109: Blood in the Water, Part Twenty-Four

Blood in the Water, Part Twenty-Four

For a moment, Neve could only stare at the guy. 

An enemy had suddenly just turned sane and spoken to her. 

She hadn't expected this at all. 

"But..." The man said, continuing to speak. "I suppose all that matters is that I'm gonna die and you're not. Hm." 

Neve walked a couple of steps closer. Instinctively, she thought about healing the warrior. However, she hesitated to do so out of fear that would just trigger another fight somehow. 

Tentatively, she threw out one, singular cast of {Great Healing Dart}. 

It had no effect. 

"... Can you show it to me again?" 

"Um, what?" Neve asked. The shock she was feeling wasn't letting her think too straight. 

"The-" he coughed, "the toy." 

"Oh!" 

The healer quickly reached into her inventory and pulled the item in question out. Before, seeing this thing had sent the man into a fit of rage. Now, all he did was almost roll his eyes at it. 

"I'm gonna guess you got that from my family didn't you?" 

"I did," Neve let him know. 

"Hmph... Did they tell you to come find me? To put me out of my misery?" 

"I..." Neve nearly stopped herself but, well, what was the point in lying right now? "They did." 

"Good." Neve pulled back as he nodded to himself. "Then, they did as I asked." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Agh..." He hissed. "Some time ago, as the Organizers came and placed my kind under the Unity Trials, volunteers were called upon to fight against the hordes of monsters that threatened our world." 

He spoke slowly, with strain coating every syllable that came out of his mouth. Neve, of course, fixated on one important detail. 

[He just brought up the Unity Trials on his own... So, he's aware of his status as a boss fight?] 

"I was one of them. Along with many other brave warriors, I threw myself at the attackers with... little in the form of lasting success. There was no end to the battles, and yet my trident held firm. Even though our city did not." 

He took his eyes off of Neve, then, looking up at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell slowly, steadily, as he continued to speak. 

"One by one, we lost districts to the ravenous invaders. As an outsider, you might think you're at the bottom of the city right now, but... No. There were hundreds of other places, all lost. As the amount of living space was reduced, the number of warriors needed to be increased. So, people stopped volunteering, and instead, the president began to conscript warriors himself." 

"Against their will?" 

"Aye," he replied. "Though originally, we'd meant to maintain a sense of normalcy, now it had to be done. Ironically, overpopulation became as big of a problem as the monsters themselves. I did my best to lead these new fighters. Teach them. And the time I got to spend with my family grew smaller and smaller as a result." 

His tone grew less nostalgic then, as he said: 

"Some things began to happen, then. Our people became sterile, all of a sudden. Food slowly lost its taste. Aging stopped. And.. people began to lose their wits." He looked back at Neve, once again. "Bloodlust overtook the minds of our warriors. They began fighting each other just as much as the monsters. There was no explanation for it. The Organizers didn't say anything. But, suddenly, you couldn't quite trust the warrior next to you anymore." 

[I guess that's how, uh...] She looked at the ridiculous number of corpses here. [How this place ended up like this.] 

There was another part of that which made Neve curious though. 

[Mass sterility... But...] 

"I sent them a message, my parents," he said. "That if that same bloodlust ever took hold of me, to send someone to remove me from this world. Eventually, it did. Many tried to kill me and all of them failed... Until you came along." 

"The, ehm, Organizers didn't say anything?" Neve asked. 

"No. Honestly, I don't remember much of it," he told her. "In my memories, there's a lot of fighting, a lot of death, and then... A giant blank spot. One that only cleared up a moment ago."

Despite the lack of any more information, Neve's mind began to wander. 

[Will the same thing happen to humanity? I mean... It kind of already did,] she thought, remembering what happened with her own parents. [I guess it's the same thing. Just, that it happened a lot earlier for us.] 

"Aeeergh..." A guttural sound escaped his mouth. "Warrior, will you be seeing my family again?" 

"Yeah, probably." 

[I need to finish the Floor Quest, after all.] 

"Then, please, let them know that... That I fought as hard as I could. I do not wish for them to believe their only son died a coward." 

Neve decided it would be best to inform him, then. 

"I'll let them know... Hopefully, they'll let their next kid know, too." 

