Lisa looked in awe over the fifth floor while her team settled down to rest for the night. The last few weeks were a blur of combat and improvements that were awe inspiring to her. She had just been taking a lesson from her instructor when Melissa had come in, interrupted the lesson and whisked her away to climb the tower. Their team, new, unproven and unready had been equipped with all they would need for a month long journey. Lisa had been scared at first, but going up the massive stairs up to the second floor had been an event she would probably never forget. Although she did fear a monster would jump her at any moment.

Once they had reached the second floor Melissa had drilled them. She was suddenly a woman possessed. She pushed them all to the brink of exhaustion, made them experience the horrible side effects of the second floor's curse and forged them into a real team while she was at it.

It had been grueling, horrible days and beyond Lisa's imagination. Melissa had made them fight against the two bosses under the watchful eyes of the other groups without actually casting herself. She had challenged them to win without her. It had taken them 3 days. Three miserable days dying of thirst and being sick while they pushed each other, learned how to work together and how to make use of their skills as a team. In that short time they had grown to trust each other.

Lisa was their scout. Their eyes and ears. Not even Mercucio could challenge her for that role and on the fourth floor her rare passive had really shined. In the absolute darkness she had led them through the whole floor, while fighting hordes of horrible creatures. Mercucio was their flanker and damage dealer, his daggers finding weak spots and his ability to get out of trouble was second to none. But it was not as it had been at the start where he had killed most of the beasts coming after them.

Now everyone contributed. Marvin and her were their ranged attackers and dealt with flying beasts or creatures up on the walls. Their rush through the first four floors had given them both plenty of levels and they now really started to become powerful. Vera was their anchor, an unstoppable juggernaut who left behind corpses in her wake. Her spear pierced anything in range with lethal precision and she always took the brunt of their enemies attacks head on with her shield. But among all of them Rick had been the true standout. The warrior fought now side by side with the much higher leveled Spearmaster. His shield as steady and immovable as Vera's. When they rested those two often sparred with each other. Rick's desire to become better was burning brightly and he fought with everything on the line. His armor was barely enough to halt claws from creatures on the second floor, but the fourth and now the fifth floor had not been so kind to him. Here his shield was his only defense he had. The amount of times they had to patch him up with a potion meant they were running low on the life saving medicine.

Still, Rick had carried them up here just as much as Vera had. Jacob and Gloria had at first felt like a burden until they had gotten more levels under their belts. Now they were monsters in their own way. Without a group they could barely beat any of the others in a spar even if they made a mistake. But in a group... In a group both of them had become indispensable. Gloria had now two buffs that made the whole group faster and gave them endurance. If that second buff was up they could all run for hours without growing tired. It was beyond amazing and Gloria herself was now quite dangerous in melee. Her mace was glowing with a strange light, from an enchantment like passive and her strikes left behind wounds as if the mace itself weighed ten times as much as it actually did.

Jacob was the polar opposite. His debuffs were what changed the tide of battle. His curses were brutal, they had all felt them personally in their spars and they all agreed that in some ways they felt exactly like the second floor's curses. Just that they slowed down the enemy and messed with their senses. Many times beasts would start falling over their own legs, or lose track of them when under his new curses. He seemed to have taken a page out of Mercucio's book and had a new skill that cloaked him in shadow, making him very hard to see and on the fourth floor he was basically invisible to any but the most perceptive monsters.

Lisa herself had grown in many ways. She had added two passives to her arsenal, both were signs of what she would one day become. Her first and less useful passive was [Quick Hands]. It gave her dexterous fingers and incredible hand speed. She could knock an arrow or stab someone in the blink of an eye and she was equally talented with both hands after taking the passive. It had been a great choice for sure, but it had also knocked her out for a few hours. Lisa had been terrified. She knew how it felt to lose control over her body, to be truly sick. The jungle biome on the second floor had been bad enough, giving her flashbacks of being in the hospital. Vera had afterwards told her that if the passive or skill was especially potent it would change her body to accommodate her new ability. It had been an agonizing experience, but afterwards she had to admit that it was worth it.

