The party pushed through the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth floors as quickly as they could safely manage. The manticores were good practice, and the party continued to experiment and learn as they fought against them, but the venom presented enough of a danger that each person agreed that they should spend more time on different floors that would be less potentially deadly. That was especially so with the twenty-ninth floor awaiting them with, supposedly, a large bounty of experience.
Regardless, after learning the very painful lesson of not letting the manticores strike her with their tails, Astrid felt she did reasonably well with serving as the frontliner against the manticores. She continued to prefer to be a finisher, and when she wasn't suffering from the almost bone-melting poison, she could do so. Spectre Burst remained as deadly as ever, and when the manticores were struck by it, their immensely tough hides and the flesh underneath couldn't help but succumb to her killing Skill.
Over the course of two days, the party passed both floors, the distances to travel too great to allow the party to pass through two floors in a single day. At least, they were when paired with the necessary caution the party needed to take when they traveled through flying, venomous predator-infested mountains.
Finally, on the tenth day in the Trials, the party entered the twenty-ninth floor. After so much time spent blazing through every floor until then, Astrid felt herself getting antsy with the slow pace, but now that she was level 26, so close to the next watershed, the whole party exhibited signs of their eagerness for those next levels. Even so, there were no small signs of trepidation as well. After all, each of them had been remarkably lucky to get the Classes that they had, and gaining the Skills to complement those Classes was just as important.
Each person took steps to strengthen their own Skills or to give themselves the best opportunity to get a high tier Skill when they passed the watershed and reached level 28. Muti spent more time imparting her Skills through Dread Master, as well as focusing on her explosive damage through ambushing and striking deadly blows from behind. Skandr, of course, continued to lean into strengthening his Storm Administration while also enchanting when he got the moment. Felix made himself more of a solid frontliner, even while serving as the person who cut the manticore tail. He, as soon as the tail was taken out of the fight, took over frontlining with Guardian's Wrath and Whirling Blades. Benedict too showed an increased focus on strengthening his Skills and better applying them. Instead of happily sitting in the back and contributing passively, the Bard continued to experiment with the combination of Silvertongue and Doubletalk with Song of Vindication and Hasty Rebuke.
"I feel like I'm the one who's stagnated most out of us all, now that we've entered Iron," Benedict confided on the ninth day. "I'm not sure how much of that is due to the somewhat passive nature of my Skills, but I should be focusing on being more flexible, on pushing myself harder to make sure the party stays safe. I think I've just been coasting lately."
Left unspoken was how much he'd thrown himself into practice with Song of Vindication since Astrid had been maimed by first the fires from the flame spitters. Though his particular healing wasn't well suited for it, he'd worked hard against the manticore's venom. More than anybody else in the party, Benedict remained the individual who could compound his Skills on top of each other. If he was looking to harm the enemies around them, he could literally use every one of his Skills at the same time to make a deadly aura all around himself.
The party took their rest and entered the twenty-ninth floor, ready to confront the lesser vampires. Astrid had been told, as had everybody else, that the creatures were a pest, swarming, bat-like monsters, but actually seeing the vampires attacking the very moment that they crossed into the floor was certainly surprising.
Under the light of a crescent moon, at least 30 of the vampires swooped down. Their faces were a horrible mix of a bat's snub-nosed visage and a human's: a flat, almost boxy nose with nostrils pointed straight forward, huge black eyes with no color, and sharp fangs poking out of their jaws. That combined with the general facial structure of a human made for a terrible sight. Each one of the beasts was at least a meter long, with its wingspan twice that. Beyond their wings, they also had two vestigial arms sprouting from their chest, each hand tipped with long, sharp claws. The monsters didn't care for the party's disgust and simply swooped in to attack.
Without having to say anything, Felix jumped to the front of the party and brandished his axe. The swarm of vampires fought to overwhelm him, at least a dozen thronging him. Their chittering cries filled the air as the Guardian set his feet solidly and activated Guardian's Wrath. All 30 of the beasts, even those that had initially ignored him, were drawn to him. Astrid watched as he roared his challenge and whipped his axe through the air. Blood flew everywhere as he cut several of the beasts, but it then formed into arrows that shot towards him. The constant clinging of their attacks against his armor filled the air. Astrid held herself back as she pushed Spectre Burst into her hammer. The Guardian activated Whirling Blades, the vampires sustaining more wounds as the flickering attacks flashed through the air. One lost an entire wing, and as it plummeted, Felix whirled and lodged his axe's head up to the haft in its skull.
Lesser vampire slain. 1,100 experience gained, split among party.
