They started off by visiting Weaver in the market.
“Did the rope and sack co in handy?” the spider asked.
“They did. One question though, is the sack easy to stain? I’m planning on using it to carry hearts in the next stage and I’m expecting it to end up quite bloody at the end…”
“It is water-tight, so the blood will not seep through. As for stains, it is hard to say, but with a rigorous wash it should be easy to clean.”
“I love mine dress!” Belamouranthe exclaid. “Thou should co work in the Sanctuary, mine mother would reward you well for such high-quality clothing!”
“Thank you,” Weaver replied, “but I think I will remain here.”
The elphin girl turned and looked up at Adam. “Can mine mother co visit this place?”
He suppressed a frown. “I don’t think so,” he replied honestly.
“Can we bring her a dress from Weaver?”
The spider crawled forward on the spiderweb counter and looked down at the girl properly. “What colour should it be?”
This is new, Adam noted.
“Green!” Bel exclaid.
Last ti, the queen wore a silver dress. Green would probably suit her though.
Weaver looked up at Adam. “That will be 100 points.”
He almost refused right on the spot, but stopped himself before the words could co out.
This is sothing new that didn’t happen last ti, and it’s only 100 points. I currently have 401, but it’ll be 851 when I sell the cores I’m carrying.
Spending 100 here doesn’t change what I can and cannot buy.
“Deal,” he said.
He suddenly rembered what Elia had said, ‘There’s a shortage of curious people who make it far.’
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, he quoted in his head.
Item Purchased
Green Spidersilk Dress
301 Points Remaining
While Belamouranthe discussed the exact dinsions and design of the dress with Weaver, Adam went over to Lucca’s stall.
He emptied the spidersilk sack onto her counter.
“Elental cores,” she said in her sinister tone. If she had a real face, he was sure she’d be grinning widely. “The sli is looking for these. I already sold the last cores you brought for a tidy profit, so I’ll pay you one hundred points for any other elental cores you bring .”
Adam blinked in surprise.
“Deal,” he said.
Relics Sold
Blood ElentalCore (Common) x6
901 Points Remaining
150 more points than expected! That’s a pleasant surprise.
Still, kind of silly that I can’t sell them to Finnian directly. He told
he had no money…
“What about trophies?” he asked. “Like goblin ears and such?”
“I have also sold the trophies you brought
yesterday to the goblin. I’ll pay you one hundred points for any other trophies you bring .”
So, this must be to balance out the fact that the collectibles have more value now that the special denizens have quests involving them. A 33% increase in profits is pretty nice. Gonna be even harder to get myself to not sell the collectibles now though, no matter how interesting Finnian and Migraine’s special weapons might be. I wonder if this increased value goes away if I complete their quests.
“Would you like to buy so relics with your profit?” she asked, clearly eager to earn back what she’d just paid him. He wondered if the points actually had any aning to the vendors or if they were just urged by the System to collect as many as possible.
“I’ll definitely take a look,” he replied.
Relics For Sale
Scroll-Preservation Talisman (Uncommon) — When a Spell Scroll is activated, this Relic is consud instead
Relic Renewal Stone (Epic) — Relics no longer disappear or break when all uses are exhausted | Restores the use of 1 Relic of Rare or lower quality. 1 use per Stage
Slothling Claw Bracer (Uncommon) — Can be used to perform an armour-rending slash. Breaks after 2 uses
Slavedriver’s Kilt (Rare) — Sacrifice nearest summon to negate an Affliction. 1-minute cooldown
Hmm, the talisman is new and clearly tied to Sylvia’s scrolls. It can’t be a coincidence that it appeared imdiately after I unlocked her.
I might eventually find a use for the renewal stone, perhaps if I end up going with so kind of affliction build that involves the overflow diadem.
The kilt seems to be tied to my summons. It’s not very strong since it’d be impossible to control what affliction is negated and the cooldown is long. If there was no cooldown it would be amazing for counter-affliction defence, but alas.
Adam didn’t want any of the relics, but he also didn’t want to use his reroll since it would be worth more in the next stage.
“I’ll co back tomorrow,” he told the spider.
He went over to the cricket’s wooden stall next door. He had decided to buy three general upgrades since that seed to be the best use of his points.
“Show
your upgrades.”
“Of course!” Karie replied. She waved one of her arms over the bubbling black cauldron next to her and four upgrades popped up.
