C+4

  Your rage has increased by 1.

  Flor woke up in her room in Brawler’s Rest. It was early in the morning. She considered trying to roll over and go back to sleep, but despite her best efforts, the wood plank for a mattress was just too uncomfortable to find slumber.

  After Flor had completed the Lighthouse, Sparks had come in from her time at the shrine. They had time until dinner, so they went exploring for cats. They had been surprisingly productive, finding eighteen through the afternoon, including one absolutely frightening shadowy thing called an Omlarcat. {Thorn is a ten-year-old Omlarcat, AKA Displacer Beast, that stalks the shadows of the lightroom, but only when the light is out. Despite looking fearsome, it really enjoys gentle scritches behind the ears. But not under the chin - that’s how you get mauled.} Both Flor and Sparks were elated. {The cats they found are: Thorn (the Omlarcat), Blaze (a Danbo), Bright (a Cuajada), Flash (a Hellim), Glow (a Mish), Luminous (a Radamer), Shiny (a Cascaval), Sunny (a Basa), Lamblent (A Mondseer), Beacon (a Brimsen), Dawn (a Chhurpi), Lucent (a Susu Masam), Rad (a Kalari), Vivid (a Bandel), Glint (a Tenili), Torch (an Akkawi), Flare (a Nguir), and Glitter (a Chenchil who you learned about in Chapter 06). All of the cats at the Lighthouse, Thorn excepted, have a scent and coloring of cheese about them.}

  A big to-do, including a cutscene, occurred just before dinner regarding replacing the filament in the lightroom. Mags had been conspicuously absent during that event. Mags appeared during dinner and then she disappeared up the stairs afterwards. Flor wondered if she tended the lighthouse as a diversion from the monotony of the goings on.

  Sparks mentioned that she saw Maelstrom muttering something about the Keep. But since they had both survived the evening without being ridiculed or murdered, maybe Mal had been in a benign mood.

  Flor saw that she had received a “Sparks has died” message sometime before midnight. Flor had not heard Sparks leave the bunkroom where they had laid down.

  Waking in a bed different from the one she had fallen asleep in would likely never be appreciated. Since it was early and Flor didn’t feel rested enough to do anything, she called Kester to devise a plan.

  Kester came out, yawned, and said, “It’s too early. You should go back to sleep.”

  “I tried. It’s unpleasantly uncomfortable.”

  “Well don’t subject me to similar discomfort.”

  “I’d like your help figuring out where to go next.”

  “You know I don’t have much capability in that. Perhaps go talk to Sparks or Mida or Amets or someone else.”

  “Sure, I’ll dismiss you in a moment. I made it to level three, right? What changed?”

  “Not much. Your health increased to base six from five. And if your previous level increases are similar, you could probably equip higher level equipment.”

  Flor considered the earlier game days of puzzles and climbing the carillon. “I started at three health, right? And I still have level-one equipment. So, maybe that should be my focus. Earning money enough to buy better gear.” She considered the shops that they had been to in the past while Kester seemed fidgety. “Can you recall what the weapon shops said gear cost?”

  “While I don’t want to, I can replay that conversation for you.”

  “Could you just tell me the cost of gloves from the weaponeer?”

  “Yes. They were three coins for basic gloves, nine for studded gloves, and twenty-seven for spiked gloves, which you don’t have.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Do you think there is a penalty for changing weapon specialization? Don’t answer that, because I doubt you can. Let me rephrase the question. Is there anything in my profile saying I’m proficient only in fisticuffs and couldn’t use a club?”

  “Only to be tenuous, but club wasn’t an option. I think you mean cudgel. There are no interlocks that seem to prevent you as a brawler from equipping any weapon.”

  “Except level restrictions…okay. Follow my maths. Three, nine, twenty-seven, twenty-seven times three equals… eighty-something?”

  “Eighty-one.”

  “Let’s assume then that is how much money it costs for the next weapon level. Are you able to extrapolate?”

