It's been three months since I joined the Hermes familia. We get along fine, as long as I keep providing detailed maps of the dungeon floors. The map of the first four floors was enough to get the other members of my back. The mechanics of the Jack Bird basically gave me the green light to do whatever I wanted. The questions as to what I'm going to do with the egg were easily answered. My response of "I'm going to eat it." Left the group stunned for a solid minute.
A week ago I revealed more details into how to fight monsters more efficiently. Me describing decapitation and torture while sipping on some liquor from Hermes' drinks cabinet made a few faces blanche. Hermes asked the question which was on everyone's mind. "What compelled you to fight this way and develop these tactics?" He was probably thinking it had to due with something in the past. Again, My answer left the room stunned, "It's the most efficient way to map the floors. The paths and routes change but the areas are pretty consistent. It draws the monsters to an area where I can fight without restrictions, then move on to map the floor without running into monsters or have ingredients destroyed as a result of the fight."
This got the message across that I don't wish to be bothered by the trivialities of the familia life. Being given the green light to do as I please came with a pretty simple condition. I had to provide advanced details of the floors to the Hermes familia. I countered that the information be solely for the use of the familia. Any sale of such information would cost any buyer dearly and the portion of my cut would go towards the upkeep of the familia. The terms were agreed to rather quickly. They think that they got the better deal. I'm a couple hundred million away from being able to afford some pretty slick armour. All enchanted of course. I'd held off on getting some upgrades for the Chat-group because of this armour. It looked cool as hell and the effects were amazing.
Blessing of Atlas: Armour forged from the essence of the titan of war, Atlas. Drenched in the ichor of the gods. This set of armour grants the user immense protection as long as the wearer kills off one thousand enemies every day. Immovable object or unstoppable force, the armour will work with the will of the wearer. Armour will grow alongside the wearer, adapting and refining itself to suit the wearer. Self cleaning, self repairing, lightweight, will absorb anything that can make the armour stronger. $500,000,000
'Pretty cheap, the "absorb anything that can make it stronger" bit is actually the most interesting and the only reason I'm even considering this.'
Helm of Tartarus: Grants the wearer the ability to blend into the shadows and darkness. The wearer is able to travel among them. Those who the wearer deems as enemies are struck with heart stopping fear, regardless of who they are or their power relative to the user. Bathe it in the blood to boost effects. The gates are always open to the wearer. $1,000,000,000
'Black and gold color scheme, cool ass name, cool effects. Need it for future plans.'
Cloak of Nyx: The wearer has the blessing of the Night. The darkness welcomes you into it's gentle embrace. The wearer is strengthened during the night. All foes vanquished in silence and darkness increase the wearers powers. $1,500,000,000
'Also need this.'
The Helm of Tartarus is out of the question for now so is the Cloak ox Nyx. The Blessing of Atlas comes with it's own helm so it's not like I'm going to get smacked in the head as I go past the eighteenth floor.
I'm finding more and more loopholes and methods to deal with the dungeon and it's monsters. Which means the dungeon is doing it's best to fuck with me. The spawn rates are higher and faster when I'm on the eighth and ninth floor. The tenth floor and onwards, I'm seeing larger groups of orcs standing in my way. The imps are more numerous as well. The bad bats, I usually take care of first, birdshot is amazing for pest control. Using my MAP and instincts, in the thick fog of the tenth to twelfth floor I usually get rid of a good chunk of the bats in the beginning. This however attracts the other pests, imps and orcs. The imps, again birdshot for taking out 4-5 five of them, they're incredibly flimsy. The orcs, the hard armored, silverbacks, wyverns, and infant dragons need more fire power. The M14 rifle or slugs and frag-12 from the M1014 shotgun are excellent on these floors. The MP7 and M1911 need multiple shots per target.
The twelfth floor is the highest floor I can reach using only my xiphos, in my left hand. I only practice my spells without gestures on the upper floors. I just look at something and imagine it blowing up, and it blows up, after about five seconds of mentally visualizing the runic array in my mind. I'm still learning the intricacies of Runecraft. The initial lessons were all Latin based. Was easy to read and learn. The effects and enchantments I can make with them are enough to make me an above average enchanter for magical artifacts and weapons. I repaired my initial spear and shield. I didn't want to enchant them right now, they are my blank canvases, but that doesn't mean I can enchant and remove enchantments willy-nilly.
For enchantments, it's what you're enchanting that makes the difference. Simple wood can only hold a few basic enchantments. Wood from the elven forests can hold a few high-level enchantments. Metals are the same way, iron and steel are pretty versatile, but pretty basic. A few mid-level enchantments at most. Orichalcum, mithril, adamantium, and their alloys on the other hand are all able to handle several-high level enchantments, but the enchanter needs to know what the purpose and use will be, the composition of the artifact, the shape, other materials that will be used, everything from how it was forged to how it will end up looking needs to be controlled to an extreme degree. The catch being that, that is the extent of using Latin in runic circles. Latin is excellent for spells and spell-crafting, but falls apart at the upper echelons of enchanting. Nordic runes and Greek letters are a completely different story.
