Spending the rest of the day grinding turned out to be a loveless task. As he was now free to go directly into Tier 16 (which spanned the levels 81-85), the difficulty increased quite a bit. For John himself, that was less of a problem. His skillset was quite solid, and with Siena actually helping the group, if only as little as possible, they did have the necessary power to deal with what the system threw at them.
Lydia and Rave, however, had a few issues keeping up. Punching 10 levels above their weight had been possible thanks to the innate advantages of being sapient beings, but 20? They weren’t dead weight, but neither did they have any hope of soloing any mob in the Instant Dungeon. John had Undine be close to them for most of the ti as they were the most likely candidates to be injured.
The workaround here was using the Flask of Grinding, the item that stored bonus Experience to be consud by others. It had a limited effectiveness on them, but it did help them nonetheless. John had previously just consud it himself, guessing that it wouldn’t work on them.
John selfishly indulged in the feeling of being the definitive strong guy in the group. His power was distributed among his familiars, for the most part, and that made it difficult to give credit directly to him. Logic dictated that part of everything they did went to his benefit. When Aclysia saved Rave from a swipe or when Salamander blew up a cluster of enemies, they did that because of the mana he invested to keep them moving.
Much as he enjoyed the sensation of being the proverbial man in the house, he also did not want them to lag too far behind. That was when he had suggested they try whether the Flask of Grinding worked for them.
It did and so that was that. Lydia ntioned looking into getting a stronger version of that item; as she would greatly benefit from it, she would even stem the costs. John, of course, accepted. He was always looking for better gear.
As that went on, they beat the other three new kinds of Instant Dungeon. Thana and Nathalia stayed behind to entertain each other through varying ans.
First, they went to the Lizardn for the Capture category. John had long wondered what the objective to be captured was. He would have guessed a flag, but for all intents and purposes it could have been a person of interest or a village or sothing else.
It turned out to be a flag.
The dungeon was pretty straightforward: There was a flag on top of a hill. Get the flag, fighting through a set number of Lizardn who were stronger and gave more experience than the average monster in the process. Return the flag to the party’s spawn point. Get experience.
It was fairly dull, but John noted that this would be a pretty great way to grind out experience for himself (not for the rest of the group though, since the Flask of Grinding quickly beca their most reliable leveling tool and the lack of loot ant that there was nothing to eat for Aclysia and Momo).
Then they went to siege the Dwarf fortress. John was nerdily intimidated by the na, and it was a pretty imposing sight to behold. A fortification more mountain than castle with thick tal plates as its gate looked down on them. Well, that was also not entirely true, it was more of a hill shaped like a mountain. A small mountain. The encounter was clearly designed to be beatable by their group. The Siege encounter was interesting in that it was largely different from John’s usual Instant Dungeons.
For a start, unless they ca too close, there wasn’t an enemy attacking them. They had more than enough ti to draft up a battle plan. After so pushing and prodding, they discovered the vital lack of aerial defenses. All they had to do was send over Sylph, Salamander and the sparrow and bombard the enemies. Once the defences were weak enough, they cracked open the gate.
Aclysia and Gno did what high strength characters with bodies made out of steel and stone usually do in these types of situations and beca living battering rams. Once inside they had to reach the heart of the fortress and touch the throne. This one turned out to be better for grinding out… nothing really, the siege took way too much ti to be an efficient use for anything chanically. It did make for a good team building exercise. That was worth sothing, kind of. Maybe there was a trick to this John still had to learn? Either way, that was off the checklist.
And then there was Corruption.
“That na is super bad news,” Rave said as she handed back the Flask of Grinding to John. For the mont she, as the lowest level individual in the group, got to drink from it the most. “We’ll probably get karmic balance because Jack made the last thing super easy.”
“Who made what super easy?” John wondered. Did his girlfriend get hit by a poisonous dart and see rum flying about?
Rave pointed at the sparrow on John’s shoulder, “Jack, ya idiot, it needs a na.”
“It is literally ,” John pointed out, spreading his wings and chirping to underline the point.
“Ja and that’s confusing, so you continue to be John, unless I am mad at ya, then you’re Jonnie, and when I want ya to make sweet love to , you’re tiger, and that is Jack, Jack Sparrow.”
That wasn’t even the real deal? His head hurt. What vision? ‘Siena, you should have enough angles to attack him, do it!’ he pleaded to the nightmare elental. His head hurt.
‘I can’t, there are no shadows, just… them,’ Siena said to him in a tone that made his head hurt. His mouth was dry. Maybe he could drink the boss? He looked a bit liquid.
John shook his head and aid at the Lorylim. A Mana Ray cut through the darkness, illuminating nothing but creating a shadow behind the mass of hands. Was it hovering or standing on so of them? John grit his wet teeth until he was afraid to crush his own jaw.
Did that attack do sothing? Did Siena ramming her blades through the being in the shadow of Mana Ray do sothing? Everyone awoke from their daze and attacked. The boss lted into the ground. Then it regrew from dark spores and corrupted at. They attacked again. Salamander’s fire looked two dinsional.
It hit John. It hurt. It didn’t. His HP was untouched, the boss had been missed. Salamander was gone. The boss had squished her in darkness. There was no window. ‘The fuck?’ the question rose from Salamander, ‘John, can you hear ? Hello? I am stuck in your head, would you let out? What am I confused about?’
When did that happen?
What happened when it did? What was ti if not a keychain? What was this image of the pit? Dozens of people sitting around tanks filled with sand. The man crawling towards his brother? The man laughing at his brother? A fire.
“”What am I confused about?”” The whole group asked as one; the song of cracking laughter started to make sense. The boss had infinite hands, but infinity was just a growing number. All of this made sense. John checked his cellphone, the first number was ho, the second number was adventure, the third number was trust. He couldn’t delete what he lost. He should delete loss instead.
The boss ceased to exist. They left the dungeon and collapsed on the floor. The eyes were cracking with laughter again. The dungeon left them. Gaia reached down. They dropped back into normal reality.
John spat out. It felt like he had been drowning, but there was no relieving sensation of water pouring out of his lungs. On all fours, he knelt on the cracked concrete, struggling to breathe. “Fucking hell!” John exclaid, while his brain gradually unclogged. The symphony was gone. His heart was still drumming.
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