This is not a game (Wednesday 5/7)

“FUCKING HELL!” John shouted and jumped into safety. Behind him resounded a giant crash, rubble flew over his body as he kept himself flat on the ground, then he got to his feet and started running again, the next star was already falling.

In the distance he saw lights flicker up as Salamander bathed the Anti-Depressant in flames, followed by the other elementals and Aclysia engaging it again. John spied another star falling towards his position with his bee and ran the fuck off with his own two legs.

Here is what was going down: John had reached the ninth wave of the City Elementals as well as level 62 in the past days. This dungeon was literally the only thing he had killed. Day after day, only Depressants, and Anti-Depressants. It was good EXP, and the watches dropped were good food for Aclysia while the boss had been comparatively easy. HAD BEEN being the operative word, turned out that the number of stars falling increased with every wave and while the city reconstructed every time, it had already been reduced to mostly rubble in the ten minutes they had been fighting the blasted thing. There was also the fact that it got a hell of a lot tougher with each wave, so John had no idea how much longer he would have to play the dodging game.

He jumped, rolled and ran behind the remainders of a blasted wall when another star hit the ground, hiding from the rocks it scattered. Then he started running again. He could have done what the others were doing and walked up close to the Anti-Depressant, where stars never fell, the problem was however that the boss was way faster than him and the second he got just a step too close it would probably rip him a new one.

Instead, John just opted out to run relatively close by and use an Arcane Explosion. A ball of blue energy quickly filled his right hand, and he made a hasty throw. It flew far over the boss’s head. John was many things by now, muscular, charismatic, had the lung of a horse and the ability to fuck several times a day, but he was not particularly great at sports. Chances were that, even with his heightened senses, Frank, his old school bully, could have still beaten him at dodgeball.

However, unlike his Dodgeball matches in the past, John was not alone in this. “Tag!” Sylph shouted and flew right into the path of the Arcane Explosion. The second it touched her, it exploded in a blue shockwave that vanished into thin air after traveling exactly three meters, more than big enough to hit the Anti-Depressant. The skill left all his allies undamaged, Sylph even posed in the center of the explosion, before raining down gusts of wind, filled with green energy, on the enemy again.

John just kept running. He had no idea if the stars aimed for him, it felt like they did at this point, but being in motion made it generally easier to dodge. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to keep at this too long. He saw Aclysia swing Ashkandi, the black blade reflecting the light of the stars carpet bombing the city as she brought it down, cutting apart the Anti-Depressant and ending this whole misery.

John ported out quicker than the timer could appear, he was not prepared for a core-boss. They stepped onto the plain so Aclysia could eat whatever the bosses had dropped and John could collect the money. “For the love of everything, Newman, farm something new. This is beyond boring,” Magoi said, he didn’t even look into the basin, instead continuing to read his newspaper.

The Fateweaver had warmed up to John again quickly, but he now kept a more professional distance and never used John’s first name again. The Gamer hoped that would change in time, at the very least Magoi wasn’t actually angry with him, no all the Fateweaver did was stay away to cut all ties once this was over, just as he had promised.

He, however, still loved to check up on John’s loot. There was not much to check up on the last four days though. Aclysia went to eating while John stood there and thought. “Yeah, I thought about that too,” he admitted, “farming the Anti-Depressant is pretty dull…but just so efficient.” “This is not a game, Mister Newman,” Magoi said while wiggling his finger, “you got to have fun sometimes.” “That sounds opposite to how the saying normally goes,” John dryly commented.

Sylph flew up to him and landed on top of his nose. John had to cross his eyes to see her tiny face. “He is right though, gotta have fun, fun, fun, Johnny, let’s do something else. Please, please, pretty please?” She pleaded, swinging her head from one side of the bridge of his nose to the other, giving him a slight headache in the process. Sylph jumped off from his nose.

“So where am I at now, John?” she wanted to know, John already knew that she meant the summoning skill, she had regularly been inquiring. John checked, “Level 82,” he said. “It is so slooooooow,” she lamented, “Gnoooome, you have smart ideas, have a smart idea right now to help me before I have to watch you have sex and masturbate in front of the window again!” “YOU DO WHAT?” Gnome exclaimed for everyone else and stared at Sylph with teary eyes in a blushing face, “you, ugu, so embarrassing!” she said while sniffling, “can’t believe my little sister saw me naked.” “Chillax, Gnome, not like I never did,” Salamander commented, flying up to Gnome and patting her on the ear, “there, there,” Salamander tried her best at a reconciling tone. “Ugu,” Gnome sniffled, rubbed her eyes clean, and then took a deep breath.

This scene aside, John was actually completely in favor of new ideas. To the sound of Magoi mumbling about missing his youth, he thought about the problem that was haunting him right now. One was the lack of the Skill Evolution Points, he was sure he could clear a tenth floor and thus finally complete his quest to get one, but for the other he was helpless, the second was that both Sylph and Undine wouldn’t necessarily get to the maximum skill level before then. The best way to fix this problem would be secret rooms or bonus levels, both of which largely eluded him.

The only secret level he had ever gotten in the first place was the one with the Horned Rat in it and although he had been grinding the Anti-Depressant for several days now, the Time Cigarette never once dropped. He remembered that Secret Rooms only spawned on core floors, meaning 5-10-15 and so on, chasing that was unlikely to work anyhow. Bonus Levels, however, he might have a chance of getting.

