by Erik Rounds
“Something grabbed my leg!” said Kiwi as she moved back toward the group.
“It wasn’t me,” Pan protested.
“I didn’t think it was. Everyone gather into a circle.”
The group moved together into a circle, facing outward. Actually, Ari and Pan were both facing inside the circle, but to be fair, Kiwi had not specified that they should be facing outward.
“What is it?” Tasha asked. “Did Mr. Caterpillar come back? Is he inviting us over for cocoa and biscuits? I love cocoa and biscuits.”
“What? No, I think we’re being attacked, but I can’t see any monsters. I’m telling you, something grabbed my leg.”
“And I’m t-telling you,” Pan said, “it wasn’t me.”
“Pan, Ari, turn around and face outside the circle. Keep an eye out for monsters.”
For nearly a minute, the group watched the bog. “There’s nothing there,” said Ari, “nothing but dry sand as far as the eye can see.”
“Okay,” Kiwi said, “let’s start moving again. Stick together, though, just in case.”
They moved together as a group. After a few steps, Tasha felt her feet crunch down against something. It happened again after her next step.
Tasha looked at the bog water apprehensively. “Guys, I think there’s something crunchy under the water. I suspect tortilla chips. The crunchy kind, not the lady-friendly kind.”
“If it’s tortilla chips,” Trista said, “can you slip one of them into my jar? Maybe some salsa too.”
“Slimon, can you see what it is from under the water?” Kiwi said.
The sound of burbling coming from the water was the only response. Since Slimon was underwater, his normal method of conversation would be ineffective.
Tasha continued moving. Each step sounded like she was walking on hollow eggshells. Less than a minute later, Tasha felt something grab her leg, and she was pulled to the bottom of the bog. Being hit by any attack removed the confuse debuff, so she instantly came to her senses.
The glowing image of a skeletal wraith appeared in the water before her. Blue flames hovered in the apparition’s otherwise empty eye sockets. It was wreathed in a glowing tattered white cloak.
Ghast (Level 25)
Remnants of the once living, made animate by spite and envy.
ATK 33Mag ATK 41
DEF 8Mag DEF 18
It wasn’t attacking her, but it was holding her under the water. Along the bog floor were countless skulls that Tasha had been crushing beneath her feet. Why had she ever thought they were tortilla chips?
Most of her breath had been expelled when she gasped as the wraith pulled her under. She tried to equip her gunblade but couldn’t see the heads-up interface properly.
Finally, after several seconds of failed attempts, she was able to hit the equip button, and the gunblade appeared in her hand. Swinging it at the ghoul under the water ended up being futile. The water resistance pushed against the sword, slowing its speed. The sword did penetrate his ghostly cloak, but it passed right through it, dealing no damage.
The rest of Tasha’s breath left her, and panic began to set in. She waved her arms and legs wildly. At some point her gunblade fell to the bottom of the bog. She must have dropped it while struggling against the monster. She tried swinging her fists at it wildly. The third strike connected against his skull but only did one heart of damage. Tasha wasn’t a hand-to-hand fighter, and her strikes were clearly ineffective.
Just as she was about to pass out for want of air, she saw lines of distortion pass through the water, one after another. Pan must be firing at it with her machine gun. It was lucky for Tasha that the gun seemed to work underwater. Some of the bullets impacted the skull, which shattered into pieces, and the flames that were its eyes vanished into nothing as the bones and cloak dissolved into mist. Ari’s hand grabbed her and pulled her above the water.
“Now is no time for a swim, Tasha. You should change into your swimming suit first.”
Tasha coughed out some bog water that had entered her lungs and drew in one breath after another. The confuse debuff returned as air entered her lungs. She was down to four heart containers, but Kiwi was already casting a healing spell. Tasha felt the healing effect wash over her.
“I… think I left my swimming suit back on Earth,” Tasha said. She reached under the water and retrieved her gunblade. The battle menu said that seven of the ghast enemies remained.
