Rupegia

Chapter 167: Theorycrafting – Part 3

The entrance to the Endless Staircase dungeon is like a flying castle itself, except there are four circular flying walls of raw, rough stone stacked on top of each other, almost completely covering the castle. There's barely a ship's height of space between each wall, but the second wall from the bottom up has a big, round hole, an obvious way in for our airship.

These walls are partially covered in moss and hanging plants, which camouflage the firing ports where monsters would launch arrows and spells at approaching adventurers. Right now, they're manned by a small detachment of soldiers from the crown, who act more as lookouts for suspicious airship activity near the capital than actual defenders.

Once we've passed through the big hole, we get a full view of the castle, and it looks like someone tried to camouflage a whole damn castle with bushes and moss. It also looks a bit rough and carved from raw rock like the walls that protect it, but it clearly has a square, castle-like shape with towers, battlements, and slits for ranged defenders to fire from.

We lower our ship into a hanging dock made of steel grates, clearly built by the Chimeras as it's the only visible work of metal anywhere. There are also a number of other small ships docked, which belong to transport companies that sell their services to adventurers.

The fact that sky fortresses can't be reached by simply walking like you can with land-dweller dungeons creates a minimum barrier of entry for adventurers. And since dungeons are born with themes inspired by local culture, every Chimera dungeon has integrated this barrier into their entrances, requiring an organized fleet to even enter the first level, which is why they're called "sky fortresses" around here.

The golems gracefully land our large, winged airship on the metal grates, and a helper on the docks activates an enchantment that extends a folding bridge onto our port side.

As we cross it, we're received by a Celestial Horn accompanied by two Chimeras. One is an officer, who wears only a white surcoat with a stylized cloud surrounded by winds, all drawn in silver, which is the heraldry of the Hau-Hou royals, and so, his long cock freely sways with his every step, while the other Chimera wears a gray robe and carries a long metal staff fit for a Space mage.

Alissa notices how three of the Heroes keep their eyes level while the gnome has his head pointing a bit up, all so that they never inadvertently get an eyeful of a half-mast cock. It seems they're doing this reflexively as their postures are completely relaxed.

And then the officer politely greets us, his Andraste thick with an accent, "Wel-come, Ry-der Royals, to the Endless Stair-case For-tress. And also, wel-come back, Grand Fo-ur; we are happy to see you a-gain." He perfectly pronounces every vowel while not using any contractions, making him sound a bit overly formal, but that's just the standard Reo accent. Their language just has a thing against merging syllables together like English and Andraste like to do.

"'Grand Four'?" Alissa questions the rather lofty nickname, which seems out of character for the overly-serious Alt-Lily.

"Our fellowship is called 'The Four,'" the cinnamon loli flatly replies.

"I suggested Fantastic Four, but it was rejected," Samkelo cheekily chimes in.

And the angry little girl's right eye twitches in annoyance as she grumbles back, "I'm not a chuuni like Toto."

But that actually doubly offends me, so I promptly fight back, "What do you mean? That'd be a geeky name, not chuuni, and you were totally a berserker geek when gaming." Then I make a lofty expression worthy of an elf as I quickly add, "Also, my name is Wolf."

Alt-Lily rolls her eyes and engages me, as her pride won't let her back down so easily. "I'm a nerd when gaming, not in real life, you furry-chuuni. You might as well change your name to Draco now because at least that would fit with your current chuuni race."

I'm not the kind to straight-up deny everything, so I concede on a small point, "I'm not really a furry furry, you know? I don't have a fursona. Also, 'Wolf' is a valid name in Maplethorne, which is a very English-like place. Did you know that the elven language is similar to Portuguese?"

She's also not the kind to make unreasonable statements, so she focuses on the one weakness in my argument, "You totally named yourself before you knew about that, you chuuni."

"Enough silliness," I run away from this losing battle. Then I turn to the welcoming party as they do their best to keep straight faces. "I assume you have a [Gate] ready for us?"

