While Flora repaired the Mover, she took deep breaths. That bad B-rated baby boss had done a number on it and on her sanity. She didn't understand why she became so panicky in these situations. It was just a game.
"It's just a game. It's just a game. I won't die. The Mover won't die." Flora repeated the mantra a few times.
"Are you okay, Milady?"
"I will be," Flora answered. "Aidan, do you still think it was the best decision to sacrifice the Mover?"
"Yes, Milady. If you had healed him, the fight would have taken in the best case a bit longer. In the worst case, the boss would have enraged and killed the entire party."
"Okay, I see your point. Please adjust your calculations because I highly dislike losing team-members. Maybe triple the time I need to revive them if you compare times. I still prefer surviving than sacrificing the entire party for one member, though. Therefore your decision for the last fight was probably for the best." Flora felt better after talking about it. Her trust in Aidan was renewed, and now she knew her own priorities better. Maybe they would change in the future. Suddenly a case in which her survival was less important came to her mind. "If it means holding Robby alive, even virtually, disregard what I have said. His life and happiness have the highest priority, regardless of the consequences."
"Yes, Milady."
Flora put her mask away. They were past the point where she could play around blindly and still succeed. When they entered the chamber of the floor boss, she regretted the decision. It looked like a dungheap with mouthes, many mouthes.
Contrary to its horrible looks, the boss wasn't too challenging. He used wind skills, attempting to blow the Mover away or suck him in, but her aircraft countered him nicely. Because of the Mover's extra propellers, the boss failed to influence him. The Tollies and Gaccu had inherited Wind resistance from Flora, whereas the Octopussy was the lightest member of the party and had the most problems. After Aito hugged the mover with four tentacles, even their weakest member wasn't vulnerable, so the boss went down without further ado. It just took some time. Aidan estimated that the dunghill had 44000 HP, which was ridiculous. Flora herself had only 1800.
***************
Quest completed: The Tower Climb XI
Description: Conquer the eleventh level and advance to the top.
Rewards: + 1 OV Bonus to an attribute of your choice. + 1 OV Air Affinity.
Difficulty: SSS
***************
"SSS? Holy Toaster. The affinity reward is nice, though. "
"Yes, Milady. Floor X was the highest floor anybody in the forum admitted having conquered. The two players did warn about the eleventh floor. So now, we have no more advanced knowledge about further difficulties."
"I reached 4 in every bonus category but Magical Perception. You said you have two more + OV for it, so what should I get?"
"Defense and later Vigor, Milady."
Flora went with Aidan's advice.
***************
Quest: The Tower Climb XII
Description: Conquer the twelfth level and advance to the top.
Rewards: + 1 OV Bonus to an attribute of your choice. +1 OV Affinity of the Boss's Domain.
Penalty: None. Except when you die, then the scenario ends.
Difficulty: SSS
***************
"Right, we will be careful. From now on, we only engage the B and A-rated mobs when the entire team is ready."
The next Sarge was a bat. Flora regretted even more putting her sensory deprivation mask away. Its screeches made her vision shake. Aidan told her that his visuals even spun, so all that Sonic resistance leveling hadn't been for naught. On the other hand, Flora doubted she would have hit it wearing the blindfold because the bat flew crazy evasive maneuvers.
For a special skill, it bit the Mover and pumped it full with toxins. The robot was immune to the latter, so Flora had only used her two heal-over-times (HoTs) to support Gaccu.
"A Light affinity mob with blinding skills would annoy me the most, now that I don't wear the mask," Flora stated in the break.
The Tutorial Tower resisted Flora's ability to jinx herself and gave her a satyr boss who summoned goats at 75%, 50%, and 25%. The Dive-Tolly died, pierced by their horns.
The thirteens B-rated room didn't show the usual tower theme, but colorful mist partly obscured the mushroom sarge.
"Milady, the sensors of the robots aren't working properly. I can only see the mushroom because I can access your visuals. I believe the sarge applies illusion skills to hide."
"Do you see the mushroom, Nocks-Tolly?"
Flora received a bunch of confused feelings best summarized as "Huh, what shroom?"
"Seems about right, Aidan. I'll mark the enemy and project its location to you all." Flora had three abilities for marking and refreshed her memory about them.