Once she knew what to look for, the battle wasn’t too difficult. The only advantage that the ghasts had against her was the element of surprise. She took out several ghasts as they were ganging up on her by stabbing them in the glowy bits where their eyes should have been. Sure, she might have accidentally attacked Ari and Kiwi a few times, but they couldn’t in all fairness expect her to get everything right.
When the battle ended, their party had killed thirty ghasts. Slimon actually did most of the work since he could move swiftly in the water, and the ghasts were not easily able to grasp his slippery surface.
They took several minutes to recover from their near-death encounter. After a moment, Kiwi walked up to Tasha. “Tasha, we need to get going. We have a long way to go before it gets dark.”
Several hours later, they were attacked by a new type of insubstantial translucent ghostlike monster that glided through the air.
Bog Wight (Level 27)
Swords won’t work. You can’t slay something that is already dead.
ATK 0Mag ATK 50
DEF 20Mag DEF 38
They were insubstantial, so their weapons did little more than pass through the creatures. Fortunately, Slimon and Kiwi were able to use recovery magic on them. Since they were undead, recovery magic had the opposite effect on them. Healing spells caused the wraiths to receive damage and become substantial and momentarily vulnerable to physical attacks.
Although the creatures looked fearsome, once their patterns were revealed, defeating them was fairly easy.
Finally the party defeated the enemy wights. The confused party members had dealt more damage to one another than the enemy, but every time Pan accidentally shot someone other than a wight, Slimon would heal them up right away. The only real danger was of Slimon or Kiwi running out of mana.
They encountered one more set of bog wights before the sky began to darken. It was time to find shelter for the night. Finding a large hill that was above the water level, Kiwi activated a portable campsite and set up a large tent. Since they were just above the miasma, the group returned to their normal levels of sanity. The campsite spell repelled both mobs and wild animals, but Tasha was especially pleased to discover that it repelled insects.
For the first time in her travels in Etheria, Tasha was able to make out the shape of the campsite’s influence. The sphere’s surface was made visible by a mass of insects that were buzzing right on the surface, trying to get in. It was like a dome composed entirely of bugs.
As Tasha watched it, fascinated, she heard a sharp squeaky voice. It was coming from the jar that she had tied to her waist. “Hey, morons! Hurry up and let me out! The jar that you trapped me in is full of bog water.”
She looked at the jar. Some of the water had leaked through the air holes, and it was about three quarters of the way full.
“Oh, and by the way, your jar lacks basic bathroom facilities. This is a violation of my rights as a prisoner of war. We let the princess go to the bathroom when she was our prisoner.”
Tasha wasn’t buying it. “If I let you out, you’ll just try to escape. You might even try to kill us in our sleep.”
“No, I won’t! I mean, not necessarily. Not right away. I need you idiots to help me survive this bog of death that you’ve dragged me into.”
Tasha thought for a moment. “I suppose we could give you a thimble or small box or something to go in. Maybe a smaller jar?”
“I don’t think we have any of those things,” Ari said.
“Listen,” Twinklebottom said, “for the time being, I acknow
ledge that I’m your prisoner, and I promise not to run away from you kidnappers. I’ll even go back into this jar… after you’ve cleaned it up a bit. Ninja’s promise, okay? I just really need to use the bathroom.”
“Just let her out,” said Ari, “her whining is getting annoying.”
“Okay, fine,” Tasha said and opened the lid of the jar.
“So long, suckers!” the fairy cried in triumph as she flew into the distance.
“Did any of us not see this coming?” Tasha asked aloud. Nobody answered.
They spent the next half hour enjoying dinner together. Just as she was chewing a mouthful of beef wellington, a high-pitched sound rang out over the bog. It was getting louder. Tasha stood up and opened her inventory.
From out of the darkness, Trista Twinklebottom flew directly at her screaming, “Help! They’re going to kill me!”
