Ben

“This is fucking bullshit!” Elise shouted. “I hate this goddamned place!”

“Please quiet down, we don’t want the ghouls to find us too easily.” Thomas dryly remarked.

In hindsight, the harpies gave us a clue. They fled when the worg approached, that was pretty self-explanatory. But they kept on fleeing all the way to the top of the tower despite many nests being on the floors below, and they hadn’t turned around when the worg left. That had been the clue.

We got a quest not moments after the worg disappeared into the tower, and a Boss Battle forcefield shimmered into existence around the whole damn skyscraper. It started with a wide berth, but was slowly closing in on the tower and would undoubtedly prevent us from flying and fighting outside soon enough.

New Quest! Climb the Spire!

A meeting of villains! A gathering of gangs to form a great horde! A band of unlikely heroes and a champion of the light, trapped between the leaders and the swarms! And it all happens in a decrepit but awe-inspiringly tall building that is burning, swaying and falling apart as we speak!

If you were scared by the packs you just fought, then you’ll shit your pants upon seeing the horde of ghouls that emerged from the basement and is now climbing the tower like madmen as they are tearing everything apart in their wake! You’ll do well to stay ahead of them while they drive you further and further up the tower! Best keep more than a few metres of distance between you and them, they are even faster when they see an appetising snack!

The main objective of this quest is to survive! Well, that is always the case for you cowardly lot, but this time the quest will automatically end without failing once you leave the tower, reach the top or wait things out long enough for the bosses to complete their goals and leave! I’ll even allow a certain something that is usually not going to work, just because! But only if it screws over you-know-who! Completing this quest will reward you with a Silver Quest box!

The real objective is to not be lame and kill all the Bosses. That’s right, ALL OF THEM! Preferably all at once. Completing this objective will merge their Boss Boxes together into one Golden Boss Box!

A different battle theme started playing, one more suited to play for longer than a few minutes without growing stale. It played in the real world instead of in our heads, but the ghouls ignored it. The smoke whipped them into a joyous frenzy, however, so it was barely noticeable.

I stabbed a ghoul in the back of the neck, which I since realised was the best place to stab an undead creature and expect it to stay dead. The first time a kidney surprise didn’t work, turned into a surprise for me instead.

I didn’t get an Assassinate multiplier as I didn’t waste a minute of my time on each of these chumps, but it didn’t matter. In between the backstabbing, the ‘Silent Takedown’ bonus and my general damage modifiers, I was killing these things with one good hit anyway. I was even getting bonuses for the circumstances and number of enemies around, the Unnoticed Kill bonus almost doubling my experience when the other ghouls didn’t notice their friend’s death for a minute or so. Before, it barely gave 10% when I snuck up on two or three chumps out in the streets.

I couldn’t help but have a grin on my face as I crept to my next victim. This was easy, and even a bit fun! Not so much for the others as Elise made clear so vocally, but these ghouls weren’t so bad if you kept out of sight. The walking corpses had a better than human sense of smell somehow, but otherwise they weren’t too perceptive. And unlike animals, they were perfect to be snuck up on and taken out silently!

It was almost as if I was playing Hitman, or some other stealth game. Sneak, creep, kill, repeat! The ghouls even spread out and searched in a way that gave me clear silent kill opportunities, and Elise’s cussing provided a loud distraction that only made things easier for me.

My next target was standing a bit too close to two others, they’d hear his gurgling. I couldn’t exactly cover his mouth with my other hand as I slit his throat, the ghoul wouldn’t even hesitate before biting down, and I already experienced that my shadow form wasn’t strong enough to grapple theirs quite yet. Not to mention, the quest made it abundantly clear that I couldn’t dawdle any more.

I took out my Renderer Knife and my Blade of Shadow, and ran into the room. I chopped off the nearest ghoul’s head before turning into my shadow form. I was hidden before the head hit the ground with a thud and startled the other two, one of which was standing in the light.

My shadow stabbed his in the neck, and he grunted in surprise. I leveraged my blade’s 2D shadow to go up a bit, and the ghoul’s head came clean off in the real world. Weird 2D physics were fun.

