Caruban

The blade of Nessa’s spear swept across the field, low to the ground. The goblins in its path were cut in half if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, they were caught on a dull part of the spear and went flying with every bone in their disgusting little bodies shattered.

She was sure they had a lovely and unique culture she would be thrilled to learn about in some other context.

She felt sparks of joy whenever one of the goblins’ bodies sparkled with golden light. Gil had been clear that was a good thing. She wasn’t sure exactly what the golden light was, other than that it could somehow be turned into mushrooms, but it was something Gil wanted. That made the whole event drastically more fun. Everything was better when it was imbued with purpose.

These goblins were initially so helpless to fight her that Nessa found herself making a dangerous assumption, one she often made in the heat of battle. These ants were harmless. They wanted to hurt her, but what chance did they have of that?

A sharp pain in her ankle reminded her that she wasn’t actually invulnerable. She toppled to the ground, dropping her spear and shield and landing lightly upon her claws. Looking down, she saw that around eight of the green skinned men had apparently felled a tree and sharpened it into a point, then struck her with it like a battering ram. Why they would have such a thing on standby was beyond Nessa, but the force of a crowd rushing her with it was more than enough to break her ankle through the armor.

She felt her bones knitting back together thanks to Silky. A gentle energy ran down her body, pooling in her foot and near instantly repairing her injuries. Nessa snarled, and lashed out with her claws. Her tail flicked about, nearly thirty feet long and made of jagged stone diamonds the size of a hubcap. She was acting on instinct for the moment, tearing through anyone that dared approach her too closely, but not in any kind of systemic or measured manner. She just killed as she identified threats, and there were always more than she could properly crush in a given moment.

Then the itching started. Like beetles crawling all over every inch of her skin, beneath her new armor. Biting, stinging beetles. At first it was only slightly distracting, but soon she found herself seriously weighing the merits of retracting her armor just so she could tear at her skin with her claws. Thankfully, she realized by that point that she was probably being attacked, and leapt away to survey her foes. She looked for anyone who wasn’t directly fighting. Anyone who ticked the boxes she’d look for in an enemy cape.

There he was. A man who, while surrounded by companions that were mostly naked, had elected to don a pointed cap made from animal skins. He waved a stick at her, and she felt the itch redouble again. She overextended by barreling through the crowd, grabbing the little wizard man, and spiking him into the ground with enough force to drive nails. Once the itching was gone, she realized her feet, calves, and forearms were full of needles. She had dozens of weapons lodged into or piercing her carapace by the time she fled to the four soldiers’ position to heal up.

Once her body forced the weapons out of her carapace and Silky’s magic made her whole, she turned back towards the goblins and gave them a warrior’s smile. She would not make the same mistakes again. Once the soldiers finished their next volley, she would finish the job.

Then, once that was done, she’d move on to the other side of the conflict. Gil wanted them all dead. For the greater good, of course. She trusted he knew what he was talking about, as any good wife should.

••••••••••

The red lion was shockingly swift and agile, forcing Boco to take evasive maneuvers almost immediately. Gil and the girls had to cling to the chocobo’s back for dear life as it banked harshly to the side.

“Fuck! Caruban!” Garri shouted.

Gil glanced over his shoulder.

“You know what this thing is?” He asked, “Tell me everything. How does it fight? What are its weaknesses?”

“I don’t know!” Garri squeaked, “It's the first real boss! You just kinda punch it and heal!”

Boco dove to avoid a barrage of fireballs Caruban fired from its mouth, nearly dislodging the group in the process. The chocobo was largely ignoring Gil’s orders, instead focusing on preserving its own life.

“That!” Gil shouted, pointing at the fireballs, “That’s the kind of thing I hired you to tell me about! Does it do anything else like that?”

“No! Just claws and bites and shit!” Garri said, “And sometimes fire breath. It hits really hard, but you normally fight it on the ground.”

“Yeah, well, we might need to do that.” Gil muttered. “This thing is right on top of us. If I can get this stupid bird close to the peak, we jump!”

“What?” Garri asked.

