"So long as the Guild will keep us safe," Chloe assured Astrid for at least the fifth time, "we won't tell anybody what happened. I don't know what sort of Skills other nobles may have to learn what happened here, but as long as I can help it, you won't be hurt for saving my life."
The others all nodded their agreement, even Lancelot, the mentally broken Archer.
"We appreciate it," Astrid spoke for the rest of the Wanderers. "I would certainly prefer not having to come out and confront enemies on every side, and surely, if you approach the Guild, they'll keep you safe."
Though Astrid found herself less able to believe what she'd said, she spoke with enough confidence that nobody seemed to think it was worth commenting on it. Chloe then wrapped Astrid in a tight hug, and when she pulled back, her eyes were misty.
"You're my hero," Chloe repeated before she turned, and, taking Lancelot by the hand, strode into the cave that every delver present could feel would take them back to the surface.
Astrid didn't even try to hold back the glow of pride in her chest at being called a hero. That was what she had always wanted to be, and, though she hadn't been able to save everybody, everybody she'd been in position to save was now retreating to a position of safety.
"Now that that mission's done, any reason not to push forward and get those levels?" Even as Astrid asked it, she knew what the answer was going to be.
Four faces grinned back at her, and Felix, with his left arm held high, declared, "I'll lead the way." Something about the tone of his voice made Astrid look at him a little longer, but he strode off before she could ask anything.
Astrid dismissed her worries as the party wandered off under Felix's direction, looking for the next monsters to fight.
***
Muti was, of course, the first of the five to hit level 36. After evaluating the differences between upgrading Dread Master and Shadow Leap, she settled on Dread Master.
"Shadow Leap will become less costly for me to use while also doing more damage," she explained, "but its primary change will be in the distance which it can traverse. With Dread Master, however, I will be able to better share even Shadow Leap itself with all of you. As we go into new floors, compounding Ambusher's Aura across all of us will be even more effective. In addition, the Iron tier of Dread Master makes it less mana intensive for me to share my Skills with you."
The party immediately allowed Muti some time to experiment with how much of her mana was consumed while using Dread Master to share Ambusher's Aura with the whole party. The Barbarian didn't try to hold back her excitement as she realized that, sharing a passive like that could now be sustained by her for an hour without exhausting her mana reserves. When Skandr suggested to her that she now put more practice into using her mana sensitivity to recover, she laughed.
"I have attempted to do what you have said, and though I progress in small steps, I do grow stronger. I suspect that once my Self-Mastery crosses one hundred in three more levels, I shall see a marked improvement."
"I've explained this before, you big lug," Benedict grumbled. "Just as you've gained a greater understanding of your stamina with each of your physical attributes crossing one hundred, every one of your mental attributes is tied to your mana sensitivity and recovery rate."
Muti bared her teeth in response to that, though she knew it was the truth. "My people have always said that there are things that you other races neglect to think of with regards to mana's interactivity with the physical attributes. How else would the Hordes be able to threaten your walls? Mana is the lifeblood of power, and strength is the only way to win a war, as even the greatest Tactician or General cannot guide Bronzes to victory over Steels."
"Well, until you figure out what that is, you should develop a little bit of those mental attributes you've seem to neglect." The tired conversation and discussion was quickly left behind as Benedict and Felix were the next to reach the level 36 watershed.
Benedict was excited, yet still somehow disappointed when he revealed what his new Skill was. He and Skandr were both the last two members of the party not to have filled every one of their Skill slots, and he'd received the Skill he'd hoped for. Restful Reverberations, which made any performance he made, vocal, musical, or otherwise, so long as it made a sound, accelerate the rate of recovery of everybody who heard it, so long as he didn't consider them an enemy. The source of disappointment for him was that it was offered only at Bronze. The reasoning for that disappointment was obvious, as the potential to get a boon was alluring, but it wasn't to be, Astrid supposed.
In Felix's case, he decided to upgrade Jaguar's Pride to Iron, its name becoming Tiger's Pride.
His reasoning was simple, saying, "The extra attributes while grounded would be worthwhile from Immovable Stance, but the changes in Pride are more important."
Those mentioned changes were to improve his previous passive 5% increase to Alacrity to 10%, as well as increasing the 10% increase to Power and Alacrity upon activation to 20% while also marking himself as an even greater threat to the monsters around himself. The way he carried himself when he activated Tiger's Pride for the first time made him seem even more bestial. Astrid couldn't help but remember the few times that Felix's continuously changing attitudes had impacted the party. Now, they were so close, just over a week until the Trials were over, and she couldn't decide if she wanted to possibly upset the current balance of the party and bring something up or wait until they finished.
Every day, the Guardian was angrier, more violent, and with each of these fights since he had gotten his left arm back, he was more ferocious, less restrained. He continued to do his work as a frontliner admirably most of the time, but he was more focused on striking back than on keeping the fights controlled. Instead of the precise flow of the fight that he'd maintained before, it was more volatile, and Astrid had to react more quickly to the ever shifting tides of battle. Finally, just before she and Skandr reached level 36, she couldn't hold herself back anymore when something permanent came close to happening.
