Chapter 141: Distributing Wealth

Will dropped the liquid metal cupped between his palms back into the pond of material. It seemed as though it didn’t synergize well with Aspect of the Immortal Serpent. Extra toughness was good, but it wasn’t what Will was looking for. If it granted something like polymorphic armor, or better yet, some kind of Ability that allowed him to become intangible like his Phantom Hand, he would’ve leapt on it in an instant. Will thought to himself. Immortal Serpents were known for shapeshifting, Psychic attacks, and strong healing. Will had already grabbed the ‘strong healing’ piece of it. Will wondered. There were supposed to be some of on the 9th Floor. Will mused to himself. Maybe he get psychic attacks or shapeshifting powers, but if he doubled down on the ability to control his environment through Aspect’s ability to control Terrain, it could become something extraordinary. In the future, it would probably be best to have a couple unstoppable Abilities rather than dozens of mediocre ones. Terrain control was awesome, but Will had been irritated that he couldn’t deal any real damage to the metallic slime. Having a powerful non-physical attack would be handy. how things play out,Will thought as the wagon designed to carry the slime’s corpse arrived. Jean arrived along with the wagon, and once the slime was successfully moved into the wagon, she held a cupful of liquid metal aloft, frowning as she read her upgrade options. Since Bee was technically her, she had been included in the Bounty and had been propelled straight to level 35, granting her another Upgrade. “Anything good?” Will asked. “Nothing fantastic for my primaries, but for my Shapeshifting Secondary, it would allow me to create metal weapons from my own flesh.” Will’s brows rose at that statement. That would allow her to change the gloves she was wearing that allowed her to summon claws out with something better. “Do you want it?” Will asked. “Honestly, I’d prefer things that defend against mental manipulation or grant the ability to bake better.” Jean said with a shrug. “But I’ll take it if you think that’s best.” It was hard to find monsters known for their mental defense, because Climbers didn’t go around constantly testing that. it wasn’t the primary means by which monsters were dispatched, so mentally strong but physically weak creature would always die immediately, long before their mental abilities were discovered. And monsters that were strong mentally were usually using that Ability offensively in some way. “I’ll give it some thought. No rush, you don’t even have a secondary upgrade yet.” Jean nodded and dropped the liquid metal back into the wagon. Will was feeling generous, so each and every person got the opportunity to check if any of their Abilities could benefit substantially from Sacrificing Silverdeath. That’s what these pioneers had signed up for after all: In exchange for the danger of establishing a new Stronghold, they would always be first in line for the rewards. Strangely enough, civilians got more good uses out of Silverdeath than Climbers, because the metallic slime was powerful, unique and had a tendency to overshadow or overlap other offensive abilities. Many of their Climbers passed on it because it had poor synergy with their build, but for the civilians, it provided the best Ability they would likely ever get. Some tailors got the ability to mentally control their sewing needles, while others got the ability to give wire the texture and flexibility of string, while still others gained the ability to ‘metallicize’ clothing, making soft, flexible armor that felt and weighed the same as normal clothes. Given three sacrifices, they could get all three Abilities. The resulting clothes weren’t Relics, either, so the slot limit wasn’t even a concern. Once Will knew about that, he decided to allow the tailors use multiple Sacrifices, in exchange for a small cut of their output…Which Loth informed him was already part of their contract. Will shrugged and told them if that was the case, then they were more than welcome to the sacrifices. Any enhancement he gave them for free would be repaid eventually anyway. If there was a good fabric that could be produced on the 10th Floor, that could become a backbone of their exports. The civilian Parties understood that something like this could define a generation, and Brenna Egan wept tears of joy, hugging her somewhat confused daughters, who perhaps didn’t understand the implications of effortlessly creating near-Relic quality armor. Will knew if they moved back down outside the Ring, they would essentially be nobility. Mason passed on the Sacrifice, muttering something about ‘nodules’, which nobody wanted anything to do with. Jason passed, saying it didn’t fit his build, which made sense. Reggie took two sacrifices, applying one to his ‘Heavily Armored’ Ability, and the other to his Second Wind Ability, granting him passive higher physical resistance and active temporary intangibility. Reggie’s armor began to flex and twitch on its own, seemingly fixing near-invisible misalignments and adjusting itself to fit him even more perfectly. Reggie began bouncing on his toes, and Will could see the Tank’s heavy armor itself flexing and unflexing, adding strength and bounciness to his movements. Even Badur got something interesting. The Logistician held his palm over his ledger, and with a flash of light, the ledger vanished, replaced by a miniature representation of the camp, composed entirely of liquid metal. Will thought, frowning. It was only things that Badur had written in his ledger. The people were missing, as was the fire Anna was cooking over, the tree stumps they used as chairs, things like that. Badur glared at one of the wagons which was sloppily organized, and a moment later, the miniature began to fix itself, tiny luggage straightening into neat rows. