Excerpt from The Profound and Pretty Princess' Ultimate Guide to Cultivation, Captivation, Cuteness, and Carving Your Way to the Top, English Edition (the worst-selling guide in the history of Putijama)

On Enchanting People

No, I don't mean people you find interesting!

While most enchantments are placed on items and meant to last, putting enchantments on the body – human or otherwise – is possible.

There are benefits and drawbacks, of course.

Compared to a potion, enchantments – if done correctly! – have no toxicity. That means they can be used freely with no regard to causing any short or long-term issues. Use your enchantments as much as you want!

The negatives are they only last a short while and usually are far more limited in effect. Plus, they are expensive.

Most enchantments only last for a few activations or a few days, whichever is less. For instance, a healing enchantment would typically only last three days if never used or two activations. Healing enchantments are also almost always placed on a specific body part as a whole-body healing enchantment would barely speed up healing at all.

Oh wow, that paper cut I got healed in two and a half days instead of three. Whoopee!

The most common body enchantments are for speed, power, or durability. While there are also mind-enhancing enchantments, they can cause disorientation so are rarely used. If used for a test, not a huge deal. In a fight, it's often deadly.

And an enchantment to improve perception has to be done directly on the impacted area…

Just getting a bug in your eye sounds awful, keep that enchanting pen away from me!

Most equipment enchanters can also do people-based enchantments. But most won't. The enchantments are very finicky and the ink to create them is quite expensive, spoiling very quickly.

Plus, about 80% of requests are carnal-related rather than charnel-related.

Yes, that was a fantastic joke, and no, I will not apologize for it!

Putting an enchantment on a sword is noble. Putting an enchantment on a noble's 'sword' is awkward…

On Visibility

Most enchantments on people are placed in areas where either it doesn't matter if it's visible – a delver with a strength enchantment on their bicep is not awkward or abnormal – or it won't be visible – like a noble with a vitality enchantment on their lower back to make sitting through meetings more tolerable.

There are some enchantments that might be more… awkward… if they were easily seen. A stealth-enhancing rune on the face to make it easier to blend into the crowd is great; unless they can, you know, see the glowing ink. Or the opposite, a beauty enchantment on your mug that sticks out like 100 pimples probably fights its own purpose.

In these cases, people can use an invisible enchantment ink. Of course, this increases the cost considerably as first, it is an expensive set of ingredients, and second, the time and skill you need from your enchanter increases by at least an order of magnitude.

Imagine knowing where every intricate line you wrote is without being able to see it!

Enchantment Enhancements

A very interesting aspect of people-based enchantments, enchantment enhancements are for extending the life of small-scale, limited-effect enchantments.

For instance, an enchantment that generally limits growth could be placed on the body to prevent hair growth on the scalp or face. You could put a toughness enchantment on each fingertip to prevent fingernails from chipping.

Probably the most egregious example – without taking into consideration anything carnal-related – is the people who use a whiteness enchantment on their teeth. You need one for each tooth!

Enchantment enhancements can last a few months to even years depending on the strength and how often it is used. For a tooth-whitening enchantment, if the person drank coffee every day, it would wear it down far more quickly.

Enchantment enhancements are usually far more expensive as it takes an enchanter with the actual skill they are imbuing onto the person.

Tiesa and I heard Risto in the other room saying goodbye, so we both came into the kitchen to send him off for the night. After the hugs, Gabor joined Tiesa and me in their sitting room.

As usual, Gabor failed to read the room all that well. "Ha, you two look tense! Was it about that final game? I couldn't believe you saved that essence stone for that play Terry, must have had it for like twenty rounds. Getting your character to Tier 2 was such an amazing way to finish. She gets mad when she's outsmarted!"

Tiesa laid a hand on his arm that communicated something far more than words ever could. It was almost like he had a smile meter that fell from 100% to zero in the matter of a few seconds, a steady decline from delight to frown.

"Terry, is there something we don't know about that delve? The one where it was just you in the dungeon?" Tiesa asked, helping Gabor understand what we were discussing. She said it in a tone I couldn't quite place. If I guessed, it was a mix of concern, pleading, parent who is 'not mad, just disappointed', and curiosity.

