Phantasmal Party

by Trey Myr

  “I have no idea then. It was a fairly big coincidence that got my first phantasmal worker shoved on the goblin Raceshard,” Ed shrugged.

  “Speaking of which,” Ingrid changed the subject, “you said your Conjure Phantasm leveled up, right? What Shards are you going to Slice for your second summon?"

  "I thought about going for either a healer or a magic DPS type. Probably get a nymph for the healer or a kobold Raceshard for the DPS, since they have decent elemental affinity."

  "Yeah, right. You just want to summon a dragon after it evos."

  "…That might have been a factor, yeah."

  "I'd suggest going for the DPS then. James might be an 'arse', as he likes to say, but he's good at his job, and we're still low enough that potions can cover us in emergencies. But an extra elemental damage dealer could easily be the difference in a slime or golem biome."

  "That's a good point. I should have enough credits to get the Raceshard and a Skillshard after our next delve. But that really doesn't help if we can't explain how I can Slice a new summon Skill."

  Ingrid kept pacing in quiet for a few minutes, and then abruptly told Ed to wait until she got back, and left his room.

  When she got back, Ingrid threw a blue armband at him. "Put this on."

  Ed unfolded the armband, and saw that it was imprinted with the image of a cartoon bear wearing a pair of goggles. The symbol of the Bjørnson family.

  "Your story is that you lied to us when you first met us. My mother got worried when she heard about Chad's death, so she sent an armsman to guard me. She's not supposed to do it when I'm on reise, but most Bjørnsons don't go for melee positions, so it's not implausible. You're a Summoner, and have special Skillshards provided by my family. When you get a new phantasm, we can just say your first one got Sealed. We can direct any questions to my family, and they’ll deny having anything to do with it until they’re ready to release the information."

  "I don't think pretending to be an armsman is a good idea."

  "Who said anything about pretending?" asked Ingrid innocently.

  ◆◆◆

  "If I wanted to be caught up in Five Family shenanigans I'd have joined one!" James said angrily from his place near Ed's closet.

  "Sure, because it's just sooooo easy to join a Family," answered Lucy from her place on Ed's bed

  After giving Ed the news that he was an armsman and her bodyguard, Ingrid called the other members of the group to Ed's room, claiming that she recognized Ed as a member of her House sent by her mother. The rest of the party was not happy to find out about Ed's 'new' status.

  "My brother is a senior armsman in Adam. He got me my starter Shards, and he could have gotten me in if I wanted it."

  "Which really doesn't change the fact that James is right," interjected Kevin. "This is an independent party. We accepted Ingrid because everyone knows about the Bjørnson's reise, but an active armsman is something completely different."

  "There you go. Even if Lucy sides with you, which we all know she will, Kevin's the tie breaker. Ed's out."

  "If Ed is out, then so am I," Ingrid stated. "I won't risk being pulled out of reise over Mother's anxiety."

  "We'd hate to lose you over this, Kevin," added Lucy. "But…"

  "Him and me," James interjected.

  "We'd hate to lose you over this, Kevin," Lucy repeated, "But I'd hate losing Ing even more."

  "You!" James sputtered, unable to even finish the sentence.

  "For God's sake James. You know she's doing it just to anger you," Kevin sighed, and opened the door. "Delve is canceled. We can't enter the Labyrinth like this. Ed can stay, but this is the last interference from the Families, or I am the one leaving the group."

  Kevin left the room followed by James. When the door slammed close behind him, Lucy turned to Ingrid.

  "Out with it."

  "Luce…"

  "Don't give me that. You can't expect me to believe you just suddenly recognized Ed, and you never do what your mother says. I trust you and I've got your back, but you can't pull that over me."

  "You're right, Luce. I'm sorry. Ed wasn't an armsman before today, and I've never seen him before yesterday. I’ll let Ed tell it, since it’s his story. But please keep it a secret until I’m ready to finish my reise."

