"Well, I guess that explains how the giant tree house is meant to get through a portal to the next floor," Jin said as she looked down at the baby Ent. It only came up to Alim's knee as it clung to the man. He met her gaze with wide hazel eyes, looking like a deer in the headlights. She smirked and signed, "Congratulations, looks like you're a proud daddy now."

That seemed to break him out of his stupor as he gave her an unamused look and flipped her off. She loudly laughed, fairly certain that was the first time she had gotten him to make that particular hand sign.

Everyone stared at her.

Her laughter tapered off as she looked at the others and asked in confusion, "What?"

Rayyan was the first to break the silence as he softly said, "I've never seen you laugh like that before."

She furrowed her brow. "I've laughed before."

"No, you've smiled and snorted, but mostly just roll your eyes or glare at the person who is laughing," he countered, but smiled at her. "Apparently, all we needed to do to hit your particular brand of humor was be rude to you."

Jin rolled her eyes, and Rayyan pointed at her, jovially saying, "Ah! There it is! The eye roll of 'I'm completely above this nonsense!'"

She gave him a rude hand gesture then, and decided to put him on ignore as she signed to Alim, "So, aside from becoming a Muppet, did it say if Mister Snuggleroot can do anything else in this form aside from 'follow the leader'?"

Alim shook his head. "No, but we were in a hurry to get back to the portal before the Fighters moved in, so I didn't exactly read the fine print. On that point, we should walk and talk." He tried freeing his leg, requiring a few kicks before the tiny tree relented by being allowed to hold his hand instead.

"Should we try to go to the Lovers' base and transport that as well?" Rayyan asked as the group began to move again.

"We don't have the points," Hadia pointed out. "I mean, we got a lot from the Divine Tower Tokens, but it won't hit the thousand we need for that base's upgrade."

"We might be able to come back for it," Jin interjected. "We still have quite a few weeks before this floor closes, and we'll most likely continue getting tribute points in here to keep upgrading the base. If we can farm enough, it might be worth having the second base available, even if we don't focus on beefing it up with more upgrades. Like a backup base in case something happens to Mister Snuggleroot. I have to assume they have health points for a reason."

"Won't we need those points to keep upgrading Mister Snuggleroot, though?" Karam asked, his little lantern floating behind one shoulder, the squishy slime ball on the other shoulder, and Clover nestling back atop his head.

"Probably," Jin admitted. "But we won't know until we get to the next floor and see what we've got to work with."

They all continued moving quickly through the swamp, much more familiar with the terrain at this point. It only took about two hours to get back to the portal to the third floor. It had taken them longer to get to their base the first time due to stopping to have Jin loot all of the dead goblins littering the area, including the boss.

Using all her essence on the boss had been a decent idea since it gave them three more Spirit Gems to use, but Jin had kind of been hoping for something a little more special. Maybe she was just becoming jaded about the loot situation. It was great to get the gems that unlocked more abilities, obviously, but after getting twenty of them, it felt a little repetitive to her. The others did cheer her up a bit by pointing out that not all looting powers would focus on giving Aspects or Spirit Gems, with some focused more on equipment or ritual ingredients or simply more Bits as money. They were lucky hers helped them progress so well.

As they walked, they discussed their speculations about the hint and what else to buy in the store. They hadn't exactly been hoarding points while waiting for the treasure room's unlimited list, needing to buy some basic upgrades when they could afford it from the randomized floor shop. By this point, most of them had a full armor set, with only a few pieces missing, like a weapon for Alim or the smaller jewelry pieces. Most of the pieces weren't fantastic, just boosting attributes or various ability types, but every little bit helped them all survive better, so their points left to spend had been in the lower single digits. However, they all just got a decent amount from defeating the boss and a bunch of smaller goblins.

Hadia explained how they had been running along the route they had mapped out when Pax, with his base, had shown up and trampled many of the goblins that had been chasing after them. He gave them a ride back to help with the boss, but a lot of the goblin kill points had gone to him instead. Still, Liraz had taken down quite a few from her slow and agonizing slime melting them down.

Agreeing with Rayyan's deciphering of the clue, they agreed to purchase a climbing kit for twenty points and a Lullog for thirty points. Jin thought that was an overpriced amount for a piece of firewood, but apparently, it was a magical piece of firewood that would burn for weeks before burning out. Even with them capable of creating a campfire with the first cantrip Jin ever learned, they weren't sure how sparse fuel might be on the next floor.

The last things they all had to do before moving on to the third floor were to use those three new Spirit Gems and upgrade their bracelets.

Luckily, it looked like the Fighters hadn't made it to the portal yet, or they just weren't bothering to camp it this time. "They probably assumed we just went on ahead," Hadia said, taking Liraz's hand as they walked through the portal.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Rayyan held onto Karam's shoulder as they went through as well, followed by Alim with Mister Snuggleroot. Jin brought up the rear, giving one last look around the swamp. She wondered if she would actually miss the routine they had gained here, even if it was one filled with slaughter… She had a feeling that endless slaughter was just going to be her new normal in this strange, magical world where surviving meant killing and thriving meant being strong enough to kill anyone who might threaten them.

"The Rule of Caste," she muttered to herself, recalling Petal's words on her first day here. Shaking her head, she knew she wouldn't miss this swamp of death as she walked through the portal.