“Ehm, so I got an idea,” Gnome finally said and got the teams attention. “How about we beat every sixth-floor boss once, but instead of searching for the best Experience grind we are looking for the best bonus item grind?” She explained, having come to the same conclusions as John, who nodded and finished the thought for her, “That way we would be getting the highest chance of getting Sylph higher in Skill Level and maybe get some achievements on the way. Everyone in favor raise their hand.”

Everyone did, a unanimous decision. “Operation ‘Boost-Sylph,' now underway!” the air elemental chirped, and they went to work.

They worked their way down the list. None of the bosses were a particular challenge, outleveled and outnumbered as they were, but nevertheless, John noted all of them, he would have to fight four stronger versions of them after all.

Skaven Floor 6 Boss was a Rat Ogre not unlike the one he fought with Rave in Giant Rats ID. However, this one had been partly armored and given a mace made for his size, which made a huge difference. The setting they fought it in was a sort of Colosseum with four stone pillars they could kite the beast around whenever it charged. While easy the boss’ item pool was the usual Skaven mix of Warpstone and poisonous crap. Not what he was looking for.

He skipped the Sporehost. Yes, the Itempool was small, but it had a shitload of health, and John’s toolkit wasn’t exactly good at dealing with the thing. He noted however that this would be his go-to if no other possibility should show itself.

Next were the Orcs. The sixth wave started with Orc Wolfriders setting fire to the village he had fought in. Afterwards, he had to fend off said Wolfriders, ending with a boss called Wildfire Shaman, an Orc mage that controlled the fire of the burning village. Sadly that Shaman had less control than the blaze elemental John had with him, so Salamander made them virtually untouchable. The rest of the boss fight was the group running and kicking down an old green man. His loot pool was small and contained a bonus item, and even though John doubted that they could wrestle the fire control from him on higher levels, this was still an okay guy to farm.

The Undead threw out a standard at him: Skeletons and at the end a Giant Skeleton. It was slow and not particularly hard but regenerated by absorbing the spirits inside the graveyard that was the setting for this I.D. They had to kite it on the spot, possible, but annoying as one strike of it even at this low level was quite dangerous. Also, the Loot table was filled with dumb shit like a ‘funny bone.'

The dreary atmosphere John felt on the next floor of the Wall Shadow dungeon alone was a reason to not take that dungeon for his grinding. After defeating the boss of the sixth floor, the whole labyrinth vanished, only to reappear a moment later, the walls twice as high and the gap between them slightly narrower. Now, not only did John still have a deeply ingrained respect for the nightmarish creatures after seeing what their hugs did to people’s ribcages, but the things had also gotten smarter. The old trick of Salamander shining away their connection to the wall did not work anymore. These new Wall Shadows, called Shadow Jumpers, did their name proud and jumped out of the wall, trying to pull somebody to the ground. If they succeeded, they did the usual thing, dipping half their body back into the shadows and strangling their victim to **** with their many arms, if they failed they just vanished in the wall. While the boss, a giant spider that spun webs in whose shadows more Shadow Jumpers spawned, wasn’t actually that difficult, the way to it took way too long to be even considered worthwhile.

City Elementals were skipped for obvious reasons.

Now he finally arrived with the three newly acquired kinds of dungeons that he hadn’t even tried yet: Ogres, Demons, and Angels.

First the ogres, after blazing through the fifth floor without a care other than analyzing the area, an endless grassy plain, he entered the sixth floor. It was an odd wave, to say the least, John could clearly see all the ogres running around, giant, dumb looking humanoids in white, Asian looking clothes holding hammers of wood. None of them attacked unless he got too close, however, which ironically made the wave extremely tedious because he had to hunt every single enemy himself. At the end spawned a two-headed Ogre that was enormous in size, but he was used to big enemies already, so he had Sylph and Salamander take care of the eyes and then just showered it with Mana Rays.

The Demons' Floor got a similar treatment, the Imps that ran around were quickly dealt with, and after reaching the end of the sixth floor he was greeted by a Vessel, a warlock type thing that summoned minor demons to throw at him. Not a great problem and the Loot table looked promising, it had both a legendary item and an epic one called ‘Key of Forgotten Sins’ which just screamed the Revealer of Secrets attribute, sadly he didn’t drop it, but it was still a good enemy to grind out.

The final category he had available, was just as easy at that level. However, after beating the boss of the fifth floor, an angel with one wing carrying a halberd, in front of a giant golden gate, John got an interesting achievement.

The item that he got was beautiful. Three golden keys were hanging from a silver band, not the beauty he meant though.

“YEEEEEEEES!” he said as he put them into his accessories slot, “Girls, operation ‘Boost-Sylph’ is in full swing! Let us kill whatever floor boss there is here and then it is back to Anti-Depressant grinding.” “Whaaaaaaat?” Sylph asked, “why do we have to go back to that boring stuff? I wanna be boosted while having fun!” “Because only the wave nine version is actually hard and this thing ticks for the version that spawns at seven, eight and nine, the lowest of which is level 60 and the highest 70. We can probably get it full by tomorrow evening if we hurry up.”

John was not entirely convinced about the truth of that statement; they had already wasted a full day on this endeavor of grinding lowbie areas, nothing of which amounted to an item of any value (aside from the one he had gotten just now) or even a single level. In other words. Tomorrow would be the sixth part of Wednesday, and they would spend it grinding even more Anti-Depressants.

They beat the boss of the sixth Angel floor, an orb of golden energy with two white wings called a Holy Wisp, it dropped no money but had a high amount of other stuff instead. All of which was sold later, as Aclysia was still at the same level as him, making him a fair amount of money.

Money wasn’t what he needed right now though; he needed power. So going back to Anti-Depressants was what they had to do.