#087 – He didn’t even show me his wares

#087 – He didn’t even show me his wares I furrowed my brows in confusion at the open square. “Wait, what? No, I wanna continue, dungeon! Not go back!” I closed the door, wished really hard to continue to the next boss, and then opened the door again. Nothing changed. I stared at the scene with more confusion. Was... that it? That couldn’t be, right? As much as the archer had felt like the final boss to me, there had to be more to this dungeon. uptonMIKE: its different uptonMIKE: the fountain I blinked and then narrowed my eyes. Sure enough, it wasn’t the same city square as the one I’d walked through before. Subtle changes. The stalls had goods on display instead of being empty, the buildings didn’t look as dilapidated, and most importantly, as Mike had pointed out, the fountain was actually spewing out water. “...Okay. I guess the next arena is the city square then. Or a version of it, at least.” I gave a slow nod and once again steeled myself before walking through. I scanned my surroundings, idly noting that the streets leading out of the square had thick fog in them, as if indicating that I wasn’t supposed to go there. After a few steps forward, the door behind me slammed shut and clicked, and I immediately tensed and began looking for threats. It didn’t take long for it to appear. A massive green-skinned man with a short fuzz of black hair dressed in a fancy shirt and pants studded with golden ornaments emerged from behind one of the stalls. As usual, he had no face. In one of his hands was... an entire wooden cart that you would typically see being drawn by horses in medieval settings. My eyes widened as he hurled the whole thing at me without hesitation. I screamed and scrambled to dodge the massive projectile. Luckily, I had enough experience with close-call dodges by now that I managed to turn it into a roll and then a crouch. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect the cart to violently explode the moment it hit the ground and shower me with splinters. “Gwah!” I shouted as the splinters... harmlessly slid off my dress for the most part. I only got a few scratches on my exposed skin. I was so glad for my tank build. When the storm passed, I looked back at the giant. Just in time to see him hurling a barrel at me. I grit my teeth, quickly stood up from my crouch, took out my gun self from my Soul Pocket, and shot the barrel out of the air with a basic water shot. Once again, the barrel exploded into splinters, but now also splashed water everywhere. I was beginning to understand one of this guy’s skills, at least. The only question was whether he could make me explode if he touched me. Although considering he was strong enough to hurl that cart one handed, he could probably make me explode with a punch anyway. Before he could grab another object to toss at me, I aimed the gun at him, attempted to activate Spore Sap – which actually worked! – and shot a barrage of crystals at him. He immediately shielded himself with one of his arms and as the crystalline needles closed in on him, they abruptly changed course and scattered back in my direction. “Wha–!” I jumped back, successfully dodging most of the crystals. The few that hit me harmlessly slid off my outfit. Just as I got my bearings again, I saw another object flying at me – a chair, this time. I grit my teeth, but instead of dodging this time, I ducked my head and sprinted forward. Just as planned, the projectile missed me and flew right over my head because of the arc. The splinters that hit my back felt like rain. I continued running toward him and before he could hurl another thing at me, I snapped my hand forward and pressed the trigger on my gun self to fire off a basic water shot. Unlike last time, he didn’t manage to do that deflection trick of his and got hit by my attack head on. He staggered, but didn’t seem to suffer any significant injury, unfortunately. So I was dealing with a tank... like myself. Now the heck was I supposed to beat him? Trying to get close to him was probably a bad idea... Although maybe I could make it work. Some people in chat had some good ideas I could try... Before he could grab another random object, I fired another water bullet. This one, he managed to deflect, albeit not back at me but to the side. I used this distraction to close the distance between us and then shot him with the flamethrower mode of my gun. It was quite a bit larger than I remembered, probably thanks to my title’s effects. He seemed to attempt to do the deflection trick again, but that move only seemed to activate in one instant, and so was only mildly effective against a continuous attack like the fire. He tried dodging to the side, but I easily adjusted my aim. Then he decided to charge me head on through the fire with his arms in front of him like a boxer. Perfect. I summoned my key sword into my offhand, channeled Ether into it to start creating the black fire, and then activated Essence Sap and all of its sub-skills. When the ogre got close enough, he stopped guarding with one of his arms and raised it to presumably strike at me. But he was too slow for me. I jumped to the side and just as he smashed the ground where I’d stood, I slashed into his side, tearing through his fancy clothes, and feeling the