Novel Bin
Chapter 103: Tempo
“No. Tulland, come up here. To where everyone can see you.” White pointed at another much more visible table near the center back of the room. “We’ll need to ask you questions as this goes on.”
“Ah. Right.” Tulland nodded. “Right now? Because…”
“No, not yet. We were just about to recap what we’ve been able to learn, since coming here. Potter, could you do the honors on that?”
Another man near the front nodded and stood. He was wearing a long, dark-colored robe that didn’t correspond cleanly to any of the classes Tulland knew about. Licht took a seat next to Tulland, responding to his generally confused look by giving up information.
“He’s a battle researcher. Don’t ask me how their class works because I don’t know. But he’s gotten this far and has a bunch of information organizing skills. He’s as good for the speaker role as anyone. Unless, of course, you’d like to do it.”
“No. I think I’m fine.”
Licht snickered. “Didn’t think so. Let’s see what he has to say.”
“Hello, everyone. Welcome. Thank you to everyone who was able to help us mine any hidden information from this safe zone, especially the various classes who were willing to share information gleaned from hidden codes particular to their worlds. It’s my hope that the accumulated wisdom of centuries of The Infinite challengers will help us make greater progress than our forebears.”
“Look at White,” Licht whispered. “He’s interested in how people reacted to that. Anyone who doesn’t want to push their world forward is here for some other reason.”
“Tricked in?”“Your situation is probably rare. More likely a choice between death and a run in The Infinite. But not many of those will be left.”
Potter waved his hand, conjuring a solid image in midair of a game board Tulland didn’t recognize. On it, one armored figurine stood facing a large monster, and another wave of the man’s arm put two armored figures up against the largest terror yet.
“As you all know, the first five floors were static, persistent level focusing on individual survival. It was possible to run into other delvers there, but not necessarily guaranteed. No rewards were given for cooperation there, and they altered the composition of the levels not at all.”
Another wave replaced the single monster with a swarm of smaller animals.
“Though the general scope of the challenges faced could vary a bit, there wasn’t much thinking necessary, whether it helped a bit or not. In the next five or six levels, we saw a split between that same individualism and new rewards and changes for teamwork. Most of you paired up with some other delver at least once during this period, but if I could get a show of hands of people who didn’t…”
At least a fifth of those in the room raised their hands.
“Good. The point is made, then, that it wasn’t necessary. Here, however, we are facing an entirely different sort of challenge. Most notably, you’ve probably noticed that you haven’t seen one of these hanging around the safe zone area.”
The next image was of an arch, just the normal, stone portal Tulland had come to think of as fairly normal. It shocked him to realize that he hadn’t noticed that, but it had only been just enough time to till some soil, plant some crops, and clean up from those activities since he had been here. He hadn’t been looking for his next near-death experiences at all. But now that it was mentioned, he couldn’t believe he had missed it. The Infinite normally made the arches impossible to miss, and the constant push forward in the back of Tulland’s mind would have usually made him figure out where it was first thing.
“That’s because, according to over a half-dozen archived reports carved into the stone of the buildings and roads themselves, the next battles you will participate in are much more like these.” The robed man waved his hand one more time, this time filling the board much more completely, with multiple rows of various human combatants facing row after row of monsters on the other side of the board.
“The arch, they say, will appear in a day or so. And once some significant percentage of us have attempted to go through it, we all will. Whether we like it or not.”
“I don’t understand.” A muscular, almost completely unarmored man wearing spiked plates over his fists said. “We have to all decide whether to enter or not?”
“In a way,” White spoke up. “There’s nothing anyone can or will do to stop anyone who wants to try to enter. But there are reasons that wouldn’t be in everyone’s interests.”
“Such as?”
“You’re probably thinking about the advantages of outperforming other people on the floor. Is that about right?” White asked. “You are ready, they aren’t, and that lets you top the contributions?”
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The big man with the metal fists nodded, as did several other people in Tulland’s view. One even grunted.
“Nobody is going to pretend that’s wrong. But there are some messages you should see.” The robed man flicked his hand again. Two popped up, and the room went silent as everyone stopped to read them. “The first is from near the initial appearance of the arch. The writer was, through other messages left and lost to us, aware of the nature of the floors to come.” 𝑅αℕ𝙤𝔟Ě𝙨
It has been a day. A day! With fully half of our forces still reeling from the tenth floor challenge and without so much as a single thought to the idea of strategy or organization, sufficient members of our safe zone group decided to move forward unilaterally as to force the rest of us into a hurried advance. I am making the rounds such as I can, talking to those who can be made to see sanity and doing whatever I’m able to get at least some of us into some semblance of a formation. I can only pray to gods who cannot reach me here that it will be sufficient. |
“Without guessing too much, I have to assume that the assumption of those who hurried to the gate was similar to what we might think. That they could, with unorganized assistance, triumph. And the next message shows what happened to that group, at least.”
