The twelfth floor passed quickly, and the thirteenth, fourteenth, and all the way up to the eighteenth. The party occasionally saw others, though Astrid and the party considered themselves to be lucky with their encounters, given that those that they saw were Cresche, the Hiveguards, and a different Verdant Walker grove that walked as one unified whole just like Cresche’s. Actually, they’d been the first ones that the party came across, and when Astrid tried to call them Cresche, they laughed at her. At least, that’s what she thought it meant when the branches all rustled together and the tree seemed to creak in a rhythm.

  Cresche is an ironwood. I am a peach, though the roots of my Grove are ironwood. I don’t suppose that you can tell that yourselves, though.

  “No, I can’t. I’m sorry for the mixup, I can’t say that I know much about trees, wood, or Verdant Walkers.“ Astrid gave her apology, but it didn’t seem that this other speaker particularly minded the mixup. She couldn’t help but glance at the haft of her hammer, the magically reinforced wood seeming maybe like something of a barbaric item, now that she was talking to a tree. Maybe seeing her concern, she received an answer to a question she didn’t ask.

  If the wood was sourced from the Sanctuary, then it was harvested by one of the Walkers. If it was sourced from outside of our borders, it has nothing to do with us. I do hope that your people treat your forests with respect, allowing them to thrive, but even if you do not, you will find no anger from any of my people, only disappointment in so doing.

  “Thank you for your understanding.” Astrid bowed her head.

  The brief interaction had ended after that, and Astrid found herself more grateful that the Verdant Walkers were as tolerant as they were. Their way of fighting with five individuals as one entity was, at the very least, intimidating, and the prospect of fighting a frontliner, finisher, supporter, mage, and scout all in one with 20 Skills that supported each other? Sounded like a boss to kill all Bosses.

  The Hiveguards, when the party saw them, effectively didn’t acknowledge the party’s existence. The five insectoid individuals moved in an almost frightening synchronicity. It was as if there was only one mind among them, and that mind dictated every step that they took. There were no audible words from any of their number as they swarmed the monsters they attacked. Even the supporter, smaller and lighter than her fellows, swooped down to bite away portions of their enemy without hesitation.

  The most interesting part of them, other than the shiny carapace that protected them all—though in varying ways apparently depending on their Class—was that all five were at least partially capable of flight. Their frontliner, which looked more like a beetle than a bee or wasp like the rest, had taken large, leaping bounds that carried them some 30 meters or so, while their scout only touched the ground once, which was after their brief fight was over to rip into the remains of the moss elemental the party had dispatched. Watching the Hiveguard destroy the remains of a creature that had been living only moments ago was disconcerting, but Astrid hadn’t had any misconceptions regarding the humanity of the creatures, be they people or not.

  A full day and a half had passed since the party had entered the twelfth floor, and Astrid’s party now took their rest on the end of what they thought was the end of the fourth day in the path between the eighteenth and nineteenth floors. Most floors were, in general, similar. A new environment that was slightly less hospitable than the last, with escalatingly difficult conditions beyond that, from steeper hills, thicker jungles, darker nights, and so on. This latest floor, the eighteenth, was an untamed forest with thick brush clogging every path forward. The bright moonlight may have appeared to be a boon, if Astrid hadn’t known what inhabited the forest. Like the floors that came before it, it was populated with packs of monsters with one or two Irons, with maybe three or four times as many Bronzes as Irons, with the level of both Bronze and Iron tiered monsters both steadily climbing for each floor that they passed. As the party had planned, on that same day, Muti had climbed to level 22, Felix and Benedict following her early the next morning. Finally, the next day, the party had pushed to hunt a bit more than before to ensure that Skandr and Astrid also had the opportunity to gain a level.

  After that, the party had come to the rather quick conclusion that they wouldn’t continue to focus on hunting while the majority of the enemies to be found were still Bronze tier. It was just so much slower that way, with a level 20 giving “only” giving 264 experience, compared to the 1000 that a level 21 did. It simply wasn’t comparable, and there wasn’t any real benefit to slaughtering a bunch of Bronzes, and in fact was a detriment to their next Skills to gain. Fortunately, the twentieth floor was the last one that had any Bronze monsters on it. For now, though, the party needed to focus on getting to the twenty-first floor, where they’d begin leveling in earnest.

  The eighteenth floor had actually demanded that the party work together on killing the floor guardian for the first time, not allowing each individual their opportunity to practice with their Skills. Astrid had never encountered any of the various types of were-creatures until then, and it was an interesting exercise in understanding weaknesses of the monsters they fought. The brief had explained already that, due to the nature of the “curse” of lycanthropy, the monster would heal under the moonlight, if given the chance.

