Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Two - Upper Levels

The rest of the second floor wasn’t all that much of a challenge. We continued to climb, taking a small break around the three-quarter’s mark for something to drink and to let our legs rest, then we kept on going and going.

Eventually we neared the end of the floor. By then, the Evil Roots had become so common that the beetles didn’t have any space to roll through, and we had to climb over and through tangled roots just to keep going.

The others still insisted on killing them whenever we found some. I found it kind of distasteful, even if I kept getting ‘team fighting’ experience from it.

“Finally,” Amaryllis said after we beat the final beetle on the floor. The ground levelled off ahead, and I seemed as if we were done climbing for a while.

“What happened?” I asked.

She smiled, looking quite smug with herself. “I hit level sixteen with my main class,” she said. “Just now. I’ve been looking forward to that level up for a while.”

“Oh, wow,” I said. “Congrats!”

“Thank you,” Amaryllis said. “It was a long time in coming. Or... well, perhaps not so long in the grand scheme of things. At the rate we’re going we’ll all be quite strong soon. A few more dungeons, a few more of your little adventures and we’ll be hitting our third tier.”

“That would be impressive, yes,” Caprica said.

“There aren’t many third-tier people around, right?” I asked.

“One in a thousand or so,” Amaryllis said. ”Or that’s the rule of thumb, it varies a lot depending on where you are, and of course it varies by profession.”

“In the army it’s closer to one in fifty,” Caprica said. “In the Paladins, it’s closer to one in ten. The Royal Guard are all in their third tier, since that’s a requirement to enter. There aren’t that many Royal Guards, however, likely for that very reason.”

“Oh,” I said. So it wasn’t super uncommon, but it was still the kind of level reserved for the elite, or at least people who were at the top of their game. “Wait, wouldn’t a lot of older people reach that kind of level?” Most of us were pretty young, after all.

“Oh, sure, but if you’re hitting your third rank when you’re quite old, then you’re probably already settled down,” Amaryllis said. “The race for power tends to be a younger person’s game. Well, level-based power. Political power tends to be an older bird’s game.”

That made sense, I supposed. “Okay then! Let’s all hit our third tier before the year’s out then!”

“Broccoli, the year will end in a couple of months,” Amaryllis said. “What kind of harebrained levelling scheme do you want to try?”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “So let’s hit our third tier before the end of next year, then!”

Amaryllis rolled her eyes. “It only gets harder to gain levels as you go, you know? Each new push requires more unique experiences and more work than the last. Although... maybe it would be possible, but I don’t want to take stupid risks just to gain a few levels faster.”

“Oh, fine,” I said. She was probably right, risking our lives just to level a bit faster was rather silly.

In any case, the discussion about levels and experience and all that stopped as we finally reached the top of the floor. The ground was flat once more, and after walking up a ramp for so long, it almost felt strange to be on even footing once more.

“This is it,” Puffles said. “Next floor starts right through there.” He pointed to a crack in the wall, not too dissimilar than the hole we’d squeezed into to get onto this floor. There was a bit of light coming in from the other side, so we’d at least be able to do away with all of the magic lights we had.

I was fond of my ear-lights, but they were consuming a small trickle of mana pretty constantly, and so my mana reserves weren’t replenishing.

“What can we expect on the other side?” Calamity asked.

“Third floor is tricky,” Puffles said. “Not so bad if you can fly, but still not easy. Roots might’ve made it easier too.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“The floor’s all about jumping from one platform to another. They’re branches with flat tops. Hop on over from one to the other and try not to fall to your death if you can’t fly.”

“That’s concerning,” Caprica said. She was untying the rope holding us all together (which really, we should have done earlier) and then handed her end to Awen who started to coil it up. “Only two of us can really fly. And jumping from place to place can be tricky at the best of times.”

“There’s more,” Puffles said. “The floor has fireflies. They’ll buzz around and make a bit of noise, but I’ve never known them to attack anyone. But their abdomens can glow, and that glow does things to people. Reminds you of the moon.”

“We’re going to be mooned by firefly butts?” I asked.

Amaryllis whacked me behind the head and I laughed while covering my ears.

“Take this seriously, Broccoli,” she said. “The way he’s talking it might be a mental effect. Something like an attention-grabbing skill?”

“Something like that,” Puffles said. “I’ve seen good folk get distracted and fly right into one of those fireflies. They’ll usually just bumble out of your way, but you might end up chasing after one of ‘em for a while, and then you’ll tire yourself out.”

“So how do you avoid doing that?” I asked.