Back in the treasure room, Jin looked around at her teammates who were waiting for her. With a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, she asked, "Alright, last chance to change your minds, but we're all agreed on the Chain Spirit Gem for Liraz, the Horn Spirit Gem for Hadia, and the Chief Spirit Gem for Alim, right?"

"I still think Horn would be better for me while Chief is better for you, Jin," Rayyan said, though his tone was more speculative than argumentative. "While rams do have horns, that Spirit Gem did come from the more musical kind of horn. It might result in something less compatible for Hadia."

"It might, but I still have my Ram Class ability locked, so I'm fairly sure it'll bond with that and give me something to bash the enemy with," Hadia countered.

"And I might be the tactical leader when fighting, but I'm not really 'chief' material for my actual Class. I'd rather not get some kind of group buff that helps lead everyone or something like that," Jin pointed out, moving to hand out the gems that were sitting in her [Treasure Hoard].

The others began moving, taking their gems, and Alim started drawing out more ritual diagrams. Hadia smirked at her and suggested, "Why don't you go stick your arm in the hole again? We all remember how much you loved that last time."

"What happened last time?" Rayyan asked with a raised brow and a growing grin.

"Nothing happened last time other than me showing some pragmatic caution when I've pissed off some gods that run this bloody tower," Jin said before Hadia could tease her more. She walked over towards an alcove, calling over her shoulder, "See? I'm going now because everything is fine and I totally won't lose an arm or anything equally horrifying."

Despite her faux bravado, Jin still got the creepy shivers when she pressed the upgrade rune on the wall, and a void-black hole appeared in its place. Taking a deep breath, she shoved her bracelet in, waited a few moments before it seemed to lock into place, and a tremor pulsed through the room.

Once it released her, she found a new rune inscribed on her bracelet that her translation ability read as "Team." Pressing it, a little screen popped up that had her name near the top with a list of "Nearby Champions," but the list was blank.

"Hmm, I think you all need to upgrade your bracelets, then I can add you to my team?" Jin guessed, moving back to the rest of the group.

"Oh, we got the Team rune?" Karam asked, perking up. "That usually allows for mixed Sect groups like ours to stay together better. If I remember right, it was also compatible with the Map and would show each member of the team on it."

"We can also name the team, I believe," Rayyan added. "I remember one called Team Milk that featured an entire group of women with huge—"

"Veto! We're not naming our team after any kind of food or drink," Jin loudly interrupted, giving Ray a flat look.

"Huh. That's an interesting one, Li. Might help Alim keep an enemy on him, though," Hadia said from the other side of the room where the rituals were happening.

"What'd you get?" Jin called over.

Liraz skipped over and smiled at her with those pointy teeth that Jin had almost gotten used to by now, showing off the new power on her bracelet.

Class Ability: Slimy Tether

Type: Spell (taunt, elemental, magical, corrosion, covenant, water)

Cost: High mana.

Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Current Caste: Crystal 1 (0%)

Crystal Effect: Attach an incorporeal slimy tether between an ally and an enemy. The further the tether is stretched, the greater the effects of this ability. The tethered ally gains [Witch's Blessing] for each attack they make on the enemy, and the enemy gains [Witch's Ire] for each attack made against others and each second they spend away from their tether.

Witch's Blessing (boon, elemental, corrosion, stacking): Increased Agility and Fortitude. Attacks deal additional Corrosion damage. Instances are slowly lost over time. Witch's Ire (bane, elemental, corrosion, water, stacking): Greatly decrease Corrosion, Water, and physical resistances. Instances are slowly lost over time.

"Nice. I think I agree with Dia," Jin said, looking over the ability.

"Don't forget to grab the free Familiar summoning bag we get," Liraz signed to her. "I almost forgot it since Chompy hasn't died yet."

"You say 'yet' like it's definitely going to happen." Jin signed back, glancing over at Clover, who she was pretty sure was asleep on top of Karam at the moment.

Liraz just shrugged and pointed out, "They give us the free bags for a reason. Familiars can die a lot in the tower."

"Fair point," Jin admitted and turned back to go to the shop in the alcove, adding to the extra bag she already had sitting in her [Treasure Hoard] from the first floor.

Once everyone else finished using their Spirit Gems and had upgraded their bracelets, Jin created a new team and was able to add everyone to it, confirming Karam's speculation about the map as they showed up as little blue dots. In a move of brilliant defiance and irreverent blasphemy, Jin named the team "God Slayers," which was actually one of her old World of Warcraft guild names back when she played with Phoenix.

They all glanced through the shop one last time to see if they might have forgotten anything they could afford, then walked through the portal to the third floor.

The first thing Jin noticed was the cold. It slammed into her like a physical force, chilling her to the bones, making her lungs burn with the first few breaths she took. Steam puffed out of her mouth in white clouds that blended with the ground, and she instantly began to shiver. She should have bought a magical blanket or snowsuit.

Snow blanketed the ground and covered the bows of the evergreen trees around them. The wall looked to be made of solid ice as it stretched out and up as the floor's border. The portal behind them would lead them back to the second floor, but there wasn't a blanket there unless they could see if the Workers could make some.

"Oh fuck this!" Clover yelled from atop Karam, trying to move his locs to act like a blanket and cover them. "I did not sign up to freeze my tail off!"

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