Upgrades For Sale
Luck (Uncommon) — Increases luck by 2
Bleed (Rare) — Attacks inflict bleed dealing 15% weapon damage over the course of 10 seconds
Damage (Uncommon) — Increases all damage by 10%
Defence (Uncommon) — Increases all defence by 10%
Hmm, luck
2 or defence
10%…?
“Status,” he said.
Player Status
“Adam”
Shaper
Level 21
Stats
Health — 50
Stamina — 75
Mana — 200
Damage — 65% ( 15%)
Defence — 140% ( 40%)
Dodge — 10% ( 10%)
Speed — 85% ( 10%)
Luck — 15 ( 10)
I’m only ten points short on luck reaching the next threshold, so I think that’s worth more right now.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
It would be nice to get defence to 200% though, since that would effectively double my total health.
“I’ll buy luck.”
General Upgrade Purchased
Luck (Uncommon)
601 Points Remaining
The upgrades disappeared from above the cauldron, before it bubbled and a new set popped up.
Upgrades For Sale
Luck (Uncommon) — Increases luck by 2
Venom (Uncommon) — Attacks inflict venom slowing target by 10% for 10 seconds
Bleed (Epic) — Attacks inflict bleed dealing 25% weapon damage over the course of 10 seconds
Dodge (Uncommon) — Grants a 10% chance to dodge a direct attack
Luck is shining on
it seems.
“I’ll buy luck again.”
General Upgrade Purchased
Luck (Uncommon)
301 Points Remaining
Last one, let’s see if the extra luck helps here or not.
The cauldron did its thing a third ti.
Upgrades For Sale
Force (Rare) — Attacks pierce armour by 15%
Crush (Rare) — Increases the impact of attacks by 15%
Health (Uncommon) — Increases health by 2
Damage (Uncommon) — Increases all damage by 10%
Ah, shit…
I guess I’ll buy damage?
I could reroll but I’d rather save it.
Actually… Maybe I should just buy three rerolls. It’s not really damage holding
back right now, I think.
“I might be back later,” he told Karie.
Still, I just need six more points of luck to go and then I’ll be guaranteed rares every ti.
Adam returned to where Weaver and Belamouranthe were still talking. The spider had several silken fabrics arrayed on her counter for the girl to choose from. Each piece had a different pattern. At so point Bel had crawled up onto the counter and she was now kneeling over the samples like a discerning clothier.
“I’m going to the tavern,” he told her.
“I shall find thee when I am done with mine task,” she replied. It was the first ti he’d experienced her care deeply about sothing other than food, so he didn’t want to disturb her and quickly left.
He stopped past the imp-statue fountain where Yenna was playing a cello. The current lody was Bach’s ‘Cello Suite No. 1’, and she was in the middle of the ‘Sarabande’.
Adam listened until she finished playing the rest of the suite.
“Hello Adam, did you like the lody?”
He nodded. “You played it magnificently.”
“Are you a fan of classical?”
“A bit,” he replied. He didn’t ntion that he’d tried for years to learn how to play the piano. He’d never been very good unfortunately, but he’d co to love classical music as a result, as well as gaining an imnse sense of respect for those who could master instrunts.
“Is there a lody you would like to hear?” she asked.
“Could you play Faure’s ‘Pavane’?”
“On the cello? I could attempt to play it by myself, but it would be incomplete.”
“Ah…”
“I could play it solo on the piano instead. I would not have to compromise the lody.”
Adam paused. “You have a piano!?”
“I have all the instrunts you could desire.”
“That’s a lie,” he replied. “I know for a fact you don’t have a theremin or a stylophone!”
“Are these culturally-significant instrunts from your world?” she asked, instantly giving him a sense of déjà vu. “I have practised with all those provided to
by the All-Seeing System. Those two were not included as part of your world’s heritage.”
He shook his head. “I’ll have a talk with the System about this. Clearly there are gaps in your resu.”
The wasp stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds.
“So, would you like
to bring out the piano?”
He grinned. “Sure, I’d love to see where you’re hiding it.”
Yenna leaned off the stool she always used. Then it shaped itself down to sothing smaller and more suitable for a piano. She laid the cello out in front of her, and it imdiately started unfolding like a piece of origami, but with clearly way more mass inside than was possible.