“Mostly a question of willpower. You got to remember that no matter how pretty the fireflies are, they’re not the real sun or moon. No point in chasing after them. We’ve found that having lots of lights around help too. Keeps you focused on the closer lights instead of those that are further out.”

“We could shoot them down,” Calamity said. “Depending on how many there are and how close by they fly.”

“Awa, it depends on how big they are, and how quick they move too. I’m not as confident at range as Calamity is,” Awen said.

“We’ll see, is there a safe space on the other side of the entrance?” Amaryllis asked.

“There’s a platform of sorts,” Puffles confirmed. “The vines have grown all over the place. They might make it easier to jump around, might make it harder. Really depends.”

With nothing better to do than move on, we slipped through the crack in the wall--some of us having to move through it sideways--then burst out onto the third floor.

Calling it a floor was strange when it was clear that we were now way, way up on the tree on a small ledge created by one of the large branches sticking out from the trunk. There was a faint wind that caught at my skirt and I found myself tensing up a little as I moved to the edge of the branch and looked way, way down.

It was a good thing I wasn’t afraid of heights, because the view, while quite spectacular, was still kinda frightening.

“That’s the way up,” Puffles said over the wind as he pointed ahead.

The branch curved upwards a ways while also narrowing and splitting off in a few directions, as branches did. The top part looked as though it had a layer of bark shaved off of it, creating a more even, flat surface to walk on.

A few other branches had similar marks on them, and as I followed the path with my gaze, I was able to see where we’d have to jump from one branch to another. Some were a bit above, many of them would have us hopping down.

“Where’s the fourth floor from here?” Caprica asked.

“Other side of the tree,” Puffles said. “It’s a huge branch, and there’s only really one way to get to it. The path there can be a bit of a maze. Especially with these vines all over.”

Ah, right, the Evil Roots. They were draped across branches like garlands. Some had those familiar Evil Root pods growing on them, and I was worried that we’d have to fight some nasty plant monsters on the way through.

Then, there were the fireflies.

They were big, plump bugs that bumbled about with a noise like a helicopter. The wind, I realized, wasn’t natural. It was coming from the fireflies as they gently flew past, butts blazing so bright that they lit up the entire world beneath the shadows cast by the tree’s canopy.

“Mister Ward,” Caprica asked as she turned to Puffles. “Do the fireflies’ effects work on this ledge?”

“Mhm, they do,” he said.

“In that case, we should take turns looking at them while the others hold onto the looker. It’ll give us each a good idea of how potent the effect is on each of us.”

That seemed like a reasonable thing to try. Caprica went first, and Calamity and I held onto her shoulders as she focused on the nearest firefly and squinted at the light coming from its rear. “Do you feel anything?” I asked.

“Hmm, I recognize this feeling. A few people have used similar skills around me before, to grab attention and keep it. My father has something similar when he’s giving a speech. This isn’t as potent as that.”

Soon enough it was my turn, and I squinted at the nearest firefly, specifically the large bulbous pod on its rear that glowed with a powerful yellowish light. It was quite pretty, actually. There were several different shades of yellow and white, all swirling into each other in a way that reminded me of a lava lamp.

“Broccoli?” Awen asked.

I shook my head. “Oh, right, uh, yeah, I guess it’s pretty? It is kind of distracting, but I don’t know if it’s dangerously distracting?”

The others took their turns, and I could better see the effects on them than I could on myself. Mostly it amounted to whomever was watching the light being transfixed on it for a while, but anything that caught their attention would pull it away, even just calling out their name.

“Hmm, you lot are better than most I’ve seen,” Puffle said with a nod.

I... didn’t want to say it, but I suspected that the reason was somewhat innate. The Mothfolk seemed really keen on bright floaty balls of light, and that was before any sort of attention-grabbing magic was involved.

“Okay, so now the only challenge is the jumps?” I asked.

“They don’t seem that big,” Amaryllis said. “I think anyone should be able to make them, at least those I see. The branches are swaying though, especially when those fireflies move past. That might be enough to throw someone off their aim.”

“Maybe we use ropes again?” Awen asked. “Will the dungeon do anything if you tie things together?”

“Not as far as I know,” Puffles said.

That settled it, and as a group we started down the main branch with Puffles and Caprica taking to the air around us. If someone missed a jump, then we had two fliers to help, which was reassuring.

Puffles did fly off for a moment, but he returned with a serious nod. “I traced a good part of the path over. We don’t want to end up walking down the wrong way.”

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense, yeah,” I said. There were a few places we could jump to, but it looked as though some branches didn’t reach others. Basically, we were traversing a massive three-dimensional maze where instead of walls, there were huge drops.

I didn’t feel like using the old ‘stick to the left’ trick on this one.

***