Luzara
The five Kin threw themselves forward at an accelerated rate. Luzara had required a full two days of rest to finally purge the last of the sickly mana from his arm. It threatened to fully necrotize his arm, leaving him permanently disabled, which was unforgivable. Instead, after sleepless days and desperate days, he was left with a partially withered, furless but fully functional arm. As soon as the party was in fighting shape once again, Iiteli's severed arm, recovered and reattached through a particularly risky turn of events that left Luzara himself fighting off the deathly mana without their Shaman's support, they were back to pushing deeper into the Trials. However, it had been worth it, as the party was largely unscathed now, four days since the fight against those Humans.
None of the party had spoken and anything more than growls since their defeat. Their loss was fair, they began a conflict that Luzara incorrectly assumed would not escalate to combat. Then, they were so convinced of their strength that they allowed Luzara to fight alone against an unknown foe. Only after he was painfully taught the price of pride did the others jump into action, but it was too late. Their pride had nearly cost them the possibility of finding any measure of success in the Trials.
What a humiliation.
Now that they were back nearly to their peak state, they would return their humiliation threefold, and perhaps take a life in exchange for the blood and effort spent.
They only needed to find their enemies to visit their deserved destruction on them.
***
Cresche
His Grove took time to recover on the thirty-fifth floor. The thirty-fourth was a terrible place for all of the Verdant Guard. A land of explosive gases and lava eels did not agree with any self-respecting organic life, those made of wood most of all. Fortunately, Cresche's original Class as a Crusher had granted them the Iron Bark Skill. It had since evolved to Steel Trunk, and they could thus protect their Grove, though it was a painful experience. Regardless, protection of the Grove was their purpose as the Grove Warden, and they would do what the Grove required, no matter the cost.
To protect the Grove, they'd needed to take a more aggressive approach against that prideful Human. They were… it was no use, Cresche found difficulty in distinguishing one Human from the next. But that one was incomparably prideful, and when they'd felt the influence of a Skill against the Grove, they'd reacted appropriately. If there were the sounds of cracking accompanying that reaction, then there were sure to be Healers who could help fix that. The Grove would not be threatened nor coerced.
After all, their victory within the Trials was to maintain their people's ability to reproduce. Every year, the mana grew more stale and required the infusion of fresh life to continue to foment life. These Trials served as the simplest way for the Verdant Guard to continue to grow their numbers enough to protect the Sanctuary. If not, their precious forests would continue to wither and die.
Cresche would not be the Warden who failed to strive to infuse their lands with more life. The centermost regions of the Sanctuary demanded it. To ensure they attained that victory, they could take a large part of this fourteenth day in the Trials on this floor.
***
Caelum
It had been fourteen days since entering the Trials, and he hadn't seen that wench and her party since the… eleventh floor? They must have gotten lost, or even killed in their journey. Otherwise, they were simply too slow and hadn't reached the thirty-fourth floor yet. If that was the case, then they weren't worthy of accompanying him in the Trials anyways. They'd just be sponges that slowed him, had he actually contracted them back then. Speaking of…
"Frontliner two, you seem like you're struggling to keep up. Your Skill selection disappointed me, and now you fail to deliver on expectations. You're now out of the party, and will not be allowed to leech experience from the rest of the party. Do not deliver any killing blows, and you'll be allowed to return and join a weaker party in the capital."
As Caelum made the announcement, he saw as the man struggled against the mandate, but he was a contracted servant. There was nothing he could do but accept the command. The faint connection from being in the same party faded, and Caelum smiled. He'd now formed his true party, at least, those most worthy that were here in the Trials. Of course, there would be others waiting for him once he returned to Ginnastadt, some that wouldn't fail him at every step and would instead be true companions that could take advantage of his superior Class's power. Until then, he could confront the Trials with the overwhelming force of numbers.
It was a pity that he hadn't been able to find that Barbarian party either. After all, they were sure to be more vulnerable to his control than the others, with their lower Self-Mastery growth. Even trying to contract the trees that'd walked through his camp had gone poorly. He'd nearly lost a Perhaps it was how they all grew together, but they were an abomination that refused understanding. It made sense that every border of the Bulwark was so heavily manned. With the Verdant on the east, the Barbarians to the south, and the Hiveguard to the west, Humanity was surrounded by enemies, only the inhospitable north bordered by the sea providing some measure of comfort. As such, Humanity needed to strengthen their core, and the nobles stood as that strong arm to protect their people.
Caelum gathered himself, remembering what he needed to do. If he wasn't careful, he'd be left behind, forgotten as a potential member of the adamantite core of his country.