"Indeed, Your Highness," the Horn obediently replies. Then he nods at the officer, who nods to the mage, who then begins to cast [Gate].

Meanwhile, I store the ship in my "Items" and mercifully don't tell a dick joke. Then Alcander goes through the [Gate] and opens one of his own so that our whole party can cross through without killing the poor Chimera mage with overuse.

The fifth layer of this dungeon has been creatively named Glass Rooms, which describes the lobby we now find ourselves in very well. The floor is made of dark blue stained glass decorated with mesmerizing geometric patterns, while the walls and ceiling are made of transparent glass full of little sparkling lights, which pair perfectly with the galaxy skybox.

The lobby is a rest area, and there are a few Chimera fellowships spending their time treating their wounds, but our eyes are drawn to the four exits, which lead to yellow, stained glass staircases that end in transparent rooms, allowing us to see the monsters within. Those rooms also have their own exits and stairs that lead up, creating many branching paths, but the following rooms are all fully opaque and painted silver. They'll only become transparent once we enter a higher room.

Still, the silver rooms floating in the empty space with a galaxy as the background make for a very pretty sight, so we spend a moment admiring the environment while our men find out which exit we should take.

The Celestial Horn that received us then approaches us again and solemnly states, "It seems that monsters have already respawned on the path that the Commander took, so we'll have to clear it again, unless you want to wait for her to come back?"

I turn to Urmeie, and she cheerfully answers without hesitation, "Hells yeah! I'll do it!"

And so, we become the audience to Urmeie's little rampage.

The monsters in the Glass Rooms layer aren't all organic, and those that are don't have much meat in them, which is why it's open season on them from this layer up. And so, Urmeie tears them apart by herself while we watch, awed by her brutality.

The path Oritiki took has the largest variety of monsters, so it's interesting to see how the warrior Princess deals with each different situation, but still, she's brutal.

A loud scraping sound echoes across the glass room as the Two-Star Guardian's long scimitar harmlessly slides across Urmeie's heavily enchanted armor without even leaving a scratch. But the huge, partially-feathered beast also strikes with the sledgehammer in its right hand, and the Princess is forced to defend against this attack.

She uses her ornate halberd's hook to snag the sledgehammer and pull it back in an attempt to rip it out of the Guardian's hand, but the beast has enough skill and strength to not fall for this trick, so the two wrestle for control over the weapon. Even though the Guardian is bigger and (seemingly) more muscular than her, it struggles to compete against her raw power and ferocity.

"KRAAAW!" it caws angrily, its avian beak wide open, at the same time that a metallic, drill-shaped floating arm from the Relentless Warden comes from the Guardian's left side, putting her in a sticky situation, but she just removes one hand from her halberd and activates an enchantment in her gauntlet.

The drill hits raw rock and creates a cloud of dust as it digs into it, but the rock that Urmeie just conjured only increases in size, slowly growing around the drill and slowing it down to a grinding halt. The main body of the Relentless Warden, a mere spiral strip of floating, sparkly golden metal, even stops spinning in what seems to be an expression of surprise for the abstract magical being.

"SKREEEE!" the Guardian screeches as it drops its scimitar and uses two hands to wrestle for the sledgehammer. Then the Sparkling Cherub suddenly launches a roman candle at Urmeie's face, and an infernal giggle resounds throughout the dungeon, so irritating that it's almost as bad as nails scratching against a blackboard.

Urmeie roars in pain and anger as the sparks singe her fur and cause a minor burn, the gravest wound she has suffered in Gods-know how long. This offends her so much that she releases her high-level aura, and the monsters are taken aback by the power in her voice.

"WEAKLINGS!" she growls, and I notice a hint of [Godly Language], so subtle that I bet she doesn't even have ten levels in the skill. But it's enough to stagger the three monsters, so she takes this chance to step onto the shaft of the sledgehammer, ripping it out of the Guardian's clawed hand.