Keilnei just nodded grimly. She could see his logic; they weren’t able to fire effectively from Boco’s back while he was actively dodging.

Caruban was faster than Boco, by a substantial margin in fact, but much less maneuverable. It moved in straight lines, even if it could do so at speeds normally reserved for highways. They could either engage on as favorable terms as possible, or they could hope that Boco just kept juking this creature until backup arrived.

The Genesis tree, if it was anything like the one in Rim Elm had been, would probably be the closest thing to a defensible position in the vicinity. When Gil caught sight of it, he confirmed his suspicions. It was pushing away the mist around it, creating a bubble where at the very least they wouldn’t be attacked by any Seru. Limiting the fight to one polar bear sized flying lion was substantially better than letting it invite any backup dancers.

Gil managed to wrangle Boco in the right direction, and when they approached the crystalline tree Gil shouted a general order to jump. All three launched themselves sideways and attempted to break their fall in various ways.

Gil curled into a ball and relied on his bikini armor to cushion the landing. Keilnei angled into a clumsy roll that distributed the force somewhat. Garri, for all her objections to the plan in general, landed on one hand and transitioned into a perfect cartwheel ending on her feet with both hands free. Boco was gone before they knew it, zooming away even faster now that he wasn’t carrying more than his own weight in passengers.

While Garri was busy staring at the hand that had begun the cartwheel in dumbfounded amazement, Gil and Keilnei got back to work. Caruban kept flying after Boco, presumably thinking it better prey, right up until a glowing green bullet struck its flank, followed by a thin bolt of lightning that hit center mass.

Gil had chosen the lightning materia for himself for a very simple reason: it was the closest thing to a hitscan weapon he could expect to find. Lightning took virtually no time at all to travel from his fingers to an enemy, and it unerringly struck the approximate point he was focused on. There were creatures in some worlds immune to harm from electricity, so he went for variety, but even in those worlds they were usually the minority. It meant that he had a pretty solid chance of hitting the swooping lion, while Keilnei had to make do with leading the shot and applying her hunter’s make to track its movements more carefully. Between the two of them, they managed to harass it enough to be recalibrated as a legitimate threat.

Garri calmed down enough to put her own magic to good use as well, channeling some manner of magical light into a point above her head. It quickly exploded, launching bolts of light in every direction simultaneously. Nearly half of them smashed directly into the stones around Garri’s feet, but the rest twisted out of their trajectories and arced towards Caruban, exploding against its massive face and shoulders as it barreled towards them.

It was bright enough to go after the man responsible for its multiple electrical burns, so Gil scrambled out of the way and barely avoided its charge. He had somewhat less success with its follow up. Rather than continuing past them and turning this into some kind of joust, Caruban landed heavily on the stones and lashed out with its wings. It scrambled to turn towards Gil, and while it did its outstretched wing tip bludgeoned Gil hard enough to knock him askew. Even through the heavy protection of his armor, it was as painful as a lash from a whip.

Had it been allowed to properly follow up while Gil was reeling, he might have been killed. Keilnei was in no position to do more than heal him from afar, which only got him out of the way of the first swipe of its massive claws. Then he heard a massive, pained bellow.

Garri, following some deeper instinct, had rushed up behind Caruban and shoved her bladed cane directly into the lion’s asshole. There, with a loud click, she ripped it violently out in the form of a ten foot long segmented whip made of blades. An absolute shower of blood poured out of Caruban as it released a bellow of utter fury, covering Garri from head to toe in gore.

That wasn’t enough to kill it, not immediately, though blood continued to seep out of its behind. Garri leapt back a few feet in a smooth motion, lashed out with the blade whip while Caruban reached out with its claws, and then backpedaled further. She almost completely abandoned offense, going into full retreat as it focused on her. Her terrified eyes never left it as she leapt back and to the sides, always staying just out of reach of the enraged lion creature, frequently dodging it, strikes by mere inches.

Gil and Keilnei didn’t waste the opportunity, firing their own weapons at it again and again to hasten its demise. It didn’t shift focus again, with almost anything they could do paling next to what Garri had already done, with a near constant flow of blood weeping from the massive wound.