Within just a few monts, the cello had unfolded and refolded itself, taking on the shape of an actual piano.
“Have you always been able to do that?” he asked, not believing what he’d just witnessed. It was even more impressive than when the cube did its podium unfolding trick.
“Yes. This instrunt was gifted to
by the All-Seeing System.”
I wonder if it has its own dinsional core like the cube.
Before he could comnt on how overkill it was for her to possess, she started playing ‘Pavane’ on the keys. Despite her lack of fingers, she was able to leverage her four arms to play the notes perfectly, while her two legs worked the pedals.
Adam shook his head with a smile before continuing on his way to the tavern, the music accompanying him on the way.
When Adam walked into the dinsional tavern, Finnian was literally shovelling food into his face. Migraine was talking to Sylvia up on the floor above by one of the small tables, and they seed to be having fun, which was worrying.
Charlie ca over and he could tell she was looking for Belamouranthe.
“She’s busy at the mont, but she’ll be here later,” he told her before she could ask.
“I see. What would you like to eat?”
Adam thought about it for a mont, before saying, “Insalata di polpo, a weissbier, and so fries with lots of salt.”
The red-brown ant nodded and went to the kitchen.
Instead of sitting down on an available seat, Adam brought out his barrier and shaped it into a chair, although it was really just an upside-down U-shape.
He cleared away a stool and moved his improvised seat down into its place. Then he sat on it. A few cracks appeared, but it held.
Maybe it works because the weight is distributed evenly?
Around him, the seats filled with players. A few of the ones nearest to him noticed his strange chair and pointed. Then they flickered and were replaced. This went on for a few monts until Adam made them all go away.
Show
Elia, Gladwyn, and Beck.
Only Elia appeared and Adam felt a blip of panic flow through him. He verbally queried the cube to get a response.
“Show
Gladwyn and Beck.”
[These Players are not currently seated in the Tavern.]
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank God, they’re still alive.
He looked at the ti-looper and, unsurprisingly, she was looking back at him.
“What are you sitting on?” she asked.
Adam laughed. “It’s my barrier.”
“I’ve never seen Arturo use it like that,” she replied.
“Well, I’m not Arturo, no matter how much you compare
to him.”
Elia paused. “Sorry. I shouldn’t get stuck in the past. It’s a bad habit of mine.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her.
“So, how did it go?” she asked. Based on her question, it seed she wasn’t querying the various achievents non-stop to find out herself. Or, if she did, maybe she was simultaneously searching for Adam and confusing the results she got by the queries overlapping?
Unless there’s a way to colour-code the queries?
Adam ntally queried the tavern, while Elia stared at him, waiting for a response.
“One mont,” he told her.
Show
all the players who received a ‘Flawless’, ‘Speedrun’, ‘All Secrets’, or ‘Secret Boss’ bonus. Give them each a separate colour and, if they achieved more than one, show all their colours combined.
To his surprise, the complex query worked and the tables filled with people. There were a lot of players with a white pillar encapsulating them, so had a green pillar, and only a few had a red one. Three people had both a green and a red light. Elia, unsurprisingly, had a red, green, white, and orange light pillar.
So the queries shouldn’t actually interfere, he realised. Maybe that ans she already knows how I fared, if she’s got a query like this running all the ti.
Adam added to the ntal query. Maintain this query until I cancel it.
“You already know how I did in the stage, don’t you?” he then asked Elia.
She nodded. “Of course. I just wanted to hear it from your lips.”
He wanted to ask ‘Why?’ but he already knew the answer. It was because she cared about him.
Or well, the previous him.
“I just did a complicated query that shows
people with various colours based on achievents. It’s pretty cool. I hadn’t even realised it was possible to do sothing like that.”
“There’s no manual for the tavern, which can be frustrating,” Elia replied. “But yes, it’s an invaluable tool.”
“Do you also see coloured lights over my head?”
“I have mine set to show coloured dots that appear on people’s foreheads.”
What the hell?
“Let
guess,” he said. “I have three of them.”
She nodded. “Speedrun, secret boss, and all secrets,” she said.
“For
you have all of them,” he replied.
“There are more than just four achievents,” she said. “Stage four introduces the ‘Eradication’ achievent since there are no more waves from that point and onward. You have to kill all enemies before the last boss to get it. Although the secret boss doesn’t count into that.”
“Wait,” Adam said. He brought out the description of his crown.
