RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Three - A True Captain

  Everyohered oop floor of the boss room, all of us rather exhausted, even Bastion seemed a bit tired, even if he and Howard had been the only oirely unscathed by the boss fight.

  “How’re you?” I asked Awen. She was leaning up against the wall he door that I suspect led out of the dungeon.

  Awen grimaced. “My health is a bit low? Um, and my Stamina... my mana is fine?”

  “I don’t think your mana’s a big deal right now,” I said. I searched my bandoleer for a potion, but the only one I had was broken.

  Why were potion bottles made of gss? That was just silly.

  “Here,” Amaryllis said as she handed an intact potion to Awen. “Once we’re out of here, I think it would be wise to find a healer. At least, if there is one in Insmouth?” The st she asked while looking at Howard.

  “We have a good apothecary, but nothing so special as a doctor or healer,” he said.

  “What’s the difference?” I asked. “Between doctor and healer, I mean.”

  “One knows how the body works very well, and has skills to fix it physically,” Amaryllis said. “The other throws magic at the problem and hopes for the best. Doctors are better, generally, but slower. Both is best.”

  “Right,” I said. A lesson, but not what we needed right then and there.

  “We’ll find someone in Sylphfree, I’m sure,” Amaryllis said.

  “We do pride ourselves on being the most advanatio es to the healing arts,” Bastion said.

  Amaryllis nodded, and if she was aowledging it without pint, it robably true.

  Awen took her potion and sighed after. “That was scary.”

  “I was terrified,” I said.

  “Awa, I think... I think I want to learn how to swim.”

  I giggled, which got her ughing a bit too. Amaryllis rolled her eyes, but at least she was smiling. “We’ll find a pool or something,” I said. “I teach you to doggy paddle at least.”

  “How undignified.”

  “If it keeps you above water, it doesn’t matter how silly you look,” I said.

  Howard stretched his bad looked over to where the boss had been before. “I’ll go see if the boss dropped anything,” he said before heading off.

  I took in my friends at a gnce. We were done here, mostly. Just the st bit of the missioo take care of, but that art that we could take our time in handling, and ohat was uo attack us. My friends seemed preoccupied, especially Amaryllis who had a smug birdy grin on.

  “Levelled up?” I asked.

  “I did,” she said.

  I sat dowo Awen, then scooted over a bit before cheg all of my notifications. Mister Menu had a bune.

  Dungeon Cleared!All adversaries with The Depths of Insmouth Defeated.All Bosses Defeated.Broccoli Bunch, amon Bun Bun, level 12, Wondernder level 4, is awarded the Deep Diver css.All css slots filled.Repce current css with Deep Diver?Repg one of your current csses will reset your level to 0 in that css.

  Did I want to bee a fish-person with bunny ears? Not really, no.

  Css: Deep Diver set in abeyail Css Slot bees avaible

  Well, that was done! Another dungeon cleared, another potential css saved up for when I reached my evolution.

  I was expeg a level up, but I got... nothing. I sed through all the messages I had from Mister Menu, but there wasn’t anything about levelling up. That was annoying. And we’d worked so hard!

  Though, I supposed it was fair. It had only been a few hours, and there was hardly as much fighting here as i dungeon. And the monsters weren’t quite as impressive.

  Plenty of skills had improved though!

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Archaeology skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank D is a Free Rank!

  Oh! That hadn’t moved around in a long time. It was o see it growing a bit. Not the most handy of my skills, but maybe now that it was at Rank D it would start being more useful. It felt like Ranks F was just there to tell you that you had a skill, and Rank E was only good for helping a tiny bit. D was where things started to really improve.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Tea Making skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank C Costs one Css Skill Point!

  I grinned. Rank C Tea Making! I wondered what that did? Would it allow me to make magic teas? Or would I have some sort of Stamied ability lio Tea Making? Maybe it would allow me to prepare tea better? Oh! Maybe it would allow me to hold my bdder better!

  No, that was silly.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Insight skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank B Costs two General Skill Points!

  A bit expensive for a skill I was stantly fetting to use.

  I’d set that on the backburner. General skill points were precious, and I couldn’t afford to waste them willy-nilly.

  gratutions! Through repeated as yging Proficy skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank D is a Free Rank!

  “Nice!” I cheered.

  “Level up?” Amaryllis asked.

  “Nope, not this time,” I said.

  “Well, her of your csses are bat based,” she said.

  I blihen narrowed my eyes at her.

  Amaryllis Albatross, Thundere level 13, Puppeteer level 3, smug.

  “Okay, two questions,” I said. “How are you a level ahead and one behind me, and why do I see both of your csses?”

  “Because csses level acc to what one is doing, and my Puppeteer css, as much potential as it has, is still retively weak. It’s moving slower. As for the sed questioher you actually figured out how to use Insight--which I doubt--or you already know part of the information so the skill is filling that in.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Ah, I’m falling behind.” Awen said. “I’m at twelve and three.”

  I shook my head. “Hardly. Whe you were a bunch of levels behind, now you’re just one behiher of us if we tally all our levels together.” I bumped shoulders with her. “You’re doing awesome.”

  She smiled, a little bit timid, but not as timid as she had been even a few weeks before.

