"Don't step on the blue moss," Jass called from behind a fallen log, gathering long stalks of dusky white herbs and stuffing them into her side pouch. "I only gathered a handful when we were still exploring the cannibal cave."
"Ah, thanks," Deacon called back as he stepped back, arms still wrapped around the bundle of Gripweed and kapok branches stacked past his head. He craned his neck to the side, spotting a small patch of blue moss just two steps from where he'd stopped.
Pivoting a bit to the side and stepping carefully around the moss, Deacon dropped the bundle of Gripweed in his left hand first before slowly bringing himself to the ground and carefully letting go of the kapok branches in order to not have them roll around and mix with other materials needed for the teleportation ritual to allow him to teleport back to Floor Zero as neither he, nor Jass, nor Esmerelda had a Leave Ticket or item on hand that would allow them to teleport back to Floor Zero.
"This would have been so much more easier if we had a Leave Ticket, and I didn't need to spend an hour trying to find Gripweed" Deacon grumbled, dusting off his hands as he looked at the pile of flora they gathered for the ritual: nine kilograms of recently cut wood, two meters and a quarter of Gripweed, and 250 grams of blue moss.
"Well, I mean we can buy them now with all the treasures we collected," Esmerelda chimed in as she finished etching the ritual circle around the campfire with chalk. Putting away the chalk into her third leg pouch and dusting off her hands, and slowly began to stand up, while grimacing ever so slightly. "Get enough so I won't need to do all this again… my poor knees."
"I'll make sure to get a stack of 25, so each of us will have five," Deacon nodded to himself as he began to fill the empty campfire pit with the kapok branches, careful not to disturb the ritual circle Esmerelda etched onto the ground. "Just remind me again of what else I should be getting."
"We need five Pouches of Holding or any other medium for us to be able to store what we find," Jass said as she made her way over to Deacon and Esmerelda, holding two handfuls of Sky Blossom. "Make sure that the spatial storage's item description specifically says 'small spatial pocket' and not 'minor spatial pocket', because with a small spatial pocket, I could have stored the entire outpost tower, while the minor spatial pocket you could probably store a small rowboat."
"But before I buy them, I check with Sam and Bonehead first because they might have ones of their own," Deacon said as he took hold of the Sky Blossoms Jass was passing to him.
"Yes," she nodded as she watched as Deacon placed the Sky Blossoms in the various cracks of the stacked kapok branches within the campfire pit. "Their families probably gave them ones, with Bonehead being an alchemist and all and Sam being rich, but you never know."
"Also, make sure that they don't offer any attribute points and aren't labeled as Accessories and instead are named as Tools because we don't wanna waste an Accessory Slot," Esmerelda said as she plopped onto a knocked-over log.
Deacon made a noise of agreement as he snapped his fingers and pointed to Esmerelda. "I completely forgot about those types of spatial storages being a thing. Thanks for the reminder."
"Go to a butcher's or, if Giovanni's is still open by the time you're there, get three months' worth of food supplies for us five," Jass said, passing Deacon the blue moss. "And get three more packs of kindling and three more stacks of parchment so we can store them in the tree house for emergencies."
"Got it," Deacon nodded as he carefully placed the blue moss into the empty hexagons within the ritual circle. "I'll also check out the blacksmith I normally go to top off my throwing daggers, and check out if he has any Tier 1 metal bars on hand that are better than Steel, like Tungsten or Inconel that can better handle more extreme temperatures of my Flame Armament. Is there anything else I should buy while there?"
"I can't think of anything else, but if you're able to, can you get a couple twelve packs of soda and beer?" Jass said. "You know, to celebrate all of us climbing together?"
Deacon made a noise of disapproval. "Not really sure if it's a good idea for us to be drinking while we're still out in the open. I mean, not at least until we have a couple of Proximity and Sense Hostility wards set up around camp."
"Like I get that we can have those sobering draughts that Bonehead makes to get sober, but I feel like those wards should get up before anything at all. Honestly, those should have been set up by now, if I'm being honest."
"Ah, don't worry," Jass waved him off. "Esme and I will set them up and see what we can do to finish up the tree house while you're gone."
Giving Esmerelda a pointed look that Jass didn't see as he was placing the Gripweed around the perimeter of the ritual circle, that essentially said, 'help me out here.'
But to his disappointment, Esmerelda paid him no mind as she was staring off into the distance while mumbling to the "spirits around her".
System save me, Deacon mentally prayed as he took out seven strands of kindling from his bundle and sprinkled them inside the campfire pit.
Putting away the bundle of kindling and taking out the Status Page that he made back on Floor Zero, the one that said:
Deacon Surtr Hayes
Race: Jötunn Lv 0
Class: Warrior Lv 0
Health: 90/90
Mana: 47/50
Stamina: 70/70
Stats:
Vitality: 9
Strength: 8
Endurance: 7
Agility: 6
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 5
Willpower: 6
Perception: 5
Free Points: 0
Racial Traits:
General Skills: Identify (Initiate), Meditation (Initiate)
Class Skills: Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Initiate), Light Shield Mastery (Initiate)
Spell Masteries: Fire [Spark (Initiate), Ignis (Common), Flame Armament (Initiate)], Water [Water Ball (Initiate)], Earth [Gouge Ground (Initiate)]
Affinity: Fire (High) – Innate skill: Undying Flame
Achievements:
He truly made a lot of progress in the past six days.