I attempted to distract her from why I wanted Gabby's shard. "I feel like this is quite a stretch. I just want that shard to remind me of how far I've come and how close to death I was," I tried, seeing if I could lead the bloodhound that was Tiesa's strong bullshit detector away from my trail.

I felt guilty about lying to Tiesa but it seemed like the best way I could protect Gabby.

"What's your souvenir from the rift that almost killed Steve? Or the wolves that almost killed you when that woman tried to assassinate you in that rift? I haven't tried to pry but… do you feel bad about killing a sentient creature? I just don't get why you won't talk about that delve specifically." Tiesa was fixing me with a laser stare that seemed to be getting more concerned.

"I kept the boss' skull from the rift where Milica tried to kill me. I have it here on me, want to see?" While feeling a bit like a caged animal, I thought I saw my daylight out of this conversation.

"And why aren't you turning that into a trophy?" she replied, seeming to get more and more tired.

Shit. Not sure how to play this. If I act indignant, it will probably shut it down but she'll be more wary. If I act like it was no big deal, she knows about the scars, how I came out with a few more than I went in with, meaning something happened in there. I could try to make something up but… yeah, I'll mix in a bit of my real feelings to give it authenticity.

I took a full minute to think before responding. "I've just never felt that alone." It was somewhat true even if I had Gabby with me. Even in the wolf rift where Milica tried to assassinate me, I was mid-battle when I realized the group abandoned me. But delving Gabby the second time, it was all on me. "No, I guess… I had no one else to blame if I screwed up. Any mistake was entirely my own and was likely to be fatal. I've never felt that. It haunts me."

Now that I was actually reflecting, thoughts and emotions started pouring out that I didn't even realize were there. I started to tear up slightly, balling my hands into fists.

"In my previous life, the biggest challenge was a presentation or a test. Yes, it was 'all on me' but if I made a mistake or even completely failed, there just weren't that dire of consequences. A bad grade, a bad performance review. Maybe I'd even flunk out or get fired. But not just simply die. Cease to exist." Tears were falling from my eyes, utterly unwelcome. My voice wavered slightly.

"It felt like all my rash decisions were coming to a head. Like I risked so much on my own arrogance and it almost cost me. Over and over, it almost cost me. Why did I keep making dumb bets? What if it really had been a trap? I just—" I abruptly stopped at Tiesa's look.

I tried to figure out what I could have said that was so earth-shattering but nothing came to mind.

"What if it was a trap? What do you mean by that?"

Oh no, did I just say that?

Tiesa looked me dead in the eyes. "It was a trap. You were fooled by the dungeon. Terry, you need to take responsibility for getting tricked." She seemed to be trying to contain her anger at my stupidity.

Whew, saved by her thinking I'm a dipshit. I guess that's better than the alternative…

I again decided to eat my pride – the second time that day as I'd done the same with Vana earlier – and went for a contrite look. She came over to give me a hug.

Gabor slapped his knees, saying, "Welp, I have no idea what the hell that was about but I'm going to bed. Babe, I'll see you when you're done putting him back together?" He gave my shoulder a squeeze and headed into the bedroom.

I debated trying my luck at getting the shard now but realized it was probably too soon.

"Oh yeah, did I tell you I asked Jasna out?" I asked as Tiesa pulled away from me.

***

The next morning, I was riding next to Inara on the horses we'd swap out on our journey to Chazin Mark. It was scheduled to be nearly two full days of riding just to get there as it was far further east than Pitola. I had a visit planned to the largest city in the former green essence zone on the way back to Velez so I could meet with Inga Balodis, Pitola's mayor, to start building out that relationship.

"So, no minder this time?" Inara asked with a cheeky grin. "I am surprised they let you out of their sight."

I pointed to the two Tier 3 escorts that were riding to the front and back of our group of four people and one sugar glider.

I didn't quite get the economics of a horse swap every few hours but it cut down the time our guards had to be with us considerably. Instead of four days or more by carriage, the decision was made to ride quickly from village to village.

