Phantasmal Party

by Trey Myr

  It was a great honor to be chosen for the party that attempted the fiftieth floor, and in her last trip home before it was scheduled to take place, Bridget's excitement managed to overcome even their parents' obvious fear of the dangerous expedition.

  When the expedition set out, the tension in Ed's home could be cut with a knife. The party took camera drones with them, and Ed's family sat glued to the television watching the expedition travel through the jungles of the fiftieth floor. Watching a tier six party battle was beyond anything even the highest budgeted of films could manage. Their leader, Joshua Jacobson, was a paladin. He was strong enough to break boulders with his bare hands, and his silver white armor was said to be completely invulnerable. Meredith Baker, also known as the Maelstrom, used magical attacks large enough to wipe out small cities. Mahmoud Alsahm was said to be able to shoot at a fly standing on the moon, and his arrows each burned with the light of a different element. The fourth member of the team was known only as Whisper, and was never actually seen in the recorded footage. All the watchers could see of the Windslayer was the trail of dead monsters left behind him.

  And in the middle of the party, Bridget stood and sang. The voice of a Worldsinger could be heard all across the floor, and everywhere it was heard allies were revitalized and healed, and enemies were struck with curses and banes.

  A month into the expedition, the last of the drones fell to the claws of a red dragon, and the footage stopped arriving. The tension in the Fergusson home climbed higher than the Labyrinth, until a week later a battered and nearly dead Joshua came back from the Labyrinth, alone.

  Nothing was ever released by the House of Adam about what happened after the drones were destroyed, but the names of Bridget, Meredith, Mahmoud and Whisper were stricken from the records of the House, and nothing Ed's family tried could get them to reveal the reason.

  Ed stopped his brooding and sat up as he saw his party coming down the stairs, his determination to find what happened in the fiftieth floor renewed.

  ◆◆◆

  The fifth floor was one of the few constants in the chaotic and ever-changing layout of the Labyrinth. The shape might change from delve to delve, and the precise composition of each group of enemies was seemingly random, but the nature of the floor was always the same.

  Ed's party stepped through the doorway from the bazaar into a small island made of solid rock in a swamp that appeared to stretch to infinity. The sky above, if there even was one, was hidden by the continuous canopy of trees, and the ground below was covered with greenery, making it impossible to distinguish between solid ground and open water. The smell of rotting vegetation hung in the air, and the sounds of hundreds of small animals and birds could be heard from all around.

  Ed retrieved his goblin and kobold from their stored patterns, noting that since he hadn't actually resummoned the goblin since the previous day, it was still wearing leather armor, rather than the heavier armor he expected to see from the maxed Armored Combat Shard.

  "OK people," Kevin started after everyone took their positions, "We all know what to expect here. Gators in the waters, carnivorous plants on land and lizardmen everywhere. The plan is to stay on solid ground to avoid ambushes as much as possible. There should be a solid path to the boss, we just have to find it."

  The party acknowledged Kevin's instructions, and they set off, Ed's goblin in the lead using its spear to probe the ground.

  Progress in the swamp was slow and tedious. The need to check every step for solid ground meant that they were walking at half their normal pace, and the lack of a clear trail meant they had to backtrack whenever they reached a dead end. It wasn't long before the party had completely lost sight of their starting location, and the only reason they weren't completely lost was that they made sure to always stay on the right edge of the solid walkways.

  It was perhaps ten minutes into the trek that they met the first denizens of the floor. Ed's goblin, still probing the ground in front of it, stepped on a nearly invisible vine, which instantly whipped around it and pulled it into the air. As soon as the goblin was off the ground, a dart flew in from the water and hit Ed, who had the rear guard position.

  You have been poisoned!

  -1 HP/minute

  Duration: 10 minutes

  It wasn't a very strong poison, but Ed knew that the more darts that hit him the worse the poison condition would get. "Lizardmen to the left!" he yelled to the rest of his party, and turned to see a quartet of charging lizardmen, with one more staying behind and reloading its blow gun.

