by R J Triveri
Three days and nights it took, but bit by bit, it had isolated the issue as only it could. The Unum fought back and removed its opponent, but the damage was done.
The Unum’s control over his world had been compromised.
The Approach
In truth, over an hour had passed before Athos, Trina, and Torrent were on their way to the market district. As they left the guild house and had a near miss, the group learned that the presence of the Suits had grown more than Sammi could have actually conveyed. To his surprise, more than quite a few were hunters. As they slunk through the city’s shadows, Athos noticed more bows, animal companions, and similar clothes to the point where he could pick out a hunter class among any group of people by the time they reached the edge of the city.
Whatever worry he had melted when they reached the burned-out edge of the business district and saw Sally’s face peering down from the top of a building. Her head was wreathed in the sun in such a way that it almost hurt to look up at her, but he did it anyways.
With a smile, she jumped from the roof to the floor with ease in front of the group. “Greetings, fellow dungeon runners.”
Athos opened his mouth, but Torrent was the first to speak up. “Holy shit! Did you build that?”
Sally smiled, literally testing the metal of her new appendage. “You have no idea how long it took to figure this out.” As she finished, she turned to Athos, looking a little guilty. “I wanted to surprise you with it.”
Well, she succeeded. A slight smile played on his face as he gave her a shrug. “It was just a bit disarming, that’s all.”
It earned him a slight chuckle as she looked from him to the rest of the group. “This is it?”
He nodded. “These are some of the few remaining members of the Moon’s Aura. The tall one is Trina, the other is Torrent.”
She studied the two a bit before she finally answered. “As long as they can keep us alive, they’re alright in my book.”
“Likewise, Athos has told us a bit about you, but not nearly enough it seems,” Trina explained looking from the metal arm to her clothing. “Do you have armor?”
She nodded, patting her neck. “A reinforcement amulet to start and some strike armor for when we arrive. It isn’t really the best to travel in.”
Athos remembered the armor well enough to agree with her on that as Torrent interrupted his thoughts again. “Not bad.”
Sally seemed offended as she turned to him and quipped. “Not bad? Says the guy that’s only staying because I was willing to come. I should be saying that to you.”
From the look on his face, the knight was surprised, but he shook his head. “Maybe, but really I just wanted to meet you after all Athos had said about you.”
The look she gave Athos at the moment wasn’t the most flattering, or safe in his eyes, as she spoke. “And what did our friend say about me?”
Apparently, the way his voice carried, Torrent thought the same. “Mostly that he screwed up a lot when it came to you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and since I like the guy, I wanted to see what all his fuss was about.” Torrent pretended to study Sally before he answered again. “As of right now, I think I like my odds with you.”
“Your odds are always better with me.” Athos wanted to shoot Torrent where he stood but restrained himself because of her smile. “Well, it would have been easier if he just accepted it when I said it was my fault or said something to me about it.” She seemed almost bothered by it but smiled as she continued after making eye contact with Athos again. “To make it worse, it took him weeks to properly ask me to the Starlight Festival.”
On second thought, maybe he would still shoot him. Torrent chuckled, Trina laughed, and Athos felt rather silly if only for a moment as he finally spoke up again. “I really appreciate you coming, Sally.”
“You asked. You’d do the same for me or for Dad, and, despite everything, he would too,” Sally said with a smile. “Besides, I’ve never gotten to do a real run before, and I trust you to get me through it, Athos.”
Trina saw Athos blush a bit at the compliment and decided to save him from ruining the moment. “You shouldn’t have much to worry about once we’re inside. The Dryad’s Forest is a lower-rank dungeon for the most part. Even without Athos’s perk, there shouldn’t be much trouble, and if his idea works, well, it’s going to be pretty easy.”
The alchemical arm nodded. “Besides surviving the night.”
As if she were now in charge, Sally opened her map and checked the distance. “It’s not too far if we have a wagon or something, but I doubt we’ll find one out here for rent.” She motioned around her as she spoke. “It’s a good thing I come with a few perks of my own.” From her inventory, she materialized four of the same circular disks he had seen Walter use before. “I made a few more of these to get the show on the road.”
Tossing them among the park, Athos was the first to speak up. “How’d you know we’d need these?”
She smiled a guilty smile as she gave him a pat on the shoulder. “It wasn’t exactly that I knew we’d need them,” came the admission. “Really, it was more so my dad couldn’t come find me easily. It’s the entire supply I made for him. My mom still has a pair, but she knows what I’m doing and trusts me enough not to stop me.”
The alchemical arm turned the disk over in his hands a few times before he spoke his mind. “You’re a bit devious, Sally. Did you know that?”
She just continued to grin and nodded. “Why else would you like me?”
Trina sighed as she interrupted Athos’s next words. “If you two are done, we need to get moving. You’ll have plenty of time to talk when this is over.” She turned to Sally soon after those words. “Can you fight?”
The mechanist nodded attempting to flex what muscle should be within the mechanical arm. “The arm itself is a multi-tool, so I’m good there if I have to be.”