Now defenseless, she's free to sink her halberd into the bare, muscular chest of the partly avian beast, right next to the two glowing spheres embedded in its chest that give it its name. And we hear a loud, disgusting sound of crunching as its rib cage caves in, sinking so deep that the Guardian lets out a pathetic whimper as it falls on its back and all the air is forcefully expelled from its lungs.

The Relentless Warden launches its other, spinning, drill-like arm towards Urmeie, but she bats it away with the first arm that has now been encased almost fully in stone. Then she turns her vengeful scowl towards the Cherub.

The gnome-sized flying monster makes an ugly grimace that only heightens its natural ugliness. Then it attempts to flee, but Urmeie activates the [Rush] enchantment of her armor, and we witness the most frightening charge we've ever seen.

She easily snatches the little shit from the air, then slams its head against the glass wall, and it pops like a cherry, spraying out bloody brain matter and skull pieces everywhere. The wall even cracks from the force of the blow, but Urmeie pays no mind to it as she immediately turns towards the Warden, which is now completely vulnerable.

"Holy shit," Samkelo mumbles fearfully, and it's not lost on any of us how that Cherub had a body type awfully similar to a gnome's.

Urmeie launches herself at the Warden's main body, and though it floats, it doesn't move very fast, so she has all the time in the world to deal with the weird, spiral strip of sparkly, yellow metal. She uses the monster's own arm like a club while her free hand keeps its other drill arm at bay, quickly turning the helpless monster into a pile of bent metal. But to its credit, it can withstand quite a beating with its abstract, magical body.

The Two-Star Guardian finally removes the halberd from its body, and now the monster is wielding a heavily enchanted weapon. But Urmeie lets out a single laugh as she extends her hand and [Equip]s her halberd again. Then she simply cleaves it into the pile of metal, finally killing the Warden and cracking the floor as the halberd gets embedded in the glass.

That doesn't look good.

"SKREEEEE…!" the Guardian screeches as it enters a berserk state, forgetting all about its weapons as it attempts one last desperate charge.

Urmeie grins under her bear-shaped helmet. Then she drops the stone-cased metal arm and simply extends her hands forward in a sumo-like stance.

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object, and the object wins. The warrior Princess uses the halberd as an anchor so that her feet won't slide across the blue stained-glass floor, completely stopping the avian beast's charge.

Their hands lock as they switch to wrestling with raw strength, but the Guardian is running out of breath as one of its lungs has collapsed, so Urmeie uses her [Wrestling] skill to twist the Guardian's arm. In a skillful move that makes us all blink in disbelief, she suddenly hugs the monster's body, then performs a bear hug takedown.

"HAHAHAHA-…!" she starts to guffaw as she lifts the muscular beast. Then she hits its avian head against the cracked floor, which completely breaks apart. "ACK! FUCK!" she swears as she falls through the broken floor along with the monster.

"PRINCESS!" her two bodyguards shout as they follow her and jump into the hole.

But then her laugh reaches our ears again, though it quickly starts to sound more and more distant.

So I calmly turn to Alcander and request, "A [Gate] to the lobby, please."

"Yes, Your Highness," he obediently replies.

Alissa, Gify, two Companions, and I cross through it. Then we wait a few moments before we start to hear Urmeie's laugh again.

Suddenly, she crashes through the ceiling and falls onto the floor with a cool tri-point landing, but the Guardian's body is nowhere to be seen. Her bodyguards actually activate their [Fly] enchantments and gently land beside her, and though we can't see their expressions under their helmets, their postures seem tense, indicating that they're conflicted about their charge's little joke.

If you fall from the rooms, the dungeon teleports you back to the lobby, but just above it to punish you for falling. It seems that some dungeon masters do have a small sense of humor.

"Having fun?" I warmly ask like a kind father.

"I am," she unashamedly answers with a cheerful grin.

I really don't like how easily I'm starting to like her. I preferred it when she was overbearing, pun intended, since it was easy to keep my distance.

But Urmeie's fun doesn't last long, for we soon encounter a squad of Celestial Horns clearing the rooms from top to bottom, so there are no more monsters for the ursine Princess to fight. Then they take us to the room that the Horns are using as a base.

