Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 3: Castle Suterrea)
05-18-2011, 09:44 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Sarika was taking the lead for once, something Karen was taking a while to get used to. While Sarika had her own roundabout way for avoiding traps Karen wondered just how long she would last seeing her own death so many times. Karen couldn’t imagine a world where she saw her own body being mutilated over and over, and knew that deep down Sarika was actually a strong person. She may not act it, or even realise it herself, but her suffering has created herself a deep character, and the urge to go on. But Karen was hesitant over this fear she was avoiding to mention. Karen could tell from Sarika’s body language, the twitches and the tightness in the shoulders, that something was wrong. Either now, or in the future. Karen was sure she would be prepared for it though, as she had this magical feeling deep in her mind. She had no actual idea of how much reserve magic she had at any given time, but right now she could only assume from the feeling of euphoria she had that she was currently at full. It had taken a long time to regenerate the large amount she had used to summon the fire spirit in round one, and now could probably use a lot of that power to figure out just what laws her body was abiding to.
Karen planned to tug at Sarika’s back, but the Seer simply stood and turned before she even had the chance.
“Let me take point.”
Sarika simply stood and let Karen pass, resuming their run through the long corridors.
She was quietly berating herself for not realising something sooner. She knew Sarika was enduring a lot of pain, and yet had not thought ahead to rectify it. Karen could tell by the scratches in the dust, uneven patches of stone and sometimes just by pure instinct and yet she could have just marked where it was safe to step. This way Sarika would not have to endure any of the pain.
“Light” She commanded, opening her palm as she ran. Several small, bright orbs of light sparked into sight. There were about a dozen, each about the size of a marble. They darted across the stones, settling onto the stones Karen was intending to step next. Her foot passed over them harmlessly and Sarika, probably aware of them several seconds before Karen was, just followed as usual.
“Sorry. About not realizing I could do this sooner.”
Sarika didn’t respond. Karen could hear her following, but she seemed to be getting tired. While Karen was keeping a good pace she hadn’t thought ahead to how long Sarika could keep up with her speed, and the attacks. She decided they would take a break once she could find a safe place to rest. But for now Karen wanted to move. To shake that bad feeling she had. She had no idea if it was her natural instincts or something her game body was telling her about. In either case she trusted in the feeling. Choosing to ignore it could prove fatal, so she was taking the safe route and worrying.
While Karen ran ahead, Sarika noticed one small detail about the young girl. Her eyes would dart into every corner, every shadow and every cranny as if daring there to be danger lurking within. And her eyes almost looked disappointed when nothing jumped out at her. Even with her eyes glowing that ominous red, her sword dripping black… innards, for lack of a better term, and her ungodly strength. Sarika was just glad Karen was on her side. But she knew it wouldn’t last. Karen was strong, and inside a battle to the death. It was obvious that danger would follow her wherever she went, that a strong enemy would always be right around the corner to fight her.
Which was what was about to happen. And Sarika had her priorities. She wanted to find Lillian, and if Karen reached Lillian, the danger would only follow. Yes, she could fight it off, but there was always the risk Lillian would be hurt. Sarika would be able to avoid the danger with her. So she had to leave Karen. She had decided that this was the best thing to do.
As Karen neared a crossroad she came to a halt. She checked both, and at the start both seemed free of any surprises. A spiral staircase was to the right, while the left continued on the same floor, albeit heading to a complete right angle to where they had previously been travelling. Karen was uneasy about something, yet she couldn’t pinpoint just what she was uncomfortable with. It wasn’t until Sarika crashed into her back, which didn’t cause her to move forward much at all, that she realised what was bugging her. Her head turned around, and she caught sight of something lying parallel on the ceiling. It was a skeleton, bound by arms and legs inside a rectangular recess cut out of the ceiling. The bones where black and slick, and were far larger than a regular humans. Three large eye holes showed nothing but darkness, yet they seemed to be looking directly into Karen’s eyes.
And then she realised that Sarika was still trying to move her, yet she couldn’t hear what she was saying. It looked like her mouth was yelling, but Karen’s ears didn’t pick up the sound. It was then that she felt a slight aura around her head. The aura of magic. Something had triggered, some sort of magical trap that she had missed. It was making her hearing fail. Karen had to watch as Sarika shoved past Karen and bolted up the stairs. Karen could only guess what she was running for, and quickly rolled down the side passage. She could feel the vibrations in the stone as she got to her feet. She quickly dispelled herself, allowing her hearing to return, as she stared straight back into the now shining purple eyes of the dark skeleton. Worse, her hands were shaking, her muscles grew stiff, and all the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. Yes, this feeling of being overpowered was definitely the source of her discomfort all this time. The monster before her radiated enough energy to make her whole body begin to shake.
And yet, she was no afraid of it. She wouldn’t allow herself to be afraid. She gripped the hilt of her sword so hard her knuckles began to turn red, a stark contrast on her pale skin. The action flowed through her body, tensing every muscle she had power over. She turned her fear into pure anger. She had no use for fear, but her anger would give her an edge in battle. Even as the Skeleton raised it’s fleshless arm to remove an amazingly large sword from the ceiling Karen just stood, carefully tensing her muscles. The sword it had taken was a think dark grey blade, and it reminded her of a claymore. However, the blade itself was at least a whole foot in width. The blade spanned three feet, and the hilt was nothing more than a thick pole the bone fingers wrapped around. Karen couldn’t help but feel that her own sword was nothing more than a stick compared to it. Her katana was fragile, meant for slashing and cutting, but that abomination it held would snap it easily, and probably break every bone in her body afterwards. She wished she still had her old sword, as it would have served her well even if she would have trouble swinging it inside the tunnels.
Then a thought occurred to her. The Skeleton would have the same problem. As it was far larger than Karen, it would probably have trouble swinging even a normal sword. So Karen now had a choice. She couldn’t get past the monster, so she could either take the stairs, a narrow passage that would prove to be difficult to move or attack, and where Sarika was, or take the side route, which led to somewhere else entirely.
