#090 – Time to bum-rush this place!

#090 – Time to bum-rush this place! I didn’t even shudder as I entered the city dungeon and instead leaned into the feelings of determination and comradery the dungeon injected into me. It felt that much more appropriate with Ebiko in chat again today. I did my best to push away the fridge horror that was the incausal rift achievement names. There was absolutely no need for me to worry about them now when I was still so far away from even unlocking access to them. Yeah... That was a problem for future Nana to deal with. “Alright, chat. Here we go again!” I exclaimed, shoving away the lingering discomfort. repeaeaeat: good luck! KaiEbikoOfficial: you got this! RetconRanger: Good luck! GeorgeDoshington: time to speedrun this shit bloopbooper: bloop! ✺◟(^∇^)◞✺ I walked to the nearest door inside the city and opened it, hyping myself for what I was about to do. Part of me felt like it was stupidly risky, but at the same time, I had tested this extensively, so it should be fine. I walked inside the dining room, waited for the door to slam behind me, and got into a ready combat stance. Unlike all the previous times I’d handled this fight, my hands were empty. The plan was to handle this without any weapons. A moment later, the other door flew open and the familiar demon with a knife and a pan charged out straight at me. I simply stood there, feet set and hands raised, ready to intercept her attack. She quickly closed in on me and lunged forward with her knife. Instead of dodging, I moved my forearm to block it. Normally, that would be a recipe for getting a huge stab wound in my forearm, but thanks to my durable clothes, all I felt was a bit of pressure as the knife stabbed into my sleeve. Right as the stab finished, I whipped my other hand out and grabbed the demon’s forearm before immediately activating Essence Sap. The demon tried jerking away from me but I held on tight – I was surprisingly strong despite the young body. When getting away failed, she began to bonk me on the head with the pan. But again, it barely hurt. All it did was make silly sounds and get everyone to spam ‘Bonk’ in chat again. Meanies. Since I didn’t need my left arm to block the knife anymore, I lowered it and then lunged to pull the demon into a hug, making sure that she couldn’t escape my touch of death. Naturally, she kept thrashing, trying to peel me off, but I didn’t let go and her struggles got weaker and weaker. A few minutes later, she stopped moving and then dissipated into mist. I let out an exhale as I looked down at the chest she left behind. Just according to plan. No Ether, Intra, or Tempor used for this fight and I wasn’t even winded. The only disadvantage was that it had taken quite a bit longer than normal. Still, I wasn’t in a rush here. This was a test of endurance, after all. I couldn’t waste Ether on the early enemies if I wanted to get further into the dungeon. So this was the strategy we had devised for the first fight. I’d had to test my own durability to make sure I could block her knife with my body, which... Well, sure, stabbing myself with the sapphire-coated knife had made me feel like I had completely lost it, but it allowed me to gauge my limits. After all, I hadn’t managed to make even a small tear no matter how much force I put into it. I was really damn durable. Also, there was another reason why I’d done it the way I had. I wasn’t entirely sure if this would count, but... ‘There’s a dungeon here?’ achievement unlocked! +3 Skill points “Heck, yes! It counted!” I grinned and pulled up the achievement description again. There’s a dungeon here? - Beat a dungeon floor without taking any damage or expending any Ether, Intra, or Tempor. [COMPLETE] See, I had come to the conclusion that I was a complete idiot. Yes, clearing dungeons gave me a lot of tools I could use to get stronger, but I should have been focusing on hunting down achievements to get more points and upgrade my skills as well. I had only been getting the achievements I just happened to stumble into, but that wasn’t enough. Luckily, Ebiko, Emma, and the rest of their group had painstakingly gone over the entire achievement list and made a smaller list of the achievements that could potentially be feasible for me to do. Now I just had to go down the list and get as many as I could. “Anyway! One down!” I exclaimed and knelt down to open the chest the demon had left behind – no need to do the mimic checking routine since Jeoff wasn’t in chat. I blinked and raised an eyebrow at the object. It was a rolling pin. The wood had the same dark reddish color as the cutting board from before. “Neat. Just a few more runs and I can finish building my kitchen,” I quipped as I grabbed the rolling pin and put it into my backpack. GeorgeDoshington: one step closer to cooking with nana bloopbooper: boop! ?( • ̀ω•́ )? SunOfABeach: what’s behind the door anyway? “Cooking stream incoming chat. Just a little more... What door, Sun? This one?” I glanced at the door from which the demon had come from. SunOfABeach: there was something else when she opened it SunOfABeach: different room I perked up. “Oh yeah! I feel like I noticed that the first time but then forgot about it cuz it then opened to the classroom... Hmm...” I walked over to the door, furrowed my brows, and attempted to open the door into the room from where the demon had come from. Unfortunately, it opened to the classroom instead. I tried closing and reopening the door several times, but it only ever led to either the classroom or back outside. My frown deepened. GeorgeDoshington: secret room GeorgeDoshington: gotta go fast SunOfABeach: guess you have to barge in before it closes behind the demon? I hummed. “I guess so...? Well, I’m not gonna try and get inside there anyway, so whatever.” GeorgeDoshington: what GeorgeDoshington: why not “Because the last secret area I entered ended with me almost getting smited, that’s why,” I said, my tone dry. “I don’t have a death wish.” Although there were a lot of tier three and even some tier four achievements tied to secret rooms in dungeons... No, bad Nana. No charging into places way above what I could safely handle. Right now, I needed to beat the dungeon normally and then I would maybe try to tackle the secret rooms and bosses. “Yeah, let’s get going. We’ll handle all the secrets later,” I declared and opened the door into the classroom once more. Before I entered though, I reached into my backpack and pulled out my Sapphire Buckler. It still had a small hole in it, but