  Fortunately, a concentrated Spectre Burst was more than powerful enough to take the Iron monster out of the fight. The only problem was getting close enough to the beast to actually get a solid hit in on it. It was surprisingly quick, considering its hulking frame, darting from one patch of moonlight to the next before leaping into a tree to get out of their range. Lengthening the process further, they each slowed themselves to ensure that nobody in the party took any real injuries, considering the possibility of the curse being spread to them, so they all worked together to kill the beast. Skandr and Benedict were the true valuable members of the party as they slowed the monster for long enough to allow Astrid and Muti to strike it down.

  Moonlight Werefox slain. 1110 experience gained, split among party.

  Walking into the pathway after that fight has been pleasant, since it had been an annoyingly difficult time getting the final blow. Astrid hadn’t been able to use Immortal Warrior’s Body to any meaningful effect against the monster either, since trying to treat lycanthropy, even as minor as it would be, considering it came from a level 26, would be too costly and time consuming to facilitate the quick destruction of their enemy.

  “What do we have for the next floor?” Benedict asked as he set up his cot on a particularly wide stair. “I remember it was something to do with undead, right?“

  “Yes. Skeleton warriors are the Bronzes, ghouls are the Irons. It sounds like there will be a whole lot of them, so we’ll be in for a rough day getting through these next two floors.” As Astrid gave the answer, she investigated the food left in her spatial pouch. She hadn’t been particularly wasteful, but she also hadn’t been very careful either. The time for her to start supplementing her food with cuts of meat from monsters was nigh at hand, and in the interest of keeping some measure of variety in her diet, it was better that she do so sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, there weren’t going to be any monsters with consumable flesh until the 21st floor, when there would be shadow leopards lurking. Astrid had no idea if the monsters’ ability to turn into shadow mist would make them taste better or worse, but regardless, she probably shouldn’t kill any creature she intended to eat with Spectre Burst. After all, the “deathly energy” wouldn’t be particularly good to ingest, if she put even a second’s thought into it.

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  “How do you think Spectre Burst is going to do against undead? After all, it’s death-related, isn’t it?” Felix asked as he dismissed his equipment. He went through a series of stretches, and Astrid dismissed her own equipment as she joined him in the movements.

  “I have no idea. I haven’t ever fought an undead in any capacity, so I don’t know how to fight them anyways, and I don’t know too much about Spectre Burst either. It’ll just have to come down to testing, and I am more than willing to do that on the next two floors to get a better understanding.”

  “Wait, two floors?” Benedict groaned. “Why is it that the less disgusting monsters that have good, valuable materials only ever show up for one floor while the useless and frequently horrendously stinky monsters get multiple floors at a time?”

  “Are there any monsters that aren’t threatening and gross?” Astrid asked in reply. “In the grander scheme, I’d guess that skeletons aren’t so bad, right?”

  “I don’t care about the skeletons. It’s the ghouls! They’re basically higher tier zombies, and they’re going to be at least a little bit rotten. Rotting flesh? Not my idea of a particularly enjoyable scent.”

  “Well,“ Astrid raised her eyebrows at the whining Bard, “how about you only begin whining so much if you actually have to deal with the things up close? Me, Felix, and Muti are going to be the ones who actually have to deal with it, and you don’t hear us complaining, do you? At least not yet?” She added the last bit with a rueful chuckle.

  “It’s a divine right given to every man to be allowed to complain about things!” Benedict disagreed, though he did stop his whining.

  “There are many things which can be lamented. The opportunity to gain experience faster than is possible anywhere else available to us is not one of them.” Muti, as always, didn’t seem to care much about what the others were concerned about. Instead, she went through many of the same movements as Astrid and Felix before, just a minute or two later experimenting with mana. Now that she’d reached level 22, she was the first member of the party to surpass 100 Alacrity. Felix had done so the next morning, but his uses of mana with Alacrity were notably more limited than Muti’s. Though Astrid herself hadn’t experienced it, she could understand pretty easily what the effect of mana-enhanced Alacrity was.

  Different from Power and Fortitude—which she herself could use—Alacrity lent itself to greater physical speed, and more than anything, reaction speed, balance, and physical mastery. As such, when she got the opportunity to spend her mana in practice, Muti would sprint somewhere only to stop her full momentum to turn 90° without slowing down, or to invite the other members of the party to throw things at her to dodge and catch, for Felix and Astrid to both attempt to attack her at the same time, and other things like that. Somehow, it was only when Muti channeled Alacrity that Astrid felt she and her party had become superHuman. Or superBarbarian, as the case was. With Power, it just made her hit harder, but Alacrity made her Ambusher ally seem like her body lacked any mass, except for when it was time for her to hit.