  “Not well.”

  “Would you rather read out armor costs?”

  “No,” said Kester, dejectedly.

  “Then tell me an estimated cost for upgrading my armor.”

  Kester blinked and said, “Your next armor upgrade should be leather chest armor which probably costs eighteen coins. You might be able to equip a shield with two coins. You can probably equip a leather helm for ten coins.” He paused. “To avoid you asking the question, that comes to one hundred and eleven coins. You currently have zero. Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “That’s so much. Okay. That gives me a mission for today. I’ll hit up those two jobs I know about and climb the tower. Tomorrow can wait. Set an alarm to ping me to leave if it gets to noon or if I drop to two health, okay?”

  “I can do that. Now, if you don’t need me otherwise…”

  Flor dismissed Kester and walked a short distance to the gardening job and then the shed organization job, both of which displayed as a merge puzzle. {The chronicles of gardening and shed jobs are recorded in PL1: The City.} While the puzzles were simple, they each took a surprising amount of subjective time, and it was close to 8 when she walked to the carillon with 20 coins in her pouch. The black iron fence was boring as always. She stepped over it without a thought and headed to the first floor, then through the door into the tower. Flor understood that this tower was only a first draft, a shell for further development, and that perhaps as a player she was lucky that the walls were textured rather than just a green-on-black framework of developmental architecture.

  The seven sides of the first floor were easy. Filled with mechanical mice that showed themselves at each of the seven platforms, they were a single one-hit solution. They weren’t strong enough to damage her through her padded chest armor and feathered cap, even with a strong hit. Her studded gloves also broke through their defenses easily, and it wasn’t long before she faced off with the mechanized mechanical mouse miner, which had frightened her only days ago.

  The six sides of the second floor still felt easy. The rabbits were stronger than the mice, but only barely. They still fell to a single well-placed attack, and their standard strikes were too weak to get through her armor. Flor realized that the last time she had met Maelstrom, it had been here in the carillon and Mal had easily dismissed these lower levels. It wasn’t until the middle of level three that Mal had revealed her villainous self to them.

  “Stay cautious, Flor,” she said to herself.

  She walked to the third floor, hesitantly. The anteaters had been easy before, with Mal fighting them with support, not Flor fighting them solo. She hesitated at the first platform, before going up.

  “One hundred-something coins. I have earned twenty-five. How many can I earn going to the top?” Don’t be cavalier, she cautioned herself.

  Flor stepped onto the first platform of the third floor and watched a hole open in the wall. An animatronic anteater was set into the wall, looking at vials of multicolored liquids. It turned, and Flor thought she saw a glimmer of excitement in its eyes. It put down the vials, picked up two different ones, mixed them, and threw it onto the platform. The vial hit the ground with a hiss and *pop* and a green haze started to fill the platform.

  You feel drowsy!

  Flor realized she did feel drowsy. She didn’t want to fall asleep. It would be bad to do so in a combat environment.

  She felt her thoughts slowing, sluggish. Despite the grid of red, blue, and green gems before her, she had trouble deciding what to move together. She swapped a blue for a green, which combined three greens in a row.

  The sleepy feeling disappeared and the board cleared up. Flor also noticed something flying through the air, which landed on the ground and exploded. Bits of glass and fire flew toward her and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  Looking at her display, she realized the attack had dropped her from six to five health.

  Huh! What happened? It’s not worth worrying about. Flor selected a full-on attack with the next swap, thinking that this bomb-throwing jerk wouldn’t be able to defeat a full-on beatdown.

  The apothecary threw something at her. It flew over her shoulder and Flor barreled over the counter, tackling the bomb thrower. An explosion burst behind her, but the anteater under her whimpered then dropped its head and disappeared.

  Combat complete. +1 to Combat.

  Attempt again? Yes/No?

  Yikes. I’m at half health from this. It didn’t seem like it stressed Mal nearly as much and she must have been at this level when we went through.