#080 – I wonder if that’s gonna stay flooded

#080 – I wonder if that’s gonna stay flooded As I walked around the rim of the hole, feeling like I was on a ringworld, I arrived at one of those vibrating cracked rocky places I’d seen before. It made me wonder just how the heck it could keep vibrating like this. What powered it? What had caused it to be like this? Unfortunately, the question would have to wait, because similarly to the first floor, when I got close to it, the vibrating rocks spat something out via mitosis. It was this goblin-like horned creature made entirely out of that vibrating rock. No facial features, as usual. For the first time, I used Appraisal on a monster, utilizing the Assess upgrade. Demonic sonic golem An imitation of a demon made out of granite. Uses touch-based sonic attacks. This is a dungeon monster. Huh, a demon? Interesting. Not all that useful though. I guess a subskill that cost a single skill point wouldn’t tell me all the secrets to defeating my enemies... I tensed, readied my weapons, and as soon as the thing charged at me, I swung my pan at it to smack it over the head. My pan connected and flapped the creature out of the air... but then I felt the recoil. “Whooaaa–??!?!” A loud but dull sound resonated through my entire body, like a chill going down my spine. I ended up dropping the pan and falling on my butt as the world around me went blurry. GeorgeDoshington: oh shit wtf SpoOo0oOon: dodge! Instead of doing what Spoon was suggesting, I materialized my gun self and shot a barrage of crystal needles at the blurry shape charging at me again. I barely even heard the crystal barrage showering my opponent, what with my ears still ringing, but I could make out the golem thing being knocked away with my blurry vision. It bought me enough time to struggle back to my still-vibrating feet and glare at the golem thing. Unfortunately, it seemed like my crystal needle attack hadn’t taken it out completely, so this wasn’t over yet. After a very quick consultation with chat, I decided to take the easy way out and simply shot it with liquid plasma. It managed to clamber up pretty close to me, but once my shot hit it, it instantly shattered to pieces and then turned into smoke. I grunted in annoyance as the vibrations echoing through my body finally abated. “Okay... Chat... Note to self, do not touch monsters that have touch-based powers. Jesus... I didn’t think it would be passive...” If the pattern held, and the plasma lakes also had monsters hiding in them, that would mean that all of the monsters here had to be dealt with by ranged attacks. And my only good way of attacking at range was my gun self. Well, there were also the feathers, but I wasn’t sure how much those would even do against creatures made out of plasma or lava or against vibrating golems. I could also throw my key sword, but recalling it used Tempor and I still couldn’t tell how much of it I had. It would suck to run out at the worst time without even realizing it until it was too late. I huffed. SpoOo0oOon: are you okay? SpoOo0oOon: that was scary Jeofffff: didn’t you have a bow? “Oh yeah. You’re right. The archer dropped a bow, didn’t she?” I grimaced at the memory. “I don’t have any arrows though... Hmm, I could probably make some.” I could just cut up some wood and then fuse it with the war shark feathers for the tips to make arrows. Although I would also need actual feathers for the backs, and I didn’t have those. And it would be a lot of work for arrows that I would quickly use up... “I need some magical infinite arrow or something. Then I could probably use it.” Eclipsoon: why not fuse it with the gun? I frowned and thought for a moment. “I guess I could? What would that do though? Would it let me fire arrows out of the gun? Well, like I said. I don’t have any arrows, so...” I probably had to keep using my gun to take care of the enemies here, unfortunately. “...Well, I guess I’ll add it to the list of things I need to get then. A ranged attack that doesn’t use Ether.” For the time being, I kept going. At first, I wanted to avoid the electrified plasma pools altogether, but chat convinced me that it would be better to at least know what would jump out, just in case they all suddenly came out like during the dragon fight. There were also some people arguing that we didn’t know for sure if anything would come out, and while they were right, my gamer senses were tingling. And sure enough, when I got close to one of the pools of plasma – which, according to chat, should be impossible – a monster emerged from it. This one looked like a small bird made out of the same electrified plasma, although for some reason, instead of using its wings to fly, it trotted