It was a natural choice. She carefully began to step backwards, ignoring the chances of there being traps set where she couldn’t see. She had to see just how the Skeleton moved, she wouldn’t charge ahead if she knew it was faster than she was. It slowly lumbered forwards, apparently being slow, but Karen wasn’t convinced. Nothing radiates that kind of powerful aura only to be slowed down that much. So Karen made a sudden move and leapt backwards with a powerful kick. In a heartbeat the Skeleton had matched her speed and was beginning to chase her. She quickly swung her sword around intending to score a hit across the skull, yet the sword deflected harmlessly off of the dark bone, causing strong vibrations to reverberate through her arm. With her left arm she gripped the base of her staff, still latching itself onto her back. She pulled, disconnecting her second katana from the enchanted sheath. With both swords, she began slicing across the face of the skull, yet each attack did nothing to even scratch it. She had to take another step, and this time put more effort into keeping her distance. She was essentially running backwards now, but she couldn’t turn her back on the enemy. With her agility, she managed to keep balanced even with the speed she was retreating, but she had no idea where she was heading. The Skeleton thundered after her, each step pounding off of the stone floor. The monster was the first to activate a trap, as a spear jutted from the wall and impaled it in-between the gaps in its ribs. Karen risked looking over her shoulder, quickly assessing the rest of the hall. She had to turn her body to make out the rest, but she quickly heard the spear snap as her foe quickly resumed its chase. In an all out race Karen was confident she could beat it, speed was her third best skill after her strength and magical ability. But she gave herself a boost with a Haste spell anyway. She needed to formulate a plan to fight something she couldn’t cut. The sword itself wouldn’t do much, and using power attacks was just going to break her blades. Therefore speed was all she had to fall back on. That was assuming her magic couldn’t defeat the monster.
She didn’t have a free hand to cast magic, something she would usually need, but Karen ignored that fact. She didn’t trust any of the old rules, and started creating several fireballs out of thin air. She had to put effort into visualising what she wanted since she was using a different method of creation, yet they burst into life quickly, floating around her body as she ran. They then crashed into the Skeleton and bathed it in flames. There was no sign of damage as the Skeleton remained in pursuit of her, just as she had expected. There was no meat or blood to burn after all, and just the small explosions wouldn’t damage the dark substance that made up the monster’s bones. So Karen was quickly running out of options as to how to fight it. The severity of the situation was dawning on her all too quickly. She had to way to attack, few ways to defend and only one direction she could escape. Eventually the tunnel had to end. If it led to a spacious area, then the Skeleton would have room to attack, and she would lose her advantage. She switched tactics, delving into her holy power. It ate up the same reserves as her witch spells, yet it had once been effective on the undead of her game. A white light shone from her body as she began to bless herself and her swords. Then she spun, throwing a bolt of pure holy energy into the Skeleton’s face. It seemed to slow for just a second, so she followed up with a stunning spell mixed with her sword’s swing. Yet her sword once again deflected without even taking a chip off of the bones, and the Skeleton began to flex its sword arm. Karen ducked as it swung wildly in the cramped space, crashing the large blade into the wall and cleaving into the stone. A trap panel’s remains showered over Karen as a segment of wall suddenly crashed into the Skeleton, missing Karen by a few centimetres. She sprinted away before it could escape, intending to lay several traps of her own to slow it down once she could find a good spot. But as she rounded a corner, Karen had to curse her bad luck. The corner lead to a spacious dome shaped room with no exits anywhere in sight. Karen had no choice but to enter and quickly form a barrier over the hollow that served as her entrance. She set several large explosion traps in front of that, followed by enchanting the whole floor with holy magic. But she was getting desperate. Her magic was almost all fire, and while her magic reserves had gotten extremely close to being full it wouldn’t do any good if her spells didn’t inflict any damage. Her repertoire was almost all fire, and her level of holy magic was too low to do much against the undead monster that was hounding her. She wouldn’t be able to escape or hide. And her swords were too flimsy to cause damage. Despair began to seep into Karen’s mind, turning her thoughts into paranoid ramblings. If only she could find a large sword, fuse it with her staff making it light enough for her to use, but there was nothing of the sort in sight. Even enchanted her swords would break if she used them too much, so continuous assaults where going to be her doom. She had her speed, the difference between a buzz saw and a cleaver would mean something in the fight. But if she could use a large attack against it she could turn the tables, yet she had all but forgotten most of the attacks her katana could manage. She had barely resorted to them inside the game as her main sword had dealt with everything for her. The only attack she knew worked with both was her Steel Hurricane, and while she could probably use those it put a lot of strain on her muscles since it wasn’t the blade hitting the target but a large force of wind that the power of her swings generated. Even if she threw one with each sword simultaneously she doubted it would defeat it.
Nothing from the game was going to help her here. She was going to need a miracle, or create her own from scratch. If she didn’t, the Skeleton would destroy her. It would not be merciful, it would strike her down with such force that surviving wouldn’t be even the slightest possibility. Karen had only felt as helpless once before in her life, after she had lost her parents. And now she was about to die, in a battle she should have been winning.
She refused to give up. She took all her grief and desperation and forced her will to pump herself up. She’d take the Skeleton out even if it killed herself in the process. She was too prideful to die like this. She thought of everything she had to protect, her new comrades, her old way of life, her beliefs and the idea of ending the monster that had organised the battle. Karen felt the strength in her muscles return as she stood her ground, building up the force she needed to strike swiftly. The Skeleton appeared beyond her barrier, simply smashing it with its free fist. The traps detonated, yet the monster simply walked on oblivious of their destructive force. Karen held her ground as it approached, intending to dodge the first strike it made while counter-attacking it.