That didn’t seem to satisfy her question. “But can you fight?”
Sally nodded. “At my worst, I can fight about as well as Athos can.”
Torrent chuckled a bit. “You know he’s gotten pretty good at holding his own.”
“And you don’t think I can? I might not be a professional, but I think I can handle myself as well as anyone else,” the girl stressed before running her metal fist into her fleshed palm.
“Children!” Trina interrupted rather loudly as she got between them before Sally could follow through with her demonstration. “We aren’t the enemy. Now, take those jump disks, focus on the Forest of the Dryad, and jump. Sally, I would suggest changing into your armor before the jump. With Athos loading his instance, the inside won’t be that bad, but we have no idea what’s waiting on the other side.”
She nodded, feeling a bit embarrassed by the look of things, and opened her inventory windows. It only took a moment for the armor to overlay her form, almost identical to the first time Athos had seen it. Golden, form fitting, and stylized after the insects, the armor soon blinked into existence around her. Five large, buzzing drones materialized soon after, following their queen into battle.
“That’s more like it,” Torrent joked giving her a pat on the shoulder. At least, he did until the drones turned towards him with stingers drawn. “At least you’ve got the look down if nothing else.”
Athos fingered the ring of protection he’d equipped earlier. It would have to do for now. Maybe if he kept going with this kind of thing… he shook the thought from his head as he watched Sally not punch Torrent for his words. This was it. One way or another, this would be his last dungeon crawl. If anything, at least things were going more with his plan now. Despite the happiness that bore its head, one thing still bothered him.
There wasn’t going to be a second attempt.
Turning to him, Sally took a few steps over to the alchemical arm lost in thought. “Something on your mind?”
He shook his head as he opened his inventory window and brought the disk back to life. “J
ust thinking.”
“Well, there isn’t much to think about. We go in, we save the city, and the hero gets the girl something nice from the festival,” the girl explained giving him a bit of a friendly shove. “Not much to it at all.”
“That’s the easy part,” Athos smiled at the half-joke as she gave him a slight push. “Once we’re in, I just don’t know how to make it all happen.”
Sally let a thin smile cross her face before she leaned in just enough for him to be the only one that could hear him. “Believe in yourself, Athos.” The mechanist pulled away and in the same moment, it seemed that her smile grew more open and infectious. “It’s amazing what some confidence does for others.”
“Alright,” he nodded. Her smile had become his as he addressed the two others. “Like Trina said, let’s get moving.”
The others nodded as Athos shifted his attention to the crystal disk and tapped it. As if it were a single action, everyone seemed to have done it at the same time and heard the same message inside their heads.
Where would you like to go?
“The Forest of the Dryad,” Athos and the others repeated.
Location accepted. Please prepare for transport.
Corrupt
After using the disk earlier and the gateway inside the dungeon, the feeling didn’t throw him off as much as the first two times had. Really, it just felt like a carnival ride at this point that had a productive side effect. As the world and his friends came into view, the familiar feeling of oh shit passed through his mind. One thing he hadn’t considered is what might be waiting for them as they arrived, and, as he looked around, Athos wasn’t very happy with what greeting them when they arrived.
The world was scoured in a way that even Thor’s Hammer couldn’t have done. Instead of a burned world, the very code of the world was exposed in places around them. Fractals and pixels of what used to be were lingering around tree trunks and the tips of flowers giving off an unearthly, unnatural glow, even by Inciperian standards. As he peered past the outer boarder, the degradation only seemed to be getting worse.
“What the hell…” Athos said watching the glittering fractals as a few more bled from the trees and left behind their alien beauty. Turning to his friends, he couldn’t help himself. “What is this?”
There were no Suits, no beasts, no sounds. The world was literally silent except for his voice. It was as if Athos had become selectively deaf to the rest of the world.
Trina was the first to move close enough to examine what was left of the nearest tree. She reached out a hand to touch it, but nothing happened. She pressed against it and nothing happened that wouldn’t have normally occurred when she touched a tree. “I have no idea, but it looks familiar.”
“Could it be an effect of the world boss?”
Again, the martial artist shook her head as she brushed her hand against the glow of trunk as if she was trying to brush the blurring light away. “A world boss can’t do something like this, Athos. They manipulate the terrain with their presence seamlessly, but this… it looks like it’s decaying, not changing.”
Sally’s steps brought her next to the tree to examine it. “It isn’t decay. The glow only lasts for a few seconds. You don’t see the textures and pixels… shed?” She weighed the word in her mind before confirming her new name for the event. “That seems to be right. It’s shedding.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” came the comment from Torrent.
“No, it doesn’t,” the metal-armed woman agreed before turning to Athos. “What do you want to do, Athos?”
“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” he pointed out. “If this is going to work, we have to get moving before nightfall.”
She nodded before Trina interrupted. “Then we need to get going.”
Looking from side to side, Athos took the first steps deeper into the forest. As if the world suddenly lurched under his feet, he fell forward.
“Athos!”
