132: Obstacles, Part Seven

Obstacles, Part Seven

"Neve, I think there are more ghosts up ahead." 

"..." 

The healer automatically aimed her staff upon hearing her summon's words, but she couldn't deny that she was out of it right now. 

The memories she'd witnessed tugged at her mind, trying desperately to pull it back to them. 

As a result, as one ghost got close, Neve cast {Holy Beckons} but missed, with the rune appearing behind the creature she aimed it at. 

Her eyes widened. A ghostly blade slashed at her head. 

Erin pushed Neve out of the way, earning a slash across both her arms for her efforts. 

Neve hit the ground. The impact re-focused her mind. Laying on her side, she cast {Holy Beckons} again, this time taking down both opponents with a few rapid casts. 

EXP Gained: 100

EXP: 350/500

WST Gained: 200

WST: 38029

"Neve!" Erin yelled as she picked Neve up off the ground. "What was that? I understand these enemies are easy for you to take down, but that doesn't mean the blades they carry can't cut you." 

"Sorry," Neve pulled back. "I just..." 

"What's going on?" Erin asked, now sounding more concerned than angry. "You've been acting strangely ever since we came back from that tower. What happened?" 

With her shoulders slumping, Neve paced from side to side as the memories she'd been trying to push back were allowed to flood her thoughts. 

"That kid, the ghost we saw," Neve began to explain. "He showed me his memories. What this city was like before the Unity Trials began. Before monsters came and swarmed the place. Unity Trials still don't ring a bell, by the way?" 

"Nope."

"Figured. Anyway," Neve continued. "I got to see what his life was like. It was peaceful," she said. "The people here were happy. Things were fine and then... Monsters appeared out of nowhere and ruined it. Uh, yeah, that's all," Neve concluded. "His memories are still in my head." 

It had been a quick, easy reminder of how cruel the Forces That Be were. They had justified bringing the Unity Trials to humanity under the guise of trying to make the world better, but how could they pretend to do that when cases like this existed? 

"How-" 

Erin disappeared as her minute ran out. Neve resummoned her. 

"I hate it when that happens. As I was saying, though, how do you know?" 

"Hm? What do you mean?" 

"How do you know that this world was peaceful?" 

Neve blinked, pausing for a moment. 

"Did you not hear what I said? I saw it," Neve reiterated. "The kid's memories showed me what the world was like." 

"Neve," Erin said, moving closer, "do you hear what you're saying? The *kid's* memories. You're making an assumption that the world was peaceful based on how a child viewed it." Erin slithered from one side to another as she began to say, "war, corruption, crime, natural disasters. You're assuming all of these things and whatever other awful possibilities were nonexistent because a child wasn't aware of any of it?" 

"Well..." Neve pulled back. 

[But, then, what was the point of showing me that?] 

Erin's words wrapped a dense fog around Neve's perspective. Suddenly, she didn't know what to make of those memories. 

But, she did know one thing that seemed certain. 

"Oh, uh, also..." 

"Yes?" 

"We..." Neve hesitated. "We might be in Ahlakan's world right now." 

This time, Erin blinked, pausing for a bit. 

"Oh." The lamia said, so eloquently. "That's..." She looked at the ghosts Neve had reduced to ashes. "Unfortunate." 

Yes, Neve agreed that was probably the best way to put it. 

Moving along, among all of the ectoplasm that they picked up, Neve looted another Priestess-class item from one of the ash piles. A golden ring with a red line cutting through it.

Priestess Enhancer

{Uncommon}

{Accessory} 

{Class Req: Priest/Priestess}

{Effect: Increases the damage of all spells by 5%} 

{Val: 100 WST}

[Hm. Not a large amount, but still useful. Anything that can make my beginner spells a little stronger is welcome.] 

She put it on and moved toward the next corner of the map. 

With 3 keys left to grab and only 2 days to work with before Neve felt she needed to be on the 6th Floor, she tried to make progress as quickly as possible, running past enemies and scanning her surroundings for anything that may have looked like it could have been holding the next key. 

The green mist made it difficult to do that, but as they walked through those golden, desolate streets, they came across something. 

There was a body laying there, in the middle of the road. One that did not look like it belonged to Ahlakan's people. 

[... What the hell?] 

"Um, Neve, I thought you said this could be Ahlakan's world. That body is human though, is it not?" 

"Yeah, but this body isn't from this world," Neve replied, kneeling beside it. 

Laid out was the body of a little girl. A player named Kayla who had black hair tied into pigtails and wore oversized mage robes. Robes that carried so many different cuts that it wasn't too hard to guess how this girl died. 

[Was this girl in Thomas's group?]

She wondered about that because, unlike the other player corpses she'd run into before, this one hadn't decayed at all. 

In fact, it looked and smelled fresh. The lack of any blood around the corpse was the only indication that this girl hadn't just died, moments before Neve arrived at this position. 

[What happened to you?] She asked the girl in her mind. Though she wasn't about to get any response, she decided to look through her Inventory to see if she could find anything that might shed some light on the questions floating through Neve's mind. 

All she found was the girl's gear, which was so poor it wasn't even worth selling, and a diary. 

Taking it, Neve pulled the book out and read from a few pages. 

[... So, this girl was a support like me. Came in here with her sister, but she died on the First Floor.] Neve walked around absent-mindedly. Erin waited patiently for her to be done before asking anything. [She saw the murders on the Second Floor happen too like I did, but... Unlike me, she decided to go along with Thomas, since she didn't want to be alone.] 