While she and Muti were taking care of two of the rocs that had swooped into the canyon they were traversing, Felix was supposed to be taking care of the other two, keeping them on him while Skandr prepared a spell to deal with the two closest. Instead of that happening, Felix overcommitted and lost the attention of one of the massive eagles. It swept its wings forward and sent a flurry of wind blades at the front \liner before whipping around and throwing itself at the two men on the back line. Felix hardly noticed his attacker disappearing as he dodged the worst of the attacks, roared, and threw himself at the other roc's face, his axe chopping into flesh wherever he could reach it.
Fortunately, as Astrid dispatched her enemy, Skandr remained in control, and, instead of finishing his spell to its fullest potency, unleashed it towards the approaching monster. Lightning exploded from his hands and coated the flying bird, dropping it from the sky as its muscled betrayed it. The conjured lightning storm that had begun to flicker into life overhead disappeared, and Astrid dealt the killing blow on her enemy before rushing over to Benedict and Skandr's aid.
Shortly thereafter, the party dealt with the other monsters, and Astrid took a couple calming breaths before she turned and spoke.
"Felix, come here for a minute."
Though he cocked his head, the Guardian didn't question the request and stepped forward. When Astrid led him another fifteen meters or so away from everybody else, she could see in his bearing that he no longer was so unconcerned about what she was going to say.
Finally, she turned and asked him, "I don't care what exactly you have to respond with, but I need you to be honest and tell me what's going on."
Felix met her gaze and, after a few seconds' hesitation, decided to answer her question honestly and replied, "I need to keep up."
"I don't believe you," she shook her head. "You've always kept up, and if this is going to be you saying something about how you got injured, it's been a week since that happened, nothing more. You were pissy and aggressive before that, and I need to know what's going on. I don't wanna have this conversation, but I am technically the leader, and I need to know why you've changed so much."
"But you all do so much more in the fights than me. Just look—"
"That's a crock, and you know it," Benedict interjected himself. "I've known you for years, and in the past few months, not even months but weeks, you've become an angry, vindictive person. It's been grating on me and everybody else, and if you're going to lie to us or yourself about it, just know it isn't going to do anything. So fess up."
"Benedict," Astrid said, "I brought Felix over here so I could talk to him, not so that you could. Kindly butt out and shut up."
He raised both hands in a mock apology as he turned away from Felix and resumed obviously eavesdropping. Felix took several quick breaths through his nose, the movement obviously failing to truly calm him down.
"Skandr," Astrid said as she turned to the others, "can you make sure our big-mouthed Bard stays far enough away that he isn't actively eavesdropping on us? I don't want to get too far from anybody, and I trust you to do what you need to." The Storm Wizard gave her a quick salute, threw his arm around Benedict's neck, and pulled him forward another five or ten meters. Then, the faint roar of rushing wind filled the area and made eavesdropping, at least at their respective levels, much more difficult. Astrid knew that Muti would be able to overhear everything, but she trusted the Ambusher to not say anything.
"I don't need a resolution right now," Astrid said, more uncomfortable than ever and wanting to be done with the conversation, "but I need to know why it is that you're acting this way and then we can figure it out. We haven't all taken injuries in these fights, but you're not being as great of a frontliner as you always have been. You're introducing greater risks to the party, and this has been apparent since our interaction with the Hiveguards back on the sixteenth floor, or whatever it was. I hate having this hang over our heads, and I want to help you out, but frankly, I think this is a personal problem that you're making influence the rest of us. If there's something I can help with, let me know, I'm always ready and willing to help. If it's something in your head that you need to fix, then fix it."
Felix didn't answer at first, and Astrid reached a hand out to clap on his shoulder and finish the talk, but he looked up and spoke. "Honestly, I don't know. I'm angrier, meaner, and sometimes I just want to hurt things and people. I wanted to kill that Knight earlier, and not to keep myself or other people safe. I was disappointed when I got hurt and couldn't finish the job myself."
Felix began to say something more but cut himself off. He swallowed uncomfortably, and then shrugged.
"I get it, at least a little," Astrid admitted. "I don't always want to kill people, but I've always been a pretty angry person. I think that's part of it, that you've always been a pretty even and calm person, and now you're… not. If there was something I could do to help you, I'd be happy to, but part of what's made the Wanderers so successful is that while Muti is bloodthirsty and I'm impulsive, we have a frontliner between us who keeps us both steady and focused. Right now, we're barely hanging on without being injured. We need you to be better, because if not, I might just pull everybody back and call the Trials as a whole an accelerated leveling program and nothing more."
"But we're so close, that would be a waste!" Felix protested.
"It would be a waste of time to do that," Astrid agreed before she continued, "but it would be a waste of life for somebody to die because I decided to ignore these signs. Did you see how close that last fight was for Benedict and Skandr? Or were you so focused on winning your fight that you lost view of everything else?"
