134: Obstacles, Part Nine

Obstacles, Part Nine

{Erin} 

Erin's relationship with Neve had been... turbulent, at times. Partly because of Neve and partly because of Erin as well. 

Now that Neve was making literally no effort to even acknowledge her presence, though, she realized that things actually could have been worse. 

She hadn't seriously thought about it, but now, as she was slithering behind Neve while the healer kept her eyes on the point in the city she wanted to head to, she wondered about what her fate would have been if she had been given a host that treated her like nothing more than a summon. 

Actually, now that she thought about it, it didn't take much contemplation to understand how things could have been a *lot* worse. 

"Neve?" Erin called out.

"Yeah?" Neve asked, without looking at her. 

"... You wanna talk about what you saw in that girl's memories?" 

"I saw what I needed to see," Neve replied quickly. "That's all." 

[Is that so?] 

The final key, as Neve had mentioned before, was likely rather close to the Safe Zone. Erin had asked why such an important item might be located so close to the "players'" camp and Neve had answered that it could be like hiding something in plain sight. 

"We'll go grab it, see what Ahlakan can make with all that ectoplasm, and then we'll head straight to the boss." 

"Will you be resting at all? We still have another day, no?" 

"Don't need to. {Holy Beckons} is enough to deal with everything here easily. We'll be fine." 

"I... see." Erin didn't doubt that the spell in question could end up making short work of whatever enemy they encountered behind those giant, locked doors, but she felt that even when one expected to win their battles easily, it was important to be certain they were prepared. "Even then, do you not believe you could set aside some time to gather your strength?" 

"Set aside time?" Neve asked, stopping in her tracks. She turned around and gave Erin a look that she'd never seen on the healer. Or, at least, one she hadn't been on the receiving end of. "No. I've already wasted more than enough time as is." 

"Hm... Well, alright then," Erin shrugged, letting the matter go. 

Still, she couldn't help but be a little bit concerned for her host. She looked down at her hands, at the ring she'd been given a while ago. 

[Heh, sometimes I almost do feel like a worried spouse. Hm. If I am to experience the bad parts of being in a marriage, I do wish I'd get to experience some of the sex that comes with it too, but oh well.] 

Sure enough, there was an alley hiding behind a few houses to the left of the Safe Zone. As Neve walked forward, she looked up at one of those things Erin could not see and held a hand up. 

Erin raised a brow as Neve walked forward slowly like she was expecting to run into something. 

"What are you seeing?" Erin asked. 

"Nothing... But, that's the issue," Neve muttered, as she kept staring up. "There's supposed to be a wall here." 

"A wall?" 

"Yeah," Neve said. "I guess this is a hidden portion of the city or something." 

On that note, Neve gave Erin a look, nodding toward the alley. Understanding what she meant, Erin quickly walked forward, to see if there were any traps around or monsters lurking in the corner. 

She did not find any. Instead, there was a staircase to the right, leading down into a pitch-black space. 

"It's clear," Erin said and Neve walked up. 

Casting a spell that manifested a glowing orb over her head, Neve and her summon walked in. 

The stairs were a lot longer than they looked. 10, 20, 30 steps, and counting. 

It felt like they were descending into an abyss. Erin looked back and found the entrance to this place so far away that the door that led them into this spot looked like a tiny white square. 

That spell Neve cast illuminated the next steps on the staircase, but nothing else. 

[... Eerie.] 

"... I suppose it is a bit late to suggest we go elsewhere, no?"

"The next key has to be down here," Neve responded. "Why else would this path exist?" 

"You're right, but... This whole place feels wrong." 

"Probably full of undead," Neve stated. "I guess we'll see in just a bit." 

Finally, they reached the base of the stairs. 

The floor was composed of pitch-black water. Not like the building they were in was flooded, but literally as though the floor was made of water they could walk on. 

Up ahead, a figure rested, kneeling in the darkness. Neve's spell revealed it to them. 

It was a skeleton wearing a suit of rusted, purple armor. 

[Another undead enemy,] Erin thought. [This should be over quickly.] 