It's a bit crowded due to the large number of both Horns and tied-up monsters, but there are many empty rooms all around it that we can use as test areas, so this is fine.

"I apologize for that, Your Highness. We didn't notice that the monsters here respawn so quickly," Oritiki politely states.

And I kindly smile back. "It's fine; it served as entertainment for Princess Urmeie. Now, let's start this test so that we can hopefully be done before lunch."

We might have to delay our meal, though, for testing poisons and venoms on monsters is a lot more gruesome than watching Urmeie splat small monsters against the walls. Roxanne is the only one who's unaffected as she has already done many experiments of this kind before, and though she used herself as a guinea pig in a good number of them, she still went through as many "lab rats" as one would in a modern earthling medical research lab.

Still, a part of me is fascinated by the wildly different biology of each monster. Monsters like the Relentless Warden, which are entirely magical and made of metal, can be easily dealt with by splashing them with a type of acid, while electrocution is fairly effective at temporarily disrupting them, as their drill-like arms are normally hard to deal with.

The Sparkling Cherub is extremely vulnerable to poisons and venoms due to its small body, so just a whiff of a cloud of a chemical with a name too complex for me to pronounce is enough to kill it in less than a minute. The Two-Star Guardian, on the other hand, takes too much poison and time for it to take effect due to its massively muscular body, but to sustain its size, it breathes in quite a lot of oxygen, so gasses like chlorine, which burns the lungs, are very effective at quickly reducing its physical capabilities.

But Samkelo's Gift isn't just about conjuring. He can also alter things, so he could create a flame on the highly flammable feathers of the Guardian's partly avian body, which could then be spread by conjuring a simple mist of flammable fluid around the monster. This, of course, requires a high level of creativity and ingenuity, which should be his specialty, but there's also a high risk of "friendly" fire (this time, pun not intended), considering he's dealing with highly toxic things like chlorine and other chemicals (including magical ones), not to mention that just a bit too much flammable mist, and he'd cause an explosion rather than just set an enemy on fire.

With Lily's wild fighting style, U Thant's inexperience at being a DPS, and Chesa's passiveness, the baby-faced gnome doesn't have much encouragement to try very hard. But I don't blame him too much because he doesn't have [Bind], and proper teamwork is a lot more difficult when you can't literally read everyone's mind or have a central controller manage everyone's actions.

Also, yeah, setting an enemy on fire is quite the gruesome thing to do, and considering how pale and sheepish he's become as Roxanne guides him through the tests, he hasn't fully hardened his heart to the brutality of war. And again, I can't really blame him because I also still have a bit of a soft heart. It's just that the girls encourage me to be ruthless and heal me when it becomes too much.

Lastly, Samkelo also has a special sight, which allows him to naturally sense spirits and even project his vision out of his body, allowing him to peep on women. He hasn't developed that Gift very far since it's a bit too abstract, but the vision from the Gods did suggest that there's more to it than just perverted stuff.

His Gift is still blocked by [Dead Zone], so he has the same weakness as Roxanne, but his potential is extremely high. He may lack the ability to cause raw mass destruction like Chesa can due to the higher mana cost of his Gift in comparison to hers, but his ability is like solving a puzzle, which is perfect for dealing with boss-type enemies.

Then Lily suddenly approaches us, looking quite grim, and quietly questions, "I remember that not that long ago, the Avgi Empire declared a new 'Law' where torturing monsters would be included in the Sin of Sadistic Torture, and they'd enforce it even outside the Empire. Aren't you worried that this could also be considered torture?"

I flash a bitter smile at the irony and calmly answer, "I'm the one who championed for that inclusion, and no, I don't consider this to be a Sin. We're trying to discover the best ways that Samkelo can use his Gift to kill his enemies, and for that, sacrifices must be made."

She clicks her tongue and crosses her arms in annoyance. "I hate it when you're right."

"Isn't that always?" I cheekily retort.

And she jokingly ripostes with sass. "Hate? Yes, I do always hate you."