And then it came. The undead minion leapt forwards, sword held aloft in both arms intending to crush Karen in one fell swoop. Instead of dodging to the side Karen leapt forwards under its legs, each katana slicing in from the sides intent of taking off both of the legs at the sockets in the waist. Yet the Skeleton swiftly lifted the legs in a way no normal human could have stretched, instantly doing the splits in midair. The sword crashed into the stone floor, causing Karen to be lifted a few centimetres off the ground. It turned while swinging the sword with a force Karen couldn’t hope to survive against. She manoeuvred out of the way and began to use hit-and-run tactics to keep herself safe. She circled it with quick flashes she was using from her Thief class, attempting to confuse it. She hoped it would mask where her attack vector would be, and quickly began a strike from the side. She danced around the creature, swords flowing through the air faster then a human eye could follow, yet seemed slower to her own. This time, with more room to move and more space to build up speed she was managing to chip away, but that was all. She couldn’t hope to last if this was all her attacks could do. The Skeleton seemed to grow tired of her moving so much, and swung in a wide arc causing Karen to retreat. Her lungs were beginning to tire, and her arms were already shaking from the force of hitting something more solid than reinforced concrete. She hated to admit it but she needed some really big attacks. Her Steel Hurricane had to have something that she could manipulate. Something she could change to put the fight in her favour. In other words, she needed to use an attack that didn’t exist in her repertoire. Something huge, something so powerful it could rip a tank apart. That kind of attack would probably tear every muscle in her arms, and yet Karen couldn’t worry about the results. Simply performing such an attack was out of her mind since she didn’t even know what to attempt. Her body wouldn’t cope as it was, she couldn’t even dent Charlie after all. And Charlie seemed a lot less durable than the Skeleton before her. She had promised to never use it again, and yet so soon she was having to resort to going berserk. Her emotions quickly dimmed, and her thoughts became basic one short. Her eyelid dropped to a hollow stare as she poised to defend herself. Yes, it was clear now. Completely overpower her old self. Take whatever backdoors she could to win. Fine the loopholes in her power and exploit them to the fullest. She began to circle the Skeleton, moving so fast that her leg muscles began to burn from the effort. She then dumped a massive proportion of her magic directly into her swords, causing them to vibrate at extreme levels. While her regular self would have attacked directly right there, her calm, reckless personality taken from the berserk mode wanted complete annihilation of her enemy. Instead of swinging her blades and striking the Skeleton she unleashed a barrage of swipes through the air as she sped around in a wide circumference. Each swing sent forth a blade of energy that quickly flew around the Skeleton, eventually piling up to create a small hurricane. It appeared to be catching on to what Karen was doing and attempted to stop some of the waves, yet its arm was clipped badly by the first two it touched. Karen kept up her ranged assault, filling the room with flying waves all the way to the ceiling. Then she suddenly stopped, and almost battered the air in the room by reversing both her swords direction of movement within an instant. The waves all became one, and enveloped the Skeleton in a fierce hurricane of destruction. Karen was too close to escape and began to be pulled into the centre of the room, and without a moment to lose she enveloped herself with a magic coating that would take away her magical reserves instead of causing harm to her body when she was hurt. She was swallowed by the vortex and instantly was hammered by her own attacks. With little user for them she managed to sheath her katanas in her staff. The impacts of the energy waves caused her to spiral around as she was swung through the air by the current. She heard a humungous crashing noise from one of the ends to the hurricane, she could no longer tell what way was up, and was pulled in that direction. She could feel the form of it wobbling as she was thrown from side to side, and the number of crashing noises kept increasing. Her magic reserves plummeted with an amazing speed, and Karen worried that it would run out before she escaped. Karen had a suspicion that her attack was completely out of hand, but her arms had gone completely numb and she couldn’t move them at all. They swung around limply as she was treated like a ragdoll by her own attack. She made a guess that the crashing noises were the hurricane cutting through the ceilings of each floor, and she wondered if it would reach all the way to the roof of the castle. Just when her magic reserves began to go empty, the series of attacks stopped. Perhaps she had ran out of sword waves, but the hurricane continued through one last ceiling before breaking through the castle roof and throwing Karen upwards.
And for the first time in two years, Karen took a breath of fresh air.
She stared upwards at a clear, crisp blue sky. A few clouds floated peacefully overhead as she looked upwards. Her body hung in freefall, the moment seeming eternal as she gazed at the peaceful scene. The air filled her lungs, giving her a sense of freedom. This was real air, not a fake sense she was getting from a video game or what her mind told her was real inside the virtual world created for her. Even if this world was created by some mad omnipotent master to force denizens of separate realities to fight to the death, it was real.
And then she heard yelling. She twisted her neck below and saw Marcus being thrown by the hurricane towards her. Another followed, yet she couldn’t recognise who it was. She also couldn’t catch what Marcus was yelling about, but it was probably about dying or falling or something like that. Karen no longer had the energy to worry about anything, she just felt like taking a nap. But a voice in the back of her mind brought her to her senses. Of course she couldn’t sleep here, she’d die. It was at that moment she realised she was still in berserk. She lit the rage slip from her mind and a flood of emotions flooded back into her consciousness. She then realised that her staff was still stuck to her back. She tried to flex her right arm, but it remained unresponsive. So she simply willed the staff to do as she commanded and fly towards Marcus. It remained unresponsive as gravity took its hold on her and began to drag her back towards the castle, but it did as she willed it to and launched into Marcus’ chest with a little more force than she intended. He clung to it automatically, surprised that it kept him airborne. He also had the reflexes to grab Karen’s hand as she fell past, yet she was unable to grip back at all. She gazed up into Marcus’ eyes, still feeling weary from the fight, and saw his eyes widen in surprise. She felt that was probably normal seeing as her eyes were glowing red, but she noticed that her other arm was now occupied. The robes figure clung desperately to her other limp arm, and the staff began to dip under the weight of three people.
“Grip back or you’ll both slip!”
“My arms are asleep.”
“Of all times, now?!”
“We’re falling.”
“Yeah. We are.”
“Can you two not see the severity of this situation?!”
Karen and the unknown person both stared at Marcus, and let go. At the same time they suddenly slowed and began to fall towards the castle at a safe speed. Karen was surprised to see another magic user, and now that she could see his face he seemed to resemble someone she was sure she had met once. And his voice sounded almost like- No, it couldn’t be. This guy had pointed ears and- Oh but he does resemble him, she thought to herself. She guessed that she was not the only one to change in between rounds, although Lloyd’s transformation was rather extreme… and it was a little hard to not laugh at his expense. Karen was sure she’d giggle when she had the energy. Slowly, all three of them managed to descend to a bedroom at the top of the castle safely, although Karen ran out of magic and fell onto the floor from about five feet up. She managed to land on her feet though, so it didn’t show that her magic reserve had hit rock bottom. This was astonishing as her magic reserves had been massive before the Skeleton had attacked her. Her reserves had been almost twice that of normal players back in the game. She turned to see Lloyd and Marcus touch the floor, and she was handed her staff back. Marcus was about to speak when Karen noticed something falling from the sky. She shouldered into his chest and collapsed over him just as the large blade the Skeleton had owned crashed through the roof and tumbled down towards the bottom floor. Karen tried to shift her weight off of Marcus, which was harder said than done when she couldn’t move her arms. She glared up at Marcus, who seemed to be taking her prolonged presence a little too well for her liking. She used the tiny amount of magic she had gathered since her fall and put a spark of fire on his ear to get his attention. He yelped and quickly shoved her off, leaving her to try and stand up without using her arms, or letting her skirt rise too high. Eventually she managed to balance herself using her staff to lift herself back up with it looped under her arm.
“Done with your little moment?” Lloyd added in quiet jest.
Of course, his joke was killed off when Karen glared into his eyes. Lloyd probably wasn’t expecting her crimson red eyes.
“Looks like we’ve both changed a little, Conrad. But the ears don’t suit you. They’re kind of… tacky, even for my standards.” Karen was actually having a little trouble to not smirk, even with her constant monotone expression still remaining still.
“Yeah very funny, can we ignore our bodily differences for a while and figure out what just happened?”