it was good enough for what I was about to do. I took a deep breath, crouched down a bit, and then dashed forward with my shield positioned in front of me. I beelined straight for the desk from behind which the mage kid always appeared and only a few steps in, the door behind me slammed and the kid jumped out as expected. Before he could use his fireball attack, I slammed my shield into his as he quickly raised it up and completely barreled over him, causing us to sprawl into a tangle of limbs. Fortunately, it also knocked his wand away and us being this close meant that all I had to do was grapple him and activate Essence Sap once more. I had other strategies, however. I opened the door and opened it before boldly marching onto the open town square. Just as the door closed behind me, I reached into my backpack, retrieved a single war shark feather, and then tossed it at the giant who had just emerged while applying Essence Sap with Spore Sap on it. I had actually practiced throwing these yesterday after we had figured out the strategy for this guy. That was to say, his reflection skill clearly couldn’t be used in quick succession, so I just had to keep up a neverending barrage of attacks. And if every single one of my attacks carried a debilitating poison, hitting even one of them would be a huge blow to him. Just as predicted, the giant made the air shudder and the feather that was about to hit him reversed directions and flew straight at me. Luckily, since I’d already expected it, I easily sidestepped it and was already pulling another feather to do the exact same thing again. This time, the feather struck his arm and the poison began taking its effect. Or so I assumed. I couldn’t actually tell for sure. Regardless, it seemed to piss him off and he proceeded to grab a wooden cart nearby and toss it at me just like the first time. I was already moving before it even left his hands and managed to get far enough away that only a few splinters harmlessly washed over me. Then I repeated my stunt with poisoned war shark feathers and got another hit in. Slowly but surely, I was whittling him down. Even when he began to throw his acid blobs, I managed to either avoid them or otherwise hide behind a random barrel or a stall. No more burned through clothes. Not this time. With that said, I eventually ran into a problem with this chip damage strategy. Namely, I suddenly lost the ability to activate Spore Sap and thus use Essence Sap at range. I was confused for a moment before I remembered that Spore Sap actually used Tempor. I had run out of Tempor. Dammit. Luckily, by then, my opponent seemed quite tired and his projectiles had even gotten weaker. No acid blobs and the wooden objects didn’t explode. Had he run out of Ether? I could only assume so. Regardless, it was my chance. I rushed forward, tried summoning my key sword to my hand, remembered that I had run out of Tempor, reached into my backpack to actually retrieve it, and then rushed him with my weapon coated in black flames. But then, as soon as I got close enough to slash him, I suddenly found myself flying backwards, every fiber of my body aching. I crashed into a stall with a pained groan – even though it hurt less than the initial hit – and quickly hurried to roll and get back on my feet. SunOfABeach: probably a tempor skill I grunted in both annoyance and affirmation as I stared at my opponent. Then I finally gave up and materialized my gun self from my Soul Pocket, aimed, and shot a barrage of crystals. As soon as I saw him use his reflection to ward off the crystals, I immediately shot again. On a whim, I actually used the death water from the water park dungeon I’d collected oh so long ago as the ammo. That was one of those things chat had reminded me of in our little strategy session. I wasn’t entirely sure what it would do to him, so I also quickly rushed forward with my key sword while the giant was distracted. To my surprise though, the death water was effective. Very effective. The giant fell on his back and began violently struggling as the death water... uh, devoured him, more or less. I stopped in my tracks and stared at the spectacle with my eyes wide. GeorgeDoshington: what the fuck KaiEbikoOfficial: hooly KaiEbikoOfficial: was that the death water? RetconRanger: Wow, that was effective. No kidding. “...Yeah, that was the death water,” I mumbled as the giant disappeared into smoke, leaving a chest sitting in a puddle of death water behind. I had honestly thought that the death water just wouldn’t work very well against dungeon monsters, since the zombies in the water park had come out of it and since the octopus boss seemed to have no issue either. But maybe monsters from different dungeons worked differently...? Like a polar bear not having a good time anywhere but its natural habitat. KaiEbikoOfficial: how much of that stuff do you have anyway? “Uh...” I frowned at my gun self, trying to figure out how much death water I had remaining. ...And then I realized, that I actually could tell. Huh. Perks of the gun being part of my soul? Or could I always tell? “...Enough for three more shots, actually,” I finally said, after staring at my gun self for a second too long. KaiEbikoOfficial: ....nana? I shook my head. “Never mind! Let’s see what loot I got!” I exclaimed, turning to the chest, before stopping and heaving a sigh at the sight of the chest. Or more specifically, at the sight of the pool of death water the chest was covered in and surrounded by. “This is just like the plasma situation with the mage kid’s chest... Ugh, do I have to leave this one too...?” I whined. GeorgeDoshington: u shouldnt spew ur liquids like that GeorgeDoshington: all over other peoples chests I gave a very pointed dry look at the two messages George had posted, but otherwise completely ignored him. SunOfABeach: unfortunate but at least you can keep going this time KaiEbikoOfficial: are you still good? I hummed. “...Yeah, it would be nice to get more food or something, but I guess I can make do without it.” I nodded. “Yeah. I have basically no Tempor, but I don’t need it that much anyway. Other than that, I used pretty minimal Ether and no Intra. I think I’m good.” I just wouldn’t be able to Quick Fetch or Aquaport, but I could make do without them. Or, at least I hoped I could. I didn’t know what the next fight would be about. “Alright. Let’s keep going, chat! We can do this!” One last look at the inaccessible chest and I turned around and headed for one of the doors, ready to face whatever came next.