He couldn’t tell who had yelled it, but as he got to his feet, he noticed the world had changed. The decay within a five-foot radius faded. The shedding reversed in his presence, and the world in all directions of that five feet was natural once more. “What the hell?”
Running to join him, Sally and Torrent were just as surprised to see the radius extend around them.
“This is… different,” Torrent pointed out as he reached out for a tree then pulled back to watch the world bend to his presence.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trina agreed as she pushed forward, watching as the progress behind her was undone. Piece by piece, it started to come together as they tested the boundaries inside of the shallowest part of the dungeon. “It’s Athos’s instance.”
“What?” Sally asked watching the flower one of her drones brought warp its texture as it brought it in and out of the group’s radius, testing the boarders of instance.
“Whatever is affecting the forest is being reset. As we’re here, it’s trying to reload Athos’s instance, but it can’t,” Trina explained. “Well, not completely. It seemed to only be loaded where we are.”
“Because we’re the only thing that matters for the instance?” Athos asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. Your data isn’t corrupted, so maybe it’s loading from you, rather than the world. I don’t know. Maybe you hold a small part of the instance because it is keyed to you, so only a small portion of it is uncorrupted?”
He shrugged, made about as much sense as everything else today. “If you’re right, what will that mean for us?”
“Well, if I’m right, that means this isn’t going to be nearly as easy as we’d hoped.”
“Shoulda known Athos couldn’t keep things simple,” Sally pointed out before finishing her tests. “It’s a straight cylinder around us. No bulges anywhere. It tops out at treetop height.”
“So, the top of the dungeon,” Trina asked, and Sally nodded, “Well, that seems to support the theory.”
Things are never easy, Athos noted as he took a few steps forward. “That doesn’t change anything. We need to make it to the center. The dryads have a stage and sleeping area.” As he spoke, he found the next words choking in his throat, but after a moment, they made their way out. “Do what you have to do. They’re pained, enraged, and hurting in ways we can’t imagine. I don’t know if being a Child of the Forest will still work with their changes, but don’t rely on it.”
“Yes, sir!” Torrent exclaimed. While giving him a joking salute, he garnered himself a pair of sour looks from the pair of women. “What?”
Sally sighed and extended her drones out to keep as close a watch as she throughout safe. “Just keep your eyes on him.”
“I’d say the same if you didn’t already do it,” he teased before her gaze sharpened more than his own blade. He recoiled a bit and sighed. “You’re no fun to tease. You know that?” If only for a moment, the elemental blade pouted before he drew his blade, and his clothing shifted back into armor.
Trina followed soon after as she ground a fist into her hand. “She’s right. If we lose him, the instance ends, and we lose any chance we had at making this insane plan work.”
“Yeah, because that’s the worst possible outcome from this,” Sally pointed out as the group began their trek towards the center of the forest.
Her looked turned a bit more stern as she addressed the girl. “You know what I mean.”
Sally looked to sharpen her tongue before she took a moment and swallowed. Her posture slunk for a moment before she looked back up at Trina. “I’m not used to hunting like this. I don’t always think about things before I say them.”
Trina simply gave her a solemn smile. “You’ll get used to it.”
Athos hoped she would as the group pressed forward. It was almost surreal the way the world warped around them, but it would only last as long as the illusion of safety remained in Athos’s mind. The group only traveled a few more feet in before Torrent’s voice ra
ng out to the group.
“Straight ahead, boys and girls.”
Straight ahead, a pair of sumac beasts lashed out towards something, but it wasn’t exactly what Athos expected. Another set of sumac beasts were on the receiving end of the first. The same shedding that had affected the trees were also affecting the Wild Ones. Whatever it was doing wasn’t acceptable to the others. Nature seemed to have its own agenda here and wouldn’t stand for whatever it was.
“Should we bother with it?” Athos asked as the solid, plantlike whips of one group collided with the glowing bodies of the other.
Moments passed as the fight continued before Trina spoke. “Let’s ignore them for now. We don’t know how that shedding affects creatures.”
They all seemed in silent agreement as they gave the fighters a wide breath. From their distance, they watched as the fight continued until the shed creatures released any reason they had and pounced. The shedding’s glow extending as they burst into data segments against the normal sumac beasts rather than the normal pixelation. They shuddered under the strange action before the noise that burst forth seemed to ionize the area and spread the shed further in some perverted orb of light.
“That… doesn’t seem quite right,” Torrent pointed out as their attention shifted towards the four. “Shit.”
Pulling out Magus on instinct, Athos quickly loaded his Pyrothium and focused on a cry of, “Critical Shot!” In a growing orb of pure heat, the creatures cried out before they vanished back into whatever part of the code that they came from to the alchemical arm’s great relief.
“Nice shot,” Sally said with a slight smile on her face. “Good to see your reaction time improving.”
Not that he had done much practicing since the last time he had used that skill, but it was nice to have the compliment. “Thanks, but it’s just sort of second nature now.”
“Not sure how good that is,” she commented before sending the drones to collect the loot to have it distributed through the group. “We’re lucky they were already weakened though.”