Establishing Quest: Break the Supply Lines is a military-logistical expedition against the Kaith, in which William Oh and a group of inexperienced Climbers are sent into an extensive cave system to disrupt food moving toward Kaith forces on the front lines. Its decisive importance lies in what it refuses to be: the objective is not to defeat the enemy in a direct confrontation, but to damage the network that sustains larger battles. The quest therefore establishes survival, information, route control, and coordinated withdrawal as forms of strength equal to open combat.

Mission and Strategic Purpose

Nathan introduces himself as the party’s assigned babysitter and explains that a large hole nearby leads into the cave system used by the Kaith to transport food to the front lines. The task is specifically to find and destroy those supply lines. Climbers seeking to advance a civilian Class are asked to step forward, making the expedition both a military operation and a sorting mechanism for participants whose abilities may be poorly suited to direct fighting.

The assignment’s logic is logistical rather than annihilatory. The Kaith supply route connects hidden tunnels, food movement, and active battlefronts; interrupting it can weaken higher-level Climbers’ opponents without requiring the new recruits to win a frontal engagement. Nathan’s instructions define the boundary between a successful quest and a reckless one: the party is to strike the supply system, not turn the cave into a battlefield against the Kaith themselves.

The Expedition and Fighting Retreat

Nathan is intended to serve as the spearhead at the bridge while the other parties work out how to destroy it. When the group determines that the immediate plan cannot safely continue, the objective changes from completing the strike at once to returning to the surface and bringing Nathan back with the remaining parties on the following day. The withdrawal is not treated as surrender; it is a deliberate preservation of manpower, allowing everyone to rest and resume the operation in better condition.

That retreat is immediately tested. As the party prepares to leave, Loth throws glowbugs down a ledge, revealing smooth, rotund chitin climbing directly up the wall. The discovery turns a controlled withdrawal into an emergency movement through the tunnels. Later, the returning Climbers have been chased for what feels like an eternity and only begin to recognize familiar landmarks near the route back. Their survival depends on navigation, warning, and pace as much as on weapons, while the camp assembles another excursion under Nathan’s direction.

Completion, Credit, and Reward

The System eventually announces that the quest is complete and directs the participants to the local Exchange Hall for monetary reward disbursement. William Oh receives 1,500 XP and reaches level 5 as a Resourceful Climber. The result converts a hazardous, imperfectly executed operation into measurable advancement, but the distribution of credit is more complicated than a simple victory tally.

At the Exchange Hall, the clerk says that the System rates William Oh’s performance as exceptional and gives him a bag of gold roughly equivalent to Mason Lanover’s reward. The clerk also reveals that five other people had attempted to steal William Oh’s quest reward by presenting themselves under his name; even the administrative aftermath carries the disorder and opportunism generated by his growing reputation.

Loth receives a different judgment. The System rates him as critical to quest success and identifies him as the MVP, awarding him a smaller bag and suggesting that he visit a money changer. The contrast between the two evaluations separates visible excellence from indispensable contribution: William Oh is rewarded for exceptional performance, while Loth is recognized as the operation’s most valuable participant.

Consequences for Advancement

Reaching level 5 changes the strategic value of the quest. Experience gain in the Hunting Grounds and on the 1st Floor is nerfed, so continued growth requires William Oh and his allies to Climb to the 2nd Floor. The System offers two routes: established paths, which are slow, safe, and reliable, or clearing a Key Site on the 1st Floor to open an inter-floor Door, which is quicker, more dangerous, and more rewarding.

This rule gives the supply-line expedition a consequence beyond its immediate reward. The party has not merely completed an isolated assignment; it has reached a threshold where remaining in familiar territory produces diminishing returns. The System further warns that above the 5th Floor, established routes no longer exist, making Key Locations the only means of ascending or descending. The quest thus begins training the Climbers for a world in which military infrastructure, spatial access, and controlled risk determine progression.

Reputation and Narrative Significance

The operation also accelerates William Oh’s transformation from an unknown orphan into a public story. Jason Salazar serves as his hype man, telling exaggerated accounts of him over soup, including the claim that he was born on the Hundredth Floor and bathed in lethal Miasma. Later, tavern gossip claims that William Oh can turn into lightning, that his missing arm is a cursed talisman acting against his enemies, and that he once ate a lightning bolt. These stories are not reliable records of the quest, but they show how quickly practical success becomes myth.

Even strangers who encounter William Oh after the mission react to its reputation. One Climber praises a level-six William Oh for fighting like a level-nine and running like a level-forty. The gap between the actual mission—an improvised logistical operation involving retreat, pursuit, and infrastructure—and the fantastic versions circulating around it becomes part of the quest’s legacy. Establishing Quest: Break the Supply Lines therefore marks both a tactical education and the beginning of a feedback loop in which action produces fame, fame produces new expectations, and those expectations reshape the dangers surrounding William Oh’s future climbs.