Karen had to strain just to hear what Lloyd was hearing half the time, but she decided she had gotten the gist of what he had said.
“Well, I started with Sarika, we went through a labyrinth of tunnels filled with traps and demon dogs and stuff like that, you know, the easy stuff. Then a dark skeleton appeared and Sarika went upwards and I had trouble killing it and then I did that hurricane… actually I don’t know if it died yet.”
“Did you get the exp yet?” He asked, his personality taking over for a split second.
Karen actually couldn’t answer that. Had she gained any experience from these monsters? She wouldn’t know how that felt when it translated into body signals instead of game code…
Karen just shrugged and decided she’d deal with the problem when it arose. For now she just tried to get her arms working again. In the meantime she gazed at the sky, unable to hid the sun from her eyes.
“…It’s been a long time since I saw the sky. A real sky. Even one created just for a few hours.”
Marcus took his turn to interject and asked “Have you seen anyone else yet?”
“Sarika should still be a level or two above where this hole starts”, She kicked a piece of rubble down to check how deep it actually was ,” wow, I really made a mess huh. Might have overdid it with the magic. Half my reserve was a bit much in hindsight.”
“…half. You have got to be joking. No, don’t answer that, rhetorical statement. Oh right, does anyone want to tell me why people are changing their appearance? Or do I have to wait till Reudic floats in looking like an oak tree?”
Karen and Lloyd exchanged an awkward glance, and Karen decided to answer.
“Back in my game, a player is allowed to kill other players. They’re shunned by people who just want to kill monsters, and the game forces their eyes to turn red to show that they’ve killed a player. I killed Charlie, so it affected me. Didn’t expect it to happen really.”
Karen’s hand twitched. She could feel the blood flow, and sort of move her fingers on her right hand, which was an improvement. Marcus seemed satisfied with her answer and glanced at Lloyd, who didn’t look like he would explain his own appearance any time soon. She continued to move her fingers to get the blood flowing better, but with the ability to move came the pain of over exhausted muscles. She endured it without letting her expression change. She kept clenching her hand into a fist and opening it again, slowly regaining use of her limb.
“I’ll give it to you that you’ve did some crazy things this game Karen, the fire thing, taking out Charlie, and accidently freeing me and Lloyd here from a dilemma. We were stuck in some sort of magical loop, we were just about to try and break out with explosives.”
“Magic?”
And then Karen noticed something. Lloyd had floated his way down, something she couldn’t have expected of him.
“…So Lloyd, how did you learn magic so suddenly?
”… I suppose I could tell you.” He said with his diminished volume.
“With each new setting I have entered in my existence I have taken on a role that fits right into the setting. This can change my appearance, give me a new set of memories and a wide range of skills. With this setting… I took on an Elf, which is really not my cup of tea.”
“Also, would you happen to know where I could get myself a hat? I’m willing to settle for anything that will hide these… ridiculous ears.”
Karen gripped the brim of her witch hat and shook her head. But within her mind a small series of facts began to connect in her head. The layout of the castle she had seen, the traps, the monsters and finally Lloyd.
“…This is a game, isn’t it Lloyd?”
“I see you figured it out. Yes, this is a tabletop setting.”
Marcus simply let the conversation turn into something he clearly couldn’t follow. Karen had wondered just what purpose such trap laden tunnels would serve in practical terms. However, a new idea surfaced in her thoughts. Just what would she discover should she find the so called magical weaponry? She was definitely in the market for a new sword. But third idea occurred to her.
“Interesting… tell me Lloyd, would you be interested in being escorted to the vault? I imagine it has some interesting treasure, and at least one of us should fine something we’d like.”
As much as Karen didn’t trust Lloyd, even now that he actually had a fighting chance against her, no matter that she imagined it was a tiny one at best, she still felt that she’d rather keep an eye on him than let him run around with anyone else.
“…you seem so sure, but it is an interesting offer. I certainly didn’t have any better plans, so I’d say lead the way, so long as you know where you’re going.”
Karen had a vague idea that there was some kind of entrance hidden away in the dome room below. Either that or it was in the direction she had chosen not to go when she started in the round. It was a natural fact that the entrance to the vault would be behind the most dangerous part of the castle, and if it turned out that the skeleton was the wrong danger then there would be something worse guarding the real entrance, which is where Lloyd would become useful. With her main arm now moving properly she dug into her pocket to find an MP potion, or failing that, one of the sodas she stocked up on. She could really use the sharp sting of fizz on her tongue right about now, and she was rather thirsty after the ordeal. It was the soda she managed to grip onto first, so she pulled it out, twisted the lid off of the glass bottle and began to sip away. She felt the back of her mind cool and rejuvenate as her energy reserves filled further. She could regenerate it incredibly fast, within thirty minutes it would be half full. But she required a small boost right there, to heal her wounds. After her soda and her thirst were defeated she started tending to her arms which were burning with pain. It took a whole five minutes as she stood in silence casting as many spells as her minuscule energy reserves would allow. Lloyd said he’d offer to help her in his quiet volume, had he been a class that held healing spells. Karen took this opportunity to gloat about her multi-classing so much.
With her arms not hurting as badly and having them wrapped in her healing bandages she was set to go. At Lloyd’s discretion she began to jump from one floor to the one below, following her makeshift hole in the castle structure. Lloyd managed to follow, albeit he took a rather more cautious approach than Karen’s leaps. Marcus mentioned something about heading off alone, which seemed to suit him just fine. He was sick of babysitting anyway, or so he said. Karen hoped he didn’t take the tackle the wrong way, and there were a lot of wrong ways to take that. But her regrets were banished when she touched to bottom floor, for when she got there she spotted a familiar looking blade jutting out of the stone floor, a bone hand still gripping the hilt. She examined it closely, and attempted to pry the remains off. It didn’t budge, so she drew a katana and wedged it between the bone and the hilt, and pulled. With a snap the hand broke and slowly began to disintegrate into a dark black dust. She tried to pull the sword out of the ground, but as she had anticipated it was incredibly heavy. She imagined it must weigh over 130 pounds, roughly. However that wasn’t going to stop her from using it. She re-sheathed her katana and propped her staff next to the sword. She was going to fuse one with the other, forming a hilt and inner hollow in the sword for it to fit, and allowing the staff to be in a constant state of flight and lift a lot of the weight, the same thing she had done with her last sword. While she did that, Lloyd looked for whatever served as the exit to this room, finding the remains of Karen’s traps by the way she had came in originally. It would take her a few minutes to force the staff to fuse with magic, but she’d have time while Lloyd searched the room. Maybe she’d even have time for another soda, or make herself a sling for the blade with whatever materials she could find in her pockets.
