Time until level collapse: 3 days 20 hours 48 minutes.

“Her name is Kiko, after my cat. I just click here to feed her, and here to clean up.” Miho explained to Alexa, who was sitting on her shoulder studying the tiny screen of the Tamagotchi.

“And then what?” Alexa asked.

“Then I wait, and after a few hours I get to feed her again.” Miho said.

“That seems kind of lame. I assume that speeding it up is a microtransaction?” Alexa said. “Does it have co-op?”

Miho laughed, assuming that Alexa was joking.

“We’re almost at the outskirts.” I said. “Get ready, some of these bastards are stealthy buggers.”

“I hope this is going to be more exciting than before.” Alexa said. “Yesterday was kind of boring. There were like three stronger guys, sure, but even those were easy peasy for us.”

Miho and I exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything. We knew bet-

Livia: That intelligent Tannaruk with the wall climbing and enhanced dung throwing was easy for Darryl, not for you. You almost got yourself killed, staying in the open like you did.

“I was playing guitar! I can’t just fly away and find a good place to hide while performing! I’d lose focus!” Alexa rebutted. “You wouldn’t want me to lose fans because I screw up the notes, do you?”

Livia followed our example this time, and Alexa huffed.

“Almost died, my ass! Darryl’s like a super-tank, I was never in any danger.” Alexa muttered rebelliously.

“Let’s just hope we succeed on the loot this time.” Miho changed the subject. “We got some ectoplasm, but only the temporary weapon imbuing stuff.”

“Yeah! We really want to find that one super-drop! We’d be so rich!” Alexa said, immediately determined and on-mission again.

“Heads up!” I said, taking out my shield and my new town guard spear. I put the bayonet on it, making it even more pointless than its description already said it was. The knife barely even made it past the sword’s guard, well shy of its tip coming near mobs I’d stab. At least it wasn’t in the way.

A giant sea urchin, one of the janitors of this floor, charged us. It glowed yellow, and used what I assumed was some kind of charge ability. It spun rapidly and turned into a blur of long black spikes, turning the spectre’s random ability into an even more deadly attack thanks to its host’s anatomy.

I crouched down to account for the creature’s small size, and the urchin crashed into my shield. Its spikes flew everywhere, and it almost died as two lodged themselves deep into its flesh.

I stood back up again and stashed my shield and spear, as I looked down on the dying and probably immobilised mob. I took out Elise’s bat, and readied myself to kill the spectre once it popped out. Behind me, Miho shapeshifted into a woolf to finish it off.

“Haha! What was that, a rumbly tumbly attack!? Lame!” Alexa said. The urchin’s health dropped a bit. She had been making fun of any mob she saw when not singing yesterday too, and while it wasn’t exactly top-tier roasting material, at least she was consistently using it. “Did you see that, Darryl? I think it tripped when it tried to charge us!”

Miho put the creature out of its misery, and I quickly whacked the spectre as it came out. No goop.

“Alright. Let’s find the next one.” I shrugged.

___ ___ ___ ___

Corpse of a Skulljaw Wolf

This mob was killed by a Giant Centipede.

I looted the poor pelt and then picked up the body. “Just more corpses around here. These mobs might’ve been killed two days ago for all we know. It looks somewhat decomposed.”

“Same here.” Miho said, looting a different corpse a bit away. “Haven’t seen any Haunted mobs in a bit. Just the occasional straggler or group.”

“I think the area ran out of mobs already.” Alexa said. “We should explore further out, not stick around here looting trash off of corpses. Pretty sure only the urchins are left, and that’s because they respawn every night. The haunted mobs kill even those guys faster than they can keep up.”

Livia: Possible, but unlikely. We’d be seeing more mobs with multiple spectres if that were the case. It’s possible that the spectres are migrating outwards, but most of them should still be centred around town. You guys took out a lot of the mobs from the direct surroundings when you collapsed that tower, so there’s a ring of barely populated area around town that makes this town more attractive for at least a bit longer. There’s a lot of NPCs in every settlement that the spectres want to chew through before moving on.

Livia: If you’re not finding any haunted mobs, then they’re disappearing somehow.

“Well, they’re not around here, at least.” I said. I checked the inventory of a Bugaboo bear and found it empty. “You know; I think I agree with Alexa on this one. Gathering corpses is kind of a waste of our time, we should start looking for bigger clusters of haunted mobs.”

“Maybe we could go sell some more junk again? We still have plenty.” Miho offered.

Livia: Don’t bother. You pretty much cleaned out the general stores of their gold yesterday, and they don’t conjure new coin out of thin air. As NPCs usually don’t use the shops, once they’re out of cash that’s usually it for them until a crawler comes in and starts buying.

Livia: Combine that with Ben and Tatiana stealing almost everything in their stores both before and after you guys visited, and the shopkeepers are probably having a small financial meltdown right now. They’re not going to be buying more junk.

“Besides, I think we’ve got enough gold for now.” I said.

Livia: Trust me, you can never have enough gold. The things that matter, like base upgrades and the proper weapons they sell in the Vanquisher Churches, can drain your whole hoard in one purchase and then reveal that the next upgrade comes with an additional 0 attached to it.

“Well, I mean that right now we’ve got enough gold, and no source of income available that is worth the time investment.” I said.