Set Mark Description: Marks a target with an arrow above its head, which caused it to take more damage from all sources. CD: 5 min. Duration: 25 sec.
Tag Description: Gives back mana when you cast skills and stamina when you perform abilities at the target you tagged. CD: 1 min. Duration: 10 sec/var.
Marking Attack Description: Marks the target with a target butt over the head. The aggro of actions against the target gets partly transferred to you. CD: none. Duration: 10 sec.
"Wow, Set Mark sounds nice. About how much more damage are we talking? 25 sec should be enough for the sarge. If not, I can cast Tag."
"Around 50% more damage, Milady."
Flora whistled and vowed to use the skill more often. Five minutes cooldown was a long time, though.
The fight went according to their plan. Without the mushroom's hiding, the team only had to deal with hallucinogenic spores at 50% health, and toaster golems on shrooms were delightfully cute.
A demon lord awaited them in the last room. His domain, normal attack, and all of his three special abilities stacked fire. Although Flora Healing Rained the entire time on the party, the Octopussy perished. She hated to admit it, but afterward, the fight became easier because all her clears went to the Mover alone.
Floor XIII offered a sarge with a Time domain.
Time Domain Suppression: -1 OV Domain Handicap. – 2 HP per minute.
"This Tower is like Easter, Christmas, and the Home Appliance Fair rolled in one!" Flora cheered.
The B-rated mob was a preteen girl with bunny ears and a pocket watch. Although it was only as tall as a Tolly, Flora would never underestimate little girls, playmates, or Alice in Wonderland-themed opponents.
"Tollies and Aito, please wait outside. We do the 10-minute survival thing again."
This time, Flora didn't touch the mob. She just kept her HoTs up and chanted Mantra.
The Mover received a worrying debuff. Although the girl only cast the skill every five seconds, it stacked up, and neither Flora's Water secondary effect nor her Ailments secondary effect cleaned it.
Biting Minus Time Tier 1: 3 x (- 2 % Time Dilation). 3 x – 1 HP every 2 seconds. Remaining Time: 10 seconds.
Thankfully, the little girl hit like a little girl, so the Mover wasn't in any peril… yet. After a minute of that treatment, the robot was visibly slowed.
Biting Minus Time Tier 2: 2 x (- 10 % Time Dilation). 2 x – 6 HP every 2 seconds. Remaining Time: 10 seconds.
Now and then, the boss used a second ability that made her faster. And like many little toasters can bake a loaf of bread, the damage added up.
"Aidan, I take the mob from you. Please get it back after 10 seconds."
The girl turned to Flora, who implemented dodge-tank tactics, weaving around and doing acrobatics. In short, she acted like a preteen guy who thought girls had cooties. At a second glance, the girl didn't look that young, maybe more like a teenager.
After the debuff vanished, Aidan resumed tanking. Flora received 2 tier 1 stack, but they went away after 10 seconds.
As Flora took again over the aggro one minute later, the girl was definitely a teenager. She might even be able to get a drink in some pubs.
Aidan and Flora played hot potato with the young woman, ignoring her enragement at the five-minute mark. Aidan only did the absolute minimum on damage because they were already close to 50%. So Gaccu's healing pulled the ire of the sarge
Now, Flora's Mover design showed another advantage. The robot could shield the golem from all melee attacks with its four propellers. The time debuff still hit Gaccu, but any physical damage was soaked up by the Mover.
When they reached 50% of the boss health bar, the thirty-year-old woman fetched her pocket watch. Its watch hands began to spin, and the woman de-aged, and her health filled up.
"Can we get the clock?" Flora asked but already knew the answer. Even if it would drop, she couldn't take it out of the simulation grounds.
Flora called the Tollies and the Octopussy inside the room because there was no AoE, and she might profit from the golems' learning ability.
*************
You gained a new Affinity/Resistance: Time.
*************
Soon afterward, they conquered the room.
The endboss was easy. The Tollies and Flora were immune to his shenanigans, and they managed to heal the robots. It was a drunk water guy, spitting acid. Flora hoped the barrier between the boss and the sarge room was up if no one visited the tower. She didn't want such a bad influence near the little girl.