Sarika was taking the lead for once, something Karen was taking a while to get used to. While Sarika had her own roundabout way for avoiding traps Karen wondered just how long she would last seeing her own death so many times. Karen couldn’t imagine a world where she saw her own body being mutilated over and over, and knew that deep down Sarika was actually a strong person. She may not act it, or even realise it herself, but her suffering has created herself a deep character, and the urge to go on. But Karen was hesitant over this fear she was avoiding to mention. Karen could tell from Sarika’s body language, the twitches and the tightness in the shoulders, that something was wrong. Either now, or in the future. Karen was sure she would be prepared for it though, as she had this magical feeling deep in her mind. She had no actual idea of how much reserve magic she had at any given time, but right now she could only assume from the feeling of euphoria she had that she was currently at full. It had taken a long time to regenerate the large amount she had used to summon the fire spirit in round one, and now could probably use a lot of that power to figure out just what laws her body was abiding to.
Karen planned to tug at Sarika’s back, but the Seer simply stood and turned before she even had the chance.
“Let me take point.”
Sarika simply stood and let Karen pass, resuming their run through the long corridors.
She was quietly berating herself for not realising something sooner. She knew Sarika was enduring a lot of pain, and yet had not thought ahead to rectify it. Karen could tell by the scratches in the dust, uneven patches of stone and sometimes just by pure instinct and yet she could have just marked where it was safe to step. This way Sarika would not have to endure any of the pain.
“Light” She commanded, opening her palm as she ran. Several small, bright orbs of light sparked into sight. There were about a dozen, each about the size of a marble. They darted across the stones, settling onto the stones Karen was intending to step next. Her foot passed over them harmlessly and Sarika, probably aware of them several seconds before Karen was, just followed as usual.
“Sorry. About not realizing I could do this sooner.”
Sarika didn’t respond. Karen could hear her following, but she seemed to be getting tired. While Karen was keeping a good pace she hadn’t thought ahead to how long Sarika could keep up with her speed, and the attacks. She decided they would take a break once she could find a safe place to rest. But for now Karen wanted to move. To shake that bad feeling she had. She had no idea if it was her natural instincts or something her game body was telling her about. In either case she trusted in the feeling. Choosing to ignore it could prove fatal, so she was taking the safe route and worrying.
While Karen ran ahead, Sarika noticed one small detail about the young girl. Her eyes would dart into every corner, every shadow and every cranny as if daring there to be danger lurking within. And her eyes almost looked disappointed when nothing jumped out at her. Even with her eyes glowing that ominous red, her sword dripping black… innards, for lack of a better term, and her ungodly strength. Sarika was just glad Karen was on her side. But she knew it wouldn’t last. Karen was strong, and inside a battle to the death. It was obvious that danger would follow her wherever she went, that a strong enemy would always be right around the corner to fight her.
Which was what was about to happen. And Sarika had her priorities. She wanted to find Lillian, and if Karen reached Lillian, the danger would only follow. Yes, she could fight it off, but there was always the risk Lillian would be hurt. Sarika would be able to avoid the danger with her. So she had to leave Karen. She had decided that this was the best thing to do.
As Karen neared a crossroad she came to a halt. She checked both, and at the start both seemed free of any surprises. A spiral staircase was to the right, while the left continued on the same floor, albeit heading to a complete right angle to where they had previously been travelling. Karen was uneasy about something, yet she couldn’t pinpoint just what she was uncomfortable with. It wasn’t until Sarika crashed into her back, which didn’t cause her to move forward much at all, that she realised what was bugging her. Her head turned around, and she caught sight of something lying parallel on the ceiling. It was a skeleton, bound by arms and legs inside a rectangular recess cut out of the ceiling. The bones where black and slick, and were far larger than a regular humans. Three large eye holes showed nothing but darkness, yet they seemed to be looking directly into Karen’s eyes.
And then she realised that Sarika was still trying to move her, yet she couldn’t hear what she was saying. It looked like her mouth was yelling, but Karen’s ears didn’t pick up the sound. It was then that she felt a slight aura around her head. The aura of magic. Something had triggered, some sort of magical trap that she had missed. It was making her hearing fail. Karen had to watch as Sarika shoved past Karen and bolted up the stairs. Karen could only guess what she was running for, and quickly rolled down the side passage. She could feel the vibrations in the stone as she got to her feet. She quickly dispelled herself, allowing her hearing to return, as she stared straight back into the now shining purple eyes of the dark skeleton. Worse, her hands were shaking, her muscles grew stiff, and all the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. Yes, this feeling of being overpowered was definitely the source of her discomfort all this time. The monster before her radiated enough energy to make her whole body begin to shake.
And yet, she was no afraid of it. She wouldn’t allow herself to be afraid. She gripped the hilt of her sword so hard her knuckles began to turn red, a stark contrast on her pale skin. The action flowed through her body, tensing every muscle she had power over. She turned her fear into pure anger. She had no use for fear, but her anger would give her an edge in battle. Even as the Skeleton raised it’s fleshless arm to remove an amazingly large sword from the ceiling Karen just stood, carefully tensing her muscles. The sword it had taken was a think dark grey blade, and it reminded her of a claymore. However, the blade itself was at least a whole foot in width. The blade spanned three feet, and the hilt was nothing more than a thick pole the bone fingers wrapped around. Karen couldn’t help but feel that her own sword was nothing more than a stick compared to it. Her katana was fragile, meant for slashing and cutting, but that abomination it held would snap it easily, and probably break every bone in her body afterwards. She wished she still had her old sword, as it would have served her well even if she would have trouble swinging it inside the tunnels.
Then a thought occurred to her. The Skeleton would have the same problem. As it was far larger than Karen, it would probably have trouble swinging even a normal sword. So Karen now had a choice. She couldn’t get past the monster, so she could either take the stairs, a narrow passage that would prove to be difficult to move or attack, and where Sarika was, or take the side route, which led to somewhere else entirely.