"The path forward is no longer burning. It's time to move, my Count." His Scout spoke, and Caelum nodded, gesturing for his party to lead the way.
"Yes," he answered. "Though we'll need to circle around to find those 'Five Spears'. They're on the floor, and I need to make my offer for them to join us."
They'd make their way through the thirty-fourth as quickly as they could manage. Supposedly, the thirty-fifth would be a much better environment. With four party members with Stealth Skills, the feathered serpents, powerful but weak to suggestions, would fail to notice their passage, and the addition of the Five Spears will push their capabilities that much further. What a pity that the thirty-fourth refused to give that opportunity. As for levels, those could come on the thirty-sixth.
The Trials themselves were leaning towards him, and Caelum would return home, boon and new servants in hand. He would not disappoint his mother.
***
Kalta
"We remain following their trail?"
"I believe so. It is hard to tell, as they reached the thirty-fifth floor before we did."
Kalta nodded his acceptance of the statement, pushing down what frustration fought to rise to the surface. He had spoken with such confidence, sure that he would prove to Muti that she should come back to the Hordes. She would see his success and fall in line as he blazed ahead. After all, how could she have found a party that was capable of showcasing her strength? The Humans all hated the Barbarians because the Barbarians needed to push into other lands to feed themselves. It stood to reason that the Humans, weak in body and strong in mind and unity as they were, would turn aside from the more individually minded Barbarians. That assumption was a mistake.
Thankfully, Liora had ceased her constant second guessing of everything. She remained a thorn in his side, but she was a good companion nonetheless. Perhaps that served as a reminder of her Class as a Piercer. He smiled at the joke he silently made to himself.
Looking around, there were no signs of Muti's party's passage, but that was no surprise. They'd entered the passage to the thirty-fifth floor well over three hours before he and his party had fought the hulking golem that was the thirty-fourth floor's guardian. His own party had been forced to move to the thirty-fifth floor after a fitful rest, their supplies largely exhausted as the thirty-third and fourth floors both failed to provide sufficient foraging to the party.
The thirty-fifth floor, though, was a paradise for the hungry delvers. As such, Kalta was willing as well as forced to take additional time here to hunt in excess. The serpents here would serve as jerky as well as fresh meat, and pure streams flowed everywhere they looked. Further, there were fruit-bearing trees all around. Though the possibility of falling off the edge of one of the islands wasn't something to be forgotten, the thirty-fifth was a great land.
"A serpent has noticed us, Kalta."
He nodded at Priva's warning, the Assassin working overzealously to prove his worth after his pitiful showing against Muti. Kalta shifted his attention to the massive creature gliding through the air towards his party, only needing to think of the injustices he suffered at his home to bring the rage bubbling to the surface. His vision clouded with red as his pictured the Hordemaster's dismissive look, and Kalta roared as he threw himself towards the scaley head that lunged towards his party.
***
"So, here we are… are we going to find some souvenir to name the party after now?"
Benedict's question wasn't a surprise to any of the party members, but, despite Muti's unconcern, the rest of the party considered the decision to be a difficult one.
Getting to the thirty-fifth floor hadn't been especially difficult for the party. The thirtieth floor boss, a gargoyle, was remarkably poorly matched against Astrid's hammer. And her shield. And her knees. And her fists.
All things considered, the gargoyle had been a boss only in name, title, and experience given. In practice, Astrid had taken it as an opportunity to test her Skills, exhausting all of her charges of Body to experiment with using Gravity Surge in different ways, as well as Spectre Burst. In the case of the gargoyle and any other particularly massive monsters, Astrid very quickly learned that she didn't want to designate herself as the target the monster was pulled towards. After all, the Skill was very effective, and the gargoyle was made out of very dense stone.
After dodging literal tons of rock, the monster's wings were broken and its prodigious strength was on display. Now grounded, it only used Astrid's Gravity Surge as an opportunity to strike even harder. Despite its earth-shaking strikes, nobody was in any real danger as Felix forced the stony creature to keep its attention on him. He dodged, seeming to enjoy the opportunity to frontline against a single, particularly dangerous foe.
Every supposed challenge that came after the thirtieth floor was similar to the gargoyle—relatively easily overcome, but continuing to introduce more factors that forced the party to adapt and grow. As each monster grew higher in level and greater in relative strength, the amount of effort that the party needed to put in continued to climb until the thirty-fourth floor. There, the party had been forced to stay on their toes as flame exploded all around them and eels leapt from those same bursts to create further explosions around the delvers.