At least as Tier 1s, we shouldn't get saddle sores or have other issues.

We also had two delves each day scheduled along our route so the horses would at least get an hour or so of rest for that.

I shrugged at Inara. "Also, Chazin Mark is where Jasna had some pretty bad stuff go down so she didn't want to come and Tiesa had some local business in Velez. Gabor couldn't take off ten days and neither could Risto. I didn't think to ask Vana but could you imagine?" I said with a laugh.

"Yeah, that would have been fun if incredibly chaotic. Though more rumors might spread. So, why did you want to do these delves on the way there?" she asked, referring to our scheduled delves that were not through the Chazin Mark Council.

"A few reasons. The first is to get enough delves to become a full-fledged member of the Adventurers Guild. Probably makes things easier for accepting and even giving quests. Steve is also registered so he'll get the same."

"Makes sense," Romie said on the other side with a facial expression that indicated they weren't being sarcastic today. Given our cultivation, we had both louder voices and far better hearing so talking while riding was only a mild inconvenience.

"The second is I guess decency and maybe a bit of greed? I picked a few towns that put out a call to delve the rifts that were getting a bit too full for them to handle without risking crippling people. It's potentially a danger to let the rifts fester – might cause breaks – but they also probably have decent rewards if the essence built up. And given they are Adventurers Guild contracts, I reached out and got the entrance fees waived too so they are pure profit."

"Yeah but we don't get paid to do them like we do on city contracts," Pavel added. "So, are the economics actually worth it?"

"God, you're starting to sound like him!" Inara laughed. Our front guard turned to look back at us curiously. "Please, I don't need so many economics dorks around." She gave us a weird look and returned to scanning the road ahead.

We continued to discuss but didn't arrive on a conclusion as to which types of contracts were better. It all depended on the value of the reward after all.

***

Our first delve of day one was against what I could only call 'drop bears', the mythical Australian predator – angry, blood-thirsty koalas – made all too real.

Romie more than made up for their difficulties in a few of our recent delves, being the one to dictate when the monsters dropped, arrows piercing eyes over and over as the bears splatted to the forest floor. I made a bet with Inara that our archer would use a single shot to kill over 80% so, while Inara pretended she was going to bump our archer to take the bet, I won two silver tenpieces easily at a 94% final score.

The rift boss had an incredibly annoying ability that felt more like a video game: an empowered ass drop from the trees with a small concussive wave on landing followed by an immediate return to said tree from the ground. While it wasn't the most dangerous – the monster made a sound preceding said booty bash – getting close enough to it for the few moments it was on the ground was nearly impossible until it ran out of mana. In the tree, it projected a small wind bubble around it, knocking away any projectiles.

As the designated bait, I spent a few minutes running around and dodging when it tried to crash down on me. I did manage to get it to land on my morningstar twice but it didn't do much damage to its incredibly tough hindquarters hide.

Once it couldn't return to the trees, it was a quick execution by the entire team.

The Adventurers Guild contract was one and a half gold to collect twenty bodies so we made a modest bit from that while our reward was an incredibly heavy piece of metal we planned to identify in a larger city.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Our second delve of our first day was far more interesting.

It was marketed by the nearby town as 'the most popular rift between Zalano and the border'. Popular with teams near the peak of Tier 1 for the oft-interesting rewards the rift gave, it was also said by many to be 'a popular grave' for teams not so near the peak who thought to make it big but made a big mistake instead.

The rift itself was a wind-swept plateau that went for miles in either direction, the dust billowing around us, making visibility difficult. We sprung for the goggles that at least made it possible to see somewhat but it was still an anxious few moments of finding our bearings before we were attacked.

While the monsters looked a lot like penguins, they were anything but cute and awkward on land. The sharp-beaked creatures' bodies were covered in a flowing metal that could be reformed into a number of different forms, from armaments to armor, making melee fighting an ever-changing challenge. They could also send out spikes of their metal through the ground, though then that monster lost a decent portion of said metal for fighting.