Despite Felix's strong showing, it was obvious that he was being overwhelmed. The growing pools of blood in the air formed into more attacks, each one flying through the air and cutting deeper through his defenses, every droplet of blood that passed his armor continued to be used against him. Astrid, with Spectre Burst already prepared, gave a quick prayer that she wasn't about to strengthen one of the monsters. Then, with no more waiting, she plunged forward and, with a heavy overhead blow, smashed a vampire to the ground. Before she could begin to worry about whether Spectre Burst would empower it, the kill notification flashed in her vision.
"It's open season on vampires!" As soon as Astrid made the declaration, the party let out cheers of excitement and showed less caution. Astrid again used Spectre Burst, focusing the Skill instead on a one meter area of effect instead of only the individual struck by her hammer. While she did so, she also activated Immortal Warrior's Aura. As soon as she did so, she felt the constant minor wounds that Felix was sustaining, feeling almost as if her entire body was constantly being scrubbed with a rough stone. She had used certain types of stone to scrub before, but this wasn't a cleaning feeling, but instead, as if somebody was trying to flay her skin. For the monsters to be able to be doing this through Felix's Fortitude was a testament to the danger they posed, and Astrid couldn't help but think what would happen to Benedict or, worse, Skandr if they had been the focus of this attack.
With those two men on her mind, Astrid witnessed as Skandr demonstrated the progress he had made with his chain lightning spell. He twisted both hands into a sigil before flicking his wrist back and shooting a thick rope of lightning at the monster that flew highest. That monster fell, the kill notification letting everybody know it was dead, but the spell was far from complete. From that first vampire, the lightning jumped to another, which didn't die, but did fall to the earth in a twitching mass. The bolt continued its path and two more monsters fell to the lightning's passage, and there the spell ceased its path. Benedict raised his flute to his mouth and blew two sharp notes. Astrid could see the passage of his Skill as it pulsed through the air. Though none of the vampires in the air died from that, Astrid realized that two more kill notifications flashed in her eyes from that Skill, both coming from the fallen but not yet deceased vampires on the ground.
Not to be outdone, Astrid jumped into the fray and crushed another vampire with Alacrity-aligned mana fueling her steps. The pulse of gray energy from Spectre Burst rushed out from the vampire, stunning the one that was struck and weakening another three nearby. As their wings fluttered more weakly, she pulled even deeper on her mana reserves, aligning all of her mana expenditure with Alacrity as her hammer screamed through the air. With every swing, a vampire died.
As Guardian's Wrath faded from the remaining vampires, Muti made herself known. With both blades whirling, she dispatched half a dozen vampires in quick succession. Every swing either crippled or killed, and she howled in excitement as her blades dealt death in the way that she had always wanted. In a few short seconds, the 30 flying foes were reduced to 30 cold corpses. Astrid, having planned on using Body to empower a strike, but having neglected to do so on time, spent the charge anyways and felt the raw skin all over her body cease its complaining.
"Wait," Benedict said before anybody else could, "I got over 6,000 experience from that. 6,283 experience from like ninety seconds of fighting."
"Yes. I gained my level. Only a single level until I become the first to cross the watershed." Muti's smile was as teasing as ever, and Benedict waved her off.
"You leave off. We get it, your evolutionary quest was the simplest."
Muti squinted and leaned down at Benedict after he said that, but he stood his ground. She stopped, continued looking for just another moment, then nodded just once. She didn't engage with that any further, instead ripping the fangs from the corpses. The others followed suit, and a question occurred to Astrid as she managed to prick her finger on one of the fangs, even through her gloves.
"How does the Guild manage to pay every deal for all these materials? Some of them make sense, they obviously retain enough value to be paid for, but for some of these things, I don't see them being used for anything. I mean, over the course of months, we made several gold, at least, just from selling gnoll fangs, and I haven't seen them used in anything. Sure, the Guild collects some measure of tax off of what we bring back, but that means that there has to be a value to these things!"
"In the case of the fangs," Skandr said, "they're pretty commonly used in arrows for the heads. Chances are, these fangs, if we sell them, will be used for the same thing, just higher tier."
"Yes, but the cost still doesn't make sense," Astrid disagreed. "There's no way that Rangers and Archers are paying several copper for every single arrow they use. I have to admit, I don't know what the prices are for whatever ammunition people use, and I know that arrows can be used multiple times, but this just doesn't make any sense."
"My understanding," Benedict said, "is that most of the cost is swallowed up by the craftsmen leveraging experience gained. Then, the Nobles take care of most of the rest because they're constantly buying materials for their personal militaries and the military as a whole."