"What?" He asked. His eyes suddenly took a piercing glint to them as he stared back at her. 

"Norn is pregnant," Neve stated. "Has been for a while, from the looks of it. You know, judging by the, uhm..." She made an awkward belly bump gesture. 

"How!?" 

"I don't know," Neve answered. "I have no clue how the sterility thing was cured. But, she is pregnant. I know that much." 

He went back to staring at the ceiling when he heard that. 

"Then..." His voice softened considerably. "There is... hope?" 

Neve wondered the same thing. 

[I thought this world was lost. Like the last one. But... Is that the point the Forces That Be are trying to make? That it can be saved?" 

As Isolnir took his last breath, then, with his eyes held up, Neve shook her head. 

[Well, whether it can or not is irrelevant to me. I don't think I can do much about it. Other than getting that key back to Norn and Torma. Speaking of which...] 

She went through the fallen boss's inventory. 

Sure enough, the key was one of the objects he dropped, along with his armor and weapon, which Neve quickly sold away. 

---

Neve Stephens

Level 56

MP: 1100/1100 (+300)

EXP: 310/560

AP: 3690

IP: 201

WST: 108003

---

Endurance: 40

Speed: 28

Precision: 20

Strength: 5

Arcane: 80

As Neve made her way back to the President's Chambers, she found Norn and Torma standing before it. 

"You're back. Does this mean...?" 

"Yeah," Neve nodded to Isolnir's father. "It's done." 

The couple looked back at each other. It was a somber moment for them, but clearly one they'd been emotionally prepared for. What they weren't prepared for was seeing the item Neve then pulled out of her inventory. 

"Found this down there too." 

"The key!" 

Torma quickly went and took it from Neve's hands. Eagerly, before Neve could even ask anything, they went and opened the doors they'd been standing beside. 

And what they found were...

People. 

Neve's eyes widened. 

Individuals who looked just like Torma and Norn were inside, looking back at them. Around eight in total. 

[So... They weren't all dead?] 

"G-Guards!" One of them shouted before Torma put his hands up. 

"Wait, wait! We're not one of them. We're sane, we're sane!" 

Hearing that lessened the frightening nature of this encounter for the people behind the doors. They were still suspicious, though. 

"How did you get in!?" 

"We were helped," Torma stated. "By an outsider." 

As they all looked back at Neve, the human just gave them all an awkward wave of her hand. They were all too stunned to say anything. 

Admittedly, Neve shared that sentiment. She hadn't expected any of this. 

The First Floor had depicted, from what little of it the players had been allowed to see, a world that was completely empty. The Second Floor showed a world that had been torn apart by battle and had been utterly wiped out. 

This one, however, held survivors. Survivors who were now looking to her for some answers. 

So, Neve walked forward and did the best that she could to explain herself. 

Receiving a little bit of information in exchange for it.

Apparently, the last remaining members of this city had been living here, this whole time. As Isolnir had indicated, their aging had stopped and their need to eat had gone away with it. And now, seeing Norn with that baby bump, they realized that things were about to change. 

The portal to the Fourth Floor opened after that conversation, back in Isolnir's boss room. 

Here, Neve stood alongside Ahlakan and Erin, unsure of what to make of everything she'd just seen. She did, however, know what she wanted to do as soon as she went into the Fourth Floor, and was eager to get to it. 

---

All in all, the Third Floor was just a little bit more complicated than the Second, but only if you care about collecting every single object. 

Which, of course, you should. You're playing with your lives here. 

It brought up the possibility of something that I hadn't really considered up until now. And that, is, if humanity fails and everything goes wrong, will that really be the end? I don't know if your Floor Quest will look the same as mine did, but mine suggested that maybe that isn't the case. 

I don't know. Again, I know a lot of you are just reading this for the tips, so I won't bore you with too much stuff about me but hope is something I haven't really had much of since the Unity Trials started. Hell... Maybe even since before that. 

Now... I wonder. 

But, whatever. The point is that as long as you mind your footing, learn how to hold your breath for a while, and polish up your dueling skills, you stand a good chance of making it through this place. 

The next floor, though... This is where things can start to get a little more, uh... messy. 

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