but she wasn’t hurting for empty slots, so she wasn’t worried about potentially needing to eject it later. There was still a slight moment of hesitation, but she powered through it and absorbed the core, watching as the core burst into a huge haze, swirled around her, then rushed in.

And, unlike the other cores she had absorbed, there was an instant rush of energy and power from it. It was clearly quite a few steps above even the boss cores she had absorbed, and the long list in front of her reflected that.

“You there?” Eyfura was waving her hand in front of Tess’s face, a worried look on her face.

Tess blinked. “What?”

Eyfura smiled. “You were super out of it for a second.” She shot Alice a look. “What did you give her? I’ve seen Saberclaw Lion cores before, and that was not one of them. That was at least twice the size.”

Alice looked away, tapping her pointer fingers together. “Well, I figured that if I was in for a penny I was in for a pound, and I keep a fair number of valuable cores around just in case, so…I might have picked an Emperor Lion core? It wasn’t like it was more of a sacrifice or anything.”

Eyfura grinned. “I like it.” She turned back to Tess. “Don’t tell everyone else yet, they think you got a Saberclaw Lion core. Anything you would have gotten from that core you got from the one you just absorbed, so as long as you don’t use the active abilities, they should have a hard time noticing anything wrong. We’ll tell them about later, but until then it’ll be our secret, OK?”

Tess nodded hesitantly. “Um, OK.”

Alice breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright, go switch around your Attributes, Ker said that can take a few minutes. We’ll wait.”

As she tinkered, she quickly found that most of the Attributes were considered upgrades of ones she had, and as such, did not stack. The lion’s Keen Nose was the same as the one she was currently using, so that merged into Keen Nose (Greater).

Enhanced Hearing (Perfect) was an obvious choice, so she took that, and swapped out her Night Vision for Darkvision (Perfect).  Likewise, Extendable Claws replaced Retractable Claws, and Saber Claws would replace Sharp Claws. Instead of putting it in a regular slot, however, she decided to try and put it in her Fundamental slot.

A new window popped up the moment she did.

She decided to keep her claws the same length before, as she was fairly happy with how they were, and she could make them much longer with Extendable Claws if need be. At that point she had used eight of her fourteen normal slots and her Fundamental slot, so she took all five of the Emperor Lion’s Skills. That left her with one slot remaining, and after some deliberation she decided to equip Saber Fangs (Perfect) and make them only slightly longer than her normal canines. Fortunately, it seemed that only her canines were affected, and she could easily wave away the difference if anyone actually noticed.

As she finished, she realized that she was sitting down. That…was not something she really wanted to be doing, considering the state of the dungeon; it was like an old, moldy cellar, covered in all sorts of grime and grease. The wooden walls were rotting, and she could occasionally see dirt or stone beyond them.

And the floor was nasty too. It was made of uneven cobbles, small stretches of wood, or just altogether missing. Even when the floor was there, it was covered in plants, rubble, grime, and generally looked like it hadn’t been maintained in years.

Tess quickly stood up, went to brush herself off, and then decided that it wasn’t worth dirtying her hands any more than they already were, not when the clothes were bound to get dirty again anyway. “Done.” She said. “When you have multiple Skills that increase damage or efficiency of things, do they stack? And if so, is it multiplicative or additive?”

“Yes, and generally speaking, they stack additively between other bonuses from the same category, and multiplicative from other categories.” Eyfura said, “So, all effects from passive Skills or passive effects from active Skills add up to one multiplier, which is multiplied by active effects, which is multiplied by Titles, which is multiplied by buffs, and so on. The biggest exception to this is damage reduction, which is always multiplicative, regardless of the source.”

Eyfura stopped for a moment. “No clue where your Attributes lie on that, though I’m guessing they’ll be considered their own category.”

“So, what’d you get?” Alice asked excitedly.

“Um, a lot.” Tess replied. She gave a quick summary of what she got, and there was a long silence as both Eyfura and Alice stared at her. Eventually, Eyfura pulled out her phone and started tapping on it while Alice watched interestedly.

Tess squirmed around for a bit. “What?” She asked.

Eyfura slowly shook her head, putting away the phone. “I was doing the math on your bonuses. They’re absolutely busted. Six times damage on claw attacks, which will inflict a bleed for one hundred and twenty seconds, which deals one hundred and five percent of the damage of the original attack every second. And on top of that, you plant a parasite that deals another ten percent of every second and heals you that amount.”