Tearing off the skin from the tip of his thumb, he let drops of his blood fall onto the center of the page and waited until the seventh drop hit the parchment, where he then rolled it up with his other hand and stuffed it in the center of the kapok branches that he stacked up high.
"I might stay a couple of days in the Academy Archives if I can't get Sam or Bonehead to do the research for us on the Isle of the Damned natives being Level 0, is that fine with you two?" Deacon asked as Jass moved away from the ritual circle, leaving Deacon in his lonesome there.
"Yeah, that should be fine," Esmerelda spoke up, seemingly having finished with her conversation with the "spirits". "If we are dealing with potentially a new group of people being integrated with the Tower and System, then this will be big. The last time the Tower received new initiates was a hundred and fifty-three years ago, when the Angels were found when Gen 174 cleared their Floor Twenty Nine. And it caused a huge uproar within the Tower. I can only imagine how everyone will react when cannibals are the next ones to join."
Deacon nodded before he stood up right in front of the campfire and cast Spark atop his rolled and bloodied Status Page and watched as it set it ablaze and once all that was left of it was a pile of ashes did he cast Spark once more, directly within the ashes and watched as it suddenly erupted in a blazing inferno that set alight all the kapok branches, the kindling, the Sky Blossoms, the green moss, and the Gripwood, and which had activated the ritual circle beneath his feet and took control of the blazing inferno and wrapped it around Deacon's form.
For a few seconds, his silhouette could be seen within the blaze, which Jass and Esmerelda watched with morbid fascination, and only snapped out of it when his silhouette and the flames vanished, taking everything used within the ritual with it, ashes and all.
Deacon had vanished from Floor Three, leaving Jass and Esmerelda behind to clean up the evidence of the ritual that had taken place on the far side of the island. They had chosen to perform the ritual far away from their treehouse base as a precaution, ensuring that if anyone had witnessed the ritual's effects, they wouldn't be able to trace it back to their location.
Keeping the hidden nature of their base was crucial at this time, as they still hadn't set up any wards, and the knowledge of how to set up Obscuring and Concealing wards was not known to them, as the one who was in charge of learning how to send those up was Sam, who was still on Floor Zero. So, making sure that their base was at least physically obscured and couldn't be traced was vital to their operation.
***
Deacon's eyes immediately squinted in response to the bright lights that were shining in his face. As his eyes adjusted to the bright floating lanterns, he immediately felt the cool air of the Academy garden nip at his skin, and the soft crunch of gravel beneath his boots instantly informed him that he was no longer in a jungle.
He turned in a slow half-circle, eyes still adjusting.
Right.
Shouldering his bag with more urgency now, he slung it around and unlatched the flap. Inside, a hefty collection of gold coins jangled against one another, some still flecked with dirt and dried blood. Tucked between them were fifteen of the pearls he'd pried from those clams within the saltwater lake in the cavern where those Level 0 cannibals were living in.
None of it is usable to purchase things, not directly at least.
"Better get moving," he muttered to himself, hitching the strap tighter against his shoulder.
He would need to convert the gold coins into the accepted currency in the Tower, credits. And he would do so by heading to one of the pawn shops around Central Square and then heading to an enchanter's shop and selling the pearls to them.
Turning on his heel, he made for one of the outer gates of the garden that was being guarded by two very bored-looking Earth Golems, which led down a sloping cobblestone path and toward the outer Academy wall.
As he walked, he pulled his manaphone from one of the pouches on his left leg and flicked it open with a quick swipe across the crystal interface. The screen flared to life with a faint hum, light blue mana glyphs hovering around the edges. He tapped into the group call icon and hit the contacts for Sam and Bonehead.
The tone clicked once, then twice, barely audible in the quiet of the garden.
"C'mon guys, pick up…" he muttered, eyes flicking between the screen and the looming stone wall ahead. The outer torches of the Academy were already being doused for the night.
A third tone. A fourth.
Then, with a flicker of light, the split-screen call connected.
Bonehead's camera came on first, just a close-up of his cluttered workbench, a hazy green potion bubbling dangerously in the corner. A moment later, the feed tilted up, revealing his skull.
"Deacon?" Bonehead asked, before rushing off screen and turning off a few flames under a couple of beakers. "How the hell are you able to call right now? Aren't you supposed to be climbing the Tower? It hasn't even been a week yet."
Sam's screen popped in next, showing his neat room with many shelves filled with magical tomes alphabetically aligned behind him.
"You're back from climbing already?" Sam asked. "Did something happen?"
Deacon nodded, already stepping through the open garden gate, boots tapping against the flagstone.
"Yeah. Floor Three is a Treasure Hunt Floor."
"What!" Both Bonehead and Sam shouted, their faces getting closer to the screen.