Getting through the first five floors was pretty simple with all our new stats and gear, especially with Star and Ren working with us. Ren was tanking everything that came her way while Star tore them all apart with her bare hands in a mindless frenzy. Seeing the maenad and the ghoul fight was honestly a bit disturbing at first. They both had a tendency to bite if their opponent got within range, and their claws were much sharper than they appeared at first glance. I flashed back to their invitation to join them in bed as I watched Star literally rip a giant rat in half with her bare hands and shuddered. I mean it wouldn’t be enough to make me say no next time they asked but still, the image of those raking down my back was terrifying.

Abby was putting down a rat per shot with her new bow, the weapon was paying for itself easily, Abbys bow skill was spiking and Sebastian was gaining XP from all of our weapon use, even surprisingly bare handed skill from Star and Ren which due to the level difference and how high their barehanded skills already were was leveling him fast. Despite a bit of a stall when we got in we were burning through the floors at a rapid pace now that we were working together.

Level six presented a qualitative shift in difficulty. Rather than aim at separating us the tide of bats we came up against on this level was clearly attempting to polish teamwork. Well in reality they were just trying to kill us in the most efficient possible way and I was guessing most people at this point hadn’t mastered teamwork yet. The rats had whittled down everyone who could be felled by divide and conquer, and the bats were preying on an obvious weakness. Luckily for us we outleveled this floor by a few levels.

Despite my earlier thoughts these monsters were giving only about two xp, which considering we each needed four or five hundred at this point meant we were slowing down substantially as we moved up. Granted we were moving ten times faster than anyone else who tried coming through here, but most people took literal years to get even halfway through this place. We were looking at a long trek even with all the advantages. Especially since we were dividing XP among so many people. We were going to need to do a few runs of this pentad of floors before we managed to grind up to level four.

Looking back I was pretty shocked we had managed to level up so quickly to level three considering we needed three hundred XP apiece. The smaller group probably contributed, not to mention the rat tides in the first five floors. Based on how densely populated normal rats nests were it made sense these monster rats would be coming in droves. I suspected higher level monsters wouldn’t be such prolific breeders. The bats already seemed much thinner than before, though for from being only more powerful the flying bastards almost seemed more intelligent, if that was a common trend this was going to get a lot harder as we went.

In contrast to our new party members I was having a much tougher time. My new weapon was pretty decent depending on what element I ended up landing on, but I was having an intensely difficult time learning how to actually use it. For one thing combat training my whole life aside I’d never fought giant fucking bats before. For another random elemental damage of uncertain amounts is nearly impossible to properly aim. As my most recent mid sized cloud of frost caught a single leg of one of a crowd of six bats and drove off four others I didn’t have the time or skill to avoid the raking of claws from the one who wasn’t effected.

Sarah, on the ball as always healed me nearly immediately, not that it did much good as frozen leg bat sank its giant razor sharp fangs into the meat of my shoulder and locked its jaws like a damn crocodile. Unable to get healed because the fangs were blocking the wound and completely incapable of using my almost uselessly random weapon at close range I was reduced to slamming my whole body violently against the stone wall of the tower viciously cursing the flying vermin as I smashed my opposite hand into its skull.

Having only three strength this understandably did very little and despite smashing the damn thing over the head and then against the wall for ten fucking minutes it wasn’t until an arrow sprouted from the things eye that the bastard finally kicked it. Looking over, I saw a much too amused Abby give me a cheery smile and a wave and get back to her crowd control. Apparently she wasn’t over what had happened between me and Sarah, not that I could blame her.

Speaking of my adorable blonde friend, as soon as the bat released its grip in death and its teeth left my flesh a blessed wave of soothing relief rolled through my body, stitching up the mangled bite wounds and knitting the bones in my hand back together where I had probably cracked them on a giant bat skull. I offered Sarah a grateful grin, only for the smile to drop as she returned it with a weak half smile and turned away immediately to focus on healing the others.

My stomach knotted. I knew the situation wasn’t anyones fault, hell Sarah probably knew that too, but my friend and party member was hurting and I’d been the cause, I pretty much felt like dirt. For about five seconds, then I felt like a pancake as one of those fucking bats linebacked me into a stone wall. Another wave of healing washed over me and the guilt I had been feeling washed away in the blessed euphoria of getting my entire ass kicked.