2.3.1 Sanity is overrated, anyway (Sky Arrows PoV)

While they slowly descend the stairs, Gladia checks her mapping and compares it with their current position. "After two water-themed floors below the two levels of Mapping Hell we now approach the sixth level. It seems to be a high level as these stairs go down farther than usual. I hope - hey, Tom, check this."

She points to a place on the wall where a number of black lines interrupt the masonry of the stairwall. The lines go around the entire stairwell and are between half of a millimeter and three millimeter thick. Looking at them seems to cause some form of vertigo in everyone.

Tom and D'vol check the lines as well "It almost looks like a wall where the environment was retracted from the dungeon - but that would never be so small and collapse the floor anyway. What could this be?"

"I don't know but it can't be good considering the rest of this dungeon. Everyone, be extra careful and let's continue down to floor six."

The stairs go a lot deeper before they can finally step away and onto a stone masonry platform to a sight no one expected.

"What by the Seven Gods is this???"

The sky arrows stand on the edge of the platform where two walls meet, with one stair going up and another stair going down - nothing prevents them from skipping this floor and going to the seventh one. The room or platform itself is eight by eight meters, but where the other two walls should have been there is just a large chasm - a chasm bridged in three positions.

On the floor of the platform another two black lines divide it into four quarters, with each quarter having a different environment. Only the southwest corner where the stairs end is of regular masonry.

The northwest quarter floor is covered with a strange grey substance that is partially reflecting light. A number of metal poles crowned by metal balls hold five strange ropes going over the chasm to another platform filled with more of those metal poles and a number of tables that would fit into an alchemists laboratory.

The southeast quarter of the room looks as if it is flesh - including a slow vibration like breathing. A bone-arc holds a bridge that looks as if it is made from a rib cage and held together by muscles and tendons. It goes over the chasm to another flesh-room with a pulsating, tentacled thing in its center. two further corridors are visible there, but the doors that close them look as if they're teeth, especially with them moving to open and close on their own.

The northeast quarter is a water pool. It looks as if a number of stairs go down under water, but in the very northeast corner the water boils up for about a meter before streaming over the chasm to connect to the wall there. From the point where it connects it flows up the wall. Up and up and up - and the sky arrows have to look away to prevent the vertigo of looking at something that seems to be a retracted environment on the entire ceiling.

After a minute of stunned silence the party falls back into a safety formation. D'vol and Corvin guard their quarter to the north, while Holgun and Cleev do the same to the east, allowing Tom and Gladia to check the system.

[Floor Details]

Floor Details Floor Number 6 Floor Name not set Floor Environment > Environment Rank >

[System Calculating]

[System Calculating] Details [Mutated]

Floor has been mutated and no longer follows system rules

[Separated]

Floor is no longer fully part of the dungeon, the core has only limited control here

[Contained]

Mutation has been contained on this floor and cannot infect other floors anymore.

[Splintered]

Floor Environment has been splintered into four different environmental forms divided by zones without environment. Floor Effect >

[System Processing] Effect Rank >

[System Calculating]

[System Calculating] Details [Dampen Mutation]

Halves chance of explorer or spawn mutating per day on the floor

Halved Chance 5% for Spawn, 1% for explorers. [Random Effect]

Floor effect has a chance of 50% to mutate each day.

"What??" shouts Gladia "Even the System doesn't know how to rank this floor??"

But Tom had focused on something else "That's not the worst - this is a mutated floor, but it has been contained. How is that possible? I never heard of any containment on any mutated dungeon, they always have to be destroyed before the mutation spills out to the surface."

Hearing that D'Vol interjects while scanning his sector for any sudden dangers: "This is no mutated floor, mutated floors are random structures and puzzled-together chimera-spawns. This has too much structure to be mutated, even if it is an insane structure."

Gunny watches the Sky Arrows discussing the floor. This is the first time he had the leisure to really check the floor in the illusion since the hours before the evaluation dives were filled with the need to kill several mutated foxes and crabs and running one task after another.

"General, how did we survive the mutation? I only remember everything going fuzzy and crazy."

After a pause the General answers "The short answer is that Booble created the next floor - I already mentioned that this is what saved us.

To be more precise, the node I was in at that time had already mutated and I was caught in a feedback loop with my nightmares fueling the mutation, unable to do anything and enhancing the mutation with every second.

Booble was protected from this a bit longer because it was not part of the node, and then it finally got enough Mana to create the floor it was authorized to do.

And the System Rules specify that the core always has to be in the node of the lowest floor, so it was the System that janked the contents of the core room out of the mutated floor and placed them on the new, lowest floor in the new core room that still had an intact node.

So basically dumb luck combined with your advice to give Mana to booble for creating a floor, and with me gone from this floor the feedback loop on the mutated node was also broken, reducing it in power far enough that the system could contain the mutation there."

"Well, I often give good advice and the luck was probably that you followed it this time."

The Sky Arrows also discussed the impossibilities they see and the surprising fact that the System could not calculate the rank as fast as usual, but then both the discussions on the mutated floor and in the core room were interrupted by a [Ding]

System is unable to estimate or calculate the danger of the separated floor with the contained mutation.

Empirical Data Required

Creating System Quest

System Quest: Evaluate the Mutated Node

Details Adventurers of all ranks are called to participate in tries to find and evaluate the [mutated] node of the [separated] sixth floor of the dungeon "general" on the land "Logronal".