The last ghoul was standing in the darkness where she cast no shadow to stab, so I returned to my physical form and slashed at her from behind. She spotted me and managed to block my attack with her wrists in the nick of time, saving her unlife at the expense of her left arm being lopped off entirely and a gash exposing bone on the other.

I pressed my attack, aiming for the face. The ghoul snarled and grunted, forced to defend when she clearly wanted to attack and bite me instead. Fortunately she wasn’t clever enough to figure out that my real goal was to keep her from alerting the others, and that she could win if only she screamed.

I finally managed to get her with a wide slash that took off everything above the jaw, and she fell down. I quickly looted the corpses of their gold and trashy items that were literally labelled ‘trash’, waiting in anticipation for the notification that the perfectionist in me craved.

I did a silent fist pump in the air when I got the Unnoticed Kill notifications. I hadn’t alerted anyone with my fight just now and these deaths would go unnoticed for at least a minute. Success!

Alright, I promised myself those were the last three, now I had to hurry and start climbing up! The others were already rising as fast as they could outside, trying to subvert as many floors as possible before the forcefield would push them inside.

___ ___ ___ ___

Darryl

I was all alone again.

After Shalanter sacrificed a ghoul, he started climbing up the support pillar and quickly left my minimap’s range. A handful of ghouls that burned brighter called Emberus Dismemberus Ghouls followed suit, and the others had worked themselves into a frenzy before rushing out en masse.

And so I was alone again.

I knew that the others were in trouble. I saw the quest appear, and the mention of multiple bosses meant that this was even worse than I thought. Thomas gave me the gist of what was going down upstairs, and as usual he was pretty matter-of-fact about it.

But what he told me made it clear that things were quite dire. Cuddles was dead, Elise was looking pretty roughed up and we were apparently locked in by a massive force field. Not to mention, Thomas contacted Trevor the House Security Coward for immediate emergency support.

Thomas: Trevor, we may need some healing and support real soon. Are you available?

Alania: HOLY SHIT HOW DO YOU GUYS KEEP FINDING THESE THINGS! I KEEP LOOKING FOREVER AND DON’T FIND SHIT!

Alexa: We just went to the tallest tower around. *Smug*

Alania: Damn, that’s smart! You’re smart!

Mr. Geruet: Please don’t clutter the chat with chitchat when people are asking for help and/or are in life-threatening situations.

Alania: Shit! Right, sorry.

Trevor: I saw the quest appear, seems like you guys can indeed use the help. I’m currently watching over some guys fighting a Neighbourhood Boss, but it’s easier than expected. I’ll have some mana to spare in a bit.

Then there was the quest chat, which was apparently a thing. We hadn’t gotten one of those down in the Krutnik nest, probably because Miho and her party had a different quest to complete. This time however we had other crawlers to communicate with.

Grey: This is bullshit! We’re dead! We’re so dead!

Thomas: Calm down, describe your situation first.

Sergei: There’s three of us, we’re outside.

Sergei: We were following this big gang of goblins, hoping to snipe some kills once they encountered another group and started fighting, or maybe use this Fireball lottery ticket we got. One-time use, 50% chance to cast a 5th level Fireball, 50% chance to heal them. Why not use it when these bastards aren’t injured anyway? And run away before they attack us in earnest.

Sergei: Then the forcefield came down, moments after the tower started smoking. It’s goddamned egg-shaped to make sure that we got caught in it! Now it’s rapidly shrinking, forcing us to creep in closer and closer! We can’t stealth this fast without us moving into the open or making some sound eventually, and once those goblins notice us we’re dead meat!

Thomas: We’re currently on the 26th floor and climbing rapidly, but I can provide you with a distraction. Do you have poison immunities of some sort?

Grey: We’re fucking dead! What does it even matter!?

Thomas: Sergei, could you calm down Grey please?

Tracy: Grey’s with me, not him. There’s two of us, we’re on the 14th floor.

Tracy: You’re those guys that did the music before, right? Lured the ghouls away, thought we caught a lucky break.