  “Right, give me a few more minutes, I have more notifications to look at.”

  One more notification, actually.

  Ding! For doing a Special A, you have unlocked the General skill: Captaining!

  Oh.

  CaptainingRank F - 00%The ability to lead and take charge through soft sailing and rough patches.

  That... was actually kind of nice.

  NameBroccoli Bunbsp; Ra (Riftwalker) First Cssamon Bun Bun First Css Level12 Sed CssWondernder Sed Css Level4 Age16  Health145 Stamina150 Mana145  Resilience55 Flexibility70 Magibsp;  SkillsRank amon Bun Bun Skills ingS - 03% Way of the MystiD - 100% GardeningD - 35% AdorableD - 100% DangD - 100%  Wondernder Skills Tea MakingD - 100% Mad MillineryD - 87%  General Skills InsightC - 100% Makeshift ons ProficyD - 100% ArchaeologyD - 00% FriendmakingC - 71% MatchMakingD - 57% Hugging ProficyD - 00% CaptainingF - 00%  amon Bun Bun Skill Points1 Wondernder Skill Points3 General Skill Points4  First Css Slots0 Sed Css Slots1 General Skill Slots3  Things were looking pretty good. My Hugging Proficy was obviously a priority. Other than that... well, I had a lot of points just sitting there, not doing all that much. With ing finally at Rank S, I figured I could start diversifying a bit. Getting it to SS though... that was really tempting.

  It wouldn’t happen until level 19 in amon Bun Bun, which could be months from now!

  At the same time... I bet there weren’t that many people with Rank SS anything, let alone a skill as handy as ing!

  Well, that could wait. I’d ask Amaryllis for help ter. She was smart. In the meantime, I didn’t have any problems dumping a bunch of points in my Wondernder skills... if only they were cooler. Tea Making was nice, and Mad Millinery was cool, but they were a bit... strange and not super.

  As feneral Skills... maybe Makeshift ons? Definitely Hugging Proficy. The ability to buff my friends was invaluable! But then I only had four points there.

  “Need help?” Amaryllis asked.

  I shook my head, hesitated, then nodded. “Yup, but nht now, I don’t think. Once we’re ba the Beaver I think I’ll bother you for a little bit.”

  “Sure. We wouldn’t want you spending points on some of your more useless skills.”

  “Hey!” I said. “My skills are ostly.” I could do without Adorable.

  I stood up as I saw Howard climbing up the steps with... a dress over his shoulder? A purple one, with a very floofy set of petticoats stig out from uhe ruffled skirts.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Drops from the boss,” Howard said.

  I blihen fired Insight onto the dress.

  A pretty dress. Good for abtive armour. New.

  “Huh?”

  Howard shrugged. “We don’t rightly kher. You cut them up for some scraps. The insides are soft; make food bedding material.”

  “I guess,” I said. I set that aside for the moment. The dress looked way too small for any of us. Not the reward I expected, and not something that seemed too useful.

  We gathered up our things, with Amaryllis and I splitting Awen’s things between us even as Awen protested that she could ha herself. Then, with Houshing the st door open, we moved deeper into the dungeon.

  The corridor ahead forked. On both sides were shimmering portals, set into stone door frames. One had a hazy image of the mausoleum from which we’d ehe dungeon, seen from the inside looking out. The other was the core room.

  It was not nearly as bad as I feared.

  The core sat upon a pedestal made of stoacles, the big orb carefully held ihere.

  Toug it, just barely, was a root, oangled up iwisting stone below and that reached out to every er of the room.

  “Be careful,” Howard said. His voice sounded a bit off. Fearful, almost.

  “We will,” I promised.

  Stepping up, I hiked on my backpack, then handed my ade to Bastion, who took it almost absently.

  Stepping into the core room felt the same as it always did. Strange and almost icky. The passi shivers down my spine, and I could feel the magi me bubbling and rag. I’d beeier at feeling that. I bet people like Amaryllis who did plenty of magic would feel the core a lot more.

  I stared at the orb in the tre of the room for a bit. The room itself wasn’t anything too special. Stone walls, with embossed carvings in the walls that, when the light hit them right, created strange, wriggling shadows.

  The only light came from some glowing mushroing the edge of the floor where the Evil Roots hadn't broken through them, and from the core itself.

  I reached out, carefully toug the core. It felt warm. “We’ll fix you up in no time,” I said.

  Then I k down and grabbed the base of the roots climbing up the plinth.

  ing magic at Rank S was almost scary when it found something as dirty as a root. It dug in, hissing and spitting, and the root started to fall apart around where I held it.

  I let more magic flow, c the floor and trating where the roots were more visible.

  They started to burn.

  I didn’t know if this would cure the core entirely, but maybe all it needed was to be given a ce to cure itself. Like a vae, sorta.

  I patted the cently before leaving the room, the st bit of Evil Root pinched between thumb and forefinger. “I think we’re done,” I said as I wasted ing magiy aura. “And I think I’ll be keeping this bit.”

  “As a souvenir?” Amaryllis asked.

  “No, as something we study, or maybe give to someone who . e o’s get out, I’m looking forward to seeing sunshine again!”

  ***

  RavensDagger

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