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. That change was reflected in the real world as well. “Can you make the wagons move?” Will asked. Badur frowned and glanced at the wagons, which lurched forward. “Yes, my lord, but it takes a bit more effort. It would probably work best for getting them unstuck or moving them if there were no alternative.” Carpenters saw some benefits from Silverdeath when added to the Abilities that allowed them to treat wood. They also got the option to gain mental control over their tools, but felt like it was a waste, and to a man, passed on that Ability. Carpenters liked feeling what they were doing. Loth passed on the upgrade, but mentioned that it might be a good sacrifice for kobolds who hadn’t yet specialized their Trap Savant Ability. June and Alicia passed as well, holding out for more specialized Sacrifices for their Builds. The water-mages passed, but the earth mages in the caravan took two apiece, allowing them to reinforce their earth-works with metal. The healers passed. Once everyone had taken what they wanted from the wagon, Badur measured the depth with a marked stick and did some math in his notebook. Then he said something insane. “Excuse me?” Will asked, eyes round. “Fifteen thousand, three hundred and nine Sacrifices.” Badur repeated, his gaze scanning across his notebook, checking for errors. With a margin of error of…three or four.” The caravan surrounding him cheered, and Will knew why. This was an incredible windfall. They could sell maybe a couple dozen of these Sacrifices at auction in Akul to pay for the entire trip, and the rest could go into the Stronghold’s war-chest, towards covering future costs or creating Classes. Will glanced around the caravan, scanning the excited faced and back-slapping, wondering which of them might try to steal some or spill the story to other Climbers in a fit of bragging. Of course, nobody was wearing a sign that said ‘information leak’. Will called his right hand, her right hand, and Jean. Once Loth, June and Jean were in front of him, Will took them away from the rest of the caravan. “I want good security on that wagon,” Will said. “We’ve got three Strongholds to visit between now and the 10th Floor, and I would prefer it if Brenna’s son-in-law – Will pointed at the young man dancing wildly next to the fire and spilling beer everywhere – didn’t brag to anyone about what a haul we have. That’s just asking for trouble.” Loth turned to June and Jean. “June, you give Jean a list of potential blabbers, and we’ll assign them each a Ria to chaperone them while we’re inside the walls of a Stronghold.” June nodded. “We’re gonna want a couple people from each of the Parties on watch at the same time so they can watch each other as well as the wagon. I’ll try and make a list of the most trustworthy ones and make sure to break up the gullible ones from the schemers.” In a matter of seconds, the three of them had their heads together over a map of the camp, plotting how to adjust things to make sure nobody got any bright ideas. Will thought, excusing himself and getting some dinner from Anna. The next morning, they had a shift of guards set up for the wagon, and Will assembled the ‘looting’ Party, meant to raid the ziggurat. Only the tip of the ziggurat was actually missing, meaning the staircase leading down had been removed, but most of the building below that point was still whole. There was a gaping hole in the floor that they could just jump down into to reach the hallway lined with Blessed Steel statues. Will’s looting Party was composed of himself, Loth, June, Reggie, Alicia, and Bee. Bee was about to jump back down in and start running blind again, when Loth paused her for a moment, unleashing a swarm of glowbugs that took up positions along the walls, casting the same light as a torch every five feet. Once the hall below them was lit, Loth allowed Bee to rush ahead. Her job was to stumble into traps, after all. The other five of them hopped down into the ziggurat, cautiously taking in the hall. There was certainly a lot more dust and debris than there had been the first time they went through. It seemed as though the explosion had caused all the accumulated dust to fall to the ground, along with bits of shrapnel that had been propelled inward by Mason’s explosion. “…I can’t see through the walls,” Alicia whispered, shaking her head. Will nodded to Reggie and the Tank put his palm under Alicia’s foot and propelled her back outside the ziggurat. June led the way, using her Scout Abilities to enhance her threat detection and mask their presence as they made their way through the underground labyrinth. Sadly, they didn’t find much in the way of unbroken Relics, because of Silverdeath’s tendency to chew on anything metallic. There were a couple pieces of treasure that were whole enough that they hadn’t dissolved into relic dust. A