Secret Relic
Dented Crown (Rare) — A regent must repel all invaders tainted with the lust for power, lest his kingdom fall to ruin | Subordinate allies gain 10% more Health | Subordinate allies gain Last Stand’s Fervour upon death, extending their lives by 10 seconds and increasing Damage & Speed by 25%
“Is the eradication required to unlock the next evolution of the crown?”
“Sort of, but for that one you have to kill the secret boss as well, and he leaves after the captain dies. It’s quite difficult. The reward is worth it though, since the crown gains two new bonuses. One is additional fire damage and the other is immunity to the taint affliction.”
“Is that the highest it goes for evolutions?” he asked.
“It is, but you actually need that final evolution, called the ‘True Fla’s Icon’, to take on the secret boss in a later stage. I tried it thanks to Arturo’s help in my first loop, but it was tough. We were the only two survivors of our team of six. And the fight is unavoidable if you have the crown on you. Plus, once you beat the secret boss, the crown loses all its power. Arturo said he always used the crown, but he usually avoided evolving it the final ti, since you’re forced to bring it to the stage with the secret boss it triggers.”
That’s way more complicated than I realised, Adam thought to himself. He had just assud the next evolution was the final one, but to know that it was required for a secret boss down the line was exciting.
There’s gotta be other stuff like this just waiting to be found.
“Does the secret boss in stage four drop sothing special like the crown? The giant bat didn’t give anything, which was disappointing…”
Elia paused. “Shit,” she muttered.
“What?”
“I forgot to tell you about the nightwing’s heart.”
Adam frowned. “You didn’t expect
to be able to trigger the secret boss, did you?”
“No…”
“Goddamn it. I knew I should’ve chopped up the boss,” he said, annoyed that he’d assud she wouldn’t withhold information.
“It’s okay though,” she continued. “You wouldn’t have been able to use the heart until much later anyway and the ritual is quite dangerous.”
“I really thought you would tell
everything you knew,” he said.
“I just underestimated you. I wasn’t deliberately keeping secrets.”
“Tell
about stage four. Does the hidden boss give sothing special if you kill him?”
“You really shouldn’t fight him. He’s fast. Way faster than you expect.”
“Elia, just answer the goddamn question and stop coddling .”
She paused at his tone.
“If you want
to survive stage eight,” he continued, “then you have to trust .”
“I do trust you,” she said. “But I’m being serious. The ‘Forlorn Aristocrat’ is a challenge if you’ve never faced him before. Unless you’ve got fire damage, you can’t really defeat him easily.”
Aristocrat? That matches what Lenard told
he saw. He described the boss as a nobleman after all.
Adam sighed. He missed his friend.
Wait, fire damage? I can get that with Sylvia’s scroll. I should have enough to buy a conflagrate scroll.
Perhaps Elia thought his sigh was because of her, because she finally answered his actual question. “He drops a round pearl. You use it to unlock a secret chamber in stage five by slotting it into the empty eye socket of a statue. Inside the chamber it opens is a chest with a map. I never found out where it leads or what stage it’s made for. That’s one of the things I’ll be trying to figure out in this loop.”
Adam nodded. “Thank you.”
Just then Belamouranthe ca into the tavern.
As though she had been waiting for this exact mont, Charlie ca forward with Adam’s octopus salad, fries, and beer. She also had a casserole with so kind of stew and a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Bel sat down in front of the boar stew and imdiately dug in, not even uttering a word to the tavernkeeper ant. Nonetheless, Charlie looked imnsely satisfied.
“What kind of stew is that?” Adam asked. “It slls delicious.”
“Since you were having an Italian dish,” Charlie started, “I thought it was fitting to also prepare cinghiale in dolceforte for Belamouranthe.”
“Delicious!” the girl exclaid.
Charlie giggled. The sound was like bubbles in water.
Elia was looking down at Adam’s food.
“That looks good,” she said.
Adam stabbed his fork into a bit of octopus and pointed it at her. “Wanna try?” he teased.
Elia paused for a mont, her purple spiralling eyes locked onto his.
Then a dark tablet-sized round and flat stone appeared in the palm of her right hand. It had a strange pattern carved into it, which exposed blue-glowing gems under the stone’s surface.
She put her left hand on it and then vanished without even standing up.
Visiting Stone Activated
Player Elia has entered your Dinsion
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