  Ingrid shouted at the lizardmen to taunt them, and all four turned to charge towards her. Ed moved to Ingrid's left side to help her hold back the melee attackers while Kevin, Lucy and Ed's kobold attacked the hunter before it could shoot another dart.

  The four lizardmen that reached the group were all carrying crude spears, and were good enough fighters to stay out of Ingrid's reach and stab at her from a distance. The four enemies were more than she could reliably defend against, and she took a few glancing hits before Ed got close enough to help her. Once Ed arrived, two of the attackers turned to him, and Ingrid was easily able to block their attacks with her shield. Ed, on the other hand, took a nasty wound to his shoulder, slowing him down enough for the lizardmen to get a few more hits in before James could heal him. Ingrid charged one of her two lizardmen and stunned it with a shield bash, but the reckless attack left her open to the second, and she took a nasty hit to her right thigh, causing her to drop to one knee. Fortunately for Ed and Ingrid, their companions had killed off the hunter and turned their attention towards the other four. They took out one of Ed's enemies within seconds, freeing him to duel the other, and turned their attention to the spearman attacking Ingrid. By the time the other lizardman shook off its stun, its companion was dead, and Ingrid was healed and back on her feet. The last two lizardmen soon joined the rest of their team, and Ed's party turned back to their original heading, only to find that the goblin was long gone.

  "It's dead," Ed said as soon as he had a moment to check. "I think that was a pitcher that got it."

  "We must have just entered its range," Ingrid said. "It would have attacked more of us if it was able to. We need to find and kill it; otherwise it might attack again when the next lizardmen group does."

  Ed resummoned his goblin, which now appeared wearing full plate armor, and the party slowly moved forward. They were more alert now for the vine traps, and managed to avoid three of them before they reached a huge green column, with a diameter of at least ten meters. The column reached high above them, going straight through the canopy. Red bulbous growths hang down from the canopy, five meters tall and two across, currently inert vines hanging between them.

  "As soon as we attack, the vines are going to try and catch us and throw us in the pitchers," Kevin laid out his plan. "We need to kill it quickly, before it can catch us. Lucy, you start with a storm. Ed, have your kobold cast Icebolt triads. We need a fast kill, so no reserving mana. Aim above the storm so it won't interfere, and I'll do the same with my arrows. Meanwhile, you and Ingrid guard us from the vines."

  Ed took the party's left side while Ingrid took the right and the goblin took the front, and Lucy readied a mana potion in one hand, before starting the Chromatic Storm. The plant shuddered visibly when the storm formed next to its stalk, and its vines started to whip around blindly, looking for whatever attacked it. Kevin and Ed's kobold attacked the main plant as fast as they could.

  It took a few seconds for the first of the vines to find them, and it quickly tried to wrap itself around Ed. Ed's quarterstaff was not a good weapon to use against the tough plant, but his Lightning Field meant that each hit also delivered an electric shock, which was enough to make the vine loosen its hold. Unfortunately, as soon as one vine located a target, the others weren't far behind, and soon the three melee fighters had their hands full trying to fend off a dozen grasping vines. Ingrid had the foresight to bring an axe into the delve, in addition to her trust
y old mace, and Ed's goblin somehow changed its spear into a halberd, and the two were merrily chopping away at the vines. Ed, now the only one without a slashing weapon, was having a far harder time fending off the vines, and soon found himself wrapped up and immobilized. To his surprise, it was James who came to his aid, sawing at the vines with his dagger and muttering curses under his breath. The vines, undeterred by the small dagger, started to pull Ed up, and he must have been three meters in the air when the plant gave a final shudder, and the vines all loosened up at once, dropping him on the hard ground.

  Your Goblin Shard (Phantasmal Goblin Lancer) has leveled up!

  +1 Dexterity

  Goblin Shard (Phantasmal Goblin Lancer) is Closed and can rank up!

  The party was breathing heavily after the fight, and Ed had just managed to get up after being dropped on the hard ground, when the vines suddenly all came back to life and attacked. Unlike the earlier battle, however, it looked like this time the vines knew precisely where everyone was, and attacked with incredible precision.