Her second passive was called [Magical Quiver] and it was one of the strongest skills she had ever seen for a ranger. Marvin had been livid when he heard what she had gotten for lvl10. The magical quiver created arrows. Not real, physical ones, but ethereal, magical ones that did seem to ignore all physical defenses of a creature or person. They had tested it and her arrows pierced straight through metal without slowing down. Wood was actually harder to go through, for some reason. Melissa had told her it was most likely because wood had higher magical resistance than metal. Most living things did.

That single passive meant Lisa never ran out of arrows again and so it was only Marvin who had to make his own bolts. He carried around a huge pouch with metal tips for them. But even that had its end. The bolt tips had run out on the fourth floor and now was down to using sharpened sticks. Still lethal, but not as much anymore. He was limited to 30 good bolts. But he had gotten his own power ups, [Seeking Bolt], an active skill that turned one of his bolts into a guided missile. He had explained to her how it worked. Marvin chose a spot or a target and the bolt would hit it without fail. Even around corners or through a dodge. Mercucio had tried to evade one of these seeking bolts for almost two minutes before it had caught him, which was much more impressive of Mercucio than of the skill.

Still the biggest improvement had been to Melissa herself. There was an edge to her spells now. A vicious precision that made her even more lethal. She had added only one spell to her repertoire, a crowd control spell called Ice Grasp, but it made a world of difference. The spell looked like a snowball that was thrown wickedly fast at an enemy. The snowball then would burst and freeze the enemy solid. It was an extremely lethal spell if it hit a monsters face as often it just froze their entire heads solid. But that at least did not work on the 5th floor anymore. In their sparring matches Melissa had started to hide ice grasp snowballs in her hailbursts that she sent out rapid fire like a rifle. It was a combo none of them had been able to withstand.

Lisa looked out over the 5th floor and felt like she was in a nature documentary or on a safari back on Earth. Beyond the foothills, where the staircases coming up from the fourth floor deposited any team coming to challenge this floor, was a savanna. A vast grassland with blades of grass more than two meters tall. There were small groves of slender trees dotted all over the savanna like islands. Beyond the grassland in the distance beyond the horizon was a mountain range where the way up to the 6th floor was supposed to be. Lisa did not know where yet, because this floor was kicking their asses.

Melissa had explained to them the basic layout of the floor.

"There are three distinct paths through the fifth floor, to the left of the foothills are the broodmothers. Giant lizards that spawn tens of thousands of small lizards, not much bigger than a small dog or a housecat. Its almost impossible for anyone but a team of mages focused on area of effect spells to pass this path. The broodmothers themselves are not that strong, but their offspring swarms you and overwhelms you with sheer numbers. The broodmothers themselves are gigantic. When they move the entire Savanna is shaking. We will not be challenging this path." She pointed at the center of the Savanna and towards a giant rock like mountain lording over the surrounding Savanna.

"That is Hyena rock, its home of Hyena packs around 20 or 30 strong. Each the size of a man. Few people challenge this path, its incredible difficult because the Hyenas are smart and work together in a pack. They sneak up on you and then assault you from all sides. Very dangerous, but potentially possible. As long as you can protect your teammates, the individual Hyenas are not that strong. But the fact is that teams who challenge the middle path usually never come back. People underestimate the Hyenas but we will not, their teamwork and coordination is incredibly dangerous and their bite is very strong. It can pierce through plate armor. So we will not chose the middle path either."

Melissa pointed to the right side of the fifth floor, which was flat and open, with more dots of trees than anywhere else.

"This is the wildcat territory. The wildcats are, as the name states, basically giant Lions. They are around 3 to 4 meters tall, weigh a few tons, are incredibly fast, tough and it takes a lot to kill them. This is the path we are going to take. Why? Because they only roam around in groups of two or three. Which makes them much easier to deal with, especially with two defender style warriors. The tactic is to pin them down with spells and then wound them until they can't move anymore. Then you kill them. It will take all of our effort to do so, but I think we are ready for it."

