Chapter 334: 22nd Floor

As it turned out, Beth was a better actor than Jorn, although Jorn did make strides.

Through trial and error, Loth used the two to fill a notebook with equations specifically for translating soundwaves, a fair bit of bio-science and a small amount of tertiary knowledge that seemed to be common to the civilians of the pre-tower era, such as how to generate electricity, lift via pressure differentials, simple nuclear theory, etc.

Considering the source, it wasn’t surprising that the information about biology and medicine was abundant, precise, and detailed, but the further away from that topic they strayed, the more vague the information became, although ‘vague’ was enough to show Loth where to look.

Loth seemed happy enough though, giggling to herself as she sketched a waveform with some math underneath it.

I suppose I really should study that. Will had the ominous feeling that he was standing still and Loth was in a dead sprint, and if he didn’t knuckle down and learn, she might leave him behind.

They’d set up camp on the ceiling to avoid the death-nurses that patrolled the halls with big yellow buckets full of cursed blood. While they were camped out, things had stabilized to be relatively safe. They’d figured out the Floor’s quirks well enough that small groups could venture out without too much risk.

So Sammohan went out into the Floor to see what treasure he could bring back.

“Boss, check this out.” Sammohan said, offering Will a strange rubber contraption that he’d seen hanging around the doctor’s neck earlier.

Doctor’s Stethoscope

+ 2 Resistance

+ 6 Kinesthetics

+ 25 Acuity

+ 15 Focus

Heartbeats and breathing within a certain radius show up as visual cues. Scales with Acuity.

+15% Potency of Healing Abilities.

“That’s pretty cool.” Will admitted. It wasn’t something he could use, but a priestess like Beth might have some good synergy with it, given that it would inadvertently locate hearts and lungs to shoot with her slugger.

The fact it didn’t locate things without breathing and heartbeats was a minor demerit, but the healing boost was more than enough to make up for it, allowing Beth’s cheaper healing Abilities to cover more ground, reserving more Charge for shooting things.

There were a few other minor relics, like self-sterilizing needles, temperature gauges, and refilling gauze.

Will bought the amulet from Sammohan for a quarter of a share of the expedition’s profits, which was less impressive than it sounded.

Once they’d rested, Will got the group moving again. Loth pouted, clutching the notebook to her chest, but she didn’t say anything.

The hospital was labyrinthine, far larger and more winding than any building could’ve possibly been, with cramped hallways that stretched on for miles.

The Key Site was buried in the floor of a sick room, the flat surface of the top of the pyramid lying flush with the marble.

In the center of the beam of miasma was a single cot with a sickly, bald child atop it, wheezing back at them with a heart-wrenching stare.

While they were discussing what to do with the pathetic creature, Devourer of Knowledge killed it and dragged its body out of the beam of miasma, granting them their Door to the next Floor.

They shrugged, checked their equipment and moved on to the next Floor.

Will’s senses were assaulted as the world shifted from a quiet, temperature controlled room to a chaotic roar of sand and bright light.

The world was engulfed in sand driven by winds unheard of outside the tower, forcing Will to shut his eyes and drop to the ground so the wind didn’t pick him up and carry him away with the sand.

Will couldn’t see a damned thing, but his map was working as usual, locating a horseshoe-shaped depression in the sand where they might be able to escape the sand and get their bearings.

Sadly it wasn’t meant to be as he also spotted several large lumps of miasma moving through the sand towards him. If Will hadn’t had his map, their approach would’ve been entirely covered by the howling wind and biting sand.

Will felt blood leaking down his cheekbones and grimaced, realizing that the sand wasn’t just sand. It was shards of something sharp, driven hundreds of miles per hour.

The fact that it could pierce Will’s skin at all meant that the others might be reduced to bones in a matter of minutes.

Where are the others…

Will hopped over the gaping mouth that burst out of the sand below him, using Phantom Hand to grab the sandfish and yank it out of the earth, butchering the creature while searching his map for his team’s landing spot.

There.

Will spotted the others coming through their respective doors one after another.

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For each one, Will used Aspect to seize the wind around them, carving a small spot of calm air around them.

Above…no it’s sand all the way to the top.

The only way to get through this was to go through it.

Oh crap.

The sand likely had some kind of magical properties, because it was eroding the hold he had over the air around the rest of the team. It felt like trying to grasp fine sand while it slipped through his fingers.

The good news was that he could always get another hold before his grip broke. The bad news was that took his focus, so nobody was going to get any sleep on this Floor.

Rookies first.

Will burst off the ground and began shooting towards Beth. The Ring of Traversal made the shard-filled air split around him as he flew, drastically reducing the damage incurred and increasing his speed.

Gods, I love this ring, Will thought, kissing the ring a moment before he arrived beside Beth, sliding to a halt in the loose sand beside her.

“Who’s that!?” Beth demanded, raising her gun with her eyes closed against the sand. Even with Will’s intervention, everyone had gotten an instant faceful of the stuff.

“It’s Will!” he said as he arrived. The dome of still air around them made it just quiet enough that she could hear him. “Hand!”

Beth clipped her weightless slugger to her belt and took Will’s hand.

He brought her over to Jorn and picked the necromancer up as the young man huddled in the shelter of two of his summons.

Sammohan got swallowed by a sandfish, but they yanked him out before he died, and Beth healed him.

Will picked Loth up last, and when he arrived the former kobold was feeding some rather large sandfish fillets to her fancy dimensional barrel.