Eventually, it lost enough to slow its movements. That was enough for Garri to gain a bit more distance and feel comfortable. Either with more lashes across the face with her bladed whip, or by turning her left hand into some kind of forty foot long tentacle that smashed into its chest with enough force to stagger the great lion.

At long last, it fell, crashing into the ground with a heavy thud and not managing to get up as Garri whipped it over and over. A manic grin spread across her face.

“Yeah bitch!” She yelled, “Suck it, kitty! You came to the wrong neighborhood! I’m your daddy now!”

Gil let her have her fun, though she kept going for a full 30 seconds after the lion began to glow golden with the light of a random drop. Gil grumbled that it had better fucking start glowing; if anything should drop loot, it’s that thing. At the same moment, the two portals and obelisk appeared on the peak of the mountain, forming a roughly square shape with the Genesis tree as the fourth point.

“Hell yeah.” Gil said to himself.

••••••••••

Without Boco, Gil and co were stuck atop the monster infested mountain without much in the way of support. They rested up in the shadow of the Genesis tree, taking a five minute break while Gil sucked on a healing leaf and Garri slowly came down from her adrenaline rush. She kept reenacting increasingly inaccurate versions of the battle, though she did always include the part where she perforated the lion’s colon.

Caruban had not only dropped something, he’d dropped something quite good. A silver capture ticket, much like the blue ticket Gil had recieved before. The difference being the magnitude and power cap. Where the blue ticket had allowed him to declare one capture as “not counting” against his quota as long as the individual had been tier 3 or lower, this item would do the same as long as it was tier 6 or lower. Given that Gil didn’t have a single retinue member above tier 6, that was quite a lot of leeway. It made the dungeon trip worth it on its own.

The obelisk shop proved to be largely the same, though Gil was pleased to see that he’d made 15 credits. It seemed like 5x floor number was the reward rate, which seemed just fine to Gil. The new addition to the shop made him pause, however.

The Dungeon: Special, each cleared dungeon floor adds an additional item to the dungeon shop. Each item can only be used once.

20 dungeon credits

Active Dungeon: Noa, level 3/4

Warning: Foreign substance detected

Randomly Drops (currently Active): enemies killed in the dungeon can drop random useful or valuable objects appropriate to their nature.

Looting Rights (15): All items found within the dungeon are “real” and can be looted.

Shop floor (15): The next floor will be afloor in which you have the opportunity to preview and purchase the rewards otherwise available for selling retinue members you have brought with you into the dungeon, as well as the subject of the dungeon. Purchases can be made with dungeon or normal credits, exchange rates apply.

Adjust Relationships (20): Gain access to a list of names and relationships the host has; you may rearrange them freely once.

Shop Floor was on brand for the Dungeon. It was also just a hair too… targeted. He’d asked for exactly that option, formally requested it in fact, and suddenly it had appeared. Was someone actually listening?

That possibility terrified Gil far more than being ignored.

••••••••••

Gil, Garri, and Keilnei struck out from the peak of the mountain, but as it turned out the whole place was a hive of tunnels and steep mountain paths. Nearly impossible to traverse, at least with all the goddamn monsters and Seru running around.

The stone vampire bats with the glowing translucent wings felt downright tame next to the Gimards, and as it turned out Gil’s armor protected him from being possessed. That was very lucky, since one of the damn things had dropped onto him from above. After Garri insisted up and down that they didn’t do that in the game, they retreated back to the peak and he gave a rundown of the other enemies to be found here.

Gigantic worms, the spider like mushrooms Gil had encountered before, deranged creatures called Pump Bats which appeared to be pumpkins walking on bladed stilts, and based on the distant sound of battles? Goblins. Garri could identify the greenskins as being from somewhere called “Warhammer 40k.” Apparently the setting of a war game played with miniatures, and among the most popular games in that class.

