by Nikita Thorn
The demon threw out another glob of black slime, this time directing it in the middle of the obake troops. Kiku showed her teeth as one of her ghost unit members instantly dispersed into a puff of smoke.
Another explosion went off near Yamura’s unit, knocking two of its members onto the ground. One of them let out a yell when he landed in the middle of a nearby poison pool. His voice was cut short as he went still.
Kentaro let out a horrified gasp.
“You can’t heal over pools of poison either?” said Ippei. Presumably, that had been what the houshi was trying to do.
“This is a next-level kind of bad,” muttered Yamura as he motioned his unit to retreat.
The explosions themselves did not do a lot of damage, but the knockback was quite severe. And with the left side of the room quickly filling with poison pools, movement was getting dangerous.
“Okay, this way!” shouted Seiki.
Breaking out in a Slide, he led his unit further clockwise around the pot around a large patch of liquid that had gathered enough mass to start flowing over the ground. Seiki only now noticed that the room sloped slightly downward from the middle towards the edges, which meant the longer they waited, the more difficult positioning was going to be.
As the Potionmaster turned to splash more poison toward Seiki, Yamura managed to get a Focused Shot in from behind. In order not to set off any of the poison pools on the ground, the ryoushi had used a shorter blow, which was not part of his Shinshioka set. The arrow struck the demon squarely in the middle of his back, and Koharu let out a cry of approval. The demon did not even flinch and simply turned toward him.
“Common weapons don’t hurt me, boy.” He laughed, launching another glob of poison at the ryoushi, forcing him to retreat.
“This is like paint dodgeball.” Mairin transformed back just to say that, before continuing to dodge the pools and sneaking in short heals at the group whenever she could.
Koharu took a step back with her unit. “What’s that?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never played paint dodgeball,” said the kitsune.
“It’s more like… don’t cross the beams,” muttered Kentaro as he continued to move about in order to get a straight path toward his heal targets that was not blocked by poison.
Seiki realized this was a clear hint to what the challenge was all about. Light-forged weapons had a major drawback against the explosive pools, but were at the same time the only things that could injure the demon himself.
Ippei was trying to sneak in from behind, but the demon spun around and splashed more of the black liquid at him, blocking his path.
“How are you supposed to hit the demon but not the poison?” said Yamura.
All of a sudden, Seiki realized he had an answer to that.
“Melee,” he said. Close-range physical combat had an advantage, since it was much more controllable. The black substance was starting to cover the ground around the tub, forming a barrier arc around the Potionmaster, and Seiki saw that once it connected into a full circle the demon would be completely unreachable.
“I’m going to have to take this hit,” Seiki shouted.
Willing his unit to keep running further on, he broke out from the group and dashed straight at the demon. Guessing what he was doing, Ippei yelled something to Kentaro about a safe location. After a second, the houshi repositioned himself, and Seiki felt both a Soothe and a Ward on him.
Seiki let loose a Slide through the slimy ground straight toward the Potionmaster. He winced as his feet sank into the sludge, which bit him with freezing cold and rapidly ate away his health. Even through protective gear, Seiki felt numbness creeping up his legs. Kentaro’s double damage-reduction effect was, however, slowing down his health loss from an instant dip to a gradual decline.
As expected, as he got close, the demon spun around and flung the poison straight toward him. Seiki gritted his teeth as he stepped forward and Upslashed with his Hikari.
At very close range, the wind effect pushed the poisonous mass out of its original trajectory, but at the same time also broke it into tiny droplets that splashed onto his arms like a thousand icy pinpricks. The Ward had been used up, and the spray of poison dropped his health to below half. His Hikari glowed white as black splotches landed on it, and Seiki braced himself against the close-range explosion that threw him backward.
From somewhere, Ippei let out a Shout, and as Seiki fell, he twisted his body and stretched out his left hand out in time for the Crimsonfire Tekko to block the damage from a pool of poison he was about to fall in.