It was a natural choice. She carefully began to step backwards, ignoring the chances of there being traps set where she couldn’t see. She had to see just how the Skeleton moved, she wouldn’t charge ahead if she knew it was faster than she was. It slowly lumbered forwards, apparently being slow, but Karen wasn’t convinced. Nothing radiates that kind of powerful aura only to be slowed down that much. So Karen made a sudden move and leapt backwards with a powerful kick. In a heartbeat the Skeleton had matched her speed and was beginning to chase her. She quickly swung her sword around intending to score a hit across the skull, yet the sword deflected harmlessly off of the dark bone, causing strong vibrations to reverberate through her arm. With her left arm she gripped the base of her staff, still latching itself onto her back. She pulled, disconnecting her second katana from the enchanted sheath. With both swords, she began slicing across the face of the skull, yet each attack did nothing to even scratch it. She had to take another step, and this time put more effort into keeping her distance. She was essentially running backwards now, but she couldn’t turn her back on the enemy. With her agility, she managed to keep balanced even with the speed she was retreating, but she had no idea where she was heading. The Skeleton thundered after her, each step pounding off of the stone floor. The monster was the first to activate a trap, as a spear jutted from the wall and impaled it in-between the gaps in its ribs. Karen risked looking over her shoulder, quickly assessing the rest of the hall. She had to turn her body to make out the rest, but she quickly heard the spear snap as her foe quickly resumed its chase. In an all out race Karen was confident she could beat it, speed was her third best skill after her strength and magical ability. But she gave herself a boost with a Haste spell anyway. She needed to formulate a plan to fight something she couldn’t cut. The sword itself wouldn’t do much, and using power attacks was just going to break her blades. Therefore speed was all she had to fall back on. That was assuming her magic couldn’t defeat the monster.
She didn’t have a free hand to cast magic, something she would usually need, but Karen ignored that fact. She didn’t trust any of the old rules, and started creating several fireballs out of thin air. She had to put effort into visualising what she wanted since she was using a different method of creation, yet they burst into life quickly, floating around her body as she ran. They then crashed into the Skeleton and bathed it in flames. There was no sign of damage as the Skeleton remained in pursuit of her, just as she had expected. There was no meat or blood to burn after all, and just the small explosions wouldn’t damage the dark substance that made up the monster’s bones. So Karen was quickly running out of options as to how to fight it. The severity of the situation was dawning on her all too quickly. She had to way to attack, few ways to defend and only one direction she could escape. Eventually the tunnel had to end. If it led to a spacious area, then the Skeleton would have room to attack, and she would lose her advantage. She switched tactics, delving into her holy power. It ate up the same reserves as her witch spells, yet it had once been effective on the undead of her game. A white light shone from her body as she began to bless herself and her swords. Then she spun, throwing a bolt of pure holy energy into the Skeleton’s face. It seemed to slow for just a second, so she followed up with a stunning spell mixed with her sword’s swing. Yet her sword once again deflected without even taking a chip off of the bones, and the Skeleton began to flex its sword arm. Karen ducked as it swung wildly in the cramped space, crashing the large blade into the wall and cleaving into the stone. A trap panel’s remains showered over Karen as a segment of wall suddenly crashed into the Skeleton, missing Karen by a few centimetres. She sprinted away before it could escape, intending to lay several traps of her own to slow it down once she could find a good spot. But as she rounded a corner, Karen had to curse her bad luck. The corner lead to a spacious dome shaped room with no exits anywhere in sight. Karen had no choice but to enter and quickly form a barrier over the hollow that served as her entrance. She set several large explosion traps in front of that, followed by enchanting the whole floor with holy magic. But she was getting desperate. Her magic was almost all fire, and while her magic reserves had gotten extremely close to being full it wouldn’t do any good if her spells didn’t inflict any damage. Her repertoire was almost all fire, and her level of holy magic was too low to do much against the undead monster that was hounding her. She wouldn’t be able to escape or hide. And her swords were too flimsy to cause damage. Despair began to seep into Karen’s mind, turning her thoughts into paranoid ramblings. If only she could find a large sword, fuse it with her staff making it light enough for her to use, but there was nothing of the sort in sight. Even enchanted her swords would break if she used them too much, so continuous assaults where going to be her doom. She had her speed, the difference between a buzz saw and a cleaver would mean something in the fight. But if she could use a large attack against it she could turn the tables, yet she had all but forgotten most of the attacks her katana could manage. She had barely resorted to them inside the game as her main sword had dealt with everything for her. The only attack she knew worked with both was her Steel Hurricane, and while she could probably use those it put a lot of strain on her muscles since it wasn’t the blade hitting the target but a large force of wind that the power of her swings generated. Even if she threw one with each sword simultaneously she doubted it would defeat it.
Nothing from the game was going to help her here. She was going to need a miracle, or create her own from scratch. If she didn’t, the Skeleton would destroy her. It would not be merciful, it would strike her down with such force that surviving wouldn’t be even the slightest possibility. Karen had only felt as helpless once before in her life, after she had lost her parents. And now she was about to die, in a battle she should have been winning.
She refused to give up. She took all her grief and desperation and forced her will to pump herself up. She’d take the Skeleton out even if it killed herself in the process. She was too prideful to die like this. She thought of everything she had to protect, her new comrades, her old way of life, her beliefs and the idea of ending the monster that had organised the battle. Karen felt the strength in her muscles return as she stood her ground, building up the force she needed to strike swiftly. The Skeleton appeared beyond her barrier, simply smashing it with its free fist. The traps detonated, yet the monster simply walked on oblivious of their destructive force. Karen held her ground as it approached, intending to dodge the first strike it made while counter-attacking it.