Having two giant feet helped them leap directly at their foes – mostly Pavel and me in this case – with a spike on the top of their head, trying to pierce our hearts.

The penguin-like creatures used a waddle to lull people into a false sense of security, trying to project an easy target. However, they could leverage a hidden knee joint with a bit of metal used as a support to make them quite quick at running.

Lastly, instead of cute little honks or similar, they had a disorienting sonic attack that could unbalance an unprepared delver or, in rare cases, cause them to drop their weapons or shields.

"Terry, take front. We trained for this one, show us what you've learned," Inara called.

Rolling my eyes despite not facing her, I got into a lower stance and led with a shield bash.

The monster easily formed its own block of metal to absorb the blow but I used the mild distraction for a new addition to my kit from my shining blueish-purple armor: a small deployable blade on the fronts of my boots.

The slicing strike across the front of its ankle elicited an angry honk as it quickly shot a small spike for the bottom of my standing leg; but I'd anticipated and hopped into another less powerful shield bash, knocking it back.

I feinted again with my shield, throwing my left arm forward before pulling it back quickly. The monster committed to countering another shield bash before I spun to my right, bringing up my morningstar in a swing from the ground to just under its raised arm.

While the penguin monsters had a fair amount of metal, it wasn't heavy enough, and I launched the beast a few feet away to land, sprawled on its side.

Knowing their tendencies to use spikes, I faked stomping on it, causing the exact reaction I wanted. Instead, I swung, using the heaviness enchantment on my morningstar, into the base of the spiny protrusion from its forehead, knocking off another chunk of metal and dazing it.

While I could use the penguin monster for more training, with more than half the flowing metal gone, I decided to end it quickly and efficiently.

An empowered strike to center mass temporarily winded it, rendering its sonic attack more worthy of pity than worry; I danced away as a last-ditch spike went for my boot, following up by bringing my weapon down directly on its beak.

The mass of metal, bone, and keratin driven backwards into its face managed to pierce its brain, quickly ending the fight with a rush of essence. We set about quickly harvesting as much of the metal as we could easily and then I collected the corpse into my spatial storage bag on my hip for Gabby – I knew my ring, with it's accelerated aging or decomposition would make an absolute mess of the body before I could get back to Velez.

At Inara's confused look, I shrugged. "Testing some things plus there might be a bit more metal to collect. Wanting to up my skills beyond just combat and this should help."

She gave me a weird look but seemed to buy it and on we went.

"Okay, time for us to try with Romie striking from the back. Terry, your positioning needs to be crucial here to make the shot easier," Inara said as we saw the next monster deceptively waddling towards us.

I signaled to Romie that I would take distraction duty while they prepared their shot.

Instead of letting the beast come to me, I opened the fight with a charge. The monster predictably placed two spikes in my way but my zigzagging run, while not the prettiest thing to watch, forced it to waste a lot of its metal before I arrived, driving my spiked black ball into its side.

Keeping myself on the back foot, I baited out more and more spikes, five in total, before Romie gave the call. A quick shield bash and backwards leap left all of its remaining metal on its front, making it an easy kill for our archer.

Looking down, my shield still poised to block an attack, I saw an arrow poking through the back of its mouth, its impending sonic blast dying like a scream in the vacuum of space.

We stripped the corpse again of the easy-to-harvest metal and I added a second creature to my sack.

I wondered idly if I could hire cheap corpse carts to drag them back to Velez for Gabby to consume but it would take a few days and slightly rotting meat showing up in town would probably raise flags, especially if it went to Vana's inn.

From a later kill, I did decide to test grabbing one arm that still had some metal for my ring to see if just the flesh decomposed or if the metal did too.

Pavel and I tried a fight together and my new armor got its first test. I called for him to strike the left side of the monster to distract it but, over the noise of the battle, especially the creature's angry sonic attacks, his AAI didn't quite catch what I said.

A spike suddenly shot up at an acute angle, bouncing off the protective barrier just above my family jewels.

The scraping noise against the codpiece was the sweetest discordant noise of either life.

Inara couldn't help but laugh but I asked the team to work with me while I at least started using Verdantese in battles. I already knew most of what they said and wanted to drill further in case my AAI ever had problems again.

