Another day, another round of pain. Hope I'm not scheduled for that.
"Hellooooo..., you're still mad for yesterday, right?" - Garami
"...*hmph*." - Bloom
Yeaaaah, she's still mad.
Quick summarization, but Bloom lost it when I tried to suggest her using the Swamp Keystone. Something about "do you think I am ugly enough to be living in a swamp?!" and stuff like that. And even Nyx and Nala also rejected the thing. So do I, mostly for the same reasons. I just didn't wanna admit it yesterday when I chose the Poison Keystone over the other one. Maybe I could sell it...?
"...someone is getting close to the 5th floor," informed Bloom me while retaining the still-angry-at-you voice...
"Wait, is this those guys again?" - Garami
"It is as you feared," replied Bloom and showed me the visuals of the invaders...
Yup. It's those guys again. The mostly-white equipment that makes them look like paladins or whatever is not possible to mistake. They've constantly tried to clear the Dungeon no matter how many times they die and respawn, and that's on top of the "friendly" warnings from the Fort's more enthusiastic patronage.
"They're getting better by the day. Or is it their equipment?" - Garami
Those weapons do look shinier than the ones from the day before. Maybe they struck a deal with some amazing blacksmith player?
"At this rate, they will reach that room soon." - Bloom
Ah, yes. That room. That will be...interesting.
It's gonna take a while before the show starts, so I could kill time by looking over the new additions to the Dungeon. Annnnd the subtractions as well, I guess.
Specifically, I gave up the ticket system. It didn't give as much "income" as I wanted FP-wise, and even if I get FP from adding Support Facilities, they still take up space on each floor. Which led to me giving the ghost on the tickets and rather focusing on something more profitable. The Demon monster-line exclusive Demon's Shrine series.
This line of furniture is linked to the Demon monster line. Meaning you can't have the goods if you don't have the demons. The common trait for the furniture of this category is that they're all centered around something called "Demonic Energy". One half of this stuff, like the original Demon's Shrine, produces the energy, while the other half requires it to be placed in the Dungeon.
The Shrine produces 100 Energy per unit, and the special Demon's Brothel (unlocked by having a Succubus-type among the spawned monsters) gives me 20 Energy per unit in addition to being another safe area for the invaders. I also bought the "Improved Demon's Shrine" special effect right away to boost the Shrine-type "generators" by 10%. It's gonna be useful in the future. I just know it.
Among the stuff that consumes the Energy, we have the Demonic Tomes that gives invaders a boost to their stats for a limited time, the Demon's Rewarding Statue that gives a random item based on what you give the statue in return, and the Demon's Vile Statue that looks the same as the Rewarding Statue, but you're hit with a mental status ailment if you walk into the statue's line of sight.
And before I forget, I've also added the 6th floor. Then again, I only moved all the stuff from the previous 5th floor to the current 6th, so that part's not that different from before. The big deal is about the current 5th floor...
"The intruders have reached the Boss Room." - Bloom
Guess the show's about to start~.
I jumped onto the couch with some popcorn that I'd stuffed in the item chest for an occasion like this. No worries, the corn's still fresh. And hot. Ouch!
While I was busy licking my burned fingers, the show started. The "paladins" entered the Boss Room.
After entering, the paladins looked around confused. It gotta be because the scenery changed so drastically inside that room alone. If I had to describe it, the room's sorta like an old Roman public bath. Just more classy and evil-looking. The first part is because the room looks like it could fit the emperor rather than the public. And the latter is because it's not bathwater there. It's poison.
Furthermore, there are enough spider webs on the ceiling to cover it all. And from those webs climbed the owner of the room down.
That's right. It's the Arachne I managed to "hire" yesterday. And now, she's the worst thing the paladins could hope to face.
Quick on the uptake, the paladins started to spread out and prepare themselves for battle. The two tanks, one with a tower shield and one with a round shield, ran to the front line while the spear user and sword user tried to circle the Arachne. The two magicians are staying behind, probably to support the warriors.
"Again with that formation?" - Bloom
Bloom gave a bored sigh at the sight of the paladins, probably more than tired of it after having seen it for three days straight by now. And I agree with her. No one likes a one-trick pony! I want my money back! Not that things aren't gonna turn interesting after this.