  "You, spill!" Lucy turned to Ed with narrowed eyes. "What secret was good enough for my girl here to almost split a decent party over?"

  When Ingrid nodded for him to continue, Ed did, in fact, spill. Lucy cursed up a storm after hearing that an Impediment she didn't have could be overcome, and dragged Ingrid out of the room, muttering about helping her do something useful with her Chromatic Sorcery.

  With that bit of drama over with, and an afternoon to fill, Ed opened his laptop and spent the next few hours researching Shards and planning builds for himself and his summons, and then went back to the bazaar to buy the Shards needed for a second phantasm.

  Phantasmal Kobold

  Race

  Kobold

  Class

  None

  Shards

  2/2

  Strength

  3

  Dexterity

  1

  Wisdom

  3

  Constitution

  2

  Agility

  2

  Intelligence

  6

  HP

  7

  Mana

  15

  HP regen

  0.2/hour

  Mana regen

  6/hour

  Shard

  Level

  Essence

  Kobold

  1

  0/500

  Icebolt

  1

  0/100

  The new summon was far weaker than the goblin, and would remain that way until it could be given a class that could boost its mana regeneration, but Ed wasn't sure that a sorcerer, or even a Hydromancer, would give the summon an offensive ability, and didn't want to risk a phantasm that would be unable to gain essence.

  Satisfied with his Shards, Ed went to sleep, hoping that things will have calmed down by morning.

  ◆◆◆

  In the morning, Ed was prepared for the arrival of the coffee zombie, and had three cups of coffee waiting by the time Lucy and Ingrid came downstairs. Lucy chugged her first cup like a veteran frat bro downing his first pint of the semester, then slowed down enough to shoot Ed a grateful smile before starting on her second. Ingrid grumbled jokingly about having to order her own, and the three sat companionably to wait for the rest of the party.

  Kevin joined them a few minutes later. His greeting was a bit chilly, but it looked like he was mostly over the argument, and resigned to having some interference from the Bjørnsons.

  James, on the other hand, was most definitely not over his anger from the previous evening, and pointedly ignored everyone at the table except for Kevin.

  After a not very pleasant breakfast, the group made its way to the Labyrinth, choosing once again to enter the second floor.

  They found themselves in a large cave, with the familiar glowing moss on the walls and a small stream of water running on one side.

  Kevin raised an eyebrow at seeing Ed's new phantasm, but didn't bother commenting on it, and instead mechanically ordered the group into their familiar marching order, placing the kobold at the second to last position right before Ed, and the rather subdued group headed deeper into the cave.

  Chapter 5:

  Moving Up

  Other than the sound of the stream, the cave was completely silent. There were no goblins chattering in the distance. No clicking of bare bones on the ground. The party saw and heard nothing other than the moss covered walls and wandering streams. For all they could tell, the cave may as well have been completely empty.

  The first indication that there was anything alive in the floor besides the party was the ground opening up in front of Ingrid, and a huge set of mandibles snapping out, catching her and starting t
o drag her into the lair of the giant trapdoor spider.

  Fortunately for Ingrid, her party members weren't lulled into complacency by the seemingly empty cave, and reacted quickly to the surprise attack. As a struggling Ingrid fought to stay on her feet, a pink Firebolt and a standard colored Icebolt hit the spider at nearly the same time, followed quickly by a piercing arrow. The spider, shrieking in pain, tried to retreat back into its lair, but Ed's goblin stabbed its abdomen and held on to it long enough for Ingrid to shield bash it, and the stunned spider was quickly defeated.

  "You OK Ingrid?" asked Lucy.

  "Yeah. It didn't actually do any damage, just a grapple attack."

  "Vermin floor," said Kevin with obvious disgust. "Any of you picked up a harvesting Skillshard?"

  Silently shaking heads were the only answer to his question. "We're not getting any credits out of this floor. Keep going or leave and try again for a better biome?"