Just not worth the risk, gotta put in the effort to really nail it down.

The final fight was oddly reminiscent of my first real delve: a large den littered with animal bones. While that felt weird for our enemies, it also gave a familiar sense of foreboding.

The biggest difference was of course our foes: Three four-legged and two-armed penguin beasts.

They looked extremely confusing to my brain, causing a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Are these penguin centaurs? Penguin-taurs?

Inara called out, "Disorientation field, not just attacks. We take them down in order. I'll start, we take out the sonic attacker first."

Each of the three monsters had its own specialty.

The first penguin-taur was essentially a tank. While it couldn't use the spike attacks, it was almost 1,000 pounds (450kg), covered in almost a foot (30cm) of the liquid metal in every direction, so actually getting through its defenses was extremely tough. How it could walk or swing its incredibly heavy arms around, I really had no idea. The general strategy was to leave it for last.

The next penguin-taur was essentially nothing but spikes. It was covered in armor with tens of protruding spikes that it could shoot off in any direction or suddenly deploy through the ground with little warning. To kill it, teams usually baited out each of the fifty or so spikes, one way or another, before it was left essentially a slightly faster and hardier four-legged and metal-covered penguin.

Last and certainly our first target was a beast that used the sonic effect of the normal penguins in the rift but turned way up. It could send out devastating sonic attacks and had the aforementioned field around it that slightly confused and disoriented, which was especially dangerous if people were trying to dodge spikes from the second penguin-taur.

At my sub-Tier, a single misstep and even the most talented delver could easily be incapacitated or killed. The thoughts of 'a popular grave' rang through my mind and I gritted my teeth, knowing it would be a challenge. And a great training opportunity.

Inara called out our formation and strategy as Romie opened using a [True Shot] enchantment on their bow plus a concussive arrow to try to strike the disorientation penguin in the throat, the source of its most potent threats. As we expected, the tanky penguin created a shield in front which the arrow smashed into, making a very large – but very harmless – gong noise.

But that triggered plan B.

With our initial target's vision blocked, Inara began stealthing around to get behind all three penguin-taurs.

Pavel and I approached the group of monsters cautiously, trying to bait out as many of the spikes as possible while they were still easy to predict and the dizzying effect was only mildly unpleasant, like getting off a fast rollercoaster rather than spinning around a bat twenty times before trying to run.

Pavel used the enchantments on his armor to draw all three penguin-taurs' attention, then started charging. In any normal circumstance, it was a terrible strategy, running straight at an enemy who could spike your path. But some Tier 2 delvers had tested it for making a rift guide and if you ran at an angle that would cross a few feet in front of the spike-wielding penguin-taur on a slight arc away, like half of a parabola, you could draw out spikes that were just barely out of your way, at most scraping harmlessly against your shield, significantly reducing the risk to your team.

At least a dozen spikes barely missed my fellow front-line fighter, starting the process of depleting the spikes in earnest.

With one penguin-taur occupied and a second hopefully about to be assassinated by our team leader, I engaged the tank. I had picked up a set of backup weapons on the way out of town but knew none on the unenchanted armaments would hold up against the metal-covered monstrosity.

We began our slugfest, me opening with an overhead strike to land on a giant conjured pool of metal, some of which sloshed off onto the ground like spilled blood, though with less of a coppery smell.

The penguin-taur retaliated with a strike of its own, using a hammer so large, it would make ACME Corporation jealous.

It pushed me back far enough for Romie to try for a lucky arrow shot, hitting the indent in the liquid armor around its eye but only slightly damaging the monster's vision, the metal deflecting most of the momentum.

The archer switched targets to the penguin-taur with the disorientation field, trying to keep its attention off the quickly-approaching rogue heading straight for it.

I heard a sudden inhuman squeal of pain then a much louder wail that quickly turned to a wet scream as Romie's arrow struck the foreleg before Inara's serrated dagger ripped across the bulge at the front of the penguin-taur's throat.

