The Primal Hunter

“Peculiar,” the Sword Saint answered and sent the mental image of an identical magic circle down at the south pole. This one wasn’t broken, though. “Is yours operational?”

“Nope, is yours?”

“Appears to be, but with yours broken… we shall begin making our way north now,” the Sword Saint sent.

“Eh, gimme a minute,”Jake said as he looked at the magic circle a bit. He tilted his head and went closer. Touching the circle, he closed his eyes and studied it for a minute or so while comparing it to the one at the southern pole.

“Pretty low-level one, huh,” Jake muttered as he infused his energy. Analyzing it and finding the flaws had been easy enough, and soon enough, the broken lines were restored as the entire magic circle hummed to life.

“Ours just seemed to activate. Did you do something?” the Sword Saint asked, surprised.

“What can I say? I know a bit about formations,” Jake grinned.

A minute later, the party of five all appeared in the cave on the north pole. The second the last person was there, the large archway that served as a gate activated as a portal appeared.

First floor completed. 10 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the first floor before the light of the sun could have ever reached the Lord of the Dunes. 5 Nevermore Points earned.

Nevermore Points: 26

“That’s one floor down,” Jake smiled as he turned to the others. “Anyway, what did you get from that treasury?”

The Sword Saint proceeded to take out two rare items, and a bunch of stuff clearly meant to help battle the Floor Boss and the environment, such as crystals that gave resistance to the sunlight and what looked like a grenade. These items would disappear upon entering the next floor, so, honestly, the only reason to even do the bonus objective was for the points.

Without further ado, the five of them entered the portal to the next floor. Upon entering it, the party found themselves in a large square room about fifteen meters on each side with a gateway in front of them, one behind them, and one off to the side. The walls were of dark gray stone, and Jake’s sphere informed him that there was nothing outside of them but the empty void of nothingness.

Jake instantly understood what this room was. The gate in front of them had a sign saying “second floor,” while the gateway off to the side was an exit. Mind you, if one exited Nevermore before one reached a city, then they would have to go through the first floor once more to progress. And not “go through” as in do the boss again and whatnot, but literally travel through the already completed dungeon, making it just a waste of time.

Anyway, In the middle of this new gray in-between-floors room was a small platform with a lockbox on it. The loot from the first floor.

“I must say, it is a bit underwhelming,” the Sword Saint said as he looked at the lockbox. “Though we must consider this is simply the first floor, and it only took us a few hours to clear it all.”

“True, true,” Jake said as he walked over and unceremoniously opened the lockbox. Within was a rare rarity sword, and Jake could only look teasingly as he went over and handed it to the Sword Saint in an overly formal way, even going down on one knee as he held it up. “For you, our resident swordsman. It is only proper you receive this bounty. I hope there are no complaints?”

“Will… will he use it?” Dina questioned, looking confused.

“No, no, he won’t,” Jake grinned as he stood up.

“Then… why?”

“Exactly,” Jake nodded. “Let’s move on to the next floor?”

Dina was still confused as they all moved through the gateway leading onwards.

Walking through the gate was like stepping into an entirely new world. Probably because they did step into an entirely new world. Jake’s sphere spread out, and he saw a familiar-looking environment filled with greenery and trees as far as the eye could see. At least in front of them. Behind was an endless wasteland of nothingness.

They had appeared on top of a large cliff overlooking a valley filled with trees, the entire place utterly massive, stretching thousands of kilometers. When the others came through the gateway, they also just appeared standing beside him with no actual gate to come out of, making it clear there was no way back. The only way to proceed was to clear the floor… or wait for the full fifty years and get thrown out.

Welcome to the second floor of Nevermore: The Evergreen Valley.

Main objective: Defeat the Lord of the Valley

Bonus objectives: Find 10 Illusory Lotuses hidden throughout the forest.

Current progress: Lord of the Valley (0/1), Illusory Lotuses (0/10)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Current Nevermore Points: 26

Jake read the message and nodded. Only ten lotuses this time, but going by their description, these lotuses would be a bit harder to find than the Sunlight Fragments, as their name indicated an ability to create illusions to hide. The Lord of the Valley was pretty straightforward, though he was a bit disappointed at the name of the boss.

Maybe these first few floors are just low-effort by the Wyrmgod as most good parties just rush through,Jake considered.