And then it came. The undead minion leapt forwards, sword held aloft in both arms intending to crush Karen in one fell swoop. Instead of dodging to the side Karen leapt forwards under its legs, each katana slicing in from the sides intent of taking off both of the legs at the sockets in the waist. Yet the Skeleton swiftly lifted the legs in a way no normal human could have stretched, instantly doing the splits in midair. The sword crashed into the stone floor, causing Karen to be lifted a few centimetres off the ground. It turned while swinging the sword with a force Karen couldn’t hope to survive against. She manoeuvred out of the way and began to use hit-and-run tactics to keep herself safe. She circled it with quick flashes she was using from her Thief class, attempting to confuse it. She hoped it would mask where her attack vector would be, and quickly began a strike from the side. She danced around the creature, swords flowing through the air faster then a human eye could follow, yet seemed slower to her own. This time, with more room to move and more space to build up speed she was managing to chip away, but that was all. She couldn’t hope to last if this was all her attacks could do. The Skeleton seemed to grow tired of her moving so much, and swung in a wide arc causing Karen to retreat. Her lungs were beginning to tire, and her arms were already shaking from the force of hitting something more solid than reinforced concrete. She hated to admit it but she needed some really big attacks. Her Steel Hurricane had to have something that she could manipulate. Something she could change to put the fight in her favour. In other words, she needed to use an attack that didn’t exist in her repertoire. Something huge, something so powerful it could rip a tank apart. That kind of attack would probably tear every muscle in her arms, and yet Karen couldn’t worry about the results. Simply performing such an attack was out of her mind since she didn’t even know what to attempt. Her body wouldn’t cope as it was, she couldn’t even dent Charlie after all. And Charlie seemed a lot less durable than the Skeleton before her. She had promised to never use it again, and yet so soon she was having to resort to going berserk. Her emotions quickly dimmed, and her thoughts became basic one short. Her eyelid dropped to a hollow stare as she poised to defend herself. Yes, it was clear now. Completely overpower her old self. Take whatever backdoors she could to win. Fine the loopholes in her power and exploit them to the fullest. She began to circle the Skeleton, moving so fast that her leg muscles began to burn from the effort. She then dumped a massive proportion of her magic directly into her swords, causing them to vibrate at extreme levels. While her regular self would have attacked directly right there, her calm, reckless personality taken from the berserk mode wanted complete annihilation of her enemy. Instead of swinging her blades and striking the Skeleton she unleashed a barrage of swipes through the air as she sped around in a wide circumference. Each swing sent forth a blade of energy that quickly flew around the Skeleton, eventually piling up to create a small hurricane. It appeared to be catching on to what Karen was doing and attempted to stop some of the waves, yet its arm was clipped badly by the first two it touched. Karen kept up her ranged assault, filling the room with flying waves all the way to the ceiling. Then she suddenly stopped, and almost battered the air in the room by reversing both her swords direction of movement within an instant. The waves all became one, and enveloped the Skeleton in a fierce hurricane of destruction. Karen was too close to escape and began to be pulled into the centre of the room, and without a moment to lose she enveloped herself with a magic coating that would take away her magical reserves instead of causing harm to her body when she was hurt. She was swallowed by the vortex and instantly was hammered by her own attacks. With little user for them she managed to sheath her katanas in her staff. The impacts of the energy waves caused her to spiral around as she was swung through the air by the current. She heard a humungous crashing noise from one of the ends to the hurricane, she could no longer tell what way was up, and was pulled in that direction. She could feel the form of it wobbling as she was thrown from side to side, and the number of crashing noises kept increasing. Her magic reserves plummeted with an amazing speed, and Karen worried that it would run out before she escaped. Karen had a suspicion that her attack was completely out of hand, but her arms had gone completely numb and she couldn’t move them at all. They swung around limply as she was treated like a ragdoll by her own attack. She made a guess that the crashing noises were the hurricane cutting through the ceilings of each floor, and she wondered if it would reach all the way to the roof of the castle. Just when her magic reserves began to go empty, the series of attacks stopped. Perhaps she had ran out of sword waves, but the hurricane continued through one last ceiling before breaking through the castle roof and throwing Karen upwards.
And for the first time in two years, Karen took a breath of fresh air.
She stared upwards at a clear, crisp blue sky. A few clouds floated peacefully overhead as she looked upwards. Her body hung in freefall, the moment seeming eternal as she gazed at the peaceful scene. The air filled her lungs, giving her a sense of freedom. This was real air, not a fake sense she was getting from a video game or what her mind told her was real inside the virtual world created for her. Even if this world was created by some mad omnipotent master to force denizens of separate realities to fight to the death, it was real.
And then she heard yelling. She twisted her neck below and saw Marcus being thrown by the hurricane towards her. Another followed, yet she couldn’t recognise who it was. She also couldn’t catch what Marcus was yelling about, but it was probably about dying or falling or something like that. Karen no longer had the energy to worry about anything, she just felt like taking a nap. But a voice in the back of her mind brought her to her senses. Of course she couldn’t sleep here, she’d die. It was at that moment she realised she was still in berserk. She lit the rage slip from her mind and a flood of emotions flooded back into her consciousness. She then realised that her staff was still stuck to her back. She tried to flex her right arm, but it remained unresponsive. So she simply willed the staff to do as she commanded and fly towards Marcus. It remained unresponsive as gravity took its hold on her and began to drag her back towards the castle, but it did as she willed it to and launched into Marcus’ chest with a little more force than she intended. He clung to it automatically, surprised that it kept him airborne. He also had the reflexes to grab Karen’s hand as she fell past, yet she was unable to grip back at all. She gazed up into Marcus’ eyes, still feeling weary from the fight, and saw his eyes widen in surprise. She felt that was probably normal seeing as her eyes were glowing red, but she noticed that her other arm was now occupied. The robes figure clung desperately to her other limp arm, and the staff began to dip under the weight of three people.
“Grip back or you’ll both slip!”
“My arms are asleep.”
“Of all times, now?!”
“We’re falling.”
“Yeah. We are.”
“Can you two not see the severity of this situation?!”
Karen and the unknown person both stared at Marcus, and let go. At the same time they suddenly slowed and began to fall towards the castle at a safe speed. Karen was surprised to see another magic user, and now that she could see his face he seemed to resemble someone she was sure she had met once. And his voice sounded almost like- No, it couldn’t be. This guy had pointed ears and- Oh but he does resemble him, she thought to herself. She guessed that she was not the only one to change in between rounds, although Lloyd’s transformation was rather extreme… and it was a little hard to not laugh at his expense. Karen was sure she’d giggle when she had the energy. Slowly, all three of them managed to descend to a bedroom at the top of the castle safely, although Karen ran out of magic and fell onto the floor from about five feet up. She managed to land on her feet though, so it didn’t show that her magic reserve had hit rock bottom. This was astonishing as her magic reserves had been massive before the Skeleton had attacked her. Her reserves had been almost twice that of normal players back in the game. She turned to see Lloyd and Marcus touch the floor, and she was handed her staff back. Marcus was about to speak when Karen noticed something falling from the sky. She shouldered into his chest and collapsed over him just as the large blade the Skeleton had owned crashed through the roof and tumbled down towards the bottom floor. Karen tried to shift her weight off of Marcus, which was harder said than done when she couldn’t move her arms. She glared up at Marcus, who seemed to be taking her prolonged presence a little too well for her liking. She used the tiny amount of magic she had gathered since her fall and put a spark of fire on his ear to get his attention. He yelped and quickly shoved her off, leaving her to try and stand up without using her arms, or letting her skirt rise too high. Eventually she managed to balance herself using her staff to lift herself back up with it looped under her arm.
“Done with your little moment?” Lloyd added in quiet jest.
Of course, his joke was killed off when Karen glared into his eyes. Lloyd probably wasn’t expecting her crimson red eyes.
“Looks like we’ve both changed a little, Conrad. But the ears don’t suit you. They’re kind of… tacky, even for my standards.” Karen was actually having a little trouble to not smirk, even with her constant monotone expression still remaining still.
“Yeah very funny, can we ignore our bodily differences for a while and figure out what just happened?”