It was still a lot of damage to take in a short time, and as he rolled aside onto a safe, dry patch on the floor, he realized his arms had gone numb to the point that he could no longer lift his sword. A white fox flashed by him, restoring a large portion of his health, but feeling was still slow to return to his limbs.
At this point, however, it no longer mattered.
Scrambling onto one knee and letting loose a very long second Slide, which he had traded about a third of his health for, Seiki got himself out of range before the demon’s second splash of poison could punish him. Glancing up at his unit that was running in a wide curve around the demon, Seiki drew a quick guiding path on the ground and shouted, “Stun!”
While the Potionmaster had his attention on Seiki, his unit had taken this chance to close in from behind, where the ground had not been completely covered in poison. At his order, the four villagers stepped out and struck forward with their Sweeping Blade formation, four swords catching the demon on his chest in quick succession, sending him flying.
It was a perfect connect, as Seiki had been aiming well. The Demonic Potionmaster lost his grip on the metal oar as he was knocked over the poison barrier that he had put down around himself.
The oar clanked on the ground, the impact flinging out residue poison, which landed on the ground with tiny hisses. Rumi let out a cry as stray drops splashed across her side, and Genta grabbed her before she collapsed and dragged her away.
“Get out of there,” Seiki shouted to his unit.
Ippei had been waiting where the Potionmaster dropped and instantly closed in with his unit of nine. Aiming for as much burst damage as possible, the samurai let out another Battle Shout, before the group descended on the demon with swift slashing cuts from all sides. Yamura and the obake, who had also run around to the other side of the room, cried out to their units to unload all they had on the demon.
“Watch out for Phase Two,” said Ippei, as the Potionmaster let out a loud, blood-curdling screech and fell to the ground.
Phase Two, however, never came.
Demonic Potionmaster slain. 732 XP gained.
The samurai, his sword raised in a defensive stance, stared in confusion as the demon remained a black lump onto the ground in front of him.
The sudden silence was surprisingly loud.
Koharu let out a deep breath. “The power of good strategy?”
Perhaps because they had figured out the challenge relatively early on, even when the encounter itself had been filled with much panic, the group had suffered little overall damage, and only a few troop members were missing from Yamura’s and Kiku’s units.
Mairin popped back into a human girl beside Seiki. “Good thinking,” she said.
Carefully, Ippei bent down to disperse the body, which exploded in a puff of black smoke.
“No loot?” The samurai looked more suspicious than disappointed.
On the ground, where the demon had been, was a single pile of dark-colored substance.
After glancing toward his unit to make sure they were all right, Seiki sheathed his Hikari and walked over to his friend. “Maybe you can do something with Ancient Kiyomeru Seaweed?” He read the label and turned to ask Kentaro, who shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s a standard herb.” The houshi joined them by the pile of spoils. “And it’s marked Instance Item.”
&
nbsp; “Okay,” said Yamura. “Guess we’re done with this room?”
The black substance in the tub gurgled once, quietly, but since it had been silent all this time they all involuntarily winced as they turned to look.
The ooze, mud-thick and nearly gleaming, started moving as a large single bubble formed under its surface, pushing up the thick liquid like an expanding balloon.
Ippei’s eyes widened in horror. With a wave of his hand, his unit rushed toward the tub.
The bubble popped in a loud and very wet slosh, just as Ippei yelled, “Brace!”
Seiki dived out of the way, just as Ippei’s incoming unit took positions around the tub and raised their arms in a defensive pose.
The black liquid exploded upward, and splashed out all around. Seiki glanced back in time to see that the samurai Brace formation seemed to create a temporary invisible wall around the tub. Most of the poison was contained within, but unfortunately it did not save three of Ippei’s men nearest to the explosion from immediately dropping lifelessly to the floor. Around the room, various voices yelped as they had been caught by surprise.
Saburo was staring at a tiny spot of black on his right arm, which had taken almost half his health.