We gathered quite a lot of gold yesterday. Charisma was kind of our dump stat, everyone but Elise and Miho having less than 10 points, but our little bard had a lot of it. In between the three levels she gained since the tower and her equipment, she had 45 points now. More than enough to avoid the shopkeepers ripping us off, though her crass haggling habits weren’t perfect for getting the best price for our goods.

Then again, we had more than enough junk to offload, so it wasn’t as if it mattered. Ben stole most of it back an hour later, so we could even buy some of the stuff that he couldn’t steal because the shopkeepers were always keeping an eye on it. The junk we haggled would just end up back in our inventory anyway, just with a ‘stolen goods’ tag on it.

Just like our videogames, Borant seemed to find it completely logical that we could loot everything that wasn’t nailed down after we killed their owners, but when something was stolen then it was magically branded as contraband for life.

There were unfortunately only three specialised stores in West Creek Town, and just one of them kinda mattered for us. Well, for Miho. The Herbalism shop suited her special race boons and skills, and it was a treasure trove of knowledge, recipes and herbs.

Ben cleared it out of most of its stock the day before we went shopping, including the stuff in the back and an Herbalism Workbench for Miho. As a result, the old lady behind the counter was more than willing to buy most of the herbs we had and give us discounts on the recipes.

Despite her having those at hand written down, they didn’t seem to exist until we bought them from her. At least, they weren’t visibly in her inventory according to Ben. So we bought them, and then sold stuff until she ran out of gold again. After we sold all the herbs in our inventories, we sent out a message in our massive group. We sold all the miscellaneous herbs they had lying around and sent them back the gold we got for it. Ben hadn’t stolen those herbs yet, if only because they became more valuable after the herbalist processed them into consumables.

On the one hand it was kind of mean, using the herbalist as a desperate labourer to make us stuff and then steal the fruits of her labours. On the other hand, her current store, job and memories only existed for a week or so, so it wasn’t as if she was going to be troubled by this for more than a few more days.

The other two stores were less useful. There was a Wands and Staves place, but without Thomas we no longer had much use for it. The other one was for fist weapons specifically. Our old friend and older adversary Corey was very interested in their selection, but as it turned out he was the only one fighting bare fisted even in our massive party. So I PM’d him the descriptions of all the stuff in store, and he sent us the gold for two of the items.

Of course, Ben also sent him a buttload of the stolen stuff that wasn’t behind glass. Vitrines were his kryptonite, he could only steal stuff that was out in the open and his lockpicking skills were nigh non-existent. His shadow’s reach didn’t actually allow him to pass through transparent objects like glass.

“Actually.” I pondered as we continued to wander through the outskirts looting corpses and looking for non-existent foes. “Maybe there is a worthwhile way for us to make money. Or actually, for Alexa. Can she be a street performer, do NPCs give money if she lays out a hat and starts playing?”

Livia: You need a permit for that. Without it, you’re using a combat skill on civilians and the guards attack you. But once you have a permit, NPCs will indeed start giving gold. Not really worthwhile, though. That said, the AI generates random quests when you do those things. Like that Silver Quest floating around to ‘Find the mysterious shoplifter.’. Ben’s probably going to have a few random encounters with bounty hunter NPCs soon enough.

Ben: Not if they don’t know who they’re looking for! The shopkeepers haven’t seen my face yet! The NPCs won’t know that it’s me despite having no clues, right? RIGHT!?

Livia: As long as you don’t sell those stolen goods or openly wear or use them, probably not.

“Being a street performer would be a means for her to train her skills, and we’re barely finding any mobs to use them on the normal way anyhow. So it’s not as if she’ll grind slower this way.” I said.

Livia: True.

Livia: You’ll want to go to the Mayor’s Office. They probably won’t be too cooperative without a bribe, but we could at least inquire on what kind of outrageous demand they’ll have.

Livia: Don’t attack the Mayor! If you kill the Mayor, you become the Mayor. It gives you some tax income and influence over the guards and various NPCs, but with this season’s short floor duration it’s not really worth it. Meanwhile you’ll trigger several quests and responsibilities, and that’s if you manage to kill the Mayor at all. The amount of minions and the battle arena are not necessarily balanced to be fair, unlike regular bosses.

“Don’t worry, Livia. We’re not going to attack the Mayor.” I said.

Alexa took out her tiny violin and played the ‘It’s always sunny in Philadelphia’ theme.

“No Alexa, we’re not.” I said.

Darryl: That goes for you too, Ben. No attacking the Mayor.

Ben: Or should we?

Darryl: *Stern stare*

Ben: Fine. We won’t kill them yet.

I sighed. I missed Thomas, he used to be the one saying these things.

I wasn’t sure about Tatiana yet, but I feared that Miho and I were the only responsible adults left now. Mentally, and physically too now that I thought about it.

I started walking back to town. “We’re just going to ask if we can get a permit for Alexa to perform. If they say no or ask for something too outrageous, we just leave.”

“Hey Darryl, what’s your downtime activity?” Alexa asked.

I threw her a questioning look.

“Well, you can’t really gain many more levels around here, unless we start grinding guards or Borough Bosses.” Alexa said.

Livia: Not before you finish raising all your skills to lvl5, young lady.

“And you’ve still got like three or four days left before we can go down to the next floor with higher level mobs.” Alexa said, ignoring the comment. “You can’t just sit around doing nothing all that time. You’ve got to find something to craft or tinker with, too!”

Livia: She’s not wrong. Time shouldn’t be wasted around here, especially this season.

I shrugged and thought about what I could make that would be useful. Alexa was right, I did have the time to start working on that now.