Karen had to strain just to hear what Lloyd was hearing half the time, but she decided she had gotten the gist of what he had said.
“Well, I started with Sarika, we went through a labyrinth of tunnels filled with traps and demon dogs and stuff like that, you know, the easy stuff. Then a dark skeleton appeared and Sarika went upwards and I had trouble killing it and then I did that hurricane… actually I don’t know if it died yet.”
“Did you get the exp yet?” He asked, his personality taking over for a split second.
Karen actually couldn’t answer that. Had she gained any experience from these monsters? She wouldn’t know how that felt when it translated into body signals instead of game code…
Karen just shrugged and decided she’d deal with the problem when it arose. For now she just tried to get her arms working again. In the meantime she gazed at the sky, unable to hid the sun from her eyes.
“…It’s been a long time since I saw the sky. A real sky. Even one created just for a few hours.”
Marcus took his turn to interject and asked “Have you seen anyone else yet?”
“Sarika should still be a level or two above where this hole starts”, She kicked a piece of rubble down to check how deep it actually was ,” wow, I really made a mess huh. Might have overdid it with the magic. Half my reserve was a bit much in hindsight.”
“…half. You have got to be joking. No, don’t answer that, rhetorical statement. Oh right, does anyone want to tell me why people are changing their appearance? Or do I have to wait till Reudic floats in looking like an oak tree?”
Karen and Lloyd exchanged an awkward glance, and Karen decided to answer.
“Back in my game, a player is allowed to kill other players. They’re shunned by people who just want to kill monsters, and the game forces their eyes to turn red to show that they’ve killed a player. I killed Charlie, so it affected me. Didn’t expect it to happen really.”
Karen’s hand twitched. She could feel the blood flow, and sort of move her fingers on her right hand, which was an improvement. Marcus seemed satisfied with her answer and glanced at Lloyd, who didn’t look like he would explain his own appearance any time soon. She continued to move her fingers to get the blood flowing better, but with the ability to move came the pain of over exhausted muscles. She endured it without letting her expression change. She kept clenching her hand into a fist and opening it again, slowly regaining use of her limb.
“I’ll give it to you that you’ve did some crazy things this game Karen, the fire thing, taking out Charlie, and accidently freeing me and Lloyd here from a dilemma. We were stuck in some sort of magical loop, we were just about to try and break out with explosives.”
“Magic?”
And then Karen noticed something. Lloyd had floated his way down, something she couldn’t have expected of him.
“…So Lloyd, how did you learn magic so suddenly?
”… I suppose I could tell you.” He said with his diminished volume.
“With each new setting I have entered in my existence I have taken on a role that fits right into the setting. This can change my appearance, give me a new set of memories and a wide range of skills. With this setting… I took on an Elf, which is really not my cup of tea.”
“Also, would you happen to know where I could get myself a hat? I’m willing to settle for anything that will hide these… ridiculous ears.”
Karen gripped the brim of her witch hat and shook her head. But within her mind a small series of facts began to connect in her head. The layout of the castle she had seen, the traps, the monsters and finally Lloyd.
“…This is a game, isn’t it Lloyd?”
“I see you figured it out. Yes, this is a tabletop setting.”
Marcus simply let the conversation turn into something he clearly couldn’t follow. Karen had wondered just what purpose such trap laden tunnels would serve in practical terms. However, a new idea surfaced in her thoughts. Just what would she discover should she find the so called magical weaponry? She was definitely in the market for a new sword. But third idea occurred to her.
“Interesting… tell me Lloyd, would you be interested in being escorted to the vault? I imagine it has some interesting treasure, and at least one of us should fine something we’d like.”
As much as Karen didn’t trust Lloyd, even now that he actually had a fighting chance against her, no matter that she imagined it was a tiny one at best, she still felt that she’d rather keep an eye on him than let him run around with anyone else.
“…you seem so sure, but it is an interesting offer. I certainly didn’t have any better plans, so I’d say lead the way, so long as you know where you’re going.”
Karen had a vague idea that there was some kind of entrance hidden away in the dome room below. Either that or it was in the direction she had chosen not to go when she started in the round. It was a natural fact that the entrance to the vault would be behind the most dangerous part of the castle, and if it turned out that the skeleton was the wrong danger then there would be something worse guarding the real entrance, which is where Lloyd would become useful. With her main arm now moving properly she dug into her pocket to find an MP potion, or failing that, one of the sodas she stocked up on. She could really use the sharp sting of fizz on her tongue right about now, and she was rather thirsty after the ordeal. It was the soda she managed to grip onto first, so she pulled it out, twisted the lid off of the glass bottle and began to sip away. She felt the back of her mind cool and rejuvenate as her energy reserves filled further. She could regenerate it incredibly fast, within thirty minutes it would be half full. But she required a small boost right there, to heal her wounds. After her soda and her thirst were defeated she started tending to her arms which were burning with pain. It took a whole five minutes as she stood in silence casting as many spells as her minuscule energy reserves would allow. Lloyd said he’d offer to help her in his quiet volume, had he been a class that held healing spells. Karen took this opportunity to gloat about her multi-classing so much.
With her arms not hurting as badly and having them wrapped in her healing bandages she was set to go. At Lloyd’s discretion she began to jump from one floor to the one below, following her makeshift hole in the castle structure. Lloyd managed to follow, albeit he took a rather more cautious approach than Karen’s leaps. Marcus mentioned something about heading off alone, which seemed to suit him just fine. He was sick of babysitting anyway, or so he said. Karen hoped he didn’t take the tackle the wrong way, and there were a lot of wrong ways to take that. But her regrets were banished when she touched to bottom floor, for when she got there she spotted a familiar looking blade jutting out of the stone floor, a bone hand still gripping the hilt. She examined it closely, and attempted to pry the remains off. It didn’t budge, so she drew a katana and wedged it between the bone and the hilt, and pulled. With a snap the hand broke and slowly began to disintegrate into a dark black dust. She tried to pull the sword out of the ground, but as she had anticipated it was incredibly heavy. She imagined it must weigh over 130 pounds, roughly. However that wasn’t going to stop her from using it. She re-sheathed her katana and propped her staff next to the sword. She was going to fuse one with the other, forming a hilt and inner hollow in the sword for it to fit, and allowing the staff to be in a constant state of flight and lift a lot of the weight, the same thing she had done with her last sword. While she did that, Lloyd looked for whatever served as the exit to this room, finding the remains of Karen’s traps by the way she had came in originally. It would take her a few minutes to force the staff to fuse with magic, but she’d have time while Lloyd searched the room. Maybe she’d even have time for another soda, or make herself a sling for the blade with whatever materials she could find in her pockets.