“Yeah, they are these alien mushroom guys. They shit out spores and sweat them and stuff anytime they are fighting.” Garri said, “They also get way stronger the longer they are around, especially if they are fighting other people. Gretchen like these are pretty ass as far as the orc lists go, but if there’s enough of them they start making real orcs and orcs can make guns out of random scrap metal that can pierce pretty heavy armor.”

“I’m going to fucking kill Onyxia.” Gil groaned, “This might have been apocalyptic if I’d brought them to one of my actual worlds.”

The three of them worked out a solution once Keilnei managed to adjust her Tracking ability to find Seru. Nothing else was as dangerous to the team as one of those things getting a hold of Keilnei or Garri. They just needed to be systematic, and hope that the other team was doing well… or that Boco would come back in a reasonable timeframe.

Thankfully, Farley proved up to the task of guiding the team to the glowing green beacon in the sky, and Nessa could climb the outside of the mountain with fairly trivial ease. They all met up at the peak, and everyone was in surprisingly good shape, though Silky was starting to show signs of fatigue from heavy magic use.

Gil cracked his knuckles and gave them all a bright smile.

“Alright gentlemen,” he said, “I hope you’re still feeling fresh, because it is time to go back to that encampment and loot the place. We have a lot more work to do here before we are done.”

••••••••••

Gil spent at least 24 hours in the dungeon’s simulated mountain range, hunting and killing goblins. There weren’t infinite hordes, and indeed after the first few battles the job switched from clashing with small armies and pumping magic into Nessa to keep her up to hunting the stragglers as they fled.

In theory Keilnei would have been the best at the job thanks to tracking, but she found the whole job distasteful so instead she was kept busy sorting the loot.

Perhaps one in ten enemies dropped loot, and less than half of that loot was anything useful, let alone impressive. Gil suspected that it was using the same drop table as a gacha, or maybe even a lesser gacha given how much of it was low value.

Once Boco returned, Gil switched over to hauling all the loot back to the peak. The goblins dropped a lot of poorly cured animal hides, tarnished silver or copper jewelry and coins, crappy spears and bows, and a pile of those pink capped mushrooms that Gil no longer trusted.

They resembled the mushrin native to this world, Garri said they were probably Healing Shrooms, which were mechanically identical to healing leaves, and odds were good that they were perfectly safe.

Gil signed off on making a mushroom broth, which he only allowed the Shinra Soldiers and Farley to eat without wearing the Pure Jewel to ward off poisons and parasites. It seemed to be a somewhat more palatable healing potion than the healing leaves… but who knew if they were infected in some way. Gil still didn’t want to risk creating some kind of apocalypse in one of his other worlds lightly.

Of course, his fears were somewhat alleviated when he found the first sample of a different type of mushroom. Black stem, green cap the exact color of Gretchen skin. Far more suspicious.

Farley lost one of his men to the Seru while trying to clear the mountain tunnels, and based off of the corpse that they brought back Farley had absolutely no time in shooting him in the back of the head. Gill wasn’t in much of a place to throw stones given what his own plans for these four were, but he did not feel conflicted at all about Farley in particular after that little stunt.

The rest of the loot was nothing too exciting with a few exceptions. The pump bats dropped quite a few pumpkins which would be very good eating, and the worms mostly dropped worm meat which would be… probably fine for Boulder and Blackpaw. Two credits, one from a random worm and one from some kind of large golem miniboss, were among the highlights. He also found another corruption fruit from a Seru possessed goblin and a Possession Defense tag from a Gobu Gobu, which was a very expensive but somewhat niche defense that protected from exactly what the name implied.

The real winner among them all was a vial looted off the goblin shaman labeled “goblinization spores.” According to the description, it gave Gil it was a variant on the Parasite binding he’d used on Nessa, and would work off of the same resources including parasite binding credits.

The good news was that it would sever all prior loyalties that the infected individual had without any additional work, while both capturing and empowering them. The bad news was that it required that the individual to either consume or be injected with the spores to work. The mixed news is that it would turn them into a short green person with poor impulse control and standards for social conduct. Hey, it was a binding.

••••••••••

Completionist run for this floor won. So, how do we approach the next floor?

https://strawpoll.com/XmZRQWA96gd