Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#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.

One shot was all it took for the bird-shaped mass of plasma to turn into smoke and disappear.

I stared at the spot it had stood in with a frown.

“Chat. That was… very similar to my plasma setting, wasn’t it? Almost a perfect replica, actually. Just a lot weaker.”

Was this place somehow related to the water park dungeon? Or were the two just the same type of… magic? Or something? It felt like there was a connection there.

Well, I would let chat theorize over that. In the meantime, I had a dungeon to conquer.

Once I made it around the hole in a circle on its rim – while avoiding more lava lakes, plasma lakes, and vibrating rocks, just to preserve my Ether – I then headed further into the hole.

On my way down, I inevitably triggered a few more monster spawns when I couldn’t entirely avoid the places, but easily took them out with my gun. With that said, I was beginning to run out of Ether again…

Luckily, I had the potion now. One tiny sip and I was as good as new. This was so useful. Even more than the bucket.

“I wonder if I can somehow make more of the refined ooze…” I mused. “Appraisal says that it’s just a ton of Ether and a bit of Intra mixed with water and I already know how to manipulate Ether and Intra, so… I should be able to do it, right?”

Although, obviously, using my own Ether to make it would tire me out and sort of defeat the point, since this was meant to help me keep going.

I would need to figure out how to use the regular life ooze and refine it if I wanted to make good use of this.

And speaking of which, could I make something similar for Intra and Tempor as well? I didn’t know how to manipulate Tempor, but making an Intra-restoring potion would be very useful. Especially now that I had Rend.

Well, that was a project for later.

FouxMoux: there’s a tunnel
FouxMoux: to your left
FouxMoux: between the lakes

I perked up.

“Oh? Where?” I looked around and although it took me a minute, I finally found what Foux was referring to.

There was a small opening in the wall I could maybe crawl through and it was surrounded by a plasma lake and a lava lake, far enough that they didn’t seem to be dripping inside, but close enough that trying to get in would probably spawn some monsters. There was also some of that cracked vibrating rock nearby…

“How did you even see that? That’s so subtle… Hmm, you think there’s something cool inside there?”

GeorgeDoshington: loooooot
GeorgeDoshington: prly a chest lol

I hummed in agreement.

“Could be. Well, let’s check it out then!”

Since there was no way to prevent the monsters spawning if I wanted to go in, I decided to at least trigger and fight them one by one. Unfortunately, as soon as I got close to the whole setup, all three of the monsters spawned at once.

“Oh, come on!”

Before they could finish their dramatic spawning sequence, I materialized my gun self and immediately shot the bird with a water bullet before it could shoot me back.

By then, the golem began its charge toward me and the lava dragon thing Waaah!’d again as it flew at me.

I automatically snickered and it caused my second shot to completely miss the dragon thing.

“Shi–”

The lava dragon descended on me just as the horned golem made its way to me and I scrambled to get away from both of them.

I stored the gun and Quick Fetched the key before immediately throwing it at the golem, just to slow it down. Luckily, this one hit it head on and knocked it off its feet. In the meantime, I managed to dodge the lava dragon’s claw swipe, materialized my gun again, and shot it point black with the water setting.

As soon as I confirmed that it was dead, I turned my gun to the now-recovered golem and shot it with the water setting as well. I wasn’t sure whether that would be enough, since it had a much more solid body than the other two, but luckily, the water bullet took out a chunk of its chest and the whole thing vanished into smoke a moment later.

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

I brought out my gun self’s muzzle next to my mouth and blew on it before scoffing.

“Amateurs.”

I was getting quite good at fighting, wasn’t I? Ignoring my lucky streak of barely surviving some of my more dangerous encounters, I’d gotten pretty good at thinking on my feet.

GeorgeDoshington: hastalavista baby
SpoOo0oOon: well done!
SpoOo0oOon: that was really cool!

I smiled in satisfaction, put away the gun, grabbed my discarded key sword, stashed it away, and then walked toward the hole in the ground they had been guarding.

I briefly stopped and looked to the side at the sky.

…A hole inside a hole in the ground? Huh. Whatever.

I made it to the hole in a hole without any more monsters jumping me and peeked inside there. It was a bit cramped… and it would probably be pretty awkward to climb back out.

Although…

“Hey, chat. You think the gravity adjusts in there too?” I asked even as I grabbed another shark feather and dropped it inside.

It just dropped inside without the gravity adjusting any more, though.

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.