“Don’t touch it,” whispered Rumi. She tore off part of her sleeve and wiped off the black liquid from the boy’s arm. Saburo yelped in pain, but his health immediately stopped decreasing.
Yamura was cursing rapidly. Two of his men had fallen from an unfortunate angle of the exploding liquid.
Without allowing them time to recover, the pot gurgled again.
“Okay, okay,” said Mairin as she remembered something. “The demon guy was putting in some herbs.”
“Right.” Recalling what he had seen from their short scouting mission, Seiki got to his feet and ran over to where the demon had fallen earlier. “This?” he said as he grabbed a handful of Ancient Kiyomeru Seaweed from the ground.
There was no time to deliberate, and Seiki ran in and threw the dark violet flakes into the tub, wincing in apprehension as the herb shriveled on the bulging surface of the poison.
Poison pot temporarily neutralized.
The bubble stopped expanding, and Seiki let out a little breath of relief. “I think it’s wor—”
1 Medicine XP gained.
Seiki’s forehead creased.
“What?” said Yamura.
“I just got one XP in Medicine.”
Ippei looked uneasy. “What? Is this a joke?”
A single XP was nothing, but considering that Seiki originally had a laughable amount of it, it still constituted a third of his current total. A fact he would have found quite amusing in any other circumstances. “I think we’re supposed to… neutralize the poison.”
“Can’t we just run away?” said Koharu.
Seiki was tempted to agree with her and be done with the nefarious substance, but upon further consideration they agreed it might be a bad idea to leave a chemical weapon of mass destruction unattended.
The tub gurgled again.
Ippei cussed as he glanced around, and Seiki quickly added in another handful of seaweed.
“Guys, there’s this chest,” shouted Kentaro from the edge of the room. The houshi had made his way toward the large wooden box, which Seiki had completely forgotten about. Throwing it open, Kentaro rummaged through its content. “It’s got some ingredients in it.”
The liquid started expanding again, and Ippei fetched some more of the ancient seaweed from the ground. “This is not going to last forever,” said the samurai as he noticed that the herb pile was not self-replenishing. “Anymore… uh, Ancient Kiyomeru Seaweed in the chest?” he asked Kentaro.
“Okay, let’s see,” said Kentaro as he knelt down beside the chest. “I’ll read out the labels. Wow, it’s dusty… but wrapped in this leather is East Sea Coral, then we have Blue Teiketsu Petals, and then a ceramic bottle with something in it, which turns out to be, oh, nice color on this Faded Pearl.”
The houshi put the ingredients into a tidy line beside him on the ground.
“Uh, what about ancient seaweed?” said Ippei again.
“Well,” said the houshi. “Things are all hidden in smaller containers. This paper wrap looks promising, and it looks like seaweed… but nope, Dried Harau Grass. And then we basically have… Blue Curaçao right here.”
“Blue what?” said Yamura, who had helped them gather some more of the ancient seaweed from the ground and was slowly adding it into the poison.
“It’s labeled… Concentrated Sea Oil, which I’ve gotta say looks kinda delicious,” said the houshi. “No seaweed, but, oh, here’s a piece of paper that looks like a recipe. A very old recipe that’s basically falling apart. It says something like… Something cleansing potion of Fractured Light, recorded by the Royal Alchemist Master Shimizu in the reign of—”
“Okay, anything actually useful?” said Ippei as the tub gave a loud gurgle again.
Grabbing another handful of the herbs from the ground, Seiki threw in more. A little at first, to see if he could save as much as possible for later use. But he quickly realized that it had to be quite a substantial amount before the liquid finally stopped moving.
Kiku and Koharu ran over to the chest to help.
“The scroll is hard to read,” said Kentaro. “Well, the first ingredient listed is the Ancient Kiyomeru Seaweed, and then…” The houshi trailed off. “Then it’s gibberish. It’s all crossed out and written over several times with horrible handwriting, with words like burnt something something, Obora, something koshi…”
“That’s not helpful,” said Yamura.