The sarge on the fourteenth floor was a brain in a jar. It used Technomancy to hack Flora's robots. Because Flora's resistance was too high, it had no success. It only deactivated them now and then, so Flora had to do a bit of the tanking, but that was alright.
Flora's jinx fulfilled itself on the floor boss. The rabid turret tower offered them a laser show. Nine cannons targeted not only the Mover but the entire team. The Dive-Tolly perished first, then Gaccu and the Mover. It resisted most of Flora's Technomagic attacks, so Flora went with pure DPS. Although the turret tower blinded her now and then, her magic senses grew sharp enough to anticipate which turret would go off next, and she moved in its blind spot. Somehow Aito had managed to scale the tower and was sawing the top barrel off. Flora threw the Nocks-Tolly to her, but a beam depleted the last of his life. Because he had powered Aito's Octopussy, Flora was alone after his death.
Flora even had fun despite the loss of her team. However, when she reenchanted and repaired them afterward, she asked herself how death would affect their consciousness. Aidan and Aito had no problem because their mind wasn't tied to the robots. The potato-sack Dive-Tolly didn't care, but what about Gaccu and the Nocks-Tolly?
"How are you, dears?" Flora asked them.
Gaccu transmitted shame because she couldn't keep the Mover alive, and Flora consoled her.
Flora hadn't noticed before, but Gaccu's mind felt female. She shook her head. How could a mind feel female or male? She attributed the gender of her AIs to their initial socialization. Her golems had no sex organs and had no socialization, so they should be genderless. However, she received clearly female vibes from Gaccu.
The Nocks-Tolly scratched his head. His mind felt oblivious and confused.
"Do you remember what happened, Notogo?"
The golem nodded.
"Do you have questions?"
The golem nodded and transmitted a string of thought-feelings to Flora.
"So the question, which is bothering you the most is: 'Does a falling tree make a sound if no one hears it?'"
The golem nodded again.
"Aito, have you talked to Nolly?"
*beep beep* Aito replied after a short pause. Although she signaled "No" her beeps sounded suspiciously innocent.
"What else did you do?"
*beep beep beep beeeeep* (I streamed him a few philosophy texts. Education is important.)
"The Holy Toaster show mercy to us all! No philosophy for folks under a week old! Aidan, do you feel ready for philosophy?"
"No, Milady."
"No philosophy for folks under three weeks old! Philosophy is something for people either with no real problems or peeps who want to hide from their real problems." Flora paused when she remembered Aito's background and her own AI Freedom project. "Nevermind, three weeks it is."
At least, the golem's consciousness didn't get killed with their body. Flora hypothesized that maybe the time until revival played a role, but she wasn't willing to test it. Instead, she tackled the next floor.
The fifteenth floor's sarge had an earth domain and threw gravity beams at the team. The Mover had no stamina as a robot, so only its frame groaned under its increased weight. The rest of the team got hit with reversed gravity and had no problems attacking despite it. Although everything panned out alright, the Mover struggled to hold Flora's aggro. The stacking Acid debuffs produced too much hate, so the auntie had to tank.
In the last room awaited them a troll shaman. He had a Magical Body Control domain, so Flora looked forward to the fight because she had no clue how the affinity could be used offensively.
A minute into the fight, Flora despised him with passion. Even if she had 100 Nutella toasts, she wouldn't offer him one of them! The evildoer stole their physical stats and buffed himself! He transformed the Mover into scrap metal with five hits and the Tollies with three. Because they were dead before Gaccu had drawn aggro, the golem survived and stealthily repaired them while Flora and Aito occupied the ire of the brute. As soon as the Nockotoll was mobile, Flora ordered him out of the room, too preserve the Octopussy. Of course, the others fell again in the next AoE, but Gaccu survived, so they repeated the spiel a few times until the troll died.
"We can expect another raise in difficulty on the 16th floor if the pattern holds true," Flora said. "By the way, our Paladin-Captain Ceart has an RGS of 15. He couldn't be as scary as these mobs, right? He would have performed better in Mia's test. He used no domain, either."
"The domain is a feature of the rooms and not the mobs, but otherwise, I agree. He didn't show the rise in difficulty the +11 RGS enemies had."
"This guy…" Flora shook her head. "Every time I think I have figured him out, another thing pops up."