The skeletons were soon whittled down to only a handful and then even they fell. As the last one disappeared, a massive roar came from the end of the hall and the ground shook. A huge human-like creature, far larger than them with fat, bloated skin, a blood stained apron and a massive cleaver, charged into the room. It easily smashed the tables aside. Above it's head only two words formed. 'The cook.'
“Boss time. Let's go!” 5t4r charged forward. The cleaver came down on him, but he deftly deflected it with his shield before striking into the creature's side with his axe. The blade cut deep, but the creature seemed unfazed when the axe lodged in tightly. The dragon tried tearing it free, but it refused to budge.
The cook grinned and lifted its cleaver high to the right and swung at 5t4r's axe arm. Andremedia charged in and caught the blade on her own shield before he finally tugged the axe free. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. Careful!” But it was too late. The creature opened its mouth before sticky green ichor surged out and covered the poor leviathan. She shrieked and tried to wipe it away so she could see and fight back, but the creature slammed into her and sent her flying back.
The creature then tried to slam past 5t4r to attack the stunned girl, but he dug his feet firmly into the ground and bashed the creature back.
“Lesser heal,” Scalios cast before he helped the poor slimed girl to her feet. “You okay?”
“I don't think this feeling of being filthy will ever go away,” Media said with a slight whine.
“Coulda been worse. At least your mouth wasn't open when it happened, you never forget the first time that happens,” Asura said with a snicker.
“It happened one time. It's not like I had taste enabled, so let it go!” B4hamutt yelled before he drove his pole forward, “Necrotic ram!” Black energy coated the weapon as the end expanded to form a flat surface. When it touched the creature the edge shot out, burying itself in the monsters stomach before pulling back out. Nasty black fluids began to gush from the new hole.
“He's immune to knockbacks,” 5t4r said before he slammed his shield in the creature's face and brought his axe horizontally against the cook's neck. The blade cut deep, but wasn't able to fully cleave through and he was forced to yank it back.
“I hate fighting undead,” Asura said with a growl before she shot another arrow forward. “Hey! Mutt, combo with me! Now!”
“Black vortex!” the two yelled in unison and black mist surrounded the monster before spinning around and cutting into it. 5t4r only barely managed to pull back in time before the deadly winds destroyed the creature, leaving behind a few red sparkles.
The dragon stared for a few moments, his mouth hanging open. “You two know how to do combo spells? How? When?”
Asura just giggled. “It's easy once you know the person well enough. We used to do dungeons all the time, so we just got the timing down to give us an edge.” She began throwing out her own healing spells on the party as the items began to show up. The cleaver went straight to Scalios, since it was an upgrade to his sword. “I can teach you how to do them sometime if you like. Most people don't actually try though, so you end up only able to use them with a few people. It's a great boost on damage.”
“Wow. How do you get them to work?” 5t4r asked before he moved his fingers through the air again, picking some menu items.
“Well, you have to call out the combination spell at the same time,” Asura began explaining. “You can only use a combination spell of your current race, for example you could only be fire right now. Then both you and the other person have to aim at the same monster. If it goes off the damage is great and usually has a secondary effect. If you fail, well... you lose the MP from it anyway. So make sure you know the person or set it up before hand.”
“Wow. That's awesome!” They headed towards the door way opposite where they came in. Another staircase led to the floor below. No monsters came at them, yet, but the stairway had a few drowned corpses. Rather than waiting for them to rise up behind them the group swiftly beheaded them.
With the corpses pre-re-killed, they entered the next room without incident. Hammocks were hanging up in most the free space and massive oars were pulled inside. The area was littered with bones which slowly began to assemble themselves into skeletons when the group came closer. Small groups of five formed at a time and were quickly exterminated by the fighters.
“Okay, just be careful here. If we wake up too many of them they'll end up swarming us and we won't stand a chance,” Asura said while she followed, slowly, behind 5t4r.