Neve glanced back at the body. It was awful to think about what it must have felt like to witness such a thing from her perspective. 

[Thomas and his group made it through the Second Floor easily. Their strategy was the same in dealing with the monsters as it had been in fighting the high-level players. To overpower them through sheer numbers.] 

Neve had guessed that this had been how they'd managed to progress without any high-level gear or players. 

[They skipped anything that hadn't been essential. On the 3rd Floor... Holy shit,] Neve stopped. Her grip on the diary tightened hard. [The players just killed Norn and Torma as soon as they saw them, for the EXP.]

She'd forgotten this detail, but reading this reminded her of what Tamira had said back when Neve fell into Rorvan. 

Killing NPCs gives EXP. These players had been told this as well and, unlike Neve, made use of that information. 

[They looted the toy off Norn's body and carried it into the boss. Then, on the 4th Floor, they just killed Lia in her NPC form as soon as they ran into her, skipping the boss fight entirely.] 

As Neve would go on to read, this strategy of ignoring quests and killing NPCs worked fine for them until they reached the 5th Floor, where Neve was now. 

[But, here, they got stuck. They needed those four keys to make it into the boss room and had no clue how to get them. So, for the first time, they were forced to interact with the world around them... They only found one key before this happened,] she looked at the body. [This girl died before they found the rest of them.]

Looking at her produced some complicated feelings inside Neve. 

[... She wrote in the diary that she was just a middle schooler. Holy fuck.]

Setting aside her circumstances, these notes did provide a solid piece of information to Neve that she would make use of soon. 

[Getting those keys isn't about killing anything, I take it, since that's precisely why Thomas's group got stuck here. The key they found, it's...] 

Neve took her eyes off the diary. 

It mentioned that the one key Thomas's group had found before Kayla died had been located in the southeast portion of the map, the opposite side from where Neve had found hers. 

She turned in that direction, about to tell Erin where they'd be headed next. 

When she did, however, she found the little girl standing there. 

Covered in wounds, just as she had been when she was on the ground, but now she was on her feet and her eyes were open. 

Neve flinched. 

Erin slowly slithered up to Neve's side. 

The little girl walked forward. 

She extended a hand toward Neve, just as the ghostly boy had done before. 

[... You're joking.] 

Hesitantly, Neve ignored the heavy beating of her heart and took the girl's hand. 

The world went black. 

Suddenly, Neve was walking through this same street once more. 

But, with Thomas by her side. 

She felt warm. Although that massacre hadn't exactly left a good first impression on her, the leadership Thomas had shown after that had won over Neve's heart. So, with her tiny hands wrapped around her staff, Neve felt that she wanted to do a good job right now, as they went to look for the other keys. 

She and Thomas talked a bit. He asked what her favorite food was. Pizza, Neve answered. It was a welcome distraction from their ominous surroundings. 

Then, Thomas stopped. 

"Did you hear that?" He asked, staring ahead. 

An enemy?

Neve's hands instantly got a little bit sweaty. 

Thomas told her to remain where she was, a determined, but cautious look was displayed on his face as he stepped forward. Neve did as he asked. Suddenly, the cold air felt downright freezing. 

Thomas stopped once more and then turned toward her. 

The look in his eyes changed completely.

This wasn't the reliable, older boy that Neve had come to know anymore. This was someone else entirely. 

He started talking about weird stuff. History repeating itself. Neve didn't get it. She wanted to ask what he meant, but a figure stopped her. 

A ghost appeared in front of her. 

Neve stepped back, hoping Thomas would run over and help, as he had so many times on the previous three floors. 

Not this time. 

As two more ghosts appeared, Neve cried out for help. She pissed herself, she was so scared, but didn't even notice as all of her attention was on the man's face, watching emotionlessly as the first sword pierced her body. 

Neve fell back. 

All of a sudden, Neve was promptly turned into an oversized pin cushion as the ghosts all hovered over her body and stabbed whatever part of her they could. 

Her head, her body, her legs, her arms, all of her burned with the worst pain she'd ever felt. And, all this time, all she could do was scream for help, hoping Thomas would shake off whatever came over him and that he'd just come help, as he usually did. 

He never did, of course. Instead, he started talking to someone. 

"Tamira?" Thomas called out casually, like Neve wasn't being stabbed to death by a group of ghosts a few steps away. 

Whoever this person was, Neve didn't hear their words. All she heard was Thomas asking:

"It was entertainment you wanted, right? You and your superiors." 

[Entertainment?] Neve thought. That word bubbled up to the surface of her mind amidst all the pain. 

And then, Thomas said: 

"Yeah, yeah, anyway, I have an offer. How about I make things very entertaining for you?" 

That was the last thing Neve heard before one more sword, thankfully, went through her heart, ending her life. 

The world went white. 

Neve blinked, opening her eyes. 

The little girl was still standing there, staring up at Neve with curious, innocent eyes.

Neve took her hand away and stumbled back. 

The little girl walked forward. 

She extended her right hand again, this time though, toward a tower just behind her, pointing at it.

With that hint having been offered, she then disappeared, becoming nothing but dust carried away by a fleeting wind.  2

All the while, Neve's body trembled. She was, quite frankly, the angriest she'd been in a very, very long time. 

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