[Name: Sssanya Sssarilizarus
Race: Najavi
Class: Shaman-Mage
Level: 3,604
Skills: 18
Spells: 21
Traits: 13
VIT: 811
STR: 560
DEX: 806
MANA: 1,415
Born as the third daughter of the War Chief of the of the Great Green Sea Tribe, Sssanya ever lived in the shadow of her talented elder sisters. Lacking in talent for battle, she instead turned her attention to the arcane arts, training in secret with the warlocks, mages, and witch doctors of the tribe, knowing all the while that her military family would never approve of her methods. That only made it all the sweeter when she bested her perfect eldest sister in a spar using her magic. The thrill of victory turned to ashes in her mouth when she was accused of cheating; witchcraft was not permitted in the sparring ring. Disgraced, Sssanya has been sent into exile, where—]
Okay, okay, I get it. Blah blah blah. Fucking hell, shut up already, I just wanted to know her levels, not her life story.
[Achievement Unlocked: Observation
You have—]
Oh my god, shut up!
Swiping irritably at the new windows that had invaded my vision, I eventually managed to get the [Observe] one to shed the ridiculously long diatribe on her life, leaving only the stats. Much better.
I spent a few second studying them, only to realise this didn't actually help me much. I still didn't have any frame of reference to compare them to. She could have been a total scrub or the most badass snake on this floor, for all I knew.
Well. There is one easy way to find out.
Turning my attention back to the snake woman, I found her trembling in place, her wide eyes fixed on the floor. If she wasn't reptilian, I was sure she'd be sweating. She had her disco ball thing—currently inert, no sparkles to speak of—clutched to her chest, and her hands were trembling around it.
"Your level," I began tentatively, "is that high for folks around here, or…?"
Sssanya swallowed. "Some would consider it impressive. Others wouldn't."
I resisted the urge to sigh. I got the vibe she'd have a heart attack if she thought she had annoyed me. She kind of was pissing me off, but I didn't see any way to alleviate that. In her shoes, I would've been pretty scared, too.
Imagine if some gigachad ancient hero like Achilles or whoever just popped up in front of me while I was out on a walk. I would've bricked it.
"Do you consider it impressive?" I asked, keeping my voice level.
"Compared to certain others in my life, I would consider it lacking," the snake whispered, that musical voice sounding strange at such a low volume.
Hm. Presumably referring to one of those sisters [Observe] was yapping about.
"Who's the highest level you know?"
"My father." Sssanya's eyes tightened. "His level is over 5,000. It is said he is the strongest warrior on this entire floor."
"Ah. I see."
Well, that neatly answered just how OP I currently was. I grimaced, trying not to let my shoulders slump too much. Couldn't help the disappointment kicking up a fuss in my stomach, though. If the strongest warrior a thousand-plus floors into this bloody place was only at Level 5000, how high would I have to go to see an actual challenge? Was there even any danger to me at all in this place? Would there be any thrill to seek?
I have to admit those questions depressed me a little bit. The last few years of my life had been characterised by adventure and adrenaline, and when I'd first learned about this whole Eternal Tower bullshit I'd thought I was going to be doing more of the same. More, even. An incredible escalation into insanity. The idea that something had gone so catastrophically wrong that there was no rush to be had in an ostensibly-deadly massive magical tower left me feeling adrift, bereft of purpose.
Then I shook my head, slapped my legs a few times, rolled my shoulders. All little things to try and get me pumping, snap me out of the funk before it could fully pull me down into the darkness.
No. Fuck that. Don't let the dark thoughts creep in, Danny Boy. There's fun to be had in this place. There has to be.
I turned my attention back to the snake lady once more. "So, do you know anything fun to do around here?"
~~~
The seven lakes of the Great Green Sea turned out to have super sibilant names I couldn't pronounce, and, according to Sssanya, they were quite magical. One could even call them holy, in a way. The waters possessed rejuvenating properties, breathing enough vitality into the desert to form an ecosystem that covered hundreds of square miles. It was practically a small nation unto itself.
Of most interest to me was the wildlife. Drinking from the magic water every day across generations led to some interesting evolutionary pathways, and even those animals that remained relatively mundane in nature were massively enhanced.
Better than drinking from it, though, were the animals that lived in it. Each lake was comparable in size to Manhattan, just from eyeballing it. That was a lot of space for aquatic life. Fish were abundant.
And magically mutated fish were abundant, too.
After a lot of coaxing and finagling, I had laboriously managed to get Ssanya to spit out what she knew of her people's equivalent to extreme sports. Her bio implied she was from a family of status, so I got the vibe that kind of thing was rather beneath her station, exiled or not, and she didn't really seem to be too knowledgeable on the subject, but she at least knew what the more pleb snakes got up to when they wanted to risk their lives for fun.