Benedict found the monster's name being "eels" was an affront. The beasts were nothing like the freshwater eels that he knew from his hometown, he explained after getting their first kill notification. Their bodies were covered in a thick mucus that shielded them from heat while also forcing every attack to slide off, whether it was a blade, hammer, or spell. In addition, being half a meter thick and four meters long, Benedict clicked his tongue in disgust every time he laid eye on them, instead only calling them "snake monsters."
Despite the frustrations that those monsters posed, they were mostly just that: frustrating. Once, when unprepared, Skandr'd had his leg caught by one of the beasts when it threw itself out of a bonfire. Unfortunately for the beast, Skandr had taken to experimenting with using his cloud companion as a medium for creating quick enchantments in a pinch. The mucus that protected the eels? Couldn't be found inside of their mouths, and though Skandr spent a wasteful amount of over a third of his total mana in doing so, he cooked the monster from the inside out in less than two seconds. His leg, bloodied and uncomfortable, was quickly healed by Benedict.
Finally, there was that floor's guardian. A three meter tall enchanted suit of armor that waded through billowing flames and attacked with Meteor Strikes that exploded wherever they landed. Fortunately, its weakness was a physical core in its center. Muti, with Vital Strike and Shadow Leap guiding her attack, struck the point in a single Power-aligned mana enhanced strike. After destroying it, the entire party was disappointed by the explosion that destroyed every bit of its body. They scavenged what they could and retreated to the passage to the thirty-fifth floor.
Through the floors until then, the party reached level 31, well over halfway to level 32. They were pushing faster, focusing on passing floors for now. The thirty-second and thirty-third floors had actually been easy enough for the party that they managed to cross both in a single day.
Now that they were finally ready to enter the floor, the party had taken their time to make sure they were at peak condition before coming in. Though the terrain wasn't as directly inhospitable as several of the floors that came before it, the floating islands were less of a constant ambient threat so much as a potential cause of death. To add to that risk, the enemies here could fly and definitely would pull delvers off and into the deadly fall if given the chance. With that in mind, they walked onto their first island with their hearts in their mouths, ready to fight desperately if they were placed directly into a disadvantageous position.
Fortunately, that didn't occur. Instead, the party had walked out onto a scenic mountain peak, looking out over a lightly forested island with fresh rivers and gigantic trees everywhere. Once they confirmed that they weren't about to get into a fight, they went to the nearest river. There, Astrid, Muti, and Felix all dismissed their equipment and washed themselves. Benedict and Skandr both chose not to, though there was no lack of wistful glances that came their way. Even so, without an equipment Skill to help them to get back into their equipment at the drop of a hat, the Bard and Storm Wizard contented themselves with being able to spare the water to wash once they finally made camp. Their stores had drawn dangerously close to empty, so they'd all stopped doing more than wiping off with a wet towel at the end of the day.
Having long since accustomed themselves to the others' nudity, all three jumped into the water and scrubbed themselves clean. Astrid couldn't help but notice that Felix very deliberately kept his back towards Muti while also scrubbing his body with the frigid water at a frantic pace. Astrid chuckled, concerning herself only with washing the filth from her own mahogany skin and scarlet hair. Once she was done, she turned to the shore, where Benedict and Skandr both stood on watch. The party had set themselves up in a clearing, so there shouldn't be anything that was able to sneak up on them all, but as the monsters' attributes climbed higher and higher, creatures were capable of moving faster than Muti. Astrid shuttered, remembering the thirty-first floor, where monstrous wasps with an Alacrity of at least 200 darted in whenever someone's guard fell. They've been very potentially deadly, and Astrid then spent the entire floor walking beside Skandr and Benedict to make sure to protect them.
The bath passed without incident, whether from monsters or otherwise, and after dressing themselves, Muti led the party towards the first path between islands. The islands of this floor were an archipelago in the sky, connected by sheer paths with drops on either side. The brief had already explained the dangers those paths posed, but seeing them in person made Astrid's throat swell closed. She'd never loved heights, and this was an escalation that she couldn't have begun to expect. Her heart rate spiked, and she forced herself to stride forward. She couldn't help but peer over the edge and watch several tiny stones fall into the almost harmless-looking abyss. When the rocks pierced the clouds, Astrid held tight to the rope that tied the whole party together. She and Felix were on the ends, both having Skills to anchor themselves in case someone fell.
The party made their way carefully forward, and Astrid desperately hoped that they could make the crossing without incident. Even thinking it felt like it would bring a monster out of hiding, and she wasn't wrong to have expected it.
"A serpent approaches."
Muti's words made Astrid's heart drop, but she geared up as she pushed mana into her greaves. A deadly fight against a flying monster on a cliffside. What could possibly go wrong?