“This seems nicer than the desert,” the Sword Saint smiled, looking down at the valley.

“Definitely,” Jake nodded as he looked at the King. “Sad this floor isn’t called the Evergreen Forest. Then we could have had a Floor Boss called the Lord of the Forest.”

“Your humor is far from as funny as you believe it to be,” the Fallen King answered.

“Now that is just mean,” Jake commented.

“The joke is only made worse by requiring inside knowledge only you and I are aware of, as no one else here has known me as anything other than the Fallen King,” the Unique Lifeform didn’t let up.

“I get it, I get it,” Jake said defensively. “Geez. Anyway, let’s just use the same tactic as last time. Find the ten lotuses, find and kill the end boss, and move on to the next floor. I can handle finding the lotuses while you all search for the boss. Sounds like a plan?”

“The boss is over there,” Dina pointed northeast into the nearly endless forest spanning before them. Jake was about to question as as she looked down at all the trees and spoke again. “And… oh, okay. Okay. That would be nice, thank you.”

Dina looked like she was talking to herself as suddenly, the forest before them rumbled. Large vines extended upwards all throughout the valley, creating lines of giant pillars spanning into the horizon. Then, Jake saw the vines begin moving, and a few kilometers away, he saw an entire patch of land around five meters across being carried by vines by handing the patch off to one another. Within a few minutes, the patch was dumped on the ground just beneath them in the valley, and looking down, Jake saw the small landmass had an odd rock on it. After squinting his eyes, the illusion fell away, revealing a lotus.

“Did… did you just?” Jake asked Dina.

The dryad seemed confused and tilted her head. “I just asked if the trees wanted to help, and they agreed. They were very nice and even offered to bring the lotuses to us, so we didn’t have to go through the forest and potentially ruin anything. Oh, and they asked if we could kill the Lord of the Valley as it isn’t very nice to the trees and is hurting the natural balance.”

Jake slowly nodded as he stared at tens of thousands of vines extending endlessly into the valley to slowly carry lotuses toward them. This was… kind of overpowered, wasn’t it? Like, pure cheese of an entire floor. Would the Wyrmgod penalize them for shit like this?

“Good job, Dina,” the Sword Saint smiled and gave the dryad a proud nod.

“Quite a display of power indeed. Is it your Bloodline that allows this?” the Fallen King questioned.

“Ye… yeah, I just asked… so…” Dina said, looking shy. Her green skin turned a slightly darker shade of green – the dryad way of blushing – which did make Jake wonder what color the blood of dryads was. It wasn’t important, but he was a bit curious. Anyway.

“Definitely does make life easier,” Jake smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Even Sylphie gave a happy screech.

“Did the forest also tell you where the exit is?” the Sword Saint asked.

Dina nodded and pointed in the same direction as the Floor Boss.

“So we will pass the boss if we go for the exit?” Jake asked.

“It moves around… but if we hurry, yeah,” Dina explained.

“Then let’s get a move on,” Jake said. “Can you handle collecting the lotuses on the way somehow?”

While they had been brought one lotus, then it wasn’t like the many vines were fast. They were pretty damn slow, actually, so it would likely take them a few hours at least to bring all the lotuses to their group, and while waiting for them at the entrance to the floor would be faster than searching themselves, it would be faster to just get them along the way.

“Oh, okay,” Dina nodded as she looked out at the forest. Jake didn’t feel the movements of any energy or any indication whatsoever she was doing anything, yet a few seconds later, she nodded.

“Okay, they will help.”

Jake smiled. “Then let’s go.”

What followed was something Jake could only call cheating. Along their way to the boss monster, they encountered upheld patches of land with lotuses on them, and by the time they reached the boss, they had six of the ten. Killing the boss took them less than thirty seconds as the five of them descended on the poor level 208 beaver-like monster that was just trying to enjoy a good meal by eating one of the trees.

The fight started with roots shooting up from the ground and entrapping the beast. Then, pure pressure from the King kept it utterly unmoving as Jake released a barrage of Powershots, with Sylphie and the Sword Saint cutting it apart with wind and water blades, respectively. It never even had a chance to fight, and the only reason it stayed alive as long as it did was due to its high health pool. On that note, after encountering it for the second time, Jake was pretty sure these Floor Bosses had artificially inflated health pools. Not that it mattered in a case like this.