We are doomed. We are all of us dead. Let it be known to whoever reads this that the grouped nature of the floors to come is far from optional. The monsters we faced, if they can be considered monsters, were ready. We were not. They swept through our ranks like wind through the branches of a winter tree, and we were powerless to stop them. My group fared better than most. Three of us survived, and four more that were simply lucky. My score was the highest, an achievement The Infinite attributes to my contribution to the group rather than a particularly impressive showing in the killing itself. But I only gained slightly more than the lowest scorer. We would have gained vastly more if our group had performed better, we are informed. The Infinite has given no indication that it will lower the difficulty of the floors to come. I must assume it won’t. And I must prepare to be content with my performance thus far and hope that my gods have mercy upon me in my next life. |
“They may have been a weak group.” The big man with the fists was still arguing, but doubt had crept into his voice. “We might be stronger.”
“We might. But the rewards are slim, even if we are. You might vastly outperform the group and still end up with less than you would have if we had all done well. And by the fifteenth floor, how many of us will be left to fight?”@@novelbin@@
The fist fighter seemed like he was going to argue still, then wilted.
“Then what do you propose? How long should we wait?”
“A week at least. Long enough to familiarize ourselves with what we all can do, to organize into ranks. And to rest any skills with longer cooldowns.” Licht stood up from the table. “And then we go in directly. Any objections?”
“For waiting, I think we should plan for a week, maybe two,” Necia said, which Tulland had half expected. “Add some time to train.”
“Train?” The fist man scoffed. “I don’t need to train.”
“I don’t expect you do,” Necia said. “But if you really don’t, then you are a step ahead of me, and I have things to learn from you.”
“She’s not wrong.” Potter looked thoughtful. “At least with more arcane classes, practicing with other classes sometimes offers progress that would be hard to achieve otherwise.”
“Any skilled class does.” Licht held up his crossbow. “I’d be willing to share what I know, if others also contribute.”
“I’m not much of a teacher.” The fist man tapped his weapons on the table. “Or a learner. More of a natural talent.”
“Then just hit me.” Necia smiled. “All of you can hit me. I’m guessing learning to block the best any of you can throw will be the best lessons I can get.”
“Only one problem, really,” a lanky, rapier-wielding man at the back said. “Every day we spend in this place costs. I have four or five days of food, then maybe one or two before I start spending my experience on staying fed.”
“Oh?” Necia asked with a smile. Tulland realized, with a shock, what Necia had done. They needed food now. Not that they hadn’t before, but they suddenly needed it more than anyone had expected they would, and were expecting pain to get it. She smiled and laughed as she pointed her thumb back his way. “Just ask Tulland. He’ll feed you.”
“It’s not just me. Even if he has some extra, there are lots of us,” the rapier man protested.
“Like I said, just ask Tulland. Tell them, White.”
“It’s true. Something I had planned on bringing up later. Tulland Lowstreet is a farmer. A living, breathing farmer.”
“What?” The fist man looked perplexed and glanced at Tulland, then back at White. “Someone who worked as a farmer before or an actual Farmer?”
“Farmer. Capital F. With a shovel and everything. Tulland, how long until you get actual food out of that soil we broke for you?”
“End of the day?” Tulland scrunched his eyebrows. “Maybe a bit sooner if I time out my enhancements right. You need it sooner?”
“No, that will be fine.” White laughed. “Tulland can feed all of us. Not only that, I’m guessing he can grow an excess so we can carry food with us into the floors themselves. I’ve been living on the stuff for a month now. There’s nothing wrong with what he grows.”
“It’s going to make a difference,” Potter said. “The Infinite doesn’t let systems bring much information back after the tenth floor. Right now, we know more than anyone else who has ever tackled these floors. And with Tulland growing our food, we’ll keep more of that growth.”
The room was filled with thoughtful, silent faces now.
“With Tulland, we can wait two weeks,” Potter said. “Or as long as The Infinite will let us wait. We’ll get as strong as we can.”
White stood up, smiling, and picked back up his weapons as he moved towards the door.
“Well, that’s enough of that, then. Unless anyone else has anything to say, I’m going to go get ready to set some records.”
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