Grey: And then this fucking happens! I can already hear those goddamn ghouls yipping below us!

Tracy: You guys must’ve missed us. We’ve been slowly clearing this tower for two days now, focusing on those squirrels and centipedes while avoiding the ghouls. Grey has a buff he can use for a minute every hour, and we really need it to take on four or five of those ghouls at once. Which means we wait for the cooldown to run out before we move up a floor after one of those fights.

Thomas: Focus on climbing, you need to stay ahead of that horde.

Thomas: Sergei and friends, if you have poison resistance then go into the basement. There’s poisonous fog down there, but it will be less deadly than the hordes. You’ll just be caught in between the goblins and ghouls if you climb the tower.

Sergei: Holy shit! Those ice bombs are killing goblins like crazy! Nice! We’ll try sneaking around their left flank while they’re panicking!

Thomas: I’ll focus fire on their left flank to herd them to the right.

Darryl: I’m in the basement, but it’s safe for now. All the ghouls left. Be careful of this thing called a Restricting Vine. It’s still around here somewhere.

Darryl: There is a borough boss here called Shalanter, he’s currently climbing up this large shaft in the centre of the tower.

Tracy: The one that is on fire?

Darryl: Yup.

I scrolled back to Shalanter’s description and copy pasted it in the chat.

Elise: Shit, then it’s not just neighbourhood bosses. Those we might’ve been able to handle even if it was a bunch of them.

Elise: There’s a flying worg here, and I assume those goblins have a neighbourhood boss of their own. I can see another group moving in from the other side of the tower, they look like those boar demon things we fought before. Harpies probably also have a boss. So at least five bosses, then.

Grey: Who cares!? We’re dead either way!

Thomas: The quest specifically mentions we don’t need to kill any, we can just avoid them.

Thomas: We keep climbing; we need to reach the top. Probably been dealt the deadliest hand, as we have to fight all the harpies up there and at least one or two bosses. Sergei, seek shelter in the basement. Avoiding is your victory condition. Tracy, keep climbing and maybe you can find a place to hide. If not, just climb fast enough and trace our steps as we kill everything in our way.

Tracy: We haven’t seen any good places to hide yet. I have a spell that allows us to rest with lower chances to be disturbed, but that’s not going to work against a swarm of ghouls actively tearing through the tower looking for us.

Ben: What about your Firestorm? Can’t it deal with the armies outside? We could just descend and wait at the bottom if all the outside armies are gone.

Thomas: Not enough mana, even before I bombed the goblins.

Tatiana: Firestorm? That sounds powerful. And you’re just destroying these goblins with your mortar shells too! Are you a top 10 player?

Thomas: Far from it. Distance increases my damage, and I got a good caster class. Are you moving?

Sergei: We’re currently hiding; a whole bunch of goblins are running past us. Anyway, I’m a ranger of sorts, stealth and the ability to tank if needed. Tatiana is a pure archer with good stealth too, and Bors is a shadowmancer. He’ll eventually be a good summoner and we’ll be able to snipe targets while his shadows tank for us, but right now he’s just helping us be stealthy.

Sergei: We had this whole plan of being a stealth group that takes down strong foes and large groups fast and safely before they can fight back, but of course this fucking dungeon throws stuff like this at us!

Thomas gave a quick summary of our team’s powers, and after a few minutes Tracy found some time to type in some stuff. She and Grey didn’t sound very impressive, being a burst barbarian and a support caster. As I had nothing better to do, I described my own race and class to them.

There were a few more messages coming through the chat after that, descriptions of everyone’s progress. My party climbed all the way to the 32th floor before the forcefield forced them inside, Ben being about three floors behind them but apparently in little danger.

We got a notification of Sergei’s death a minute later, and Bors followed suit. Sneaking through a completely exposed door in broad daylight had always been the hardest part of their mission, so their chances had been slim once the goblins spotted them and gave chase.

Grey cussed and ranted in the chat for a few minutes about how the ghouls were climbing too fast to stay ahead of, followed by Tracy bidding us good luck surviving. Their death notifications were seconds apart from one another.