“Best not.” he said quickly as he looked at the dozens of husks at the edge of the bubble of emptiness.

“Thought so.” I said with a chuckle.

As much as I’d like to say things got interesting in the next three floors I would be lying if I did. The dungeon went all in on this whole spore zombie thing and once the spores were cleared out the husks themselves basically stood still and let you kill them. If they weren’t surprisingly durable in all but the usual monster killing way it would have been downright disappointing.-

I’d collected plenty of the shroom drops after these things were poofed out of existence since I was fairly certain they were medicinal but otherwise my biggest gain here was in smoke content. My gut told me that I’d reached roughly a quarter of my goal for this trip which was slightly annoying but understandable. After hitting level six my need for smoke to increase my stats was through the fucking clouds. Even the hundreds of peak level six monster kills from floors sixty six to sixty nine only gave me a bit over a quarter what I needed.-

“If the pattern holds this next floor has a monster rex in it. Once it’s dead all of you except Ottar need to head topside as your part here should be over.” I said seriously as we stood on the threshold of the stairs going to the seventieth floor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Finn asked with a frown.

“Each monster rex is stronger than the previous one as a rule. Well the last one was at the peak of level seven and might have been close to beginning level eight. That means this one WILL be level eight and likely not a weak eight either. You lot are all here to level up and I guarantee this thing dying will count enough for it since it’ll be two levels higher than you. So like I said your part is done once it’s dead, Ottars might be too but that’s questionable at best.” I said flatly.

“So you think you will be able to go even further without us?” Gareth asked cutting to the heart of the matter.

I nodded “No offense but you lot have been slowing us down. Frankly speaking you SHOULDN’T be here at your own pace. You might barely hit floor sixty four but you’d definitely stop there if the rex was around. For me though besides the rexes that are a bit of a challenge these floors are a piece of cake, I haven’t gotten to the point the average monsters can challenge me unlike all of you.” I said honestly.

“So you think we’re too weak to go further?” Finn asked bitterly.

“Yes. Don’t feel too bad though. There’s literally only one other person in the world who MIGHT be roughly equal to Ottar and thus still able to move on after this next fight.” I said with a shrug.

“Fine but what are our preparations for this fight?” Finn asked with reluctant acceptance of the facts I laid out clearly.

“You’re joking right? We have no idea what we are walking into here so what preparations CAN we make? We’ve got potions and power and until we know more that’s it.” I said giving him a funny look.

Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t a bad question or anything but he knew as much as I did at this point, which is to say not a damned thing. You can’t prep for something you don’t understand. Like if I made a staff to channel my flames only for the thing we are fighting to be immune to them I’d just look stupid wouldn’t I? While I would genuinely love nothing more than to prep for what we are going to fight I literally couldn’t without an insane amount of luck just guessing. With that covered we finally started slowly down the stairs and I immediately decided whatever this thing was likely to be was going to be ugly as hell. –

How could I say that? Well because the walls and stairs themselves were covered in gross fleshy stuff that quivered and pulsed as we got closer to the exit. Nothing that lived in such an environment could be beautiful and I’ll die on that hill. The stench that hit us also doubled down on my opinion as it was like thousands of corpses being left to rot. Once we got close to the exit I picked up the first signs of what this foe of ours was and paled. So like you know the flood from the Halo franchise? If my techniques feedback wasn’t messing with me I was dealing with a mountain sized Gravemind type thing.-

I felt the many writhing organic tentacles and tendrils all over the floor as we approached. 

“Start chanting the biggest most aggressive spell you have. We have a big one.” I said seriously to Riveria.

The fight started before we even set foot on the floor proper as I blasted out as much flames as I could through the stairway and onto the floor. Not to try and kill but to clear out the fleshy waiting tentacles and STUFF that was on every square inch of this floor waiting for us.-

It was on the walls, it WAS the walls and floor too for that matter. We needed a safe starting point or it’d be overwhelming from the word go once we stepped out. Something the monster also seemed to know as it did NOT take kindly to me scorching away it’s biomass. The fleshy stuff roared like a mighty river having broken through a dam and surged against the wall of flame I had pushing it back.

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