The next morning Nick got up early, at least if his dying phone’s vaguely accurate time was anything to go off. No one else in his family unit was awake yet so Nick just left the remainder of the takeout boxes on the table, it was enough for the family to eat for both breakfast and lunch. Nick then got geared up and headed out for the day. The bar was practically empty, just a few of the militia folk lounging around between shifts. Unsurprisingly, Nick found Gareth outside the door and sitting on the steps, watching across the car park.

“Are you really here from dawn to dusk, every single day?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Yup. Thanks for the food by the way, been a while since I’ve had some of that good grub.” The man replied.

Nick then started his morning jog, it was a great way for him to warm up for a day of fighting. While he did get a little sweaty, fighting drenched him in the stuff so it didn’t matter too much. It also went a long way in cutting out the time it took for him to make it through the floors. If he walked it would take him an hour to make it through the car park floor, jogging cut that down by a little over a half. It was also great for pushing his cardio, an all round great way to start off his day.

He made it to the 71st floor with no problems, quickly finding the Exes sitting around in the dining room enjoying a meal. Nick went and got his own breakfast and joined in.

“Here before eight thirty, impressive Nick.” Rina commented.

Paige then took out a flat crystal a bit smaller than her palm and slid it across the table to Nick.

“One clock. All yours.” She said with a smile.

Nick inspected the item closely, the blue crystal was circular and had a clock face carved into it. Instead of clock hands in the centre of the watch there was a simple rectangular display reading ‘8:26’. It was a digital watch, made of crystal. Nick turned the object around and tried to find circuitry of any sort. All he could see was smooth crystal, no compartments or anything that could reveal the insides. He turned the watch back around just in time to watch it change time. He watched in wonder and the spot where the ‘6’ was carved smoothed out and a ‘7’ was carved into its place. He ran his finger across the spot and felt that it had in fact been physically changed, it wasn’t just a display.

“This is wickedly cool. How does it work?” He asked.

“Not sure, you’d have to ask one of the crafters. Some sort of skill I’d assume.” Rina answered. “Alright, ready to go?”

Nick had finished his food and nodded. The group got up and made their way out into the hotel floors. Rina once again led them in a new direction, which was helping Nick build a much more comprehensive map of his own. The rooms and layout of the floor would give him a slight headache if he looked at it too long, rooms overlapping and some corridors running straight through what should be a different room was far too confusing. He had to commend his map skill for doing its best to try and keep the visuals tidy though.

The group made their way to a challenge room and Rina gave a small prep talk before they entered.

“Trickster rooms aren’t really a test of direct combat skills. Most of the Tricksters are weak if you can fight them out in the open, you just have to work out how to get them out in the open. Trickster challenge rooms don’t offer great loot either, so if you’re doing this to farm loot then you’ll want to avoid these rooms.” Rina explained, adding on that bit at the end just for Nick.

With that said the group pushed into the room and were met with a surprise. The room was dark, it was the first challenge room Nick had been in that seriously altered the room it was in. Usually the lighting level remained constant, along with the decor and layout. Now Nick and the group found themselves cautiously moving through a dark room, unsure of what else was different about it. It was certainly a homeground advantage for the Tricksters. That was until one of the Exe recruits stopped moving for a moment and started fumbling around with their pockets. Everyone else in the group stopped and wondered what they were doing, until they fished out a crystal from their pocket.

The crystal was activated and light flooded the space around them. This earned a clap from both Paige and Rina. Nick looked around the room and found it to be empty, it was a wide room with nothing in it. Nick suddenly felt the hairs on the back of neck stand on end. Without thinking any further he threw himself to the side, just in time to dodge the tendril lashing out from the ceiling.

“They’re on the ceiling!” He yelled.

But it was too late. He watched as the shieldbearer was yanked up into the air. The swordsman reacted in time and was able to cut the tendril that had come for him. Nick saw that the archer was about to get caught and acted without hesitation. He lunged and tackled the archer out of the way, the tendril catching his own leg instead.

Nick was then yanked up into the air, but he expected this and acted quickly. He curled his abs and held them tight, letting him face the creature and not be dragged helplessly. As he was dragged towards the creature it tried to sink its other tendrils into him, Nick was ready though and used one of his hands to grab the strongest tendril, he felt it cut into his palm but held tight regardless. From this position Nick could leverage his free arm and use it to smash into the main body of the creature. He was able to load a decent bit of power into each blow and it clearly shocked the ambush predator. Nick was using its own grip on him to leverage his weight into his strikes.

Unlike when he was simply flailing around and trying to get his combo passive to stack up, Nick's punches quickly killed the monster, dropping him from the ceiling. Nick was able to land on his feet and perform a roll to dispel the force. Goddamn, he must have looked so cool doing that. Looking around, he saw the recruits were far too busy with their own fights to notice his antics. The swordsman had moved to guard the archer from the tendrils while the archer picked off the monsters with well placed arrows. The shieldbearer was quickly freed from their predicament and joined the swordsman in defending the archer. Nick did the same, while he felt cool having dispatched the Trickster in such a fashion, using the archer to safely clear them out was the right way to do it.