  After a short time, Muti seemed to have exhausted her mana, and she happily took a seat on her own cot. Each of the beds for the members of the party were ingeniously designed, with adjustable legs to sit on different stairs at the same time, which kept the party sleeping on a level surface while still on the stairs.

  “I must tell you,” Muti panted, “I fear I will not be as useful as usual on these next floors. The undead are well known for their resistance to pain and cutting blades. I shall, of course, do my best, but there will be a notable decrease in my own contributions to the battle in these next floors.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Astrid comforted her. “Even if Spectre Burst isn’t particularly useful, blunt weapons are always great against monsters, and you can borrow my old hammer, if you’d like. It won’t suit your Skills, but if you feel like your swords aren’t cutting it…”

  Astro trails off, making the offer in genuine good faith. Benedict, however, burst into laughter as Astrid stopped speaking. She looked over at him, unsure of what had caused him to break so completely, but Skandr and Felix joined in before too long as Benedict said, “If her swords don’t manage to cut it? Oh, nothing like a good pun!”

  Astrid grumbled as she shook her head in disappointment, but said nothing to the three laughing men. Muti herself squinted for several seconds before mouthing something to herself, and then laughing as well.

  “There is a saying for that at my home as well. Instead of saying that a thing ‘does not cut it,’ we say that ‘it cannot feed you’.”

  Astrid squinted, feeling that there must have been something lost in translation, but she wasn’t the person who lived in a foreign, hostile country while learning the language. As such, she just nodded her agreement and refocused on the here and now.

  “We’re going to be pushing through these two floors tomorrow. That will take us to the end of the fifth day, by our count, and in less than a week, we’ll have progressed past the 20th floor. From there on, every monster is going to be iron and significantly more dangerous to us as a whole. The first few floors of all Irons are inhabited by weaker monsters, so we shouldn’t have too much trouble for the day or so after that, but the focus is going to shift pretty strongly from moving as quickly as we can to ensuring that we’re getting a lot of experience and continuing to move quickly and safely. We’ll come across our first monsters past the first watershed of Iron at that point as well, and we’ll be constantly fighting monsters of a higher level than we are from here on. That said, do we want to try to get through the twenty-first floor tomorrow as well? Maybe keep fighting a bit later in the day? I know we’re going to play it by ear anyways, but I would like to have a general plan before we get started tomorrow.”

  “It may be for the best,” Skandr spoke, finally pulling his head from his notes and enchantments. Ever since the party had entered the Trials, he just spent all of his downtime and most of the time between fights working on and experimenting with different enchantments. Somehow, he remained aware enough of the world around him to occasionally chime into conversations, but he mostly stayed silent as he threw himself more and more feverishly into the process of progress.

  “I’m gonna need a little bit more explanation here, my friend,” Astrid said as Skandr stood up, put his notebook into his spatial pouch, and stretched as he rolled his shoulders.

  “Having a plan. It’s a good idea.”

  Astrid blinked several times, reevaluating her estimation of Skandr as someone who had a pretty good handle on what was happening around him, even while distracted. Fortunately, he continued speaking.

  “More than just saying we should have a plan for now, though, I was talking more about having a plan to deal with the Iron tier undead that we possibly don’t have a great answer to,” Skandr continued talking, and Astrid nodded slowly, finally understanding. “I’m willing to expend more of my mana to take care of things when we get attacked by lots of undead, but having a plan to deal with the ghouls especially will be beneficial. Felix, I’d imagine that you’ll need to focus less on Whirling Blades and more on dispatching enemies while we fight on these next floors. Is that correct?” He looked to Astrid for confirmation, and she nodded in assent.

  “Surface wounds won’t do much for us, and Whirling Blades isn’t accurate enough to ensure that it’s killing every enemy it’s hitting,” Felix agreed. “That means that, for now at least, I’m going to focus on being a true frontliner again, taking attention and killing when possible. Same goes for you, Astrid. Especially if we end up learning that Spectre Burst isn’t going to destroy the undead.”

  The party continued making general plans, but Skandr’s immediate suggestions had more than covered the general things that they should do to ensure that they all were able to be effective on these next two floors. On top of that, everybody agreed to push just a little bit harder to get through three floors in the next day. From then on, Astrid suspected that crossing through even two floors in a single day would be a stretch, but, with 26 days left after their plan to cross the 21st floor, even if they crossed only a single floor a day, they would pass the final level that the briefs had managed to get to with nearly a week left in their opportunity to delve deeper.

  After that, only one question remained: would it be enough for the party to qualify for the boons?