Achievement earned: Slay the Lord of the Valley before it manages to return to its lair. 5 Nevermore Points gained.

Achievement earned: Slay the Lord of the Valley within 12 hours of entering the second floor. 2 Nevermore Points gained.

After the boss was dead, it was just a relaxed flight to the end of the second floor while collecting “hidden” lotuses on a silver platter along the way. As mentioned… it was pretty much cheating.

The second floor exit had also been meant to be a challenge to find as it was a hidden pit in the ground covered by vines when they first got there, but a slight nudge from Dina made them move out of the way. Right in front of this pit, they also found the final lotus.

Bonus Objective Completed: Collect 10 Illusory Lotuses. 10 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Collect 10 illusionary Lotuses without using any of the provided tools to assist in their discovery. 4 Nevermore Points gained.

Seeing that there were tools to help find the lotuses nearly made Jake choke at how unfair Dina’s ability was. He did have to admit that their illusion was quite good, forcing him to squint a bit to see through it. While that didn’t seem like a lot, one had to remember that Jake had more Perception than pretty much any other C-grade at his level in existence. Because he was smart and knew what the best stat was, of course.

“Dina,” Jake said as they had just jumped into the pit and walked through the small tunnel leading to another gateway. “You are awesome, you know that, right?”

The dryad blushed again. “I… I just did what I should…”

“If that is only what you feel like you should do, then you should definitely keep being awesome,” Jake grinned, happy with Nature’s Attendant for introducing her to the group. Just that brief interaction with the boss monster also made Jake aware she was no slouch when it came to combat. Her support capabilities were still unknown, but if anything she had shown so far was an indication of her skills in that department, they were indeed in for a fantastic time.

The Sword Saint also praised Dina, making her even shyer than before. No one really had a chance to show off any of their skills on this floor, and in the end, the entire thing ended up only taking them a bit over an hour and a half. Most of their time was spent flying at a semi-leisurely pace as they still had to wait for a few places for the vines to bring a lotus. The floor was quite a bit smaller than the first one but was far more densely packed. Even then, they only explored a few percentages of the forest as the trees did all the work.

When it came to the setting of the floor, Jake learned that a war of sorts had been going on between the forest and invading beaver-like monsters that were pretty much just all smaller variants of the Lord of the Valley. Their group of five had not gotten involved in any of this fighting but had just beelined for the boss and gotten their lotuses. It wasn’t like the wanton slaughter of the beavers would help any of them, and the trees were nice and helpful, so there was no way they would fight them either. The trees even told Dina to avoid killing anything besides the boss, so they saw no reason not to follow that advice.

Anyway, after only a bit of walking, they reached the exit of the floor.

“Ree,” Sylphie said as they reached the gateway properly.

“Yep, a lot easier and faster than the first floor,” Jake smiled. In the room with the gateway, they also found a small pond with a sealed treasure chest in the middle and ten small rock formations with holes in the middle, each perfect to fit a lotus into. After placing all the lotuses, they opened the lockbox and got an epic rarity lotus crown that they decided to just give Dina. No one else needed it, and she had done everything on this floor, so it was only fair.

Without any reason to stay longer, their overpowered party moved through the gateway and completed their second floor within the day.

Second floor completed. 20 Nevermore Points earned.

Achievement earned: Complete the second floor within 12 hours while collecting all ten lotuses. 8 Nevermore Points gained.

Achievement earned: Traverse the Evergreen Valley and complete the second floor while collecting all ten lotuses without killing any other living creatures than the Lord of the Valley. 15 Nevermore Points gained.

Nevermore Points: 90

The points just kept rolling in. Jake wondered if the points would keep doubling, considering they got 20 for just doing the floor, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t. Exponential growth like that tended not to end super well. Oh well, he would find out once they did the third floor.

Leaving the local wildlife and ecosystem alone also proved to be a good idea, as it netted them an extra 15 Nevermore Points. Taking the advice of trees was definitely a lesson to remember.

As for loot… well, it was shit again. Two pieces of rare equipment they once more just gave to Dina.

Let’s hope the third floor is fun, Jake thought to himself as their party continued.

Spoiler alert: it wouldn’t be fun.

It was the exact opposite.

A fucking water level.