"How many are we going to have to kill to cross the fifth floor?"

"This floor deceptively large, so quite a few. Probably at least five groups, so 10 or more of the giant cats. The problem is that we have to move through their territory while fighting them. The savanna is too big to cross during one day. So we will have to camp in the Savanna."

At first their group had been in high spirits, confident in their victory after the rush through the earlier floors. But then they had faced their first team of Wildcats. When you are in the grassland you couldn't see anything. The grass blocked any line of sight and so they had to rely on other clues. This was fairly easy because the earth shook when the wildcats were on the move. It was a stomping, a shuddering of the grass around them before a deep echoing roar filled the savanna. They had heard it before, but it was so much more terrifying up close.

Rick and Vera at the front of the group raised their shields, both of them ready to move, to intercept. Gloria was behind them and they all felt her buffs flow through them, they felt stronger and Lisa felt the need to move, like always when the speed buff hit her. Jacob stood next to her, his staff clenched in his fists. Marvin looked behind them and Mercucio was already invisible. Melissa stood in the center of the group, ice forming above her hands.

"Get ready!" she shouted and then the wildcats burst through the grass. They were as big as elephants with shaggy dark blonde hair, their mane thick, turning the monsters more into furry bear like beasts than sleek looking Lions. Their dark amber eyes glared at them as they pounced. Their heads were gigantic and their maws opened wide enough to swallow a man whole. Each tooth in their maws was as long as a dagger and could bite even through enchanted armor.

Vera stepped in front of one of the charging beasts, her shield raised, magic flowing through her shield as she roared a challenge towards the beast. The monster crashed into the shield of magic and steel, pushing her back almost ten feet. Melissa meanwhile shot her ice at the second wildcat. The first snowball hitting the beast in the face, making it slow down and shake its head, before a cascade of icicles rained down upon it, with the occasional snow ball covering its feet. The beast roared and charged towards Melissa, but Rick stepped in front of it and bashed its face with a raised shield, intercepting the charge.

Lisa let loose one spectral arrow after another, but the big cats moved surprisingly fast, were nimble and deceptive so that she only hit its hide, none of the weak spots. Her magic arrows pierced deep into the beasts hide, making it roar and lash out with giant paws at Rick, who moved quickly to defend himself. His shield rang at the impact and he was thrown back. Vera was busy keeping the second one at bay and Gloria helped her by bashing into the cats side with her mace, making the cat meow in pain. But this was not a cute meow like from a house cat, more like a deep rumble that made your skin crawl. Lisa felt some primal fear inside of her as they fought against the beasts, but she had faced big monsters before, like the bosses on the second floor. So she and her teammates got over the gut wrenching fear rather quickly.

"Focus this one, Vera keep the other one busy." Melissa called out as she managed to freeze one of the clawed feet of the giant cat to the ground. Marvin shot one of his good guiding arrows at the beast, hitting one of its eyes and making the beast roar in pain. Jacob stepped forward and the gray veil of his skill bellowed out and slowed the beast down. Making its attempts to break free out of the ice futile, with it stumbling around like it was drunk. The wounds on the beast accumulated, its hide getting bloody as the whole group started to focus the giant cat. Mercucio appeared at its flank and dug his daggers deep into the monster, cutting a long deep gash into its side.

The beast roared and twisted, swatted at Mercucio who jumped back, phasing out of sight while he evaded.

The trapped wildcat roared and whined in pain, making the other cat lash out at Vera, before it jumped over her with a vast leap clearing the distance between the two big cats. Lisa noticed it first and swung around her bow, unleashing her [Power Shot] in the beasts face as it was hanging in the air for a moment. The Arrow punched into the beasts jaw with tremendous force, cutting into its cheek and breaking some teeth.

"Careful!" she yelled and Gloria dove out of the way, barely able to avoid a giant maw closing over her head. She rolled away from the irate beast, her movements quick and precise because of the buff she applied to herself. Melissa was running away from the beasts claws, chucking ice behind her, but their team cohesion was gone. The second wildcat rampaged in their midst, swiped and bit at everything in range and although their group was quick enough to evade, Rick was still busy taking the attacks of the trapped predator. A claw came at him from behind and Mercucio dove out of stealth to knock him off his feet and save his life.