She was being pursued by a large number of bog wights swarming behind her in the air. She slammed through the campground area, causing a disturbance in the bug dome that surrounded the campsite. While she was flying toward the group, Tasha removed her bug catching net from her inventory and swiped it through the air, catching the fairy in the net once again.
The wraiths impacted the surface of the campground effect, exploding into purple clouds of mist. Tasha grabbed the fairy through the net and pushed her back into her bottle, securing the lid on top.
“I hope you had a nice bathroom break.”
“I hope you rot in hell,” was Trista’s reply.
“I do have some good news.”
“Really? Did you all catch some incurable illness and you only have minutes to live before you die painful, agonizing deaths? Oh, please tell me that’s the good news.”
“Even better! We found a smaller jar after all. Princess Kiwi had one; don’t ask me why. You can use it to go to the bathroom from now on, and we won’t have to let you out. Here you go.”
She opened the jar lid slightly and tossed the tiny jar in. It rolled to a stop on the jar’s surface.
“I hate you all,” said Trista, “just in case you didn’t know that already. It’s just nice to say that every so often. Some things shouldn’t be left unsaid.”
“Good night, Trista,” Tasha said, setting her jar against the side of the tent.
That night Tasha played The Neverending Story on her enlarged smartphone for the group. That turned out to be a big mistake. Pan started crying at the point when Artax died in the Swamp of Sadness. It was fortunate that they had left Denver behind.
♦ ♦ ♦
The second day was much like the first. Tasha kept trying to chase down bemonocled caterpillars. It was only thanks to Slimon’s eternal vigilance that they were able to keep moving in the right direction.
Whenever Tasha was in the confuse state, she was unaware of her condition. She could see the confuse icon, but it never really registered. Her nonsensical actions always seemed perfectly rational.
The most notable encounter on her second day in the Bog of Most Likely Death was with the giant bog toad. The battle was going about as well as could be expected. Half of the party’s attacks ended in friendly fire, but Slimon continued to heal them up and gradually, the toad’s hearts were winding down.
Once the toad reached ten hearts, it unleashed a new attack. It snapped out its tongue, which stuck to Tasha’s spidersilk armor. It then sucked her in and swallowed her in one gulp. Luckily, the party was able to finish the toad off before it completely digested her.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” Tasha sobbed as she tried to get the toad’s digestive fluids out of her hair.
At the end of the second day, they set up camp on a hill that overlooked a clearing set against a cluster of trees. Tasha stood outside the tent, watching the movements of Entropy in the night sky. He was a tiny flowing thread that spun and twisted in patterns.
She was all set to enter the tent and start up a movie, but just as she was about to move from her position, Entropy froze. Tasha could feel his gaze, and a sensation of impending dread overcame her. It was as though her mind had been shattered into thousands of fragments, each focused on the sky snake in primal terror.
She remained captivated in his glare for nearly a minute before he averted his gaze. When he turned his attention away from her, Tasha shuddered involuntarily and entered the tent as quickly as she could. The eyes of a malevolent god had been cast upon her, and she didn’t like it one bit.
On the third day, the bog opened up into a flatland. Plant life no longer surrounded them as they had before. For the first time, Tasha laid eyes on the destination. In the distance, the Spiral Tower was a thin needle that impaled the ground. As they continued their march through the flatland toward the tower, the poisonous miasma diminished.
By that evening, they’d cleared the bog and reached the base of the tower.
Chapter 39
The Spiral Tower
The adventurers stood at the base of the Spiral Tower, gazing at its form in the crimson sky. The last slivers of evening’s light vanished under the horizon.
The screw-shaped tower ascended high above, intersecting with a circular metal plate on the ground. Waves of blue energy circled the outside of the tower along the spiraling protrusions, ultimately feeding into the ground.
“Creative Director, that thing’s enormous!” said Kiwi.
“That’s what she said,” Tasha replied automatically.
Ari looked at Tasha, confused. “That’s what who said?”