While the vicious blow didn't immediately kill the monster, it did spell its eventual demise through blood loss and incapacitated its most effective weapon and defense in one.

Suddenly on surer footing with the dizziness dispelled, I started more aggressively attacking the tank with Steve loudly chittering, cheering me on.

I chanced a glance at Pavel; he was baiting spike throw after spike throw, the incredibly dense and sharp weapons splashing harmlessly against his high-quality shield as he leapt around fifteen feet (5m) away.

Feeling we had things mostly in hand, at least to where I could focus on my own fight, I started working on my training.

An overhead smash followed with a one-handed sideways swing feint into a small jab with the toe boot caused the tank penguin-taur to reel back in pain, as its feet were unarmored. As a response, it tried for a four-limbed smash consisting of its front two legs and its battering ram arms.

I feinted like I was going to take the massive strike on my shield, dodging into a roll at the last second. It wasted a lot of momentum, stamina, and rage while I swung around behind it and worked in three hard smashes to its back right leg, breaking through the thin armor there and getting a spike deep into its hamstring area.

I continued to bait out overreaching attack after overreaching attack, making the beast madder and more frantic.

Risto had drilled me over and over on wearing down a heavily-armored opponent and I used every bit of stamina and smarts in occupying my enemy for the full three minutes it took the team to dispatch the other two penguin-taurs.

Finally, as I was starting to flag, only deflecting blows I would have dodged just 30 seconds earlier, Pavel joined the fight by my side.

Inara managed two slashing strikes to its back legs when it was focused on the two of us.

That signaled the beginning of the end as the only thing it could do was form metal to create an incredibly tough but brittle splint around the ruined appendages. Its mobility gone, we were able to wear it down.

After another minute, with the majority of its metal spent, Romie threaded an arrow into its mouth when it roared in pain to my morningstar blow. They used their [Triple Shot] enchantment – and the last of their mana – at the perfect moment, creating three arrows inside the beast's mouth with significant momentum, shredding the back of its throat.

It let out a piteous moan and we stayed on guard while watching it flag more and more.

We collected what metal we could and headed for the reward distortion.

***

"Um, tell him I don't want to marry his daughter I guess?" I asked as much as told Inara who was trying to contain her mirth. The village we stopped at for the night was only a few thousand people and had rudimentary walls at best.

The mayor was so excited we had delved the rift – bringing the null essence amount back down to a level their local team could tackle it – he was trying to give his daughter away.

Or at least that was his stated reason. He didn't have an AAI chip so I couldn't tell him well enough myself without hurting the girl's feelings.

I said the young woman, probably in her late teens to early twenties, was too young for me. At the mayor's clear confusion and consternation, he pointed to his other daughter that looked about sixteen and I just threw my hands up, walking away.

Whether it was a miscommunication or he was just a weirdo, I didn't care.

At the inn, I asked Inara what it was all about.

Pavel answered instead. "He needs a better local team. Their local 'champions' are pretty green and he wants a big bad adventurer tied to here so he can remain independent. If the rift breaks, they'll call for help from a bigger city and get annexed. Happens a lot."

Inara nodded, adding, "I am guessing there are other reasons than just being remote for why he doesn't have an AAI chip. Probably has some debts or something somewhere."

We decided to settle in for the night after our mostly boring yet very taxing day. Our second delve rewarded us with an interesting looking sword that Inara called dibs on despite not using swords – it was a longsword for the very short woman.

Before turning in, we deposited our metal at a local blacksmith, getting seven gold for it in total as the rift was far fuller than normal.

***

The next day, our first rift was again uneventful. The contract from the Adventurers Guild was to collect a number of plants, some of which were the rift monsters trying to eat us. Inara went a bit wild with her new sword – which the other three of us all agreed we shouldn't let her keep – and chopped down essentially every plant short of trees.

The fact she didn't harvest things well – so we got far less than the optimal reward from the Guild – and we received only about half a gold coin's worth of silver as a reward meant it was definitely not worth our time to stop. But again, we only knew that after-the-fact. The Adventurers Guild also sent a warning about completing quests 'with quality, not quantity', but still marked it as successful completion of the contract.