“I told you it’s gibberish,” said Kentaro. “And they don’t match the ingredients in the chest. Look, these all sound like valuable ingredients, and ocean-themed, too.”
Koharu peered over the houshi’s shoulder. “Well, the ingredients written over the original ones are kinda… gross.” She then let out a sudden exclamation and Kentaro looked up hopefully to see if she had figured something out. “Look, the chest has a Shinshioka symbol on it. This five-petal flower thing.”
“Okay?” said Yamura.
“Oh, I get it,” said Mairin in excitement. “So, the Demonic Clan stole this recipe chest from Shinshioka and this potion guy was coming up with a formula to corrupt it or something like that to make poison.”
“Light-resisting poison,” said Kiku thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s what the Demonic Clan is really after. I wonder if that will turn out in later War Games.”
Ippei grunted. “Yeah, lore is nice and all, but we’ve gotta come up with something soon. Because we’re out of seaweed.” He added in the last of the dark purple flakes, before grimacing as he silently ordered his five remaining unit members to take up positions around the tub again.
“Maybe I can help with Upslash?” Seiki had guessed what his friend was going to do, and could not help wondering how much damage his troops would be able to negate with that formation. It had worked rather well against the Rogami’s Level 21 arrows earlier, and he looked around for a good location to position his troops.
Ippei shook his head. “No. Your job is to stay alive.”
“Why don’t we just run?” said Koharu again. “Let it explode, then run back?”
“We’ll be running back through a lot of bad,” said Yamura. “Because it will keep exploding. What if there’s like an enrage timer on the poison tub?”
Mairin lifted one eyebrow. “How can poison… enrage exactly?”
Seiki looked at Ippei’s unit. “Running might be a better idea than sacrificing all your guys right now. We’ll take our chances with ground hazard later.” Allegedly, they had a card that cleansed poison and gave them periodical health after all, and still an unused tano-shrine. “Since we don’t know what’s ahead and we might not be able to revive troops anymore.”
Ippei hesitated as the black liquid started swelling. “You might be right,” he said. “Okay,
guys—”
“Oh,” cried Kentaro. “I think I’ve got it.” Gathering up all the ingredients, he ran back and dropped in a handful of Blue Teiketsu Petals [Instance Item], shaking the dark flakes from the paper wrap into the pot.
The liquid hissed, and Seiki, standing in close range, found himself wincing in apprehension. The new ingredient slowly dissolved into the black tar, and the forming bubble started to shrink.
Ippei let out a long breath in surprise. “Works?”
“Next,” said the houshi with triumphant confidence. “Concentrated Sea Oil.” He poured in the bluish liquid from a ceramic bottle. Again, the mixture gobbled up the liquid and remained still.
“How do you know?” said Yamura.
Mairin squinted at the rest of the ingredients in the houshi’s arm. After a short while, her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, I see.” She smiled before announcing, “Dried Harau Grass.”
“That is correct,” said Kentaro, emptying in what appeared to be greenish brown strands of hay.
The next one to follow was what looked like a thick dirty yellow branch, labeled East Sea Coral, which cracked loudly before it sank into the poison.
“And the last one,” said Kentaro as he handed Seiki a large salmon-colored pearl the size of a quail’s egg. “Do us the honor as the owner of the instance.”
There was no time to ask for an explanation, and Seiki dropped the Faded Pearl into the tub. The black poison suddenly stopped bubbling.
Poison pot neutralized. 521 XP gained.
The silence was a little anticlimactic, and the group exchanged slightly confused but relieved glances.
“Uh, I don’t get it,” said Seiki.
“Me neither,” said Yamura. “How did you know?”
Ippei gave the substance a wary look.
Kentaro chortled. “It will come to you.”
“No loot here either?” Yamura said in disappointment, before turning to look toward the edge of the room again. “Anything else at all in that chest?”
Kiku shook her head. “That was it. Except for this scroll that’s scribbled all over.”