Only then did Astrid think about how her mother had, of course, been working for the government when she was a soldier. She still trusted her mother, she still loved her mother, but Brighid hadn't ever given much detail in what she had done on the southern border. When Astrid had expressed her own desire to be a Spellblade and be like her mom, Brighid had pushed her to be a delver instead of a soldier, and eight-year-old Astrid hadn't thought at all about that. 14-year-old Astrid had figured it was something to do with how her mom didn't want her to have to kill people, and that had been what she settled on from then on. After all, there were effectively unlimited monsters constantly coming to kill people and delvers were always going to be needed.
But what had her mom been forced to do as a lackey of the nobles? What was she being forced to do right this moment? Supposedly, the battles on the southern border were dying down, but how many lives had been lost to make that progress? The Hordemaster that led his people against Humanity's Bulwark, did he remain living?
So many questions filled Astrid's mind, and she simply couldn't have an answer to any of them. She shook her head and refocused on the present.
"And the nobles collect taxes and have their own personal teams in the Dungeon." Astrid nodded as she came to the conclusion that she really wasn't quite sure how the country could continue to function. Nor does she have to know that, so she stopped thinking about it. Instead, she turned to continue harvesting the vampire materials, but was pulled from doing so by Muti's words:
"We have more vampires coming now."
Astrid jumped to her feet, her hammer reappearing in her hand. With so much experience waiting for them, Astrid rushed to work with her party to continue to gain experience. After all, the money that they would make from these lesser vampire corpses was negligible compared to more experience, and what being a higher level would provide for them all.
"There is one among them that seems to be of a higher watershed. What Skill is it that the higher watershed provides to them?"
"Enhanced blood magic," Astrid answered. "It'll be more dangerous, so if you can pick it out of the crowd, Felix, take it out first. If not, one of the rest of us will take care of it as soon as possible."
The rest of the party didn't say anything as they agreed and got into position to begin the fight. As the monsters approached once more, Astrid fell into a ready position, her hammer at her side as she prepared Spectre Burst to do just what it had before. Felix stepped forward, and as the vampires fell on him, he did just as he had before, activating Guardian's Wrath to force their attention to stay on him and Whirling Blades to cut down those who were close. The party all moved together to cut down the monsters, Skandr's lightning burning through four of the monsters once again. This time, his personal cloud hovered overhead and blotted out the moonlight as lightning flickered and lit the night.
Muti closed in to continue killing, but before she did so, she stiffened and called out to the others, "Others approach!"
As soon as she said it, the Ambusher turned to the side with her blades both drawn. She moved just in time to parry and evade a set of bloody rips in the air that flew towards the vampires behind her. Her blades screamed in protest as she dodged, parried, and flared Alacrity-aligned mana to step around the attack.
Astrid went to support her Ambusher ally, but Muti screamed back, "Kill the vampires immediately! I will be fine for one minute. Just hurry!"
The air thrummed with power as Benedict compounded Doubletalk, Silvertongue, and Hasty Rebuke. With the buffs from their supporter, Astrid and Felix both moved even better than if they'd been burning Alacrity-aligned mana and shredded through the vampires as Skandr's storm crashed down with an accelerated fury. Beyond that, Astrid pushed more of her resources through herself, burning stamina and mana alike to kill. The lesser vampires fought to grapple her, to use their blood to cut into her, and Astrid twisted their eagerness against them. Instead of pacing herself to be able to keep fighting for a long time, she pushed herself, and could see Skandr and Benedict doing the same as Felix continued holding the line.
Kill notifications flashed repeatedly in the corner of Astrid's vision, but she didn't care about them. Instead, she could only pay attention to the sound of Muti shouting in the Barbarian tongue accompanied by the clashing of her blades. Less than fifteen seconds passed before the party had spent copious amounts of their resources to have cleared out the monsters. Before the last body had hit the ground, Astrid had leapt through the rain of blood towards where Muti fought off the attackers.
From the attack that Astrid had seen, she had a suspicion of what, or who, was attacking. As she looked, it was confirmed.
The Kin stood fighting Muti, two brandishing their claws at her as she obviously exhausted her mana in dodging and maintaining distance. As an Ambusher, she obviously didn't thrive in a fight like this, and, as soon as Astrid and Felix approached to support her, Muti jumped back from the engagement. Looking at her, Astrid could see that deep wounds patterned Muti's ribs, but she continued to hold herself without any apparent weakness. Benedict's Doubletalk shifted to Song of Vindication as he healed Muti, and Astrid lowered herself into a battle position as the Kin's leader stepped forward.
"You are strong. Strong to stop us. Now give up."