Thus, she led me to one of the great lakes with a name that sounded like Harry Potter speaking Parseltongue. I couldn't hope to transcribe it, let alone repeat it aloud. It'd be like the biggest gammon you've ever met trying to pronounce Chinese pinyin. Uninterested in humiliation, I picked out a single syllable and decided that was going to be its name in my mind from now on: Lake Shass. Awesome.
(It didn't occur to me until way later I could probably use a Spell or Skill to pronounce it perfectly, but I decided I didn't want to rely on magic for absolutely everything. I had to take excitement where I could get it, and the thrill of learning things for myself looked like it was going to be one of the scant few avenues available to me.)
Down at ground level, Lake Shass was wide enough that mundane human eyes would only have been able to see the bank on the other side as a dark line in the distance. Trees lined the shores, as if even they wanted to lean down and take a drink. To be fair, the water looked inviting. It was crystal clear and sublimely still, appearing more like a glass window to another world.
Fish were indeed swimming around in there. A wide variety of them, too. Big ones, small ones. Colourful ones, dull ones. I was no fisherman, but I reckoned quite a lot of the fish I was seeing couldn't be found on Earth. Certainly, the four-metre long purple eel surrounded by a reddish nimbus didn't seem likely to be seen swimming around the Atlantic.
I watched them for a while, mesmerised. It was like the world's prettiest lava lamp. Or one of those Ultra HD TV's screensavers, but even better. The graphical fidelity of real life absolutely shat all over anything an OLED screen could pull off. The amount of colour on display was beautiful beyond description.
But I soon shook off my stupor, narrowing my eyes as I inspected the massive lake. Considering how clear the water was, you'd think my quarry would be easily spotted, but, alas, that was not the case.
The King of Shass could be a sneaky bugger when he felt like it, apparently.
I looked back over my shoulder. Sssanya had positioned herself a little to the side and behind me, apparently unwilling to stand by my side and implicitly declare herself my equal. I'd tried to convince her otherwise, but gave up pretty quick. Over years of travelling the world, I'd learned not to try and browbeat people over any cultural mores that seemed silly to me. It was never worth the effort.
Her gaze dropped in deference the moment she noticed my attention. "Is there anything else you need, Great One?"
"I need you to stop calling me Great One," I grumbled. Then, "And don't bow your head! It's not a big deal, and I'm not offended. It just feels weird to be treated all deferential and whatever. Call me Dan, okay?"
The snake's eyes widened, and I really hoped that calling someone by name wasn't some silly cultural Faux Pas. "Yes, Great—" She cut herself off, swallowed. "Yes… Dan."
Calling me that seemed to pain her. I waved a hand. "Ah, fuck it. Call me whatever you want. It's not a big deal." I turned my attention back to the lake, panning my gaze across the waters. There was no sign of anything particularly large in there. "So. Is there anywhere for big fish to hide down there?"
"I… would not know," Sssanya said. "My apologies, but I have not personally partaken in this particular activity, only heard mention of it. It's… A rite of passage would be too strong a term."
"Something that earns clout among the warrior snakes, eh?"
"I believe so. Those who had, ah, 'faced the king' were certainly treated with more respect than those who hadn't."
I grinned. "Sounds dangerous enough for me."
[Levitate] threw me up into the air, and I soared over the lake, keeping low enough to be able to see into its depths. Even clear as it was, deeper waters still did funny refracting stuff to light, and you couldn't see all the way to the bottom. That, presumably, would be where the King was lurking.
Sssanya hadn't been able to give me much of a description of the creature, not having seen it for herself, but she knew it was large enough that an average adult male Najavi was half the size of its head. Massive, in other words.
Determined to stick to the limitation of "no skills or spells as a crutch," I zipped back and forth for a while, staring into the dark depths of the deeper areas of the lake while keeping my speed down so I didn't cause any sonic booms and scare anything away. It was quite surreal to look down upon the glassy water and see my reflection darting through the sky.
I'd gotten used to it remarkably fast, but I was bloody flying. It was awesome. How had I found myself worrying about whether I'd be able to feel a rush when the joy of personal flight was now permanently available to me? What a fool I was.
It was as I was staring at my reflection—admiring my now-blond hair—that I saw something. A slight shift in the shadows. Unless I was going crazy, I was pretty sure the darkness deep below the water's surface was moving.
[Achievement Unlocked: Here be Dragons
You have encountered a legendary beast
Reward: Dragonhide Gloves
Item Already Owned]
"Hello there, your highness," I said, diving right towards it.