“Don't worry, I'm being careful. Not like I'm going- ahh!” he shrieked when his foot got caught in a rope and he went down. His axe skidded along the ground away from him, triggering three separate groups of skeletons. “Oh cra--” He was cut off before Adremedia ran over him, stepping on his head in the process, and brought her shield up. Unfortunately, she walked too far and another group of skeletons came from the right.
“AoEs! Drop your area of effect spells!” Asura yelled before the monsters collapsed on them. They yelled out their magical assaults before ice, fire, light and wind exploded out around them, enveloping the creatures as well as the group. “Ray burst! Ray burst!”
“Fireball!” B4hamutt yelled while they tried desperately to fend off the swarm of skeletons, the monster's ancient and rusty blades slicing through the air.
“Torna-- gahh!” Adremedia screamed when her wind spell was interrupted and she was cut down by the deadly blades, her shield knocked aside. She disappeared in a flurry of red sparkles. The skeletons hesitated just for a moment before charging at their fallen fighter.
“Ray burst! I'm up!” 5t4r yelled before bringing his shield up to block another assault from the undead monsters. A few of the creatures fell, but their numbers were quickly winning as the remaining four were pushed back. The monsters pounded on the front of the shield and more tried to attack from the side, Scalios and B4hamutt struggling to hold them off with their weapons.
“Burst!” Asura pointed her hand at the center of their group. The flames exploded out and knocked the monsters back, allowing the group a moment. “Pull back to the stairs! We can fight them better there!” she screamed before turning to the entrance and tapped her foot twice. She disappeared and reappeared at the steps, before quickly turning and nocking her bow. “Tornado shot!” she yelled before shooting the arrow a few feet ahead of her. While her friends retreated the fierce winds erupted behind them, slowing the pursuing bones for a few moments.
5t4r jammed himself in the doorway and bent low, holding his shield in front of him and waited for the creatures to begin their next charge. “I'm out of MP! How are you guys doing?”
“I'm running low too, but they can't have too much more health left! Just keep attacking!” Scalio yelled before shooting out more shards of ice. B4hamutt was low on mana as well, but continued to stab at the creatures with his pole arm. Slowly their numbers began to dwindle, but not fast enough as with one final shove the creature's overwhelmed 5t4r and he disappeared with a scream and a shower of red sparkles.
“Use everything!” Asura screamed before burning the last of her MP with a ray. She backed against the wall, unable to aim her bow with such little room.
“YAH!” Scalios yelled while his blade cleaved left and right, his MP gone as well. He and B4hamutt barely sliced the creatures into fine red sparkles before collapsing to the ground, panting with exertion. They had won.
“Oh... oh my gosh...” Asura fell to her knees. “That... that was interesting. At least it wasn't boring, heh heh.” She glanced at her health and chuckled a little. So close to death and not a single point of damage. Maybe there were a few perks to being the archer. She glanced at the slivers of health Scalios and B4hamutt had. Definitely a perk. “So... wait to recover MP and resurrect the others?” The other two nodded and the three took a short break to rest and catch their breath. Soon the five were up again, though much more wary of where they stepped, and began to clear th
e rest of the floor.
“Only a few floors left. Death penalties should fade by the time we get to the boss. Hope you're all ready,” B4hamutt said before they headed down the next set of stairs. Candles no longer lit the stairs and the next room only had three lit candles. It was filled with hammocks and small make-shift beds, though most had rotten to little more than shreds, with undead pirates sitting about and either sleeping or playing strange dice games.
“Okay, I count about twenty-five,” B4hamutt said before looking the enemy over. “We'll have to be careful not to draw them all, especially since you two are still suffering from death penalties. We'll pull them here so we don't have another tripping incident.”
“Gotcha, want me to initiate?” Asura held up her bow.
The group looked to her for a moment before, as a single unit, yelling out, “NO!”
“... Fine. No need to be jerks about it,” she said with a sad sigh. “I'm not that bad a shot and at least I didn't trip. I did an amazing job on knocking all of them back up there too. I got awesome archery skills, you're all just jealous.”
