the heavy carved door. A wide staircase led down, lined with smoky torches.
"Hummungus, come, pup. Be quiet."
History repeated itself. Here, mobs were juicier, level 18 and above, growing stronger as we approached the third underground floor. After half an hour, I received a new message.
Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Immortal.
You've stayed alive for ten subsequent levels!
Reward: +500 to Fame
Fame Alert!
Your Fame has exceeded 1000 points!
You've reached Fame level 1: "People are talking about you".
Friendly faction vendors might surprise you with lower prices. You will also gain access to some secret quests.
Not bad at all. My joy was slightly spoiled by the fact that all these achievements were cheats, to a point. Had it not been for my free Teddy ticket, I'd still be a nonentity. I made myself a solemn promise not to think too much of myself and to generally keep a low profile.
After a few more minutes, the already level-19 me fought my way to a wide corridor leading to the floor's main hall. There I could fully appreciate the developers' sick sense of humor. The staircase down to the third floor was right opposite the gnolls' barracks. Whether it was AI trying to be funny or this was the basic layout, I didn't know; all I could see was that they were falling in on the drill ground in front of the barracks. A dozen and a half warriors, all my level, plus a level-22 Gnoll Chief and the floor's mini boss, a level 25 Gnoll General.
The biggest problem was, they stood shoulder to shoulder. Any party that fought its way down here would have to deal with the entire gang. There simply was no other way. It didn't feel good. Seventeen mobs against a pet, however tough, and I couldn't even interfere for fear of pulling aggro onto myself. My current level was purely nominal: all my skills remained level 5. I was a walking bag with lots of available characteristic points and talents. I still had to get my three talent points from Grym for level 10. And I still had to choose specialization in order to unblock new skill tree branches. My last levels had brought me nine more points which I didn't really want to invest even if I had somewhere in which to invest them. I needed to get a bit of sleep first and think clearly. In other words, my pet was the only real force that counted. I was little more than a walking talking makiwara.
I stepped a safe distance back, blessed my pet and, choosing the General as target, pressed 'Attack'. The Gnoll Overseer would be next. I wanted to minimize my pet's exposure to the strongest opponents.
Even when still alive, Teddy hadn't been known for good self-preservation skills. He lunged at the opponent with all the enthusiasm of reckless courage. Immediately his life bar began to shrink. It took Hummungus twenty seconds and 15% hits to finally put the General to rest. The Chief took slightly less. And still the gnolls were too many. Way too many. They surrounded Teddy and started pounding his sides and back, nailing him with crits. Soon he had ten opponents and barely half life left. After another minute of melee, the ratio became seven to forty. Three to thirty. Two. One. Done. I breathed a sigh of relief. Good boy!
I came over to the bloodied beast and patted his chewed ears. "Way to go, Hummungus. You made your daddy proud."
I let Teddy regenerate. We had another three or four minutes before the gnolls respawned. He needed a bit of rest, and it wasn't a problem to mop up the hall again. The mobs would respawn one by one, in the reverse order of their death. Teddy risked virtually nothing against singles.
I checked the corpses again collecting the booty. About a gold piece's worth of cash, half a dozen bracelets and a couple Soul Stones. Loot was getting more interesting here, with a variety of steel weapons, armor and chainmail. All had decent defense parameters albeit without any extras. Unfortunately, I had to leave it all lying on the ground: my
"Hummungus, come, pup. Be quiet."
History repeated itself. Here, mobs were juicier, level 18 and above, growing stronger as we approached the third underground floor. After half an hour, I received a new message.
Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Immortal.
You've stayed alive for ten subsequent levels!
Reward: +500 to Fame
Fame Alert!
Your Fame has exceeded 1000 points!
You've reached Fame level 1: "People are talking about you".
Friendly faction vendors might surprise you with lower prices. You will also gain access to some secret quests.
Not bad at all. My joy was slightly spoiled by the fact that all these achievements were cheats, to a point. Had it not been for my free Teddy ticket, I'd still be a nonentity. I made myself a solemn promise not to think too much of myself and to generally keep a low profile.
After a few more minutes, the already level-19 me fought my way to a wide corridor leading to the floor's main hall. There I could fully appreciate the developers' sick sense of humor. The staircase down to the third floor was right opposite the gnolls' barracks. Whether it was AI trying to be funny or this was the basic layout, I didn't know; all I could see was that they were falling in on the drill ground in front of the barracks. A dozen and a half warriors, all my level, plus a level-22 Gnoll Chief and the floor's mini boss, a level 25 Gnoll General.
The biggest problem was, they stood shoulder to shoulder. Any party that fought its way down here would have to deal with the entire gang. There simply was no other way. It didn't feel good. Seventeen mobs against a pet, however tough, and I couldn't even interfere for fear of pulling aggro onto myself. My current level was purely nominal: all my skills remained level 5. I was a walking bag with lots of available characteristic points and talents. I still had to get my three talent points from Grym for level 10. And I still had to choose specialization in order to unblock new skill tree branches. My last levels had brought me nine more points which I didn't really want to invest even if I had somewhere in which to invest them. I needed to get a bit of sleep first and think clearly. In other words, my pet was the only real force that counted. I was little more than a walking talking makiwara.
I stepped a safe distance back, blessed my pet and, choosing the General as target, pressed 'Attack'. The Gnoll Overseer would be next. I wanted to minimize my pet's exposure to the strongest opponents.
Even when still alive, Teddy hadn't been known for good self-preservation skills. He lunged at the opponent with all the enthusiasm of reckless courage. Immediately his life bar began to shrink. It took Hummungus twenty seconds and 15% hits to finally put the General to rest. The Chief took slightly less. And still the gnolls were too many. Way too many. They surrounded Teddy and started pounding his sides and back, nailing him with crits. Soon he had ten opponents and barely half life left. After another minute of melee, the ratio became seven to forty. Three to thirty. Two. One. Done. I breathed a sigh of relief. Good boy!
I came over to the bloodied beast and patted his chewed ears. "Way to go, Hummungus. You made your daddy proud."
I let Teddy regenerate. We had another three or four minutes before the gnolls respawned. He needed a bit of rest, and it wasn't a problem to mop up the hall again. The mobs would respawn one by one, in the reverse order of their death. Teddy risked virtually nothing against singles.
I checked the corpses again collecting the booty. About a gold piece's worth of cash, half a dozen bracelets and a couple Soul Stones. Loot was getting more interesting here, with a variety of steel weapons, armor and chainmail. All had decent defense parameters albeit without any extras. Unfortunately, I had to leave it all lying on the ground: my
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