"Fall back!" Melissa roared, turned around and unleashed a hailstorm of ice on the cats who stepped back, trying not to get hit in the face by the sharp pieces of ice, while Melissa's team ran towards her. Lisa shot one arrow after another at the giant beasts. But they seemed to barely notice the damage they took.

A shaky Rick stepped in front of the group, his shield raised, while Vera had sprinted towards them and was now panting and clenching her spear hard enough to make the wood groan.

"Sorry, the beast just ignored me." she called out and the whole group flinched as both beasts roared to the sky, before limping away.

"What...what are they doing?" Marvin asked confused.

"Fleeing and we should do the same." Melissa said.

"Should we not follow them and finish them off? The experience we get from these things must be insane." Gloria asked, her mace glowing with the light of her enchantment as she swung it up to her shoulder and let it rest there.

"No, we were too slow in killing one of them. Other groups of these beasts will have a look at the sound of fighting and if we encounter two groups of wildcats we are basically dead."

"So there is a timer on how quickly we need to kill them?" Jacob asked.

"Yes and no. These cats are very territorial, they usually stay in their area unless it is mating season or they can sense an opportunity. Surrounding groups of the cats will encroach on the injured cats territory soon, which is why we need to get out of here."

Luckily with their speed and stamina boost it was easy to run away and go back into the safety of the foothills. The beasts of the fifth floor rarely ever went there, because the primary food source of them lived in the savanna. It was a kind of antelope like mammal that grazed on the grass in incredible numbers. They were also a delicacy apparently.

After their first fight Melissa's group did more than 10 more forays into the savanna. All more or less unsuccessful. At first the size, strength and speed of the beasts as well as their ability to dodge and weave in and out of the grass was too much of a challenge for them. But they slowly but surely got the hang of it. They killed more than one of the beasts in the end, mostly isolated groups of young male wildcats.

The social or rather pack dynamics of the wildcats were fascinating to Lisa. The most common grouping was two males, the big shaggy versions of the wildcats, or two females, who looked more sleek and feline. They were quite a bit faster than their male counterparts, if not as strong. The third group was a couple, male and female with or without offspring. The young wildcats usually were a few feet smaller than their parents, but no less dangerous. Facing three of the lions was almost an impossible challenge, especially because the mother and father complimented each other. The quick and agile mother would hide in the grass, staying low enough to ambush while the male would attack head on, or defend the kid. It was a deadly combination to face the hidden threat of the mother and the rampaging father.

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Most groups they were actually able to defeat were two males, they were massive, strong and could take a lot of damage, but their team managed to wear them down. Usually they had to lure them away from the start of the fight to obfuscate what happened to the surrounding groups of cats, before they killed them. Killing the giant beasts did not just net a massive amount of experience for them all, but was also quite lucrative. Melissa showed them where to cut out a small core. It was embedded into their chest, close to the heart and it was harder than steel and came in different colors, making them look like giant colored marbles.

These cores sold for a lot of money on the first floor and when they had killed the first wildcat they made a bonfire and barbecued a whole antelope to celebrate. The meat of the wildcats was edible, but apparently very tough. The antelope was delicious though, Lisa had to admit and being on her feet, fighting and running all day gave her a big appetite. It was pure bliss to eat freshly cooked meat on an open fire in the savanna. The sky above them was fake, there was no moon, but the fake stars and the fire kept them company.

Vera told them stories about other climbs, each and every one of them hilarious and nobody could tell if they were made up or had actually happened. Mercucio was the only one who was grumpy because he did not have anything to drink. Rick and Jacob were talking spices to try out on the remaining meat while Gloria listened to Marvin explain how to make makeshift bolts. It was a good atmosphere, it felt like a fun camping trip. But after the meat had been devoured and they all felt sleepy and ready to go to bed Melissa cleared her throat.

