To Arthur's surprise, Dovgrey had delayed their departure by a few minutes to strip the orcs of their goods. Not that they had much, beyond some slipshod armour - pauldrons, greaves, leather skirts and even a breastplate or two - as well as their weapons. All of that was piled into the cart, a small compartment unlocked long enough to store the loot before they moved on.
While the man was busy, Arthur ranged backwards and forwards to deal with gathered monsters, collecting the monster cores before they moved on. Being rather cognizant about his own needs, he intended to collect as many as he could, seeing the increased number of monsters as both a threat and opportunity.
In any case, once the Tinker was ready to go, Arthur had cleared the first few hundred feet well enough that they could travel together for a bit.
"So, where were you headed in such a hurry, anyway?" Arthur asked, curiously. "Surely you knew the ground was going to be a mess."
Dovgrey hesitated, then shrugged. "Well, I didn't actually. The landslides are uncommon - unusual if you will - to this event. And I must admit, I've only been through a half-dozen cycles of this floor thus far."
"Really?" Arthur said. "What were you doing before?"
"In building sales and purchasing."
"Oh, inside the Guild halls?" At the Tinker's confirmation, Arthur frowned. "So why do this?"
"Travel back and forth?" Dovgrey nodded. "It's the next step, of course. Looks great on the resume, if you're willing to do some of the more difficult jobs."
"Including potentially getting killed?" Arthur said, glancing at the scratch on the turtle's arm.
"The risks for us are low." Dovgrey hesitated, then added, semi-boastfully. "Not entirely absent, of course. Which is why we need to be certified."
"But what's the point?" Before he could get an answer, Arthur spotted a trio of bounding deer, all dark skinned and nasty. Evil looking sang kancil, so Arthur made sure to murder them swiftly and with great prejudice. If anything folklore had taught Arthur about the tiny deer, it was that they were smart and tricky. Which often translated to magic users of some form.
A fact borne out by the slight pain on his exposed skin as the minor aura of heat and flame the trio had utilized bore out. If he'd let them stick around or fight long enough, he might have gotten more than a light sunburn.
"The point is to provide the floor users an opportunity for greatness of course," Dovgrey said.
"Eh, boss. Don't get me wrong, I am happy you all do it, but why lah?"
"The Towers desire it." Dovgrey shrugged. "If you wish for more than that, I would ask that you ask another. Even old Tower inhabitants do not understand the will of the Tower entirely. We but learn how to work within it."
Arthur grunted. "Including working for them. Which humanity hasn't really worked out how."
"Time." Dovgrey said. "You need more of it. The Tower only recruits from multi-generational races."
"But I've seen - interacted - with others in the Tower?"
"In-floor are not part of the regular recruitment cycle. Same with promotion within the Tower." Dovgrey explained. "You can be promoted, of course, all the way through the Tower, but you'll never be transferred to higher levels." He tilted his head to the side, looking at Arthur. "Did you not study this matter?"
"Nope," Arthur said, cheerily.
Then, he was off, killing again. It took nearly an hour before he found another break to come back, cleaning off his hands and spear as he did so, trying not to gum up his own movements with all the sticky, drying blood.
"I learnt enough that if you got hired - and that was damn rare - you couldn't leave the Tower. Or if you did, you didn't get back home." Arthur shrugged. "Unless that's wrong..." A shake of the head indicated he wasn't, "there's no point working with the Tower for me then."
"You don't like the Tower?"
"I don't intend to stay here." Arthur waved his hand upwards. "There's a world out there that I intend to return to, and these days, more Towers."
"Ah, yes. Your Seal."
"Exactly." Arthur tilted his head, considering and then added. "So. You wouldn't happen to have more information on them, would you?"
"I do." A smile blossomed on that turtley face, pulled the mouth wide and crinkling up circular eyes. It made Dovgrey look even more adorable, almost causing Arthur to want to grab his cheeks and shake them. "But let us discuss this when we're safe, no?"
"Right, right..." Arthur sidestepped quickly to the side, bouncing high on a cloud he created and then thrust with his spear. He skewered the kuching hitam that had thought itself safe, the pair dropping down beside one another in short order. Out came the skinning knife, splitting the creature open and then Arthur was back over, shaking his hand.
"You know, I have something for that."
“For what? Killing animals?” Arthur said, then perked up as a thought struck him. “Or you mean the cloth?”
“Well, I do have some enchanted cleaning cloths, yes. But I was thinking more the monster core acquisition.”
“What?” the Climber said, eyes opening wide. “You have something that automatically extracts the core?”
“A few things. One’s a machine – if you will – that will locate and then remove said core from a beast. Quite useful, if a little slow. However, it will keep your hands clean,” Dovgrey explained. “Really useful at more Advanced Towers too, where creatures might have bodies one does not wish to contact.”
“Acid, flaming hot bodies, that kind of thing?”
Dovgrey nodded in confirmation. “There’s more, of course.”
“Things that hurt? Yeah…”
“No-!”
Too late, since Arthur had to hurry backwards to deal with the swarm of leeches that had crept up on the group, somehow managing to swarm on top of the cart and were in the midst of crawling towards Porta. Rather than kill them individually, Arthur utilized his Yin Aura, the thin skinned swarm creatures falling by the wayside soon enough.
He killed a few, of course, pinning those with his spear and extracting their monster core fragments, but with so many and the cart never stopping, he could only collect a few.
Then, after the leeches were the hornets that came buzzing over, dozens of them. In this case, Arthur had to protect Porta, pulling her along and watching her grow tired even as she was stung and harassed. Dovgrey pulled himself into his own shell, detaching tiny shields to cover the area around his head and arms to provide him cover. Didn’t do much for his legs that had to be exposed, but soon enough the hornets were on the ground, unable to flap their wings hard enough to keep aloft.
Extracting the shards as they went along, dropping the Yin Aura the moment he could so that his companions didn’t fall on their face kept them busy for a few more minutes. Eventually though, Dovgrey returned to their conversation.
“More tools to collect. The best, well…” Dovgrey leaned over, whispering. “It just collects them, automatically. Pop, right into a secondary storage.”
“Like dimensional storage?” Arthur said, eyes wide.
“Please, what Tower do you think you’re in?” Dovgrey scoffed. “No, no. It’ll just drop it in the same pouch you’ve kept it in. Or bag.”
“Oh.” Arthur said, disappointed.
“Greedy children,”Dovgrey yawned, hiding its mouth and tapping idly on one of the shields on its front. He opened his mouth to say something more when those big limpid eyes blinked, once, and then again. Then, he cried out. “We’re here!”
Not that Arthur needed the notice, what with having spotted it earlier with his own Keen Sight. However, the vision and proximity to safety seemed to perk up even the tired Porta and the pair sped up. Of course, all that meant for Arthur was that he grew even more wary.
Well justified paranoia, as the trio of wasps slipped out moments later, lightning cackling along their body.