Tower of Souls

Taking down the Big Bunnicorn was harder Cam expected, but also simpler... if a bit frustrating. He could only guess that Agility was the monster’s primary Stat as, even with his own Agility at 20, the mob was still faster and nimbler than him; Combined with it having not one but two Abilities with movement effects, and the thing was hard to pin down for more than a second...

And the one time Eron tried to tackle it, he got kicked in the face and nearly launched into the surrounding brambles, which scratched that strategy right off their list.

In the end, the fight came down to endurance: Who could hold up longer under the damage the other side was doing... and whose mana would run out first. Which, Cam was alarmed to see, was actually Eron and not the Bunni; He had no idea what sort of Stats these Bosses were given by the Tower, but clearly this one was focused more on Agility and Intelligence to support its skirmish style of fighting.

A part of him really wished he had gotten a bow and some arrows to drop to go along with his new Twin Shot Ability; It would have made the fight much more manageable... and a lot less annoying than having to chase after it constantly.

”That... was frustrating.” Eron huffed from where he lay on the ground, the damage he had taken was... significant, from what Cam saw, losing more than half his health before the Bunnicorn ran out of mana for its charge attacks and the pair could finally pin it in place... Not that Cam was in much better condition, considering he had lost about a third of his health- and that was with both of them using Iron Skin liberally! ”We really need a ranged Ability!”

”We have Twin Shot-”

”Then we need a bow! And arrows! Or a sling and-”

”I get it!” Cam chuckled, fully agreeing with his clone. Levering himself up from the ground, he grunted in surprise at the sight that awaited him: instead of a simple loot drop, like with most mobs, killing the Hidden Boss had spawned a Loot Chest! For a second, he simply admired the beauty of it, all dark wood with shiny brass binding and hinges, it truly was an incredible sight... and, more importantly, it meant they were getting something good!

Of course, loot from Hidden Bosses was practically guaranteed, and was almost always better than normal, but still, he was excited to see it!

”You check the loot, I’ll check for Abilities.” He said, waving his clone towards the impressive looking chest- and who let out a whoop of excitement as he rolled to his feet and headed that way.

Shaking his head at his clone’s antics- his antics, he knew and was amused by-, Cam strode over to the very much ruined corpse of the Big Bunnicorn, his eyes already locked onto the ephemeral soul floating above it... and his breath caught in his throat at seeing not two Abilities like he expected, but three!

”Fucking jackpot!” He hissed, crouching down to check what options he had to pick from... and immediately had to force away the knee jerk reaction to grab one of them- it was just that good, in his mind.

Still, he forced himself to calm down and appraise each of them carefully; After all, no matter how good that one looked, it was possible one of the others would fit him better or have more uses... even if he doubted it.

Starting with the Abilities he had seen the Bunnicorn use, he had to admit that the first option did actually deserve his consideration. Jump. While there wasn’t an Ability that he knew of with such a simplistic sounding name, the effect was obvious: it consumed mana to empower the user’s next jump. A simple, relatively straight forward Movement Ability... and Movement Abilities were uncommon and incredibly good, if used properly. For attacking, escaping, when traversing the Floor, setting ambushes... Jump deserved consideration for just how much utility it would bring him.

Unsurprisingly, Abilities like that were often named ’Utility Abilities’ for that very reason.

The second option sounded good... even if he knew it probably wasn’t. Horn Charge. It was easy enough for Cam to guess that the Ability was used for charging at the enemy and doing damage. A lot of Classes got similar Movement/Attack Abilities: Shield Slam, Blade Dash, Dagger Rush... The list was long, and all followed a similar pattern of moving the user towards their target and unleashing a strong attack... and had similar drawbacks.

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All of them required a target to activate- and, unless an external Ability interrupted them, the target would take damage, making using a party member as the target risky and generally frowned upon... And all of them required their specific equipment to be used. Shield Slam required a shield- any type of shield would work, but it had to be classified by the Tower as a shield-, Blade Dash required a sword, Dagger Rush needed daggers...

And odds were good that Horn Charge required the user to have a horn. Which Cam didn’t, making the Ability useless for him.

”Unless I find a helmet with a horn on it...” Cam muttered to himself with a chuckle, knowing how unlikely that was- and how dumb that would be, as any helmet he found would be replaced eventually, making grabbing Horn Charge a bit of a waste, regardless of how effectively the Bunnicorn had used it.

Turning to the last Ability- one that the Bunnicorn didn’t use, but was obviously tied to it by the Tower in a way Cam didn’t understand-, he already knew he was going to take it. No matter how useful Jump would be in so many situations, this one just sounded too good... even if he recognized that there was a strong chance it would lose effectiveness as he climbed to higher Floors...

Jump would likely stay relevant for longer, but his choice would increase his odds of success now by enough of a margin that he was willing to take that loss.

”And there’s always a chance I can upgrade it with a Perk or Augment...” He consoled himself as he quickly harvested the Ability.

”Is the decision really so hard that you need to talk to yourself?” Eron decided to take a dig at him as he hurried over with the loot in his arms- though he covered it to stop Cam from peaking. ”Want to make a bet on whether your Ability is better than my loot?”

Rolling his eyes at his clone- even if he couldn’t help but grin-, Cam shrugged and tried to sound indifferent. ”Betting with myself is ridiculous, seeing as I win no matter what... But I absolutely would bet that this Ability beats whatever loot dropped.”

”You’re on then!” Eron laughed, pulling out the loot with a flourish... to show off what looked like the Bunnicorn’s head, white fur, floppy ears, complete with its two foot long horn... but with its jaw hanging open, showing a hollowed interior reinforced by metal, and another opening where its neck was. ”We got a Bunnicorn Helmet! Isn’t that just fucking awesome!”

Staring at it for a second, Cam let out a low whistle as its Stats appeared before his eyes... And Eron was right. It was fucking awesome.

Bunnicorn Helmet

Tower Value=8

Armor = 3

Special Effect 1 : Headbutting an enemy does an extra 10 damage(Physical).

Special Effect 2 : Once per day, activate to double wearer’s jumping distance for ten seconds.

”That really is awesome!” Cam exclaimed, exchanging a quick high five with his clone before laughing. ”It’s actually funny, one of the Ability choices was called ’Horn Charge’; I bet it would have paired well with this helmet.”

”You didn’t take it!? Man, that Ability sounds like it would be funny as hell, and it would definitely have worked with the helmet...”

”Yeah, but this is even better...” Cam smiled smugly, his eyes shifting to check the full text of his new Ability... and he absolutely was not disappointed.

Summon Big Bunni

Mana Cost: 50

Effect: Summon a Level 2 Big Bunni to fight for you for one minute per Class Level.

”I mean, that’s pretty good... but the helmet is better!”

”What! No way! This is a fricking summon! You know how rare those are? Plus, the helmet is guaranteed to be replaced eventually, but we might get a chance to upgrade Big Bunni! Plus, how funny is it going to be to kill monsters with a big fucking bunni!?”

”Yeah, but it’s only Level 2! It’ll be useless after the next Floor-”

”Not if we can upgrade it!”

For a moment, Cam just let himself argue... with himself... over something so simple; Such easy, fun banter was something he hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever...

Plus, they still needed to recover from the fight, so why not just enjoy the moment and their victory?

”Don’t you think it’s kind of weird that a helmet can make someone jump better?” He asked suddenly, kicking off another pointless squabble with his clone... even if it was kind of weird.