"Listen up. Tomorrow we will try to run through the floor." The jovial atmosphere died in an instant and everyone of them listened up, the tension rising by the minute. "We will avoid fighting if we can and keep to the right side wall. If we have to we will go through the trees to shake off pursuers if there are too many of them." Melissa explained and then stood up in front of them.

"I know we are ready for this. You have trained and you have leveled. We can do this. Stay sharp and get a good nights rest. Tomorrow we will cross the floor. By the end of the week we will be dining in Ambition." she said and looked each of them in the eyes.

"I believe in us and you should too."

That night Lisa could not find sleep for a long time. They were huddled around the camp fire, everyone trying to sleep, but Lisa was sure she wasn't the only one fighting insomnia. The prospect of going out into that savanna without a clear path back to safety wore on her. The fifth floor was dangerous. Entire Teams died here every year she had heard. Many who overestimated their abilities ended their climbing career right here. The few who managed to escape team wipes never returned to fight in the tower.

Lisa did not want to be one of them. Somewhere on the journey, somewhere during training and fighting for her life, Lisa had realized that she loved doing this. Her old life had been a struggle for health, for normalcy. Her dream had been to go to school or university. For more there was no space in her dreams. The tower had been so different. Here she was powerful, here she was healthy, strong, fast and she could run for what felt like days. Her body had never betrayed her here, it had always surprised her with being stronger than she had expected it to be. She knew she could become even stronger than that and she had realized that she loved climbing the tower. Facing the challenges like the bosses and curses on the second floor, crossing the third floor by boat while struggling to breathe and then fighting in the absolute darkness of the fourth floor. It was all challenging, dangerous and it made her feel so alive. With each challenge overcome she got more confident.

But in the back of her mind she worried. That she was not ready, that her body would betray her one day, that she would get injured and fall ill, ending this rush of a life and forcing her back to subsist and struggle to just live. The danger of that happening was there. So she was anxious, terrified, because she knew that there were things in the Tower stronger than her. The cultivator at first place, even though she knew how she was right now, she would have beaten the Cultivator when he had kidnapped her. He was still her biggest fear, because she knew he would become stronger as well and that prospect terrified her.

The higher she climbed in the tower the greater the challenge. The monsters she had fought against on the fourth floor were horrible, terrifying and mistakes there could cost lives. The fifth floor was all that but times ten. If someone made a mistake here they would get bitten in half or torn to shreds not just injured. Lisa did not want that to happen to her or any of her team. So in the deepest night while she stared into the darkness she vowed to herself not to let that happen, to fight and overcome that fear. Because she loved this life, loved climbing the tower and she did not want to stop.

Lisa awoke in the early morning and saw everyone but Melissa looking worse for wear. Although their fearless group leader had to puke out her breakfast, so she probably felt the pressure just as much as they all did, if not more.

They checked their equipment, supplies and made sure all of their backpacks and weapons were secured and ready to be drawn and discarded. Nobody wanted to fight with a backpack, so it was important to be able to discard them quickly, to be able to move at the drop of a hat. Gloria imbued the group with her stamina buff and they started to jog into the grassland

The sound of grass being bent by the group was the only noise they they heard for a while. Lisa was at the front, listening, looking for any anomalies as they kept moving. The wall of the fifth floor rose up to their right, impossibly tall like a mountain that never ended, a wall to the sky. It was mind bending to look at, but they had all grown used to the sight by now. Lisa guided the group away from the wall for a minute before they kept running parallel to it, all to avoid a group of wildcats. But as much as Lisa tried, she could not avoid all the groups of giant cats entirely. Before long Lisa noticed she had run straight into one of them. The grass was shaking from the weight of the giant cats, but they were strangely quiet as they moved and so she called for a halt.