I wonder how big the inside of her barrel is nowadays. If she cross-bred any dimensional oysters, it might be pretty big on the inside.

Will and the others slid to a halt beside Loth, noticing the shelter she was rapidly constructing from the shells of beetles and glue made of bug spit.

“Oh you finished the brick-bugs. Will they hold against the wind?” Will asked as the brick-shaped beetles formed a dome over them.

“One way to find out, Loth said.

Will dropped his grip on the air with Aspect and the distant sound of the wind came flooding back in with a roar, rattling the tiny hut like an angry god.

Loth put up some soundproofing with spiders and a moment later, the sound died down.

“Everyone who has sand in their eyes, come to me,” Beth said, guiding Jorn and Sammohan to her, using a waterskin and some healing to restore their eyesight.

Oh right, I need that too. Will had been using the map so reflexively that he’d forgotten that his eyes were filled with shards of glass.

The next few minutes were composed of the distinctly uncomfortable experience of getting his eyes washed out and healed.

“Anybody wanna stay here and level?” Will asked, blinking tears out of his newly repaired eyes.

Scattered head-shakes, although Sammohan, the guy who’d almost been eaten, hesitated, half-raising his hand.

“Sammohan?” Will turned his attention to the miner.

“The sand’s magical.” Sammohan said, running some through his fingers. “Not sure how exactly. I’d like to take a sample.”

“Go ahead, but no more than a wagon full.” Will said.

Sammohan nodded and got together with Mason to go over the logistics.

While they took a moment to catch their breath, Will turned his attention to his own personal map of his body.

Will’s Resistance was hardly matched except by the hardiest Tanks, meaning his interlocking Resistance structures were more densely packed than anyone else in the expedition.

The normally smooth surface created by those chain-link structures following the contours of his skin had pockmarks wherever they had been exposed, eaten away by the sand.

Yeah, there’s something nasty in that sand.

Will turned his attention to the others, but they didn’t have nearly as much damage as he did, thanks to quickly stilling the air around them.

They killed the local sandfish population and took shelter for the night in Loth’s cabin while Sammohan worked out how to safely fill a wagon full of sand, then moved on to the Key Site in the morning.

The travel took a lot longer, because of the extra precaution they needed to take to avoid getting magical razor-sand in the eyes again.

Full head-wraps, daisy-chain ropes around their waist, and Will leading the way.

It’s a shame we won’t get to see the land with our own eyes, Will thought, studying the cliffs that had somehow resisted the scouring winds.

They arrived in front of the Key Site two days later, carving their way through the sand, monsters, and unexpected heat of the Floor.

The Key Site was completely buried in sand, and buried in that sand was a massive snake, wrapped around the Key Site like it was providing the cold-blooded creature warmth on a cold night.

Will decided to take a chance and approached the snake alone, grasping control over the surrounding air, allowing the dust in the air to gradually settle and sealing away the roar of the wind.

“Hey!” Will shouted, removing his mask and glaring at the mound of sand with a faint beam of miasma rising out of it.

“You know who it is! Get off the Key Site, you lazy bastard!” Will shouted.

“Is that…gonna work?” Jorn asked.

“Idunno. If it doesn’t, nothing changes,” Will replied with a shrug.

There was a faint rumble as the sand shifted away, revealing a massive tan snake that blended seamlessly in with the sand around it.

William Oh. So you’ve come to bother me again.The Immortal Serpent flicked with its tongue. The tone of its tongue-speech was like a tired middle-aged man being asked to move from his favorite rocking chair.

With a huge tongue-sigh, the snake uncoiled from the Key Site and wriggled off into the dunes, disappearing under the sand.

Key Site Cleared!

50000XP

“Well that was easy.” Jorn said stupidly, before Will could clap a hand over his mouth.

“Shhhh…don’t tempt fate,” Will whispered, glancing around suspiciously for the other shoe to drop.

“Will’s got good luck with snakes.” Loth said to Beth, who was watching the scene agog, her expression evident even through the wrappings over her face.

Will waited for Fate to mess with him, but other than the faint howl of the wind outside his dome…nothing.

Huh. I guess it’s gonna wait until I least expect it.

“Okay, ready?” Will asked, waiting until he got a nod from every one of them.

Will walked through the Door to the next Floor, holding his breath and covering his eyes.

When he dropped his hands from his eyes, Will’s stomach went queasy. The 23rd Floor was a stomach-churning kaleidoscope of color.

It was as if someone had infused stained glass with inner fire and used it to pave the Floor, creating long roads of colorful lines that hurt the eye to look at.

The sky was black, with no sun in sight, but the brightness of the glowing pathways was more than enough to see by.

Ignoring the assault on his eyes, Will turned his attention to his Map and his standard checklist for entering a new Floor.

Are there any monsters in the immediate vicinity? No.

Can I breathe? Yes.

Will was halfway through his checklist when he noticed something strange on his map.

Will turned and spotted a human heart on a pedestal behind him. The pedestal was enormous and the heart was the size of a small cabin.

Will’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Of course, you would throw me a weird one after an easy Floor.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Am I supposed to destroy the heart? Will thought. The sound was vaguely familiar.

Wait…

Will pressed a finger to his neck.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His pulse quickened.

The heart on the pedestal followed suit.

He ran through his Memory Key, but none of the smearing of broken mind-control happened. Will was still completely lucid.

Yep. That’s my heart.