Neve evidently thought the same as she aimed her staff at the monster and cast {Holy Beckons}. 

A white rune appeared beneath it. 

The spell activated and the skeleton was damaged. 

But, unlike all the other undead on this floor, it wasn't dead in one hit. 

A pair of blue eyes began to glow from its sockets as it turned its head up, in their direction. Unfazed, Neve simply cast the spell again. 

This time, however, the creature lunged at them, simultaneously avoiding the rune and closing the gap. 

Slightly caught off-guard,  Erin quickly stood between it and her host. It swung a mace at Neve's head, but the lamia caught it by shaft and threw the skeleton back. It rolled but ended up on its feet, putting its mace back up. 

Erin noticed that although it wasn't carrying a shield, the skeleton's left hand was being held up as though it was meant to be doing so. 

"This creature seems to have had some understanding of how to fight in its past life,"  Erin called out. "Don't underestimate it." 

"Right." 

[Hm. On my end, encountering this kind of enemy is pretty unfortunate. Not as unfortunate as fighting ghosts, but still. Blunt weapons would be best for these situations. The best I could do is punch it in the head, squeeze it to death with my tail, or use my Techniques. At least I do have some options this time as opposed to just standing around and watching.] 

The skeleton lunged at them again. 

Neve used her spell, but placed it in front of her own body, predicting that the skeleton would make it that far. Erin liked seeing that kind of intuition in her. 

She allowed the skeleton to do so and then, as it stepped onto the trap Neve had placed, she went took option #2 and went to wrap her body around the creature. 

A gold-white light burned the skeleton, but even as it was being hurt the creature fixed its eyes on Erin, recognizing that she was about to try something. 

Erin went to carry her plan out, but the skeleton backed off before she was able to. The lamia was shocked. In her eyes, she had surely been close enough to grab onto the enemy. 

[It was that far!?] Erin asked herself, looking down at the floor. [Agh, it's hard to measure distance properly with no walls and barely any light.] 

The skeleton only remained far back like that for a moment before it tried to close the distance again. Neve, having formed a plan that she was sticking to, cast her spell in front of herself again. 

Erin comprehended it and agreed that this was the best course of action for her. The skeleton appeared to only have one means of attacking, and that was through that mace it was carrying. With no other tricks up its sleeves, that meant Neve could use that spell to essentially wall herself off. The skeleton was left without a path to victory. 

All they had to do was complete its defeat. 

It stopped just in front of Neve, not wanting to step onto the white rune and take that damage again. 

Surprisingly, it did have a ranged option. It took its mace and threw it at Neve's head. 

The mace landed. 

It struck Neve square in the middle of her forehead. Neve went down and stayed down, unmoving. 

Briefly, Erin's heart went cold as she genuinely wondered if Neve had died, but she reminded herself that if that was the case, she would have disappeared by now. So, no, the girl was either stunned or knocked out entirely. 

[If I disappear, she's as good as dead. I need to end this.] 

Erin used {The Lamia's Hunt} and charged at the skeleton. It swung one of its bony fists at her, but Erin simply took the hit and kept going, not bothering to dodge or block it. 

Grabbing onto the skeleton's body, she kept it in place long enough to circle it. 

With her thick tail wrapped around the creature, the lamia squeezed as hard as she could. Perhaps under normal circumstances that wouldn't have been enough but, thankfully, Neve had softened it up considerably. 

The skeleton's bones cracked. Slowly, as Erin tightened the pressure further, its body broke completely. 

The skeleton fell to pieces once she was done with it. 

A ghost appeared in its place, standing above its bones. Erin couldn't interact with it, but Neve probably would once she woke up. 

The lamia breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she was able to take it down before her minute ran out, as it was going to do in just about 5 seconds. 

At that time, she glanced at Neve's body, sleeping peacefully, albeit with a nasty knot in the front of her head that was bound to give her a brief, but awful headache upon waking. 

[... The more she grows on me, the more I find myself worried as to how this path she's on is affecting her. I hate it.] 

