Ultimate Level 1-Chapter 459: Everyone Loves Big Rewards

Chapter 459 - Everyone Loves Big Rewards

“I feel like Everetts called us into his office,” Fowl stated as he sat at the table with the rest of the party.

Max could see that everyone but Tanila looked slightly frustrated, having been summoned, as their archer had called it, a little bit ago.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush. None of us acted how we should have yesterday. How I left was uncalled for and for that I’m sorry.”

Fowl started to speak, but he cut him off with a raised hand.

“We’re tower climbers and that means we will face hard decisions and as a group have to come to them. If Dagon’s room taught us anything, none of us wants to die, and how we fight has to change. Every floor will get harder, and we all need to get stronger.”

A grunt came from Cordellia as she crossed both arms, leaning back in her chair.

“You disagree?”

“Seriously, Max? You’re the strongest one besides the King we’ve ever met, and right now you’re acting like you’re the same as us. That’s a load of ogre shite, and we all know it.”

“He’s not acting that way,” Tanila stated.

“Please, don’t go defending him just because he’s your man, and yes, you can play that princess card, and I’ll snap into line, but I’m sorry… dying hurt and for the first time since I joined this party, I now know how what I feared feels like.”

“Which is why Dagon had us experience it,” Fowl said quietly, playing with a finger as he gazed at the table they sat around.

“What does that mean?”

Taking a deep breath, their warrior sighed and scratched his bushy eyebrow before looking at their archer.

“Last night, I didn’t get much sleep, which usually makes me cranky.”

Batrire snorted and held up both hands as a silent apology.

“I’ll make no argument that there have been times in our adventuring when I was a loot-baby as someone once said, and I often whined and complained more than I should have. Yet, lying in bed last night with Batrire next to me, snoring like she always does, I thought about how the last days went.”

A few tears started to roll down the weathered face of their warrior and he let them be free, disappearing into his beard.

“I almost lost her once and that moment almost broke me. That day, I had to choose if I would give up this quest to be an adventurer, admit I was a failure and return home as one. Max didn’t let me. He gave everything to keep her safe and bring her back. He almost sold his soul to… Bob… in order to get the money we needed to pay for her healing.”

Fowl let out a small chuckle as he smiled at Max.

“We’ll ignore how it was my money that actually paid for everything… but in the end, he has never backed down and every choice he makes is as a leader with an impossible task. Us warriors know our job. To protect each of you is one hundred times harder because he loves all of us.”

A few sniffles came around the table, and Cordellia’s frustrated expression softened slowly.

“None of us would be where we are without him, and last night, I finally realized the whole point of Dagon letting us use his room. We’ve reached a point in the tower where we have to decide if we’ll risk everything, knowing that from this moment on, death could be right there.

“That each floor represents a test and a competition. I asked myself how one moves a whole party through a tower floor faster than Max? The answer is simple… It’s probably one person, maybe two, and the rest of that team is no longer there.”

Fowl’s thick fingers started to drum on the table as he smiled at Max.

“You knew we were tired from two days of fighting. The mud in places we don’t want to discuss made it worse. Each fight was hard because you made us work for it, and I realized last night that you were doing less and less, making me pick up the slack to help me learn to do so.”

Unable to help it, Max grinned and nodded.

“Tanila was casting more spells, and Cordellia had to shoot more arrows. We were never in real trouble, but you let us experience the frustration a normal party might, and those few close calls were reminders that stuff goes sideways.

“So when we reached the last part of the floor, I realize now that you would have ensured we were safe and not allowed us to fail. Even if it meant you killed them all after it started, you just wanted us to step up and be willing.”

He waited a few moments and then bobbed his head. “My god, Fowl… you’ve gotten smarter.”

“Bah, go hump a troll!”

Grinning, Max rose, moved to where his friend was, and hugged him. “You’re my brother, even if you’re shorter and hairy,” he whispered to him.

“And don’t forget it!”

After the two hugged and returned to their seats, Max watched the three women, waiting to see how they would respond.

“How you two always do that makes me jealous,” Batrire said. “Ready to kick each other’s arse one day, and the next, you’re hugging and comparing sizes. Still… Fowl’s right… I owe you much, and I’m sorry for not speaking up how I should have yesterday.”

He could see the tension between Tanila and Cordellia as both women gazed as each other.

“Fine,” their archer said after a moment, looking away first as she raised her hands in the air. “I acted poorly… and our warrior’s right. I was scared… I am scared… I… Experiencing how quickly Dagon killed me and knowing that somewhere out there are others like that was hard to deal with. But I shouldn’t have acted that way, and I can’t believe I’m going to say that Fowl’s right again, but you have sacrificed so much for us. I… I’m sorry, Max.”

With a single nod, he smiled at her. “I’d offer to hug, but you’ve never been much of one for that.”

Her response was an eye roll followed by a grin and her middle finger.