  "Keep going. The Labyrinth doesn't like it when people cheese it," answered Lucy.

  "Oh puh-lease," James rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Whatever, or whoever is in charge of this place, they have far better things to do than keep watch over a tier zero party."

  "You don't know that! There’s been more than enough instances of…"

  "Cut it out, you two," interjected Kevin. "This isn't the time for this debate. Lucy is voting for going on, and I take it that you are voting to leave and come back, James?"

  "Yeah. Fighting for no credits isn't worth the effort."

  "Ingrid?"

  "Sorry, Luce, but I'm voting to leave. I hate the creepy crawlies."

  "Ed?"

  "Out. Where there's one spider there will be more, and we still don't have a good way to deal with poisons."

  "Out it is then. Let's go."

  ◆◆◆

  The Labyrinth was either infinite or ever changing. No one was sure which, and outside of some very specific types of philosophers, nobody was sure it even matters. A person has access to any floor he was able to previously reach, and a group could enter any floor that all its members had access to. What you could never choose, however, was the contents of the floor. You could enter a floor one day and find a goblin infested cave, and enter the same floor again the day after to find yourself fighting winged lions on a flying island. Go high enough, and you could find yourself underwater, or jumping between platforms floating on lava. Only two things seemed consistent. Continue from one floor to the next without exiting to the bazaar, and you'll likely find yourself in a similar biome. Leave the Labyrinth, wait half an hour, and go back in, and you'll be switched to a new location.

  Many people believe that the Labyrinth is random. They would show you data that claims that the chance of finding goblins in floor 5 is the same as the chance of finding slimes. They'll give you the confidence intervals of the chance your third consecutive floor will have the same biome as your first. They'll talk for hours about confirmation bias.

  Others claim there is order in the chaos. That the apparent randomness obscures active intent. It could be that the Labyrinth itself is alive and sentient, or it could be that it is being directed by aliens, gods or both.

  "You really think that whatever is in charge of this thing cares enough to get angry that we chose to reset the floor?" Ed said to Lucy as they were waiting for the floor to reset.

  "It can't be random,” Lucy answered. “You sit down in the Pug’s common room, and you hear the stories. People getting precisely the Shards that will fit their build after a hard delve they’ve persisted through, or people bailing out on a floor they don’t like only to get an even worse option on their next attempt."

  "I've never actually thought about it. But is that really significant? People look for patterns in anything. It’s just how we’re wired. But our bias doesn’t mean the patterns are real."

  "I don’t know, but is it really worth the risk that they are?"

  Kevin, who spent the last half an hour talking with Ingrid out of Ed's earshot, called out to the party. "Time's up people. Let's go in and try to actually get some delving done today."

  It might have been Ed's imagination, but Kevin seemed a little less cold towards Ingrid and himself than he was during their first attempt.

  Their half hour done, the party started walking back towards the stairway.

  Lady luck, or the gods of the Labyrinth, or just the cold, uncaring randomness of the universe, was with them, and when Ed's party re-entered the Labyrinth, they found themselves in another goblin cave. Between the addition of another magic damage dealer and Ingrid's taunt ability, the normal mobs on the floor were barely enough to slow the party down, and James grumbled to his viewers about his Cure Lesser Wounds Shard not gaining any essence. The party quickly cleared out the floor and approached the boss chamber.

  "Hold on a second," Ed told the party before they started the boss fight. "My Summoner leveled up, and I need to Slice a Skillshard before we continue."

  "What are you Slicing?" Lucy looked curiously as Ed took a yellow Shard out of his bag and pushed it into the clear pentagonal patch the Summoner Classshard left on the back of his right hand.

  "Summoner gives a slot for a buff skill, so I got a tier 0 Lightning Field. Figured another elemental damage option can't hurt."

  "Nice. That'll work really well when you get the aura channel on level five."

  Lightning Field

  Tier 0

  Level 1

  0/100 essence

  Adds an elemental lightning damage component to all attacks.