Poison Touch activate. The giant staggered, but then turned to me, and suddenly, I felt like someone had punched every molecule in my body as I was lifted off my feet and flew back with a scream. I crashed into one of the stalls, making all the displayed pottery fly all over the place. My ears were ringing and my head was spinning, not to mention the aches all over my body, but I still did my best to recover as quickly as I could. The moment my vision cleared enough, I saw a wooden table hurling through the air moments from hitting me. I had no time to dodge this time and the damn thing landed a direct hit on me. It freaking hurt, but considering that the explosion of splinters would have probably shredded any normal person, it wasn’t actually that bad. Like tripping and falling down the stairs, maybe. It did stun me for a moment, though. And that was apparently enough for the ogre to find a wooden drawer – where the hell was he getting those from, anyway?! – and toss it at me again. This time, I had enough time to raise my hand, materialize my gun self, and shoot the projectile out of the air with water. I let the splinters wash over me and quickly aimed my gun at the giant and shot again. “Okay, let’s try this!” Slowly, carefully, I channeled a bit of Ether into the sleeve, watching closely whether anything changed. And sure enough, the holes began to slowly close. ... Very slowly. It also cost quite a bit of Ether. Dammit. “Well, I mean, it does work, but... It’s expensive. I already spent a lot of Ether too... Ugh... I might have to go back for today and try to prepare better for this tomorrow.” Part of me was annoyed with that idea, since that would mean that I’d have ‘only’ made it one more fight further than my record. I didn’t know how long the dungeon was and chickening out like this every time might lead to me failing my quest. On the other hand, failing that quest wouldn’t be the end of the world and my life was more important. I didn’t need to risk my life unnecessarily. JamieWasTaken3: are you giving up already? trelipideliberitation: awww one more? SunOfABeach: you could use the potion RetconRanger: It’s probably wiser to back out now. bloopbooper: boop... ( •́〈•̀;) I hummed and thought about it for a bit while letting my forks discuss potential strategies against the giant for my next runs. “Okay! How about this, chat? I’ll sip a bit of the life ooze and then pull out all stops to beat the next fight, just to see what it is. After that though, I’m going back.” RetconRanger: I don’t know if that’s a good idea. trelipideliberitation: sounds good JamieWasTaken3: yea ok just hit them with brain freeze JamieWasTaken3: easy I snorted. “I won’t swap Rend in just yet, Jamie. I want to first see what I’m dealing with.” I would have my metaphorical finger on the metaphorical trigger, though. I continued to talk to chat while my dress repaired itself and took out my flask to sip just a little bit of ooze to recover. After a while I went to open the chest, prodded by chat not to dawdle too long and let the dungeon reset. I belatedly realized that unlike the previous fights that had given me smaller chests, this one was the same size as the regular dungeon chests I’d found in both the water park and the crystal hole. “Are they gonna get bigger the deeper I go?” I asked out loud as I popped the chest open. Most of chat seemed to agree with me, some even speculated that we could guess the total length of the dungeon with that. I hummed at them as I took a look inside the chest. I blinked. It was... a huge wheel of cheese. “Chat... It’s food. Oh my god, finally more food! I was getting so sick of the pizza and shark meat!” I immediately pinched a bit off the wheel and popped it into my mouth. I automatically let out a satisfied moan as the thing melted on my tongue. JamieWasTaken3: yo wtf thats not family friendly RetconRanger: Yay for cheese! “It’s so good, chat! I can’t help it!” I somehow resisted the urge to gobble it all up and instead stuffed it into my backpack. trelipideliberitation: take the pots JamieWasTaken3: free loot everywhere! bloopbooper: mwoop (๑ᴖ⤙ᴖ๑) I blinked, then snorted. “Okay, yeah! I should totally snag some of this stuff! I hope it doesn’t magically disappear once I leave, though...” After all, I couldn’t take stuff out of the dungeons that wasn’t loot, right? ...Right? Wait. Had I ever even tested that? ...No, I hadn’t. Then why did I feel like it wouldn’t work? Hadn’t someone said that it wouldn’t work? Who had it been again...? And how would they know anyway? I furrowed my brows, but marched over to the stalls to begin stuffing all the loot into my backpack anyway. Something felt wrong. Had something messed with my mind? Or was I just being paranoid? I shook my head. Maybe Stream Overseer was starting to overwhelm me again. I was starting to mix up facts with fiction. That aside, I stuffed a few pots that I hadn’t destroyed, along with some of the decorative statuettes on display. Annoyingly enough, there wasn’t any food in the stalls. But, well, at least I had cheese now! “The pots could actually be pretty useful. I just hope they don’t disappear when I leave...” If they did though, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, at least... “Alright... I think I’m ready. On to the last fight of today!”