I arrived on layer 5 and instantly jumped on a building. The area was covered in a poison mist and I saw a big golem fighting off guards. It seems that Gregory got serious. I inspected the poison mist and took the appropriate antidote that Gregory gave me when he gave me these poisons. I shouldn't have issues with this poison mist now but I don’t want to push my luck here. I couldn't see my buddies anywhere but I saw shadows coming out of the big golem that assisted it in fighting off the guards.
The golem seemed to have been originally made out of magma, most of it had solidified to rock but its limbs were still covered with magma. I assume Gregory did this deliberately since it was giving the guards a hard time. The poison gas also seemed to affect their performance. Gregory mostly takes a passive role but I forget how troublesome he could be if he got serious. I felt a shadow creeping up on me. It got into my shadow and forcefully [shadow melded] me. I appeared in a relatively small enclosed space.
Yoo, I made a small room on the bottom of the magma lake for us but it's extremely hot here could you help us out? I inspected the area and we were indeed in a bubble under the magma lake and Ted and Raishin looked like they were about to pass out from a heat stroke. I covered the outside of this room with frost and started to cool off the area.
Thank Hourai! Any longer and I would turn into a baked tiger. How long have you guys been in here? 5 minutes, which is 5 minutes too long. It’s getting late and this is the only method I could think of to keep us safe. The whole prison seems to be on full alert now. It won’t be easy to move around like we did before. We got caught by some anti-shadow magic guards.
Ahh, that explains a lot, I was wondering how you got into a situation where you had to turn this layer into more of a hell than it already is, nice golem by the way. Thanks, but I'm getting at the end of my rope here. Supplying mana so that these guys don't get slowed down by gravity is taking a toll on me, I assume that goes for you too. You seem injured, are you alright?
I’m fine, just some broken ribs. … come here let me look at that!
No wait I’m fine! Owowow! Hey, back off that hurts! Raishin help me here! Aight! Ted and Raishin held me down and took off my shirt to assess the damage.
Ok, Mr. tough guy why is it all purple and why does your shoulder look busted too? This scar... Did something pierce your heart? Did you lose a life again? So overprotective! I didn't lose a life! I explained what happened and Gregory used some healing potions while Ted bandaged me up.
Those bosses seem like a problem yeh, but disabling one by throwing a book at her, that surely is up there in creativity. Well, I don’t have enough books to repeat that trick nor am I willing to sacrifice potentially useful information. We have to get out of here as soon as possible for multiple reasons, ouch that hurts! Be gentle! That assassin is concerning but at least he’s not a threat anymore. I can’t believe you beat those things! I didn't know they were androids! I could tell something was off about them though. No wonder they caught me so easily when I tried to escape!
Yeah, fighting those things isn't funny at all, luckily, I haven't seen many on this floor but when we go to layer 6 and higher, we might encounter a lot of them. Greg’s golems will take care of them! Uhh, I'm not so sure about that, my golems are slow, if they can give Agnis a run for his money then my golems will stand no chance. Anyways, we have to be more careful, you need to be more careful Agnis!
Yes, yes, I'm still alive that’s what matters. The problem is those bosses will probably follow us, I can effectively stall the Duck but I don’t think I can beat him, frost magic is so overpowered. Hmm, yeah if he catches us there's nothing we can do against him so we have to make sure we don't get caught. How long will that other one be stuck in that book? When we were stuck in those books, we were in the first one for about 2 hours, it felt the same inside the book and how it was outside but in the second one we spent almost 2 days but only an hour passed in the real world so I think it’s safe to say an hour minimum. The challenges were not directly tied to strength so I think that's a fair assessment. So, we have an hour to escape before we get her on our ass? That's quite short.
Well, we won’t be able to escape before she gets out so this is my question, do we make as much of this hour as we can, or do we rest here? To be honest I’m quite exhausted. A question, does anyone know we’re here under the magma pool? I don’t think so.