To Felix's credit, there was no snapping back. Astrid knew that she would have become defensive when confronted like that, but Felix calmed himself. Instead of replying in anger, he finally looked at where the other roc corpse was. Instead of near him, or on the frontlines, it was behind, where Benedict and Skandr had stood during the fight.
"You're right, I'll calm myself down as best as I can. Focus more on the fight as a whole instead of my own conflict. I'm sorry."
"Good man," Astrid replied, unsure of what else she would say or do as she turned to walk back to the rest of the party. She didn't pay any attention as Muti strode closer to Felix and whispered something under her breath to the Guardian. They spoke for a short while, and Astrid re-gathered the party, giving everybody a minute or so to gather themselves before she gestured towards the canyon they had been going down.
"We're getting close to the floor guardian, and Skandr and I only ones who haven't hit that next level. We need what, two more fights for the next level?"
The Storm Wizard nodded as Astrid rolled her shoulders. Without further ado, the party strode off to the next fights, and though the monsters they faced were no slouches, the party had long since accustomed themselves to fighting against the monsters on this floor. And beyond that, though the rocs and drakes both fought in groups, neither came in swarms or in legions. As such, the party didn't struggle with the enemies, and Skandr and Astrid both received their Skill upgrades before long.
In Astrid's case, there was nothing surprising about what was offered to her, but she was excited to see the change in Gravity Surge.
Gravity Surge (Iron): For a Heavy cost of mana and stamina, create one of three types of Gravity Surge. 1. In a five meter radius of the user, causes everything except for the user and what they are wielding to quadruple in weight. 2. At a location that the user decides within ten meters, causes everything except for the user and what they are wielding to be drawn to a location that the user decides within five meters of the selected location with thrice that of gravity. 3. In a ten meter radius of the user, causes everything except for the user and what they are wielding to double in weight. Duration of Gravity Surge is dependent upon the user's Magical Potency.
The primary change was the increase in potency, with both of the preexisting uses of the Skill going up by a multiple. As such, Astrid knew that the Skill would be even more impactful against monsters taken by surprise, and the additional option of doubling the radius of her Skill would make for a great crowd control in the event that she was getting swarmed. Maybe at higher tiers it would be able to exclude her allies, but for now, she needed to space herself perfectly to ensure she wasn't hitting her allies as well as her enemies.
Skandr, though, asked for advice before he made a choice.
"Lightning Enchantment is offered at Bronze, so that's out," he explained, "but I have two options that are the most attractive of those offered with a tier jump to Bronze. One is pretty similar to Immovable Stance or Steady Load, which is called Wizard's Bearing. Gives a passive, constant five percent bonus to Magical Potency, Self-Mastery, and Acumen, each of which is increased to ten percent if I'm channeling a Skill or spell. Effectively, a ten percent bonus when I'd be using it, except for defending myself. The other Skill, though, is a less common one that I know a little bit about from some of my Skill research.
"Warlock's Constitution. It's a multifaceted Skill, so I want to go with it, it's just it's… atypical. The first thing it does is it increases my Fortitude, Alacrity, and Power by one every other level, and that's also applied retroactively. So, a plus eighteen to each. Then, it allows me to strengthen the power of any of the spells I cast through the expenditure of my stamina and even health, if I choose it."
"And your mental attributes, with a five or ten percent increase would see an increase of about the same, if not more, in numbers," Astrid nodded slowly. "So do you want to see a more holistic improvement like what Warlock's Constitution would give you, or continue to go down the path of specialization with Wizard's Bearing."
"That is not quite the difference," Muti corrected. "You said that it is an increase by an amount. That means that, with that bonus, if you cross over milestones, then you will gain the abilities that those milestones would provide."
"Bringing me closer to the base one hundred across the board," Skandr rubbed his chin before looking at Benedict and Astrid and laughing. "I wish you two hadn't been slacking and could explain exactly what that does."
"Well, you were the first one to get the bonus from passing three hundred," Benedict replied, "and you didn't tell us much of what it did."
"Just because I got it two levels before you all," Skandr argued, "it really is just more of the same. Sure, it's a qualitative change, but if you've experienced it once, you've gone through it again, so far as I can tell. Maybe the one thousand mark is way different, but I don't know."
"So," Astrid brought the discussion back to the point at hand, "what do you want? I'm sure that Wizard's Bearing would combine with one of your Class Skills, but I have no idea if Warlock's Constitution would. Might be a bit of a risk, but I'd probably go with Constitution. It's a solid improvement, and the percentage growths are amazing, but true attribute growth and the opportunity to use a resource that's largely useless to you seems like a good option."
"I'd specialize," Benedict disagreed. "I have 97 power. What am I doing with it? Nothing."
"The body is something to be respected," Muti said, surprising nobody. "You should use that."
"If I'm not mistaken," Astrid jumped back in, "this is the difference between passing base one hundreds in Iron or not. Not sure what that might do for Class evolutions, but I'm sure it's valuable."
The party continued discussing as they made their way towards the floor guardian, and finally, Skandr made his decision.