While boring, it was a very effective way to deal with the threat and the room was quickly cleared. Once all the monsters were defeated the room actually returned to normal light levels and the chest was formed in the centre of the room. The loot was only some pills, which the group split evenly between their members. Then Rina and Paige moved in to talk about the fight.

“Good job quickly realising the simple solution to the room’s challenge. Light is usually a direct counter to these ambush predators. We’ll be going to rooms with a varying type of Trickster though, so don’t get complacent with just this.” Paige started.

Rina then spoke up. “Fighting wise, good use of strategy towards the end there but it was sloppy at the start. Nick, I assume you’ve dealt with snatchers before but good job. Your decision to prioritise your ranged teammate was the correct call, even better considering how you dealt with it yourself. Let it be a lesson to all of you, sometimes your teammates will be more valuable for a particular fight than yourselves.”

Nick felt rather validated. He hadn’t thought too hard about it but he knew he could deal with the monster and wasn’t sure if the archer could. The group then set out for the next room, it was a short walk away. There was no prep talk this time, just straight in. The room wasn’t completely dark but it was certainly dimmer than the average room. The room itself was large and packed densely with rectangular support pillars, there were no monsters in sight.

The group learnt their lesson and moved cautiously through the room, keeping an eye on the ceiling. It was while they were staring at the ceiling that they failed to notice a giant spider spring off the wall and tackle the swordsman away from the group.

“What the fuck was that.” Nick panicked.

The group ran over to the swordsman and found him grappling with a giant spider. Its legs had to be at least two metres long, but they were incredibly thin. Nick saw that its fangs were dripping with a fluid and that the swordsman had a hand clutching their shoulder. He wasn’t sure where the spider had come from but it seemed to rely on its poison. The creature wasn’t trying to fight directly, it had gotten up and was circling the swordsman. He could see that the swordsman was beginning to stumble, desperately trying to stay facing the monster.

Nick was about to charge in when he realised that he didn’t know if it was the only monster in the room. He got the group to cautiously approach the swordsman and envelop him back into the group, the spider decided the fight wasn’t worth it and slinked off. Nick watched as it used its nightmarishly long legs to slink off, using the pillars in the room to break line of sight. The group followed after it but they quickly realised they couldn’t spot it anymore.

Nick took a second to try and remember the moments they were attacked. The spider had come from the side, so it was either hiding behind or between the pillars, not the ceiling or floor. He looked at the swordsman and realised that the venom was quickly wearing off and they were becoming a bit less lethargic. The group then moved back out from all the pillars, trying to get towards a wall, so that they weren’t just surrounded on all sides by the vision-impairing pillars. It was as the group was making their move that Nick was attacked. He watched in horror as another giant spider sprung off the wall and directly towards him, he barely had time to pull up his arms to defend himself before the creature crashed into him. Thankfully he was a bit more prepared and wasn’t tackled off his feet like the swordsman had been.

Nick got bitten by the monster's fangs and felt the venom get pumped into him, a truly horrifying feeling. Nick wasn’t going to take it lying down though, he used his arms to do something he’d never thought he would. He wrapped them around the spider's body and hugged. He hugged the giant nightmare spider. He then used his strength to muscle the spider to the floor, thankfully the creature wasn’t very strong at all. Its long legs couldn’t support it properly and Nick brought it down, quickly venting his frustration into its body. The spider couldn’t take more than two punches before Nick literally punched through it.

Nick felt the venom seizing his muscles up but he was less affected than the swordsman, it slowed him down but he could shrug most of it off. Brawler's Constitution was showing off its worth. Nick now knew where the spiders were, they were literally on the walls. They were some sort of camouflaged ambusher. He directed the archer to shoot every side of the pillars they could see and they quickly found a whole host of spiders. Thankfully each spider was rather weak and a simple arrow could dispatch each one. Nick inspected the body of one and realised that they rested on their folded up legs and used them as a springboard to pounce on anyone unlucky enough to walk by.

The spider’s must have had some sort of skill or ability because it was almost impossible to distinguish a normal patch of wall from one that had a spider on it until the spider moved or was hit. It was a scary precedent that Nick hadn’t considered up until this point. Maybe it wasn’t just the human’s that could have skills or maybe even classes.

The room was quickly cleared once the group understood the gimmick of the spiders. It was terrifying, but easy enough to deal with. They knew they were done when the room’s light level returned to normal and the chest appeared. The group opened it up and encountered a problem, there were very few pills but an item in the chest. One item between a group of four.

Rina and Paige came over and saw their problem.

“Well, there’s a couple of ways we can do this. Some groups simply sell gear and split the profit between each other. Though the recruits don’t need pills so I’d rather not do it like that. How about we just go on rotation, each member gets an item and we cycle through. With you around Nick we should be finding more than enough items to make it work. You guys can swap items between each other as you see fit.” Rina suggested.

Nick didn’t really have a preference other than actually getting items, so he accepted. Nick got the first item, it was a small axe that went straight into his bag.

The group then set out towards the next room. Neither Paige nor Rina would give any details about the next room but they both had suspicious grins on their faces. Nick knew he was in for an ordeal.