How about this, we get a good rest. Raishin can you generate some energy for Greg and me? I don’t think we can last like this without your assistance. We will just hide here and maybe they will think we moved on to higher floors, it might not be a good idea for the long term but if we get killed in the short term it won’t matter anyway. Ooh, I like that careful approach! I agree let’s rest. I don’t care, I’m already happy that you guys rescued me. Ok then let's rest.
We decided to spend the night in this bubble under the magma lake. Raishin generated some energy and fed it to us so that we weren’t at risk to run out of mana. Running out of mana is lethal but indirectly. When people run out of mana or it hits 0, they mean that they can’t spend any more as it puts their life in danger. Mana is still responsible for toughening up the body in response to harmful effects, whether physical, magical, or ambient. Normally high temperatures can kill a person but the mana that the body passively uses can mitigate this.
When mana hits 0 these things can still occur, the problem is when mana gets drained beyond that point. The kick I received earlier wasn't actively mitigated, that's why it broke my ribs but without the passive mana protection everyone has, that would have outright killed me. And it just so happens that the environment in this prison is hostile overall so death will be unavoidable when we run out of mana. Besides that, we won’t be able to do anything without mana anyways so running out of mana is always a bad idea. It was important to save Raishin, but failing to do so would most likely end up in our demise without his ability to create free energy. Gregory and I would run out of steam if we took too long or failed and that would be game over. I tried to give Starbolt some spirit energy but I was quite bad at this so I don’t think I was much of a help.
We woke up the next morning and discussed the plan while Raishin fed us more energy. I would send a clone up ahead to get a feel of what's happening on the other layers while the real me is going to attempt to stall the Duck when he appears. Because of how Gregory’s [Shadow anklets] work, Ted and Raishin can’t get too far from Gregory so they would have to stick together, at least until layers 9 and 8. This layer seemed to be relatively calm.
The poison gas was gone and the guards finally managed to beat the golem. 3 more hours are left before the inmates can leave their cells so we want to make as much progress as possible. There seemed to be more guards on this layer than before but besides that, nothing seemed off. I covered ourselves in illusions while Ted and Gregory moved the magma around us so that we could get out.
I said goodbye to them, tracked down the anti-shadow magic guards, and assassinated them. I was overflowing with energy thanks to Raishin so this should be enough to make it till the escape. Hmm, is that correct though? There is still the issue with that duck. Depending on the situation I would have to expend all of this to either get away from him or to defeat him. According to Casi, all these bosses are high-status guards that inherit an item that changes their appearance and skillset that matches the first layer bosses even down to personality. However, some of the guards' personality still gets through. Isn’t this basically a form of possession? But either way, this is a problem which means that these are of almost as strong as those individuals of ancient times. There is a 99% chance that I would lose. The only shot I got is to overwhelm him with magic and make sure that he freezes himself like I did when I absorbed too much energy.
He would probably be one if not the strongest boss here because magic means nothing to him but precisely because I can use frost magic too, I have a shot. Dark magic has a decent shot against him but I have a feeling that he knows that, it would be foolish to not cover your weak points. I didn't notice any danger or problems on this layer. The mana constantly draining from me decreased a bit, which means my buddies made it up. I decided to head up too. I spent an hour looking for how to get up but I couldn't find any. I got to this floor by jumping through those holes in the ceiling.
I looked up. It was quite the distance but not impossible. I decided to reach the upper floor by going through a hole like this. I pondered for a bit. Anything I throw to swap myself with [Turning leaf] will fall into the magma pool and get destroyed. I should use disposable objects. I went through the catalog of items I had stored and found out that I had over a thousand potatoes stored. Oh, hell no! Not in my dimensional pocket! Time to make some roasted potatoes! I threw a potato in the air and swapped myself with it and saw how it fell to its toasty demise. I kept repeating this and got closer to my destination.