Let's take a simple fireball spell. A fireball cast using a Latin runic array is flexible and the power can be adjusted by using more or less Mind based on the caster's requirements.
The runic array for fireball that uses Nordic runes is set in stone. It can be made to flexible, but the array will have to allow for the flexibility. It will use a set amount of Mind and output the specified effect, regardless if it was the effect you wanted or not. Higher level of knowledge is required to simply use a single rune to achieve the desired effect. Nordic runes are useful in spellcasting, spell-crafting, and enchanting. They are the most diverse Runes. An enchanter with enough skill, knowledge and magical power can make a simple stick capable of breaking boulders. Not to mention the possibilities on simple steel weapons. Greek Runes are completely useless for spellcasting. One needs a medium of focus, like a staff or wand, and a long chant or an overly complex spell-circle /runic array for a simple fireball. The drain on Mind energy is actually very low. This is due to the runes using the 'aether' in the air for ninety percent of the spell. It's suitable for simple enchantments. However the entire chant or runic array has to be inscribed on the object.
To put it into perspective, the Latin array for fireball is about 8"x8" can fit on a A4 sheet of paper if written in legible writing. It is possible to very easily inscribe it onto an object and make a grenade of sorts. The Nordic array is basically a few runes arranged geometrically, written normally it can fit on a post-it note. The Greek runic array was 4'x5' written normally. You'd have to go smaller than fine print to be able to fit that onto anything.
Here's where the Greek alphabet/runes come into their own. Rituals. You need a lot of space, precise calculations, and a source of external power, and the caster. Using rituals to improve yourself are also possible and actually pretty straight forward. The only downside, the ingredients are expensive. If you can find them then great you only lost a bit of time in your quest for immortality, but where the fuck am I supposed to get the Tears of Styx from in Genkai? Then looking at the SHOP the damn tears cost a fuck-ton at which point you're better off dead. The price of the Tears of Styx $250,000,000,000. Yep two hundred fifty billion for a 5mL vial. Getting back on topic, the rituals are reversible, and can be compounded in a short time frame. Rituals in general are risky endeavours regardless of how you go about doing it. Using the Greek alphabet requires one to know the exact ritual being attempted and how to undo the entire thing if something does go wrong.
There are other methods of using the written word in Runic arrays. Hieroglyphs, cuneiform, demotic, hieratic. Hieroglyphs have the most utility followed by Nordic Runes. But they aren't used in geometric arrays like the others. It's not a geometrically symmetrical array. I'll learn a bit of it for now but mastering them will take a lot of time.
I have only reached an average level of proficiency with the Latin and Nordic runes. All due to the help of Master Dreyar and Odin. Using other languages was explained in a series of advanced books. That's how I know a lot of useless information. I mean I can't apply that knowledge effectively, yet.
The thirteenth floor is where I go to sword and shield. Wyverns, crystal mantis, and bad bats are the only aerial monsters. I practice my intermediate and advanced spells from here on out. Wantonly blowing shit up has led me to face off against a Juggernaut on the sixteenth floor. That was a clusterfuck and a half.
Here I was happily blowing shit up and causing mayhem. As one does. Out of nowhere a large shadow begins to appear in the one intact section of the dungeon. The MAP was showing a blaring red skull where the Juggernaut was spawning. I got out my M14, M1014 and HE grenades. The moment a vague shape rose from the ground I chucked 4 grenades at it. Move position. Shoot, Grenade, scoot. I repeated that process for a good five minutes. I used a lot of intermediate spells to supress the damn thing. Thankfully the damn thing didn't move from it's spawn point. It may have been the stone spikes in one of it's legs, but I had a feeling that it wouldn't bother the monstrosity for long. Getting low on ammo, I decided to actually aim for the eyes and mouth. a clip into it's eye and five frag-12 grenades into it's mouth later and it was dead. I ran over as quick as possible and stored the corpse in the INVENTORY. I'm not letting all the premium material go to waste. I spent a few million on repairing and resupplying, Then I went on to kill my first Goliath.
I farmed the seventeenth floor for a few hours with only my spear and shield. I took off the plate carrier and flack jacket, I just wanted to let loose for a while. I checked the wall of grief and the shadow in the wall was dark. I just shot the wall with the M1911. It had the desired effect. The Shadow got darker and in about two minutes I was face to face with the Goliath. I had not qualms about fucking him up. Grenades and AP rounds to the head. In ten seconds the headless corpse of the Goliath was fading away. It left behind a large hide, an intact core, and because I faced it alone a pair of gauntlets/mauls.
I didn't know at the time, I was the only level 1 to solo the Goliath. Due to a number of factors that I didn't know of at the time, I actually got the Goliath to equip and drop the gauntlets/mauls.
All in all that was a good Wednesday. 'I need a bottle of Remy, an ounce of kush, and a bitch to fuck.'