Steven appeared on Floor 3 after a few seconds of the black vacuum of teleportation. He was tired and hungry, but wanted to finish the next floor before going back to town to rest. After a deep breath he had lost his appetite completely. Each breath he took felt like he was inhaling steam from a boiling pot of stale water containing dead flesh and rotten garlic.

Floor 3 was a swamp. His feet sank a bit in the mud of the ground, which had sparse patches of short grass every four or five feet. He stood in the middle of a small muddy island that contained the Red Eye. The reddish brown mud sloped down a few feet until it was covered by water at the edges. The dark green algae topped water extended nearly twenty more feet outside the island until it was obscured by damp tree trunks that grew high, their droopy green canopies blocked out any view of the sky. The trees grew close together, seemingly to act like a wall of the dungeon floor.

He had a clear path of mud leading from the Red Eye island, and it curved a bit to the right so that the tree trunk wall of the floor blocked the view further down. He was glad the heat of the desert was gone, but would gladly take sand over mud.

There was absolutely no natural sound in the swamp, so Steven’s every squelching footstep seemed to echo off the tree trunks while he followed the path to the next area. It was another muddy island, much bigger than the island with the Red Eye, close to sixty or seventy feet in diameter. He noticed a few vines hanging from the tree canopy that nearly dangled all the way to the ground and five large mossy boulders sunken into the mud across the arena. There was another path leading away on the opposite side of the island, covered in a thick growth of vines or bramble that would likely prevent him from running through without tackling the area’s challenge.

However, he couldn’t see any sort of threat as he peered into the canopy. The vines made him think there would be some sort of monkey or ape waiting for him to step foot into the arena. He inspected the watery tree line and saw no signs of movement. The water was obscured by algae, so he couldn’t even look into its depths.

He really hoped he wouldn’t be swarmed by giant mosquitos as he stepped off the narrow muddy path onto the new island. Standing a small step onto the island, he waited for an attack. None came.

He slowly squelched to the nearest hanging vine and gently pulled on it. The vine held firm, but creaked a bit as it stretched a small amount at the tug. Making his way to the center of the island where one of the five boulders sat, he noticed a slight rumbling through the muddy ground and stopped to peer around. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end as rumbling stopped and the silence returned.

Squatting next to the boulder, he found that it came up to his chest. It had probably sunk two or three feet into the mud. He heard a squelching sound from his right and looked over to see two of the boulders wiggle a bit. Looking back at the boulder he was squatted by, he saw a circular end of a tube pointed right at his face and something slammed into the bridge of his nose throwing his head back causing him to fall backwards into the mud.

Pain blossomed in his face and his eyes watered as he scrambled backwards like a crab. He felt thunks in the mud around him and loud sucking sounds as he wiped a muddy hand over his face. Peering through his tears, he saw the reddish brown mud on his hand covered by blood. He opened his mouth to take a breath and immediately tasted metal. Holding his forearm to his chin he closed his mouth and could see blood freely running down the arm to drip onto the ground.

The thunks in mud became closer and he was beginning to be hit with specks of mud. He blinked furiously to clear his vision and continued to claw backwards until he felt his hand splash into water. One final flurry of blinks cleared his vision enough to see five turtles, each with a fire hose nozzle sticking out of the top of their shells, line up while they shot black blurs at him.

The thunks in the mud quickened in pace and sprayed mud up into his face. He shielded his eyes as the first projectile hit him on the chitinous armor covering his shin. It pierced the armor, and could feel it up against his skin. He wasn’t able to inspect what hit him. The machine gun like shots from the turtles soon hit him more than the mud as they zeroed in on his chest. He screamed as the projectiles tore into his stomach.

He stopped screaming when the projectiles tore apart his lungs and the black nothing took him.

When he respawned at the Red Eye he immediately sat down before the second wave of agony took him. He screamed as he felt the imaginary holes punch into his pelvis and continue to work their way up to his chest. Cradling his chest, he tossed and spasmed on the mud until he could finally breathe again in quick gasping spurts. Finally, the pain left him and he relaxed on his back, breathing in the stale air.

He was slightly concerned that he could be killed on Floor 3, even with his attributes as high as they were. The projectiles that the turtles fired at him were faster than his dexterity and intelligence could keep up with, and he had no idea what had hit him. They were black, hard, and sharp. Thankfully, it took a few moments for the turtles to hone in on their target. Hopefully he could move fast enough to keep them firing wildly. He also needed to keep them moving, as their shots increased in pace when they stopped.

Squelching through the mud to the edge of the water, he scooped the algae away quickly and looked into murky liquid. Satisfied there wasn’t a threat lurking there, he washed his arms and face of the mud he had collected during his respawn.

He walked down the path through the silent swamp until he was at the edge of the next area. Looking at the closest boulder, he cast identify.