bronze torc Relic, seemingly designed for near-permanent wear around the neck. It was pitted and partially dissolved, but still whole enough to identify. Will thought, inspecting the ancient Relic. Will thought, imagining himself blocking his line of sight with his own hand while looking at someone to determine if they were an ‘ally’ or not. not This could be a good target for Will’s Sourdough Ability, if he could find another item with enemy detection or something of that nature, perhaps it could create a 1-item soft-set. Will thought, running a thumb over the pitted metal. They came away with a handful of trinkets, but the pickings were slim. Eventually they arrived at the distant crypt room. A murmur of amazement spread through the rest of the group as they arrived, and Will reminded himself that they hadn’t actually seen this room. Open coffins of black stone lined the walls, with nearly a dozen mummies standing up straight inside them, facing inward towards the Blessed Steel sphere in the center of the room, which was connected to all their coffins via organic-looking steel tubes. There was writing across the walls and ceiling, along with pictograms carved into the stone, showing a massive snake swallowing a city whole. It was only when he unfocused his eye and took a step back that he realized the ancient empire sat on the snake’s tail, and the city’s destruction was just a byproduct of the snake eating itself. Will wondered to himself. “I can’t read this,” Loth muttered, looking pretty pissed at not being able to read something. “I know someone who might.” Will said. “Also it would normally go without saying, but don’t touch anything, and not the sphere in the center of the room!” Will was directing that statement at Reggie who was wandering towards a mummy, finger extended. “Mhmm…” Reggie mused, still approaching the coffin. June gave a short, practiced hiss that sent a shock of primal fear through Will’s body, the sound seemingly seizing on a deeply buried prey response. The sound must’ve done the same to Reggie, knocking him out of his stupor. The oversized young man shook his head and peered around the room, confused. “Loth, could you escort everyone out of the room?” Will said, trying not to alarm the others. There was some Focus-targeting mind-effects happening in here. Will ran through his Memory Key as soon as he realized it. “Where’s Bee?” Loth asked as she grabbed the others and began leading them out. Will could smell that she had come in here, but he didn’t her. Now that he was paying attention to it, Will heard a tiny of blood on stone. “Everyone out.” Will said, sprinting towards the sound. There, Bee was being drawn into a hidden alcove beside one of the coffins, out of sight of the entrance. She seemed to be lost in some kind of trance as organic-looking ropes of metallic material drew her into the darkness. “Sorry,” Will said, eliminating Bee’s copy with the Tomahawk of the Underworld Guide before she woke up and suffered. Will backed away from the questing tendrils reaching for his ankles and went to stand in front of the coffin, whose symbols were beginning to glow with more power as the alcove behind it consumed Bee’s flesh. The mummy inside the coffin was slowly regaining a hint of life, the withered flesh smoothing and plumping to form a rather handsome man’s face. Will watched as the Sphere in the center of the room seemed to dispatch the man’s consciousness, through the pipe connected to his coffin, marked by a pulsing glow along the tubes in the floor towards the reconstituting body. Will crossed his arms and waited with a scowl, his weapon dripping blood beside him. The moment the corpse’s eyes opened, Will buried the axe between them. Will wasn’t against the occasional raising the dead. High-level Priests did it all the time. But people gave Will the feeling that allowing them to resurrect would be nothing but an enormous headache. Some dead were better off dead. The Tomahawk of the Underworld Guide agreed. Once Will was sure the mummy wasn’t waking back up again, he, Loth, and Mason, the highest Focus members –aside from Jason– of the group, spent the next half-hour gathering up all the mummies and looting their bodies before Mason incinerated them. Loth located and disabled the traps designed to lure low-focus Climbers into the body-consuming alcoves, grinning with manic enthusiasm as she dissected the strange technology. Under no circumstances were they able to get Reese to come down into the ziggurat to translate the text, so they took some tracings, gathered up the loot and called it a day. Around the fire that night, Reese cleared his throat and read the tracings. “Keep in mind, this is a different language, so a direct translation is impossible, but here we go: Ahem. Rejoice, those of you who have discovered the tomb of the mighty Tek’tut’kanlay, whose power transcends death. Take comfort in knowing that your sacrifice will be the first light of dawn on an eternal empire that will seize the sun itself in place and transcend the will of the Tower. Ketulkitnah will reign forever. It will no longer succumb to the Coils of Ouroboros in this era or any other. The will of heaven be damned.” “Huh.” Will grunted, chewing on a fresh loaf of bread from Anna. “They sound like assholes.” “I mean, they locked me in a lightless coffin for…” Reese mused, frowning. “…At least a couple days.”