Only two more contracts left and I'll be a full member.

Our final delve was far more interesting. Our contracted quest was to kill as many creatures as possible. We were able to submit AAI recordings for proof of kills as the bodies actually disappeared almost instantaneously when they died.

The rift was a bizarre one, a series of rope bridges connecting a number of wooden platforms with monkey-like creatures wielding throwing spears – which magically returned to their hands a few seconds after being thrown – above a mist-covered endless abyss below.

It reminded me of a few different scenes in the original trilogy of Star Wars movies, especially the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi.

If someone fell into the creepy gray clouds, instead of dying or taking massive damage, they were simply teleported to the rift entrance and given a small speed debuff. It also spawned at least one new monkey, sometimes up to five if the rift's platforms were empty.

We also were limited to a single delve or would need to pay an exorbitant fee a second time through.

So, we did what any normal party would do and used the rift's strange quirks and our quest's mandate to make ourselves as much money as possible.

The rift was owned by a private company that had been accused of some less-than-upstanding behavior, so we happily screwed them over.

We cleared the rift relatively easily, killing the boss but not dissipating the reward distortion, heading back to the start of the rift.

Then, we played rock, paper, scissors via our AAIs – Inara was known for wildly cheating at the game otherwise – to see who would be our sacrificial lamb.

Luckily for almost all of us, it was Inara. She was the one who would suffer the most from a movement penalty but also struggled the most to combat a ranged enemy where you couldn't approach with stealth. My and Pavel's shields were more than sufficient to deflect the spears – especially as the enemies became weaker the more we killed, draining the rift's essence – and Romie could shoot from a range they couldn't match.

Pavel took the first honor of throwing his wife into the mist, yeeting her like it was a Super Smash Bros game.

She cursed his name and we heard her scream suddenly move from hundreds of feet below to right next to us. Except her speech was slightly slower, her yell slightly deeper.

Pavel repeated the process – though Romie and I also tossed her a few times – until we were sure a monkey monster was on every one of the 25 platforms again.

At one silver each for the first ten monkeys and five silver for each kill after that, our first run-through was only worth 100 silver – ten for the first ten and then 75 total silver for the next 15 monkeys, not including the boss, which was worth fifteen silver by itself – but it would now be worth 125 silver to quickly kill them all 25 monkeys again.

Which we did ten more times. It was only about fifteen minutes to do a complete slaughter of all 25 and ten times through netted us another twelve and a half gold in about two and a half hours.

We closely monitored Inara as the debuff was known to potentially stop someone's heart if they hit it too many times, though that was for people low in Tier 1.

The amount of essence we drained from the rift – which lowered the strength from a 2% incremental debuff to about 1% by the hundredth throw – along with Inara's peak Tier 1.9 physique, left her fine when she focused on keeping her heart beating and lungs working. Still, she was being a trooper, sending constant AAI messages of her status and vitals.

I lost five silver tenpieces to her when I bet she'd tap out far before we hit 100 tosses into the mist below.

On top of getting paid a boatload – and screwing over an evil company – there were myriad other benefits. My spirit was bursting to full and I was at least 60% of the way to Tier 1.4; Steve's circlet had clearly made him smarter with how much he channeled into it as his thoughts became more and more complex, though still mostly about fighting and food; my storage ring had also received a significant amount of essence, feeling like it expanded around 20%; and Steve's spirit also had him not that far from reaching Tier 1.2 when he was still near the bottom of Tier 1.0 just a few days prior.

There was also a superstition that if you killed more than 100 monkeys, you'd get a better reward from the rift. At nearly 300 kills, we hoped it was right.

We passed Inara's form through the reward distortion at her request. Not only did it dispel the shimmering light but it removed the debuffs at the cost of spawning no more monkeys.

The rift dropped four essence stones. At about 50 gold each, that was 200 gold for our coffers, 40% flowing to Steve and I.

We all couldn't help but laugh at the exasperated faces of our guards until we tipped them a gold each for waiting – we told them it would take a while! – and they seemed to lighten up as we rode on to Chazin Mark.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.