“Oh, crap. I just introduced ‘That’s what she said’ jokes to Etheria, didn’t I? Just pretend I didn’t say anything. What are those bits of light that circle the tower?”
“It’s raw healing energy from the Orb of Life,” Kiwi said. “The energy travels through the coils and into the planet. Lines of energy carry it from here to save points across the globe.”
Tasha stepped onto the metal plate and circled the tower. The spiral protrusions seemed to be ascending as she circled around it.
“Look,” said Pan, pointing.
A larger-than-average save point rested on the edge of the plate on one side, and there was a large wooden shack next to the save point. Smoke was coming out of the chimney, and there was a wooden sign with an engraved image of a bed set upon it, indicating that it was a hotel. Tasha approached the save point. The floating floppy diskette faded away as she set foot on the save point platform. Her health was restored, and she received the familiar notification that her progress had been saved and the new save point had been registered as her continue point.
She approached the inn and opened the door. Just inside the building was a counter with three NPCs, each with the telltale words floating over their head. The bearded man was a merchant NPC. Tasha spent what little GP she had saved up on consumables while Pan resupplied on ammunition. The lady next to him was a hotel NPC. They booked a room for the night.
The third NPC was a dwarf wearing a chef hat as tall as he was. This NPC sold prepared meals. The cost of the food was lower than the cost of consumables, but it had to be eaten inside the hotel or it would vanish. This fell in line with the video game conventions that she was familiar with. They ordered various dishes and drinks before retiring for the evening.
After they had all awakened and been fed, the group approached the tower. There was a single small door into the tower facing the save point. Though Tasha couldn’t make out any hinges, the door vanished as she approached, allowing ingress into the tower.
They stepped through the doorway into the portal interior.
Now entering dungeon: The Spiral Tower
Recommended levels: 29–33, parties of 3–6
Caution: Some higher-than-usual-level mobs exist within the dungeon. Avoidance is recommended.
Floor 1/35
The air was cool and damp against her skin. There were no torches to provide illumination, instead the walls were covered with a luminous moss that permeated the tower’s interior. The sound of insects and wi
ldlife filled the tower. Butterflies fluttered to and fro. A squirrel dashed into view around the corner before fleeing into the distance.
Tasha didn’t know what kind of a dungeon to expect. The dungeons that she’d visited before had a distinct theme. First there had been the Temple of the Player, which had followed a temple theme, albeit a poorly designed one. Then there was the grotto dungeon, which followed a rabbit theme. The Spiral Tower housed the Orb of Life, and there was animal and plant life all around her.
Tasha wondered whether the insects and wildlife were mobs as well. Would the squirrels and rabbits attack if she got too close?
The entrance faced into a corridor that extended to the left and right and circled inward, following the outside of the tower.
“Left or right?” Tasha wondered aloud.
Aralogos pointed to the left. “Let’s start mapping out the dungeon. Keep on your guard. Everything here is probably a product of mist, so we should assume that anything you see is out to kill us.”
Ari wasn’t that far off the mark. Five minutes into their exploration of the dungeon, a saber-toothed squirrel jumped out of the shadows and bit her on the neck. Fortunately, Pan was able to dislodge it with a well-placed shot from her handgun at point-blank range. The squirrel faded into mist as it died. This, if nothing else, was proof that the wildlife in the tower couldn’t be trusted.
The rest of that morning was spent mapping out the first floor. It was a labyrinth, the hallways curving circles around the center in angles that increased the closer they were to the center.
Over time, Tasha had begun to notice spiral imagery everywhere they went. There were glowing spiral patterns on the walls and floors, and the general layout of the maze could be described as a spiral, the symbol for life and rebirth—at least that’s how Kiwi explained it. Since the tower was where the Orb of Life was kept, it made sense for the dungeon to be based around that element.
The monsters tended to be around level 30, which was matched up with Tasha’s own level. Pan and Ari were both higher level than her at 31 and 33 respectively.