---

{Neve}

This fight, along with the previous, had brought Neve to this status: 

Level 53

MP: 1100/1100

EXP: 75/530

AP: 3690

IP: 30

WST: 54100

---

Endurance: 40

Speed: 29

Precision: 9

Strength: 5

Arcane: 80

Upon waking up, Neve grabbed the key that appeared on top of the skeleton's corpse, healed away her head injury, and walked out of that abyss in a hurry. 

All four keys had been collected. 

With them, the boss room had been opened. But, along with that, something else had happened. 

The Floor Quest revealed itself. Naturally, it had been tied to the progression of this floor's clear, as some of the others had been as well. 

Quest Gained!

{Craft a Purity Beacon and place it at the center of the city}

[A... Purity Beacon? What kind of item is that?] Neve thought as she walked back to the Safe Zone. 

In doing so, she noticed that upon acquiring these four keys, no ghosts were showing up anymore. The path to the boss was clear, both in terms of the door keeping her from entering and the enemies who'd try to block the way. 

Neve searched for the object in the World Shop, hoping to get a sense of what it was, but to no avail. She did find it, however, when she looked in the Hidden Shop. 

Purity Beacon

{Elixir} 

{Rare}

{Effect: Allows one to become a living beacon of divine energy for 1 minute. The area around the user will be purified, and all impurities will focus on one spot that can then be wiped away.} 

{Val: 15000 WST}

[... Oh,] Neve sighed. [I get it.] 

If she was understanding this description correctly, the effect that the elixir would have was one no one in their right mind would want to happen. 

It would empower the floor's boss. 

[If I wasn't a Priestess, I would probably just give up on floor quests in general at this point. But, because of my class, even with the boss being empowered, it should still be a winnable fight. So, I guess I should make this thing... Kinda fucked up, by the way, that they'd make you pay 15K tokens just to make the boss stronger.]

On that note, she went back to the Safe Zone where she planned on asking Ahlakan to make the item if she could. 

[Do I even have the ingredients needed? Actually, what if a group of players came here without an alchemist? I guess they'd just be fucked.] 

As the healer arrived, she found Ahlakan asleep in her tent. 

She didn't want to interrupt, but the situation called for it. There was a real chance that Neve could clear this floor before the day was over and she wanted to take that opportunity. 

Walking up to the bed, she poked Ahlakan's shoulder. 

"Um... Hey," she whispered. 

Immediately, the nulin woman stirred, opening her eyes and tiredly turning toward her. 

"Hello," the woman said with a smile. "Finished for the day?" 

"Not yet," Neve replied, shaking her head. "But, I wanted to see if you could make something for me." 

"Oh? What kind of potion do you need?" 

"Um, I need..."  0

She struggled to figure out exactly what she needed to say. A prompt appeared, however, that helped her out. 

Purity Beacon

{Ingredients Needed: Ectoplasm x15 + Any Reagent}

Neve blinked. 

[Oh... Well, I guess I found a use for them.] 

Seeing this, Neve brought out the rotten goo in question. 

It fell from her Inventory onto the floor next to the bed, with a sad *plop*. 

The face Ahlakan made nearly had Neve burst out laughing. 

Her eyes went from the ectoplasm, then to Neve, and then back to the ectoplasm. 

"I... see... Um, could you bring some flowers next time, maybe?" 

"I-I'll try."

"Thank you." 

---

With the elixir made, Neve went to the center of the city and drank from the flask, as Erin stood next to her. 

The entire city lit up, becoming a few shades brighter all of a sudden. Even the lime-green sun, hanging above, did as well. 

Along with that change in shades, though, came several black fumes rising up into the sky. Neve and Erin both watched as these fumes coalesced and then spiraled down, landing behind the very doors they'd be walking through next. 

[Guess I was right,] Neve thought. [I hope the boss didn't get *that* much tougher.] 

"I can guess what the answer is going to be, but, Neve," Erin said, "are you certain you want to take this challenge on now?"

"I am," Neve replied. "There's no time to waste. We should get it over with." 

"... Very well," Erin replied. "Let's do that, then." 

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