Clearing his throat, Max shrugged. “Well… I’ll owe Fowl a drink for that. It made what I was going to say a lot easier. We’re going to grind the heck out of every floor we can, and I’ll see about afterward running through as fast as possible for rewards after. For now we need both the experience of fighting as well as those gains.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Does that mean we’re going to go back to the 62nd floor today?”

Nodding at his friend, Max grinned.

“I figured I owed you a real apology, and if I can get you a treat, why not do that first.”

Grinning, their warrior stood.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?! There’s loot to be had!”

Groans and eye-rolls came from everyone as they all stood, smiles present as they prepared for another day in the tower.

***

[ Calculating Results of Previous Floor ]

[ … ]

[ … ]

[ Results Totaled ]

[ Time Spent on Floor is within Top 3 ]

[ Number of Kills on Floor is in top 20% ]

[ Calculating Rewards ]

[ Rewards for Achieving Top 3 Fastest Time ]

[ Full Level Experience Granted & Skill Gem ]

[ Error - Experience denied ]

[ No Replacement given for lost experience ]

[ Skill Gem Granted - Epic Rank - Random Skill Granted upon use ]

Max grinned as the shard appeared on the sand. He picked it up and motioned to his friends.

“Looks like we’re back in the top three!”

Each of them quickly came over and acquired their stone, and soon, the beach had four adventurers, all smiling from their new skill additions.

“You make me feel bad,” Fowl complained. “I’m over here crushing that gem without waiting, and I know you’re going to give it to your sister. Should I save mine and give it to someone else?”

“Ehhh… maybe? I mean you got the Staff weapon skill… which I still find funny but won’t comment on. That means you’re close to getting weapon mastery. It’s a great thing to have as it opens you up for a few other opportunities down the road.”

“Maybe… perhaps I’ll be nice in ten or twenty floors and give away one of mine.”

Chuckling, he gave his friend a gentle slap and then pointed at the water.

“Looks like we’re going to get wet.”

Grunting, Fowl nodded and tapped the ring on his finger.

“Already prepared. Wonder what the tower has in store for us today.”

Once everyone was gathered along the beach's edge, Max strode out on top of the water, grinning as the others waited for him to quickly scout ahead.

“He’s a bit of a show-off,” he heard Batrire say.

“But he’s my show-off,” Tanila replied.

***

This place is… almost impossible to comprehend.

For the first time in a while I agree.

With his boots, he moved through the water like he was flying, and beneath where the rest of the team waited, he saw a world similar to one he had only witnessed once.

Everywhere, tiny fish and other creatures were swimming and moving around the seabed, which dropped off into a sheer cliff after a hundred yards.

The light from the sun above streamed down, creating ripples of light that added to the already colorful space.

He could see for miles, and all sorts of plants of every color were attached to large pillars of rocks that rose up around him, creating movement everywhere he looked.

A few predators, perhaps?

It's still not something we should be concerned about. I think we should be more worried about what is below.

Some fish that looked like long snakes made quick attacks on smaller ones, each of them easily over twenty feet long, yet none of them appeared to want to come in Max’s direction.

Deeper within the water, it grew slightly darker but his boots allowed him to see through what he knew would be normally impossible and see lots of lights stretched in different directions.

Merfolk?

Perhaps… We can’t forget that many different kinds of beings live in water.

Seeing that they were going to be swimming downward, Max returned to his friends and explained what he had found.

“So we’ll need to be careful with the rings and make sure to recharge them,” Tanila said. “Perhaps we can take shelter in the dimensional space, and it will allow them to do so?”

“Yeah… drowning isn’t how I want to go,” Fowl added. “Still, I wouldn’t mind some fresh fish.”

Their healer groaned and bonked Fowl on the head with her staff.

“We’ll stick together and swim as a pack. I’ll take point while Fowl handles your three safety. His taunt obviously works best in that limited space.”

With no complaints, they set off, finding that most of the creatures avoided them. Only one of the serpent-like fish had been foolish enough to get close. It was pincushioned and stored within their warrior's ring after Cordellia ended its life.

About an hour passed, and Max and the rest began to sense a difference in the water temperature as the stone that rose from the bottom started to form chasms like a gorge in a mountain.

Each passing moment also made the lights below brighter, and as they drew close to the first section of stone and rock they would have to swim through, Max and Bob sent spells off in two directions!

“Incoming!”

Dozens of tentacles began to spring up from the dark spots within the stone, and as Bob’s wind blades and Max’s ice spear struck the thick appendages, roars reverberated in the water.

“Goblin shite! Are those kraken?!” Fowl shouted.

Max could only smile and nod as a trio of them began to rise from their hiding hole, yellow eyes locked on the party, their giant mouths starting to suck in water.

Looks like we’re going fishing!

A groan came from his head as another pair of wind blades was sent at the closest enemy.

You really need to get some better jokes.

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