  Within seconds, the entire party was wrapped up in the vines and immobilized. All except for Kevin, who stood calmly below them, surrounded by five cloaked and hooded figures.

  "Kevin, help us!" James yelled.

  "Kevin, what's going on?" Ingrid asked suspiciously at the same time.

  "What's going on is that I'm done!" Kevin shouted at her. "You think I'm blind? I've seen you lot using Shards nobody's ever heard of, and I know you've been holding out on me! It was bad enough with Ed and his stupid summons, but then Lucy just suddenly got that insane Chromatic Storm? When I asked you for Shards you said that you're on your stupid reise and cut off from your family's stash, but when it's Ed or Lucy everything is suddenly different?"

  "It wasn't like that. None of the Shards came from my fam…"

  "Spare me! If I'd known you would be handing out Shards I'd have agreed to sleep with you too. Hell, at least I'd have gotten your little slut in the bargain! Not that it matters now. Knowledge is power, even if it's limited, and knowing you had unheard of Shards was good enough to get me into Hermes, and now my patron will get the rest of it from you, and I'll get to share in whatever they learn!"

  Ingrid opened her mouth to try and get Kevin to listen, but one of the cloaked figures waved their hand, and the party found that they couldn't speak.

  "I must say," a cruel voice said from beneath its cowl, "that I was skeptic when Kevin told me about what you were up to. But we've been watching you since you entered this floor, and I've seen a summon changing its equipment between summonings, and I've seen that storm you were casting, and I'm quite looking forward to learning it from your enslaved spirits once my lovely zombified pitcher plant has absorbed them!"

  Ed had just enough time to see Kevin and the five cloaked figures teleport out of the Labyrinth before the vines holding him whipped up and threw him into one of the pitchers.

  Ed dropped into the dark pitcher, landing in a shallow pool of something.

  You have been poisoned!

  -1 HP/minute

  Duration: 10 minutes

  The poison of the giant pitcher plants was likely the same poison used by the lizardmen hunters, and Ed knew that while standing in the poison and breathing its fumes, it would quickly stack up. Even worse than the poison, however, was the acidic nature of the liquid filling the pitcher, which was dealing an extra five damage every minute.

  Ed knew that his only chance to survive was to get out of the pitcher as fast as possible. The pitcher was too smooth to climb, So Ed knew he had to cut a hole in the tough material.

  Recalling that his goblin's Raceshard was ready to evolve, Ed quickly called up its information screen.

  Goblin

  Tier 0

  Level 5

  Closed

  These small, green humanoids are the weakest of the goblinoid races.

  While nimble and quick, goblins are fairly stupid and lacking in strength.

  +2 Agility

  +3 Dexterity

  Evolution options

  Hobgoblin (tier 1)

  Pyrogoblin (tier 1) requirements unmet

  Cryogoblin (tier 1) requirements unmet

  Aerogoblin (tier 1) requirements unmet

  Lithogoblin (tier 1) requirements unmet

  The only available option was the basic hobgoblin, but Ed didn't have the luxury of waiting to meet the requirements for any of the other options. He quickly chose the hobgoblin option, knowing it would give his summon a +2 bonus to its strength, drank one of his few remaining mana potions, and summoned it, barely noting that its cost had risen to twenty five mana.

  Ed couldn't actually see the hobgoblin, but he knew it was once again wielding its halberd. The hobgoblin immediately started madly slashing the pitcher, and Ed waited anxiously, hoping it would be quick enough to free him. A minute passed, and Ed took six points of damage, gaining another stack to his poisoned status. The poison was now enough to kill Ed unless he drank the one health potion he had, and another stack would spell his doom. It took another half minute for the hobgoblin to tear a small hole in the pitcher, and Ed almost despaired that it wasn't fast enough to save him, when a bolt of pink fire blasted the pitcher from outside. With Lucy's help, the hobgoblin quickly ripped a large enough hole for Ed to escape, and he dropped to the ground, stunned.