She sighed. “I think that actually bumps your overall damage output to above average for your level. Which, by all rights, shouldn’t be happening given your abysmal statline. Seriously, just imagine if you had Ellie’s stats. You’d be the strongest person to ever live.”

“Um, right.” Tess replied awkwardly. “Sorry.”

Eyfura frowned. “What’s there to be sorry about?”

“Never mind. It’s not important.”

Alice and Eyfura shared a look.

“No, it is.” Alice stressed. “That was a hypothetical that would never actually come to pass. Fortune said she chose you because of your low stats. She could have chosen Ellie just as easily, but she didn’t. She very clearly believes in your potential, so you shouldn’t be down about it.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Tess mumbled., looking away.

There was a silence then, but Fortune chose to fill it with a message.

“Right, um…sorry.” Eyfura said, snapping Tess back to the situation at hand. “I probably shouldn’t have said something like that. I’m not trying to say you’re not good enough, you’re plenty good, I was just making wondering what if.

“People think about the theoretical strongest set of Skills all the time, and that theoretical strongest is often paired with the strongest stats as a matter of course since they’re talking theory anyway. I was just thinking aloud, and I still haven’t fully come to terms with the fact that this hypothetical is playing out right in front of me.”

“I…alright. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. I’m just a little stressed right now, sorry. I don’t mean to drag everyone down with my own issues.”

There was an awkward pause, and then Alice spoke up. “Alright, um, Eyfura, what’d you think of Tess’s form?”

“Right.” Eyfura began slowly, “So, couple of pointers, first, when you go in for a big blow, you hesitate, finding the most exact time and place to strike. That has its time, but if your teammates are under fire, you have to be faster.”

Eyfura activated…something, and a pair of gleaming claws materialized on her hands. “Now, the best way to go about it is just aim for the general vicinity of the vitals. Let me show you a couple of ways to maximize your chance of getting a solid hit in…”

Fighterman481

So, yeah, like half this chapter is a giant window. I know. There was just a lot to unpack there, and if I made the chapter longer as if the window wasn't there, it would probably push 4000-5000 words and I don't want that.

Before I talk more about 'behind the scenes' stuff like some of my thought processes when writing, let's talk trivia!

 

I ended up going with a pseudo-Roman inspiration for the Emperor Lion's Skills. Lots of ruler-y things. Pollice Verso is apparently the name for the thumbs-down gesture telling a gladiator to kill their opponent, which I wasn't sure had a name but Google came through.

 

Impenetrable Pelt is a sort of nod to the Nemean Lion, and the reason it deactivates under a certain health threshold is just making a mechanic I was considering cleaner. I was considering having it not work on places that were currently injured (simulating a ripped pelt), but decided there wasn't a good way to go about that and just simplified it. Why is it a Skill and not an Attribute? Because of that deactivation condition.

 

The other thing I emphasized with the Lion's kit was bleed. I don't have much to say about it other than that, I think it shines through well enough. And if you're wondering why Keen Nose is so much lower...rank(?) than the other sensory enhancers...it's just that I don't have the mental image of cats having great senses of smell like I do of them having great senses of sight and hearing. That's it, really.

 

Aaaanyway, you may be thinking that this is a rather sudden power spike. It is. However, it's also the end of the line in a sense. It's not getting more powerful than that, not for base claws. There will be other boosts, but nothing more that specifically targets claws.

Well, nothing without messing around with User Fundamental Attributes, anyway ;)

 

Also I really debated about Eyfura making such a quick apology for an insensitive remark. For a while I was thinking about her not even realizing the consequences of what she said, but decided against that for two reasons. The first is that The Rumors would have briefed her on it somewhat already, and the second (and more important), is that she's an adult. A rather old one, at that. She's mature enough to realize when she's done wrong and doesn't want to leave things to stew.

 

It prevents some drama, which is not always the best thing for a story, but I also feel it realistic, which I think is important as well.

On that subject, I also struggled with how much I wanted to explicitly say Tess's thoughts, and settled on this. I kind of exposited it from what the others said, which is kind of a cop-out, but they would also be on the lookout for this kind of thing given the talks they've had about her.

 

Anyway, I think any more talk steps into spoiler territory, so that's all for me today! Next time we'll be looking at the Challenge and boss, and depending on how long it takes we might see the introduction of Ilmir to Tess and Ellie. If those other things take too long, then it'll be the chapter after. We're only having one more chapter in this dungeon, and that's it for on-screen time!

 

Whatever happens, as always, thanks for reading!