"Two female cats!" she called out and the group quickly got into formation. They basically formed a loose circle with their melees on the outside while the more fragile classes were on the inside. The sleeker, less hairy wildcat females circled around the group, making a soft sound of rustling grass that was way too quiet for the giant beasts. Then from one moment to the other the cats sprang out of the grassland together, pouncing on them. Lisa shot the first cat appearing from the underbrush in the snout with one of her spectral arrows, making it flinch and allowing Rick to cancel out its charge. Marvin waited a moment longer for her to chose her target before he shot the other cat, hitting it precisely in the eye, making the giant cat meow in pain and crash to the floor. The dark roaring meow shook them, and then the cats attacked in earnest. Vera took the injured cat on, stabbing it over and over as she dodged and weaved around its giant paws. Some hits she took with her shield, but most she dodged.

Gloria's speed buff did most of the work there and Melissa focused on pinning one of the cats to the ground. Once she had disabled its front claws, she turned to the second one. This time they were able to pin down both beasts relatively quickly before pouring on the damage. Lisa shot ethereal magic arrows as fast as she could. Targeting vital areas as she used her skills. Jacobs curses kept the cats from getting free while Mercucio dug into one of the beasts sides. He was perfectly safe there, as long as Vera could keep the giant maw focusing on her. It took them a good 20 minutes to finish them both off. It was bloody, difficult work and Melissa did barely any damage as she was too busy making sure both cats were pinned down. Mercucio and Lisa did most of the damage, but that was mostly because Marvin did not have any good bolts anymore.

Finally the beasts fell and the experience pouring into them was massive. But it was no time for celebration yet. Mercucio cut out the beastcores with his daggers, stored them and joined the tired group in running away. Already other wildcats were converging on their position and they managed to just slip away. If not for the stamina buff they would be flagging, too tired to move after that fight and even with it, they had to take a small break before they continued.

"Good work." Melissa said while she sat down, panting in the grass.

"Right back at you, captain. You really froze those two to the ground. That was awesome!" Gloria said and pumped a fist.

"We used up way too much time and resources though. How are your mana reserves, Melissa?" Vera said standing tall and barely resting, as opposed to the others who mostly had flopped to the ground and were sitting or lying around.

"I used more than I care to admit. I have not mastered Ice Grasp as much as I would like to. Eventually there will be no need to throw anything, I will just be able to freeze someone from range. But until then it will be inefficient and mana intensive." Melissa said with a sigh.

"We should try to avoid fights until we are all ready again." Mercucio agreed twirling one of his daggers around a finger with superhuman agility. Melissa nodded, but stood up and opened her hand towards the Rogue, who looked at her in confusion.

"What?"

"The beast cores, now." Melissa said and Mercucio sighed and gave her a small smirk.

"Can't fault an old thief for trying." he said and handed over the two marble like cores.

"I can, but not this time. Good job on cutting them out that quickly. We would have probably not gotten any of them otherwise."

"Well, if that is the case I should get at least one…" Mercucio started but Melissa shut him down.

"All loot is split evenly, but I will mark you down for a bonus point."

"Fine." Mercucio said with a grunt.

"I bet you were you some scribe in your past life, always harping on about numbers." he complained.

"I was an engineer actually, I worked with machines."

Mercucio frowned at her.

"You can make a career out of that?"

"We had a lot more machines on our world. Ah, it does not matter. Lets continue."

With groaning the group got back to their feet and continued on towards the distant mountain range. Lisa was hard pressed to keep them safe. Her own senses betrayed her more than once and they were forced to flee deeper into the grassland. The total distance to the other side was actually not that far, but they had to run all over to escape the roaming beasts. Antelopes were a non stop source of annoyance to Lisa, because it was difficult to hear the difference between a small herd moving through the grass or a female cat. She could always hear the males, but the females were too quiet. Before long they were forced to fight again.

This time it had been intentional as the pair of males were the only possible way forward without going through one of the small forests. Melissa had warned them of these patches of trees. They were the breeding zones of the cats and usually dominated by a group of three cats, a couple bringing up offspring. The parents would be both almost suicidal in defending their den and so they did not even want to get close to the trees. The male wildcats were a far better choice. But males had another problem. Their bigger size and mane made them harder to kill and this group of cats managed to break free of Melissa's Ice grasp and flee from them.