  Lucy ran towards Ed when she saw him fall, and she quickly raised his head to feed him a health potion. She looked in a much better state than Ed, having freed herself quickly using a Chromatic Storm. Ed was quickly back on his feet, and Lucy stepped away from him, firing Firebolt after Firebolt at one of the other pitchers. "We have to release the others!" she cried to Ed, who had to drink his last mana potion before he could summon his kobold and send it to join Lucy in attacking the pitchers.

  Ed looked around him, trying to think of a way to speed things up, and his eyes fell on Ingrid's axe, which she dropped when the vines grabbed her. "Aim at the stems!" he shouted at Lucy as he ran to get the axe. "If you can get them on the ground, the hob and I can cut them open!"

  Lucy changed her aim towards the stems holding the pitchers up, and the first quickly dropped to the ground. Ed and the hobgoblin both charged at it, even as Lucy and the kobold started to fire at another. With enough room to properly swing the halberd and axe, the pitcher was quickly opened up, revealing nothing more than an old lizardman skeleton.

  Two more pitchers proved to be empty, and Ed started to fear that his companions were lost, when they opened to fourth to find a nearly dead Ingrid. Ed and his hobgoblin pulled her out of the torn pitcher and he gave her his healing potion, and then went to open the final pitcher, letting Lucy replace him at Ingrid's side. The final pitcher had to contain James, but Ed had very little hope that the healer was still alive. The only hope was that James could cleanse and heal himself fast enough to survive the poison.

  The pitcher finally opened, and Ed found James lying down in the pool of poison, the remains of broken potion bottles hanging from his belt, and knew that he was too late to save his abrasive, yet competent teammate.

  Ed and his hobgoblin pulled James out of the poison, and returned to Ingrid side, where a crying Lucy looked up at him. "She's got six stacks of poison," Lucy sobbed, "and she's down to ten HP." Ed knew what that meant. They only had one health potion left, and it would heal twenty points, which would bring her up to thirty. Ingrid was short thirty health points.

  The undead pitcher plant was inactive without its master to command it, and there weren't many monsters that would dare approach it. Ed held Ingrid's hand in his, his other arm wrapped around a sobbing Lucy. His thoughts kept chasing themselves in circles in his mind as he was trying to think about anything that might change Ingrid's fate. It wasn't just that he'd grown to like the large Shieldmaiden, but also that he knew that without her assistance, Lucy and he would likely never make past the lizardmen and back into the bazaar.

  In his desperation, Ed brought up his status window, look
ing up skill after skill and searching for anything he might have missed, and a minute later he hastily took their last healing potion, uncorked it, and brought it to Ingrid's lips.

  "I can't take it," she panted, barely conscious, "I'm already dead, and it might mean the two of you manage to get out."

  "I might have a way to save you," Ed kept the potion in front of her mouth. "But I need you to have enough time for it to work."

  "Drink it!" Lucy urged her. "If there's even a chance…"

  Ingrid opened her mouth and let Ed feed her the healing potion, and she immediately became more alert. "What can you do, Ed? None of us have any healing skills, and this potion won't be enough."

  "My Summoner class reached level five yesterday. I was aiming to rank up to Horde Summoner, so I left it closed until I could get more summoning Skillshards. But… I also got another rank up option. Something called a 'Phantasmal Spinner'."

  "Phantasmal Spinner?" Lucy asked, furrowing her brow in confusion. "I've never heard of that one."

  "Neither have I. And it's not on the wiki. The only information I have about it is the class description, which says 'The phantasmal Spinner is a Summoner who has learned to bind living humans into his conjured phantasms, giving them power in exchange for their service.'"

  "Sounds vague and suspicious," Ingrid said weakly.

  "Yeah, which is why I didn't consider taking it," Ed agreed. "But a Summoner gets the ability to use mana to heal his summons as part of the aura channel ability at level 5, and if this turns you into one of my summons…"

  "You'll be able to channel your mana to heal her!" Lucy broke into his words.

  "Maybe," Ed said cautiously. "And I have no idea how it would work or what it will do to her."