In a very dark gloomy forest there lived two spiders. The little ones were currently very envious of their dead brethren. They were still stuck to Josh's feet while completely immobilized, limbless, and used as footwear. It was definitively an existence far worse than death.
Josh was simply walking over the web using their innate ability not to stick to it. Before long he reached an enormous cocoon. That is when began an epic fight, man versus cocoon.
Well, let's just say it was extremely resistant for some reason. The scene in itself was quite ridiculous. Josh had already dispatched all the monsters spectacularly but now was struggling so much for such a simple-looking task. He kept hacking and hacking at it, even turning his weapon into an axe in the process. Josh felt like a bodybuilder having trouble opening a pickle jar.
Finally, Josh managed to tear it apart revealing the dark content. It was filled to the brim with dark shadows! Monsters! Josh backed off quickly as they all fell toward him akin to rain. Very much like water droplets they soon collided with the ground.
That is when Josh noticed that these shadows looked somewhat humanoid, with a size similar to his own. They were clearly monsters but didn't have much going for them besides a weird blurry dark appearance. There was no sign of anything remotely threatening on their bodies and they were not moving at all.
Josh carefully came closer. That is when came a system message.
[Ding- Rescued 5 captives! Mission completed!]
What?! These things were the captives? That is when one shadow twitched before slowly raising itself. It then stretched the hole in place of its mouth until it was wide beyond belief. That is when it actually spoke: "THaNk yOu FeLLoW HuMan!" It could talk!
Josh felt a shiver down his spine, it sounded so disgusting! The tone was discordant and akin to nails on a blackboard. Yet, it was somehow extremely flat too.
Fellow human? Who's your fellow human?! Apparently this ...thing was supposed to be the same species as Josh, who knew! There was clearly a lot wrong with it. To Josh, it felt like placeholder artwork that developers would use in the very first draft of a game.
Comparisons could really be harsh at times. If the Alter Tower's Protocol was a professional then this one was clearly a beginner. Still, this simple point had many crazy implications.
First, would luck itself be an important factor in climbing the Tower? Would some worlds simply get lucky and receive way easier Towers? How smart the Tower assigned to one's race was would be a core element.
Second, this thing could freaking talk! Would there soon be true NPCs scouring the Floors? There could be both allies and enemies to spice things up. How complex would the whole Tower become? This would bring both challenges and opportunities.
Third, this thing called itself human. Did this mean that the Tower Protocol was actively researching their species? Why did it even need to? Did the gods withhold information from their own subordinates/AIs? Or, did the gods simply ignore it themselves? For instance, one may not know individually each of the ants living in one's basement.
So many questions and so few answers. But at this moment, all that mattered to Josh was finding what and especially where the Boss for this Floor was. As Josh kept exploring the dark, gloomy, and oppressive forest he realized that "needlessly huge" was also very accurate.
There were actually many spider nests where they all congregated. Josh easily did quick work of all of the monsters he encountered, soon freeing more shadows trying to act human. The "THaNk yOu FeLLoW HuMan!" kept getting repeated enough for it to haunt Josh's dreams.
"Alright, this is proving such a pain. Navi, tell me about this Boss here. Where is it?" Usually, Josh would try to figure it out on his own but he was getting annoyed.
"Well then, I better increase the pace!" That simple sentence caused a round of savagery. Except that this one lasted so long that Josh had to change his "shoes" many times over. But even then there was no sign whatsoever of any change happening.
"Hey, Tower protocol! I have a request!" But no matter what Josh wasn't getting any answer. Was it possible that it was hiding? He even kept shouting for a while but it clearly wasn't working.
So, Josh exited the Tower before entering right back. It seemed like the group warning people about Climbing was gone for good. They had probably given up as soon as they realized that no one at all cared.
Back on Floor 12, Josh quickly cleared a nest. That is when the usual message popped out! Seems like the Protocol was watching the mission pretty darn attentively.
[Ding- Rescued 5 captives! Mission completed!]
Josh was ready for it. As soon as it appeared he instantly "ambushed" the system! "Hey, Tower protocol! I wish to increase the spawn rate of the Boss!" Josh was pretty sure that there would be no issue increasing the difficulty.
[Denied! This request would create unbalance in the Tower. Please refrain!]
"Think about it, what is the point of having a Boss in the first place if it's impossible to summon it?"
[Rate is high enough, it will remain as is.]
"How about you increase the number of spider nests then? You know add a few zeros to it? Overall increase the difficulty a tad."
[There are no hidden missions available for this content.]
"Seriously?! Talk about an oversight! Are you telling me that you are not even able to make use of men's greed to bait them into tackling more than they can actually handle?! This is bad!"
[Computing. Computing. Comparing proposition to data available. Result: humans do die from excessive greed. Generating alternate mission. Completed. Please pick one: Normal difficulty or Difficult with twice the spiders.]
"Hell no! Do you realize how long it would still take?! No, how about you simply add even more difficulties? Take the mob counter and put it to the max!"
[Assessing viability. No immediate issue was found. Actual difficulty in acceptable margins. Proceeding. Please stand by. Please select difficulty: Normal, Difficult, Impossible!]
"Well, there is only one thing to pick here, impossible! Make it rain!" Josh couldn't help but enthusiastically shout that. He truly appreciated the name. Except, that's when red portals started appearing floating in the air all over.
How was he going to deal with this? Also, did he just potentially convince the system to add a super deadly pitfall to its arsenal?