Tired they moved on, now in the middle of the savanna. They kept fighting, being accosted by a group of wildcats almost every hour although Lisa tried to avoid any fight she could. In the end they killed three more wildcats before night fell. By that point they were all dead on their feet and Melissa ordered them to stop and make camp. No fire, just dry rations and silence.

The group huddled together in the vanishing light, their backs to one another, trying to let half of them sleep, while the other half listened for wildcats. Lisa thought she could not possibly fall asleep, but she was out cold after she had barely sat down. She got a few hours of blissful rest before the first attack happened.

A roar broke the silence and all of them scrambled to their feet.

"Glowstones!" Melissa shouted and they got a handful of the glowing pebbles out of their bags and threw them around their impromptu camp site. A giant wildcat stepped out of the darkness, its massive maw drawn back, its ears folded against its head as it growled and blinked into the sudden light.

Lisa hurried and strung her bow back up, before the whole group unleashed a volley on the giant feline. Melissa's spikes of ice dug into the cats fur, but only Lisa's spectral arrows pierced deep enough to draw blood. The wildcat roared again and then a second cat came at them from the darkness. Rick scrambled backwards, but the giant cat landed basically on top of him. He screamed and thrust his blade into its claws, pinning him to the ground. Then the cats maw came down and closed around the arm with the sword. Rick screamed in pain and then Vera was there, driving her spear into the beast. Marvin shot one of his good bolts and Melissa sent a bright gauge of flame into its side, singing its fur. With a yelp of pain the cat jumped back, leaving behind Rick with a very broken and half bitten through arm.

Jacob pushed forwards, his more passive role in a fight enabled him to play medic as he knelt down next to the injured warrior. He made Rick bite down on something before he straightened the arms bones. The rest of the group focused on the male wildcat with Gloria taking up Ricks spot, relying on her armor and her agility do defend herself. Rick passed out because of the pain and Jacob poured health potion over the wound, closing it slowly and over minutes. The rest of the group fought like hell to defend the two. Mercucio dove out of stealth cutting deep bleeding gouges into the beasts side, while Lisa poured spectral arrows into its snout until it looked like a glowing pincushion.

The female cat was the problem though and Vera tracked it in the dark with Lisa's help. When it jumped at them again, Vera was ready and intercepted it. Melissa froze it to the ground with four or five Ice Grasps in a row before unleashing a stream of fire out of her right hand, burning the beasts face off. The cat roared and struggled, but eventually it died. The male wildcat sprinted off into the night after its partner had died, leaving behind trails of blood.

Nobody was happy about the victory. Jacob was done patching up Rick, but the warrior was still unconscious. Gloria had taken one of the paws of the male lion and her chest plate had saved her life. It was dented in now and Vera helped her out of the now useless armament. Gloria needed a sip of potion to heal a broken rib even with the chest plate taking the brunt of the damage.

"Vera, pick Rick up, we will move just a few hundred meters away from here. Lets hope the injured Lion will take up most of the attention of the other groups of cats." Melissa ordered and they remade their camp a bit in the distance, before resuming their watch. Nobody could sleep though, no matter how tired. Eventually one or two of them fell asleep only to wake up with a start. That was how they spent the rest of the night.

When dawn turned the world from darkness into a twilight of blue and gray tones Rick woke up. He apologized, but nobody thought it was his fault. He had lost his sword in the fight and Mercucio gave him one of his longer daggers. Vera stepped next to Melissa and asked her quietly:

"Can we really do this? Even if we get through, do we have the supplies to make the run up to Ambition?"

Melissa was silent for a long moment, before she called over Jacob. The man looked as tired as they all felt.

"Whats up?"

"How many potions do you have left?"

"Not as many as I would like to have. But...enough for now."

"You sure? Don't sugarcoat it."

"I am sure. I have been conserving them from the start. Rick took more than a full bottle just now, but even if he gets injured like that a bunch more times we will be fine."

"Good... Good. Thank you Jacob." Melissa said and turned to Vera.