  +1-3 lightning damage

  -5 maximum mana when active

  "Enough chitchat. Let's go get that boss." Interrupted Kevin, who was clearly at least somewhat still upset about Ed lying when he joined the group.

  The floor boss waiting for them in the final chamber was clearly some sort of goblin shaman. It was dressed in a skirt made of finger bones and used the skull of a horned rabbit, with horn still attached, as a hat. The short scepter it held in its hand was adorned with yet another skull, this one from some sort of bird, its eyeless holes glowing a sickly green.

  The shaman was accompanied by four other goblins, two carrying short, rusted swords and two standing in the back of the room, whirling slings ready to fire.

  Ed and his goblin took one of the swordgoblins each, leaving Ingrid free to activate her taunt ability on the slingers and run towards the shaman, stunning him with a shield bash.

  The enemy goblins seemed to be more resilient than the other goblins the party encountered on the floor, but battle was still quickly over, with Ingrid, Ed and the goblin spearman taking minor damage which James was able to heal almost before it registered. The party quickly looted the fallen goblins, finding nothing of note other than the bird skull on the shaman's scepter, and even that turned out to be nothing more than a higher grade essence drop.

  There wasn't even a discussion about leaving the Labyrinth. The party left the floor, crossed the walkway over the bazaar without even looking on the floor, which lay behind them, and entered the third floor.

  Luck was still with them, it seems, and the third floor seemed like a direct continuation of the second. The goblins roaming the passageways were stronger, but still no match for a whole party. The goblins in the chambers, now in groups of four with at least one shaman or two slingers, weren't proving to be much more of a challenge. The party's front line did take some damage from the ranged opponents, but never enough for them to be in any real danger. There wasn't an actual boss to this floor, and instead the party found themselves facing a small horde of ten goblin melee fighters holding an assortment of rusted weapons, four goblin slingers, and two shamans.

  "Back to the entrance!" Kevin shouted as soon as he saw what they were facing. "We'll use it as a choke point to stop them from swarming us. Ingrid and Ed, you take the front. Goblin behind you with his spear. We'll have to take the melee as they come and ignore the shamans and slingers until we can thin them out a bit."

&nb
sp; Ingrid took the right side of the entrance, with Ed on her left. The goblin mini horde charged their position almost mindlessly, losing two of their numbers to arrows and elemental bolts before they could even reach them. The remaining eight monsters reached the entrance in one green wave, but the narrower tunnel let only three of them to close in to melee range at any given time.

  In an open room, eight goblins would have easily surrounded Ed and Ingrid, leaving Kevin and the casters vulnerable to attack. If the goblins were more intelligent, or better led, they would have rotated their attackers, letting the shamans heal their wounded before sending them back into combat.

  But in the narrow tunnel, and facing the almost mindless goblins, Ed and Ingrid had little trouble holding the line. They took the occasional hit, from both melee weapons and slingshots, and they weren't doing much damage to their opponents, and what damage they did manage to do was quickly healed by the shamans. Ed's kobold, casting triads of Icebolts at the goblins, ran out of mana almost immediately, but not before taking out two of the enemies. Kevin and Lucy, having far better staying power than the kobold, managed to slowly whittle down the goblin numbers, until eventually the last sword wielding goblin fell, followed quickly by the shamans and slingers.

  "Let's loot the bodies. We'll wait half an hour to regain some mana, and then I suggest we continue to the next floor, as long as we seem to have a good biome. Anyone objects?"

  Kevin looked around at his party members, not seeing any objections to his plan.

  While they were waiting to regain mana, Ed took a few minutes to look over his status, as well as that of his summons. He wished he had a Classshard for his kobold, now that its Icebolt was Sealed, but he didn't have enough credits left after buying the other Shards.

  Eduard Fergusson

  Race

  Human

  Class

  Summoner

  Shards

  2/2

  Strength