“Sure we are dear,” Andremedia said with a humoring smile. “How about you just stick in the back where you can use those... skills to help us best.”
Asura responded with a very dignified sticking out of her tongue.
“Okay, here we go. Ray!” 5t4r called out before a beam of light shot out from his hand and struck the nearest skeleton. It quickly dropped its dice, grabbed its weapon and charged at them before its comrades did the same. Group by group they eliminated the pirates and made their way towards the other side of the room, with only a few close calls from when they accidentally caught aggression from two groups at once.
They stopped at the top of the stairs and glanced down. Water was flowing in and it was already about waist high at the bottom. The next area was not going to be fun in the slightest, except maybe for Andremedia and Scalios with their leviathan abilities. The group slowly headed in and shuddered as the icy water splashed across their skin. Asura couldn't stop shivering as the liquid stuck to her clothes and embraced her in coldness. The next room was filled with floating crates and barrels. They sloshed as quietly as they could through the floor, pushing the floating rubble away as they went.
Asura kept close to the group, bumping into Scalios a few times as they went.
“Will you stop that? It's getting annoying,” he said before shoving a barrel out of his way.
“Sorry... I just hate this part. Since-” The ground burst out ahead of them and two purple tentacles sprung up in the air. “That!” She shrieked and jumped back. Her icy hands fumbled with the bow for a moment, before releasing an arrow, missing by a mile. 5t4r and Andremedia charged forward, striking each tentacle once with their weapons and bringing up their shields to protect themselves when the appendages swatted back.
“Okay everyone, form up! Target Media's tentacle first and keep an eye out for more! Remember, it's a simple fight unless someone gets grabbed!” B4hamutt yelled before he thrust his guisarme up and hooked the blade around the tentacle, pulling it towards the team. They let loose on it, slashing, cutting, bashing and hitting it with spells. Soon a ferocious howl filled the air. “Keep going! We've almost got it!” Green blood spilled across the blade as he held the limb as best he could, pinning it against the leviathan's shield even as it struggled to get free. With a final furious howl the tentacle yanked down and out of the ship. The team quickly turned on the next tentacle, pinning it to the dragon's shield while the rest pounded on it.
The ground suddenly began to shake under them and Asura glanced down. “Crap!” She shrieked and tried to double tap the ground, but the water slowed her down. Before she could do the second tap the ground opened up and a massive tentacle reached up to grab and yank her under.
The fae struggled against the massive slimy limb as water filled her mouth. Fortunately, it didn't fill her lungs. A system notification appeared, in the form of a shrinking white line over a blue background, warning her of her lack of oxygen. She closed her mouth and thrashed wildly. Unfortunately, she couldn't see anything in the dark water and could only guess where the ship was. She didn't have to guess where she was going. The kraken would drag her into the center of it's body, straight into it's mouth to devour her whole in a single bite. It was, frankly, one of the worst ways to die. Possibly only second to dying from being captured by a spider and wrapped in it's cocoon before being feasted on.
She tried pulling one of her arms free so she could get to her sword, but the tentacle refused to let go. Slimy suction cups gripped her flesh while dragging her closer to her demise. With no other option, she lunged her head forward and bit the tentacle.
To her surprise the creature let go. For a few seconds she floundered about in the water, confused and disoriented by the creature's movements and the raging storm above turning the sea into a fury of changing currents. Before she could figure out which way was right, two arms wrapped around her waist and pulled.
Her body was dragged back into the ship, through the hole she had been yanked through, and she was tossed onto a nearby crate out of the liquid. She coughed and hacked up water before glancing to her savior.
Scalios, his wings now gone and replaced with small fins on his arms, was standing a few feet from her. “Feeling okay?” His sword was coated in green blood.
“Yeah... ugh, I hate that thing. Thanks for saving me. Heh, leviathan swimming and dark vision transfers over when you master it?” Asura slowly slid off the crate. It didn't feel so bad only being waist deep in it now. Far better than drowning.