Swamp Cannon Turtle (Earth)

Mana 45

Strength - 1

Dexterity - 1

Endurance - 5

Intelligence - 7

Wisdom - 1

Mimicries - 2

Based on the statistics of the turtle, Steven came to the conclusion that the projectiles they fired were actually a type of magic made physical. He figured endurance could only do so much. On Earth, there were guns that could fire through metal. It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume magic attacks could be as potent, especially when fired as rapidly as the five turtles managed.

And now he knew what was in the area. He just had to break open some turtles.

He backed up nearly twenty feet from the edge of the turtle arena and visualized his right hand as a pincer, casting Partial Mimicry: Pincer when he was satisfied with the image. Waiting for the red dust to clear, he leaned forward and started to run towards the turtles, increasing his speed until he burst onto the larger island at a sprint.

Two steps into the arena he jumped and stuck out his leg towards the center boulder, empowering his foot with absorption. His momentum from his increased speed due to dexterity carried him easily through the boulder, barely feeling it burst when his foot made contact. He landed near the other side of the island and slid across the mud into the bramble and vine covered exit path, feeling a few thorns tear into his shirt as he pulled away.

He didn’t get to see the damage done to the turtle, as it had already been reduced to the red dust being vacuumed into his implant, but he watched as the other four turtles wriggled free of their muddy beds. Jogging over to a turtle to his left, he watched it lift out of the ground and openings in its shell allowed for its head, tail, and limbs to poke out. The fire nozzle shaped cannon emerged from the top of its shell last as he walked around the turtle. He noticed that the cannon could easily track his movements when he was in front of the turtle, but when he circled around back, the cannon had stopped tracking him and stayed pointing towards the side until he came into view on the other side, which caused the cannon to whiz over and attempt to track him again.

Staying behind the turtle, he reached out with a pincer and clipped the cannon off near the shell. He smiled. He could easily disarm the turtles and then take his time stomping them. The other turtles weren’t firing on him as he kept the closest turtle between himself and the others.

Either the turtles wanted to avoid friendly fire or they were too busy orienting themselves for a slow charge. Regardless, he dug his foot into the mud and dashed towards the next closest turtle. He heard a few thunks into the mud as the turtles opened fire, and reached out with a pincer to snap off the cannon from the new turtle's shell.

Without stopping, he angled himself towards the next turtle and when in range clipped its cannon off. He veered towards the last turtle and within a moment all of the remaining turtles had been disabled. Walking with squelching footfalls, he went to the center of the island to wait for the turtles to come to him and dismissed his pincer.

They only had 5 endurance, so he could easily finish them and tried to think of new ways to use his mimicries. He had yet to use his stinger ability, so he imagined a thin four inch stinger emerging from his palm and cast Partial Mimicry: Ant Stinger. A hole in his palm exploded into red dust that reformed into a stinger that looked like a slightly curved needle.

The turtles were close enough now to slowly reach out their heads as they tried to bite him. The head of the turtle was roughly the size of a football, and with its jaws spread, it could easily fit the width of his leg in its mouth.

But he wasn’t going to let that happen. He hopped to the side of the turtle, away from the others, and slapped his stingered hand against the turtle’s neck three times. On the third slap, the stinger broke off and Steven yelped a bit at the pain. He watched as a tiny bit of red dust float out of the turtle’s neck and back into his palm. The stinger didn’t reform, but his hand was whole and normal again. The small hole left in the turtle’s neck oozed blood and a small amount of yellowish liquid.

Realization dawned on him. Ants have venom in their stings. That must be why the mimicry was governed by his wisdom attribute as well as his strength. The turtle began to thrash its head back and forth, as it withdrew its legs and tail into its shell. It started to pull its head in as well, but it drooped forward onto the mud before the motion was completed.

He wanted to deal with the other turtles quickly, so that he could check his new attributes and mimicries before continuing down the path to the next area. Imagining a large sword held in his right hand, he cast Mimic Growth: Greatsword and watched as the sword erupted out in a cloud of red. He grabbed the end of the handle with his left arm and raised the sword above his head. Bringing the sword down three times, he ended the lives of the remaining turtles and glanced over to the vine covered entrance to the next path. The vines and bramble were withdrawing back into the trees.

Dismissing his growth, he tapped on his implant to check his status page.

Strength - 28 (28)

Dexterity - 27 (27)

Endurance - 35 (35)

Intelligence - 20 (20)

Wisdom - 15 (15)

Pain - 1.3 (.8)

He felt that his stats were coming around nicely, but his endurance in particular was increasing the fastest while wisdom was lagging behind. Making a mental note to ask Garth about what the attributes actually did, he swiped the page over to his Mimicry Codex and noticed there was another tab on top, in between his mimicries and growths tab. It was Elemental Mimicries.