#083 – The way back was so much easier

#083 – The way back was so much easier Unfortunately, even after wandering around in the darkness – ugh, after that boss, it really unnerved me, even with Heat Vision and the light from Flameguard – for a little while, all I managed to find was the end of the hole. It just... ended. There was nothing interesting at the end. Well, okay. Maybe being able to walk inside the half-sphere the hole had ended with had been pretty cool with how the gravity smoothly changed, but that didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t find any secret entrances or anything. I even tried firing off the two flamethrower modes around to see if it would unlock anything. Unfortunately, no dice. “Well. I guess we can return once we get back the map. Assuming the map will even help...” With that, I turned around and began climbing out of the giant hole again. This dungeon... was very different from the water park. A lot shorter, for one. Just two floors. Granted, those two floors were arguably more difficult than the water park, but still. At the very least, I was a lot stronger than I was in the water park, so I didn’t have too many issues conquering this one. And wow, nearly dying to petrification and getting my mind scrambled apparently classified as ‘not too many issues’ for me nowadays. This stupid world had seriously corrupted my sense of what was normal, hadn’t it? Another topic to talk about with Jane... On my way out, just because someone in chat had reminded me, I checked out my quest and unfortunately, the ‘Complete the Ether-based dungeon without any monsters respawning’ objective had been marked as failed. I grumbled about that a little, since the dragon hadn’t respawned but I guess the crabs and lizards on the surface counted. Ugh, the system was such a cheapskate. Either way, I eventually managed to safely get out of the hole after quite some time walking. A short running start gave me enough speed to get out of the hole itself and grab onto the edge of it just as the gravity changed, and I easily pulled myself out. I idly thought about how the old me who barely exercised would never be able to pull herself from here. Hah. Either way, only a handful of lizards and crabs bothered me as I left the crystal plains – who I took out with ease – and then I was finally out of the dungeon. “Well. That’s that, I guess. Got some nice loot. Mainly the axe and the flamethrower... oh, and the flask. That one’s great.” Everything else was pretty minor, but still appreciated. The glove and the scales could be used for Fusion and the ring might have some neat properties. I would have to see. “Okay! That’s it for the stream today, I think. I’m just gonna chill out and recover for the rest of today. And tomorrow, we’re going back to the city dungeon and getting our stuff back!” I still felt a pang of anxiety whenever I thought about the archer enemy in there, but I told myself that I couldn’t be a coward forever. I was stronger, and had more tools to deal with her than before. And even if I got poisoned again, I had a shelter to retreat to, as well as Rend’s mindshield and the refined life ooze to help counteract the poison’s Ether and Intra-draining effects. It was going to be fine. Yeah, I could tell myself that all day long, but it still didn’t ease my worries. Anywho, now that I was out of the dungeon and in the safety of my shelter, I could safely experiment. The Immolator title. Yes, both Flameguard and Heat Vision were very useful and it would suck if I locked myself out of them for an entire month, but I wanted to see what the innate ability of the title did. And worst case scenario, I could use the ticket to reset the cooldown and get Fire Blessed back. That was what consumables were for. To be used. Even if my hoarding instincts screamed at me to save it at all costs, because what if I was gonna need it later. Change title from [Fire Blessed] to [Immolator]? Note: [Fire Blessed] will not be re-equipable for 30 days. Y/N “Whatever. It’s useful if I can get close enough, I guess. But that’s kinda the hard part, isn’t it?” Overall, it wasn’t as good as Flameguard, sadly. But if I ever encountered some kind of tanky stationary boss, they were gonna be toast. Not much happened for the rest of the day, although I was still a bit worried about Ebiko and the little argument we’d had about Soulbound Item. ...Speaking of which, I’d kinda added more stuff to both the gun and the clothes since then, hadn’t I? And I was also planning on soulbinding the axe once I could. Ugh, I wanted to apologize for being thoughtless, but then there I went continuing to be thoughtless... I hoped she would come back to the stream. Having chat around was nice, but none of them were really friends. More like fans or acquaintances at best. Parasocial relationships. Ebiko was the only real friend I had. Not even other Vcubers felt the same. With a sigh, I stopped brooding and finally went to sleep, ignoring chat commenting on my dramatic and wistful sigh. The next morning, I got some shark meat pizza for breakfast – god, I really wanted different food already – washed up in the river, and after a bit of deliberation, attempted to cross it right there instead of going upstream first. Risky? Maybe a little bit. But it wasn’t going to be the end of the world even if I got washed downstream. I wouldn’t drown and I could always just walk or Aquaport back, but I still had to be careful not to bang my head on the rocks and whatnot. I considered it training. The currents were pretty strong, but I stood my ground down at the bottom of the riverbank with my goggles over my eyes. The following aquaport – I was getting the hang of this skill – was carefully calculated so that I would end up in a half-crouching position from which it was easy to catch myself again before the stream could sweep me away. And from then on, I just had to carefully get out of the water on the other side. “Pwah! Gah!” I coughed out the water out of my lungs. “Alright! That was easier than I thought it would be.” What followed was a very long and boring walk back to the city dungeon. I entertained myself mostly by talking to chat and playing songs on stream. I also gave chat another ad to chew on at some point. This one was about some kind of body cream that made you glow? It was kinda weird. Not as weird as the blue-skinned lady with giant amphibian eyes, squishy skin, and a mane of feathers growing out of her scalp though. Why did everyone have feathers in this world? Was that some kind of fad? Or was everyone mixed race with a bird? Chat theorized that there was a way to do something within the system that combined your race with another. Since we’d seen so many people who were seemingly from two or more races, I couldn’t really dispute that theory. What unnerved me, though, were the theories as to what exactly caused it. The prevailing theory was... the limit break. Of course. It was always the damn limit break. Would I get feathers after beating it too? I was the daughter of a phoenix, so it wasn’t that big of a stretch, honestly. And as strange as that felt, it also sounded kinda cool. I’d always wanted wings and the ability to fly. That was why my Vcuber avatar had them, after all. The new one. Not the one I currently... was. Speaking of which, my new avatar was also part phoenix, wasn’t it? It would feel pretty appropriate if I were to actually become half phoenix, honestly. The ‘race’ in my status still stubbornly said ‘human’, but I hardly felt human lately with all the soulbound stuff, Stream Overseer, or even just the ability to set myself on fire and teleport through water. I wouldn’t mind getting some cool phoenix wings and flying around. ... Maybe that was what Jane had talked about though. About losing one’s sense of self. All of this was still crazy, but I’d just gotten used to everything bit by bit, and now I didn’t even question things that would have made me mildly disturbed back on Earth. And this was only going to get worse... With these thoughts, I finally made it to the city dungeon by midday and was about to settle into my original shelter with the crappy door, when I noticed something concerning. Smoke on the horizon. I was bewildered for a moment, thinking that there might be people starting a campfire, but the closer I got, the more my heart sank when I realized what was really happening. A forest fire. “No...Nonono. Oh, fuck this is bad!” I rushed to put it out before the whole damn world could burn down.