“Water breathing and underwater casting, too. Then again, we don't get to ignore damage, fly or teleport short distances. So they had to make at least a few major battles where it comes in handy,” he said before patting her arm.
“It's not that bad,” she said before leaning back and panting from exertion. With the beast gone, she focused on the quickest thing she could to forget her near grizzly death. “You know, once we master more races we should try the sunken city of Atlantis dungeon. That would be a lot of fun,” Asura brought out her bow, letting out a sigh of relief. It had been damaged, but was not broken.
“Think we dealt enough damage to the kraken?” 5t4r asked nervously, still holding his shield up.
“Maybe. Doubt it though. Best be careful so it doesn't catch us unaware,” B4hamutt said before they slowly sloshed back along towards the next exit. More stairs were at the end, but these ones went up. Skeletons blocked their way, but they cleared through them before walking through collapsed hallways, around broken stairs and even over a large crocodile infested pit. They finally came to a large door with two rusty swords hanging on it. “Okay, you guys ready for this?”
“Ready as I'll ever be... you can't catch a cold from all this, can you?” 5t4r asked.
“... No. You can't,” Asura said rolling her eyes. “You're only imagining the cold anyway, it doesn't actually hurt your body. Well unless you decided to go crazy and buy one of those old VR suits, but who would buy those these days?”
“Not everyone trusts the head sets, even if they are a lot cheaper,” Andremedia said instantly.
“The feedback is far less responsive, the suits are far more dangerous and restrictive, and they cost a lot more since they are the size of a room. Not to mention all the monitoring equipment that has to be used on top of them. This method is far safer,” Asura said with a smirk.
“And what happens if you get a surge or something? Your mind could end up being fried,” the leviathan said with a snort.
“That only happened on a handful of all the prototypes. Why would... oh my gosh. Do you have one? How can you afford something like that? Heck, my parents could make twice what they do and never even consider anything like that.”
Andremedia glared at Asura. “Of course I don't have anything like that. I'm just saying if there was a cost effective means of using it, I'd use it. It'd be more realistic feeling it with your own b
ody. This is kinda... well, like being a program. It also reduces chances of getting VNS. I'd say for most humans it could be an effective alternative.”
“What about--”
“Ladies, please!” B4hamutt interrupted. “You can discuss the finer mechanics of VR gaming equipment later. For now, I just wanna know if you're ready.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, yeah. Good to go,” Asura said softly before the rest of the party slowly gave their agreements. With that, the demon shoved the door open and candle light spilled out from the room.
The room was small and square, wet and rotted wood enclosing them on all sides. It was empty aside from a broken mirror hung at the back and a human with his back to them. The man slowly turned to look at them. Tall, bearded, wearing poofy black garments and a large tri-pointed hat. At his left side a cutlass was sheathed and at his right a small flint lock pistol. The man was standing with his back to them, hands folded behind him. Slowly he turned to face them and glared. “So... yeh have come tah steal mah treasure. I knew thi-” Before he could finish the sentence 5t4r ran up and slammed his shield into the man's face.
“Star! Don't interrupt the NPC dialogue! Come on!” Asura objected as the pirate stumbled back into the wall.
“What? It's free damage! Besides, you've all heard this before and no one cares about lore anyway,” he said before stomping his feet down in front of the man and steadied himself.
“A fiesty one, eh?” the pirate said before he spit out a tooth. “Fine then, yah lad lubber! I'll knock yah down tah Davy Jones locker mahself!” he grabbed his blade and drew it in a single motion while drawing his gun with his other hand.
“Star! Don't try to block the bullet!” she screamed. The dragon looked back and gave her a confused look before the gun went off. It hit his shield dead center, but phased through it and slammed into his chest, making him stumble back.
“W-what? How... what?” he said with a groan before steadying himself. A quick heal spell from Scalios patched him up.
Landasy Reality: Angel's Escape Page 14