on the ground with its chicken legs. Ionized plasma phoenix An imitation of a phoenix made out of ionized plasma. Uses plasma-based attacks. This is a dungeon monster. But what kind of plasma-based attacks?! Ugh, this really wasn’t as useful as I’d hoped. I backed off a little and decided to wait to see what it would do. To my surprise, instead of charging me like the others, the bird opened its beak, and a small electrified ball of plasma began to gather in front of it. “Wha–” A second later, that ball burst forward in a splash of plasma and I had to throw myself to the side to dodge it. Once I did, the bird began charging another one, but I didn’t let it anymore. I materialized my gun, turned on the water setting, and shot it dead. I frowned. “Well, that’s annoying...” Eclipsoon: send john Eclipsoon: or turtle GeorgeDoshington: mission impossible time I summoned John and had him crawl through the space. Unfortunately, despite him being an intangible cameraman, he still couldn’t go through objects, so I had to navigate him carefully in the tight space. Hmm, maybe the upgrade would let him noclip? And sure enough, after a few seconds of crawling through the cramped space, John reached the bottom where a cyan crystalline chest lay. GeorgeDoshington: loooooooot “Loooot! How do I get it out, though?” Chat and I thought about it for a few minutes. Some suggested simply jumping in and then figuring out how to get out, others thought it might be better to just leave it. In the end, one of my regulars came up with a genius idea. Eclipsoon: flood it with your glove Eclipsoon: then aquaport Even then, it took quite a while to flood it enough so that the water reached the top. Spamming the bubbles that burst into a lot more water was faster than using the shower head function, but it still took almost half an hour to fill it up enough. “Alright, finally! Let’s get the loot now!” I sipped a bit of my refined ooze to restore Ether, pulled the swimming goggles over my eyes, just so I could breathe down there, and then carefully slid down into the flooded opening. As soon as I was fully submerged, I Aquaported down right next to the chest. AotoNana: Open Sesame! I attempted to open the chest... but it was much harder than normal. So much so that I wondered whether it was actually locked, unlike all the other chests I’d found in dungeons. uptonMIKE: water pressure uptonMIKE: it’s pushing down on the lid I groaned, which was drowned out – no pun intended – by the water I was surrounded by. Eclipsoon: uh Eclipsoon: sorry Eclipsoon: haven’t thought about that AotoNana: It’s fine. I just had to do it like I’d used to when I’d first tried opening a dungeon chest. By bracing myself against the ground with my legs, putting both of my hands against the lid, and pushing. The chest finally opened and after the brief pressure change as the water flooded the chest stabilized, I took a look inside. It was a black leather glove... for the right hand. Demon glove A glove with similar properties to demon’s skin. Allows wielder to channel Ether through it to produce dark sparks. I tilted my head and picked the thing up. AotoNana: Hmm. AotoNana: How very convenient. AotoNana: I only have a glove on my left hand. It was like the dungeon knew what I was missing. Curious. With that, I put the glove on – which, as usual, fit perfectly – held my breath, took off the goggles, and then immediately Aquaported back up. Once I heaved myself out of the hole and coughed out all the water from my lungs, I sat by the lava lake and waited to dry up a bit. Once I was fairly sure that I wouldn’t shock myself, I extended my right arm forward, narrowed my eyes, and tried carefully directing my Ether toward the glove. Sure enough, I soon saw the tiny black sparks – total nonsense, that wasn’t how light worked – jump from finger to finger. “Hmm... What can it do, though?” Jeofffff: maybe its like flameguard Jeofffff: try a weapon I hummed and resummoned my key sword and held it in my right hand. I channeled a bit more Ether through the glove and tried directing it a bit more... The glove lit up with black sparks and they soon climbed all over the key sword and covered it. “Alright! A powerup for melee weapons, I guess?” I still didn’t really know what it did exactly, but hey. It looked cool, so I wasn’t complaining. “It doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with this dungeon though,” I muttered. “I expected something lava or plasma related... Or like a super vibrating sword.” FouxMoux: probably has something to do with the black flames? “Yeah, probably.” I looked further down the big hole into the menacing darkness. “I guess we’ll find out...” After a short break, I continued deeper.