This floor is currently unranked and the successes and failures of all parties entering will provide empirical data to rank the floor for the future.

There can be up to three parties of each rank in the floor at any time, other parties of the same rank will have to wait until a party either leaves or is completely killed.

The quest will be considered completed after the node has been evaluated ten times AND after 100 parties of each rank lower than the lowest ranked party that succeeded in the evaluation have tried the floor.

Requirements A Party participating in this quest needs to enter the floor by special phase transport that is limited to this floor only, unable to enter any other floor. All members of the party need to be of the same rank. A Party participating has to be full (six members) and at full strength (full points, no negative status, no damaged or lower-ranked main equipment) Hints This is a high-risk, high-reward quest, especially for low-rank explorers.

Substantial bonus rewards given for Adventurers of less or equal to [Above Average] Rank. Rewards On leaving, Titles, Abilities and Bonuses are bestowed based on how far the Explorers ventured into the floor, even if the node is not found.

Multiple tries may upgrade rewards to best results of all delves, but are not cumulative.

No rewards will be given if the party doesn't drop to half HP or below at some point of the exploring.

"A SYSTEM QUEST?!?!?!" All the Sky Arrows shout more or less simultaneously. It takes Tom several minutes to get his friends calmed down and the shouts structured into a discussion.

"OK everyone, one after another you can give your opinions. Holgun, you seem to be the one who has the least interest in this, why?"

"Just look to the east, Tom. That is no dungeon, those are the living intestines of a titan, you can even see two mouths with teeths. Going there is going into the stomach of a titan to be digested."

At that point Gladia interrupts "Don't be a fool, Holgun. That is just a dungeon environment with a different look for corridors and doors. One I haven't seen before I admit, but it should not be a problem - and think of the rewards of a system quest.."

"I will not go into the stomach of a titan on my own two feet!"

"But Holgun, nothing can give titles or abilities like a system quest, aren't you excited about that?"

"I WILL NOT GO INTO THE STOMACH OF A TITAN ON MY OWN TWO FEET!!!"

"Calm down, you two." Cleev tries to stop the argument. "In case you didn't read the requirements, we can't even start it now as it requires to go through a phase shift before being transported directly here. And the transport platform on the first floor didn't even have a phase crystal on it. So no one can even start this quest yet.

And Tom, since the system calls this floor seperated and has its own quest for it, we can probably say that the full eveluation of all floor doesn't include this one - or what do you say?"

"I agree - and with the System Quest like that Orwen has to agree as well. And even if not it would be better to use that phase transfer to enter this floor through the quest instead of entering it normally. But we should include what we can watch from here in our report, that would help a lot with the quest itself. Holgun already gave a good description of the east part for the record, anyone wants to follow up with the northeast and north parts that we can see?"

D'vol Blackthorn is the one who speaks after that "OK, let me give the details on the northeast part.

It is the only part that is not connected by a regular bridge, but by a stream of water flowing from a small pool here on the platform to the other side, flowing horizontally without a bed over the chasm. Most likely that is a one-way transport, which means that whoever tries to go there has to find another way back and be at a disadvantage through that.

Upon hitting the wall going diagonally in the north-east, it flows up the wall instead of falling - and that wall goes much farther up than should be possible in the distances between floors. Where we stand the ceiling is ten meters high, which would conform with the distance we got down the stairs. But the chasm goes dozens of meters into the ceiling, and those wall structures go as far as we can see before the vertigo of the missing environment makes it impossible to follow.

Those wall structures look like a garden and places divided by walls and stairs, but somehow I can't trace the paths even in those parts that are completely visible - I can't decide what is wall or floor or whatever as soon as I try to follow it. I don't know how to describe that despite it being simple-looking at a quick glance.

We'll probably loose a lot of parties going there, especially until someone finds a way to retreat and tell us what we can't see of it from here."

"OK, and let me give the last description" Cleev is the next to speak. "The platform on the other side of the chasm to the north looks a lot like an alchemist's laboratory, but there are a lot of metal poles holding metal balls and plates that do not fit such a laboratory. There is a table at the center where some large humanoid lies, probably a spawn to defend that place.

The bridge over to that place - if you can call that thing a bridge at all - consists of eight strange ropes that are only rarely connected to each other. you'll have to balance on one rope while holding another to get over the chasm, but that should be no problem for someone with minimum balance. It will limit the amount of loot people can bring back over it however, especially since they can't overload the ropes.

The ropes themselves look as if they were made of metal - copper from the coloring of it, but are partially covered with a substance I don't know. Colorfully covered as that substance is sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow or green striped and more, but each cover only goes for one or two meters before the ropes are blank copper again."

After that all Sky Arrows continue to look over the chasm to remember as much details as possible and get picture-memories of it into their status-galleries. After a while Tom commands again "OK, that should be enough - let's go down to the next floor."

Gladia asks "How long do you think it will take the dungeon to setup a phase selector for this System Quest, Tom?"

"Shouldn't take too long, System Quests are not to be ignored - perhaps it's even done before we finish the delve."

"The System Quest I got for adding that option to the existing portal does have some nice rewards, so Tom is right. But I think I'll try to hold out a while to give the impression that I can't change anything on the safe floor until it is empty of surfacers. Hopefully some of them will have the idea to evacuate the floor in the next few days, but I can use those days for other tasks as well so they won't be lost."