The Arachne gave one of the threads near her a small thug, and all of a sudden, the webs on the ceiling moved around as if it was alive and attached the sword-user. Before the idiot could react, he was crushed by tons of webbing. His HP reached the red zone before his friends could react, but he busted himself out of the sticky mess by igniting the big thing. He's a Fire element user, so he simply burned all the sticky stuff.
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But the second he escaped with more than "simple" burns, the Arachne appeared behind him and snuffed out the last of his HP before the magicians could release the spell they were preparing. I bet that it was supposed to be a healing spell.
The magicians erased their first magic circles and prepared new ones, but before they were finished, the Arachne had already disappeared.
"How did she do that?" asked Bloom in confusion.
"Stealth-type skills of the Shadow element. It goes hand-in-hand with her main class: Arachnid Assassin." - Garami
Bloom whistled in admiration after hearing the Arachne's talents. Compared to the Darkness element, Shadow is even better when it comes to stealth and sneak attacks. In addition, the Arachne also owns the Water and Poison elements.
Yes, she's specialized in three out of three possible elements! And she even has 4 Advance-tier classes! Including the Arachnid Assassin class, I can see from my Dungeon menu that she also owns the Web Alchemist class, the Shadow Puppeteer class, and finally, the Poison Mistress class.
And it seems like the paladins are gonna find out just how deadly the combo of that class and the elements of Poison and Water is.
While the paladins tried to find where the Arachne had hidden, mostly by keeping an eye on the webs above them, one of the tanks jumped up and held his leg in agony. It was the poison from the pools. It was overflowing from the pools and reached the tank's leg. That's right, the poison's so damn potent that it's hurting him through his boots!
One of the paladins tried to freeze the poison thanks to their Ice element spells, but the second after the spell was finished, the ice started to crack before breaking and melted back into poison.
To explain, the increasing poison is due to the Poison abilities of the Arachne, and she's using the Water element abilities to improve the control of the liquid poison. That's how she broke the iced poison before.
The paladins then tried their best, but..., no luck. They couldn't find the Arachne which also meant they couldn't stop her from flooding the room with poison. And soon after that, they were all washed-up corpses from the DoT-damageDamage over Time..
"That was more boring than I expected." - Bloom
"Hey, it's important to keep some tricks hidden for the future." - Garami
It's not like the paladins will forget what happened in the Boss Room, so they may prepare some countermeasures if they try to challenge the Arachne again.
"I guess it is true. Even if she can return to life, I do not want to see miss Miranda dying." - Bloom
Ah, that was her name. It never stuck for me. And when did Bloom go all buddy with the Arachne-, er, with Miranda?
As for her fears, I think Bloom has nothing to worry about. Miranda didn't even use her shadow puppets. She barely gave me any details about them, but from the few facts I managed to squeeze out from the spider woman, they're some damn scary dolls. And she didn't even use the full potential of her other three classes. AND she's still got the potential to grow stronger with time!
"Maybe the next floors after Miranda should be spider-themed..." - Garami
"What was that?" - Bloom
"Nothing special. It's just that when Miranda joined, I could add a new element or monster-line to the Fort." - Garami
Specifically, I could take the monster-line and elements that Miranda had. Meaning the Arachnid-line, and the elements of Poison and Shadow. The Water element wasn't possible as the Fort's sole primary element is and will always be Darkness.
"So the Fort can summon spiders from now on?" - Bloom
"Not yet. I got the monster-line, but I need a free element that can be assigned to the spider-line." - Garami
A monster-line can be used with several elements, but you can only use an element a single time. And both Darkness and Crystal are in use with the Demon-line, so I need a new one if I want to have some crawling critters in the Fort.
"Are you planning on making all the floors after a boss be themed after that individual?" - Bloom
"Ahahaha~. As if there would...hmm..." - Garami
With some heavy stuff to think about, I gave a listless goodbye to Bloom as I left for the swamps again...
I should also be looking for a gift for her. Slave/servant or not, I guess I did her bad the whole Swamp-thing. Is there some Keystone trading store nearby?