"If we get through this grassland, we will rest and recuperate before challenging the bosses on the sixth floor. I think we will be plenty strong enough to beat them. The 7th and the 8th floor are a time and environmental challenge, which we should be able to handle and for the 9th floor we will get ourselves a guide." Melissa explained.

Vera hesitated and then nodded satisfied with Melissa's answer. The group ate a silent meal of dried fruit and hardtack you had to soak in water before you could bite through them. But it was better than nothing and Lisa scarfed down two pieces of the hard bread. Taste be damned. They gathered their backpacks back up and then Lisa lead them away towards the now much closer mountain range.

The later half of the fifth floor was almost entirely inhabited by the strongest specimen of their species. The wildcats Lisa encountered towered even over their cousins they had faced earlier. But it also meant that the female cats were easier to spot, because they were bigger and heavier and so Lisa lead them on a winding path through the grassland, dodging most groups and challenging some. But they soon realized that killing the beasts was an impossible challenge. They were even tougher out here, even stronger and in the end Melissa ordered them to flee. She managed to slow them down, freeze them until they could run out of their territory. Like that they bounced between the cats territories, always on edge. They fought and fought and fought. Never standing still, always moving. They only killed one more wildcat, before they finally fled out of the savanna into the rocky landscape beyond.

Once they stepped on the rocky ground and left behind the grassland they collapsed. This had been the most miserable two days of Lisa's life. She felt jittery at having survived and her hands were shaking so much from adrenaline she had trouble binding her shoelaces. Melissa laid on her back totally spent and for a few minutes they were silent and just exhausted. Then her stomach growled in the silence. There was a moment where they all held their breath and then Melissa started to chuckle. It was like a dam had broken and the laughing was infectious. Lisa chuckled as well and then it spread all over the group. Soon they were all howling in laughter and Lisa had to hold her belly, tears in her eyes. It had not been that funny, but the tension leaving them, being free from the sheer terror of being surrounded by beasts able to kill them, that just made this so funny. It was cathartic, a release of pent up emotions and when Melissa dried her tears she sat up.

"Lisa can I ask you to take Mercucio and hunt us an Antelope? I am..."she chuckled. "I am starving and I will be damned if I eat more hardtack if I don't have to."

"Of course." Lisa said and got back to her feet. Mercucio just grunted in annoyance before they both trotted off down towards the savanna.

Lisa had to take a few minutes until her hands had stopped shaking and she had acclimated to being without Gloria's buffs. She felt sluggish without them and so, so tired. But she was their dedicated hunter. She had infinite arrows and she was able to trace and find things to hunt when Marvin, who was much better than her at actually killing things, could not find anything. Mercucio stood next to her, not concealed by his skills and looked up towards the fake sky.

"You know, I could have never imagined running myself ragged like this back in the Town of Beginnings. I was just boozing and feeling sorry for myself." he paused for a moment. "But you know what, I kinda like it now. Its fun." he said with a slightly incredulous grin about his own statement and he shrugged helplessly when Lisa looked at him.

"I feel the same way. Although this was freaking horrible."

"Yeah, but you really saved us out there."

"Me?" Lisa asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, you. You lead us through that maze. How many fights did we not have to take because you chose the right path?"

"I...I did not do that much. You saved our lives plenty of times, pushing us out of the way of attacks. And without Gloria's buffs we would have never gotten to where we are now. Same with Jacob who patched all of us up at some point, which is on top of his curses."

"True, true. We all pulled our weight. I never really understood why Climber groups were so...tight with each other. But now, now I get it. I trust my life to all of you...its kinda beautiful." the man said and Lisa was surprised to see some tears in the man's eyes. She let him have his emotional moment and stayed silent, just gently put a hand on his shoulder. After a few minutes she straightened.

"Come on, lets go hunt dinner. I shoot it, you carry it."

Mercucio laughed softly and nodded.

"Fair."

That night they feasted on a whole Antelope and for the first time in what felt like weeks they all got a good nights rest. Because tomorrow they would challenge the Tower once more and go up to the 6th floor.

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