542 potatoes later, I reached the lower edge of the hole so I could walk up by freezing my feet to the wall. I might or might not have used more potatoes than needed to get here, but hey who is going to miss them?! As I arrived on Layer 6, I saw how the power got cut from the whole area. Oh right, I did sabotage the power plant on this layer or was it layer 7? Anyways, all is going according to plan! It was relatively dark but not pitch black. Gregory would have no issues with this so I’m not sabotaging my friends with this. It gives him more opportunity to shadow meld. Surprisingly the guards close by didn't seem to panic. For as far as I could see guards were panicking but those in this section and the next one over weren’t. After 10 minutes I saw the cause of this, or more so, I didn’t see it. There was a hazy figure I couldn't look at. So, Mr. Duck is here I see. It seems he is harassing my buddies.
A lot of disruption in that area, probably frost magic. Ted was trying to drag Raishin with him while Gregory was holding him off. I guess Gregory discovered that dark magic works decently well against frost magic but that's all. I asked Starbolt to buff my speed. I rushed to my buddies aid. I got within range and dispelled a [Frost wave] that the duck was about to hit Gregory with and tried again to clip one of his wings with a [Frost blade]. He met the slash with a chop of his wings and pushed me back. Leave this to me, Greg! Get out of here!
“Ooh, I remember you Quack! The deaf boy!” Gregory nodded and ran away. I had earplugs in but it seems that was a good thing because holy shit your voice is annoying!
“I assume that was a countermeasure to Cassiopeia’s Words of Motion. Not bad Quack!” I don’t know what that is but it sounds OP and stop quacking like a duck!
“How rude! I’m not a duck! I’m a swan!” I carefully inspected him; he looked like a duck to me or well more of a duck guy. You look like a duck guy to me. This seemed to anger him. He gestured to some guards and they brought him a baseball bat and a cool sword. The guards ran away as Duckguy started to slowly freeze the area.
“I could use this golden opportunity to vent! I hope you are better prepared this time around, Quack!”
Cygnus [https://i.imgur.com/ahiDwt1.png]
It was quite a ridiculous sight but unfortunately, this guy could seriously kick my ass if I didn’t pay attention. At least I caught his attention so he probably won't go after my buddies, yet… He sent a [Frost wave] at me and I covered myself in frost magic to stay unaffected. I attempted to dash in and slash at him but it seems he had the same idea. I parried his sword slash and jumped up to avoid getting my kneecaps shattered by a baseball bat. Hey! Stop hitting below the belt!
“Your kneecaps are mine! Quack!” A chop from his wings and I swapped with some rubble created in the battle he had earlier with my buddies. It is as if this guy has 2 extra limbs, I bet he can fly too, what a pain in the ass. I deactivated my eyes because they were more of a liability against this guy than any help. As long as he was covered in frost magic, I would be better off with normal vision. It was tough to deal with this guy, he was skilled with the sword and the baseball bat, besides that he kept chopping me with his wings and throwing around frost magic when I created distance. His accuracy seemed low but most of his attacks were very wide so I don’t think accuracy is normally an issue for this guy, however… Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors? Wouldn't it be hard to see when it's this dark here?
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“It's a fashion statement, Quack! And be happy! It works in your favor!” What a weirdo… We started clashing with frost magic but I was slowly losing out in this exchange.
“This is the first time I’ve ever fought against anyone who could use ice magic! Quack! I thought this magic form was extinct!” I call it frost magic because ‘ice magic’ is quite confusing.
“Ooh, I like the sound of that, Frost magic, yes! Unfortunately, I will become the only user of this type of magic, under other circumstances I would have loved to nerd out and spar with frost magic.” He sent out more [Frost swans] and these were quite tough. I couldn't do much to them so I had to avoid them and the area that Duckguy was freezing over. Starbolt tried to zap him and cc him but nothing worked.
Staying close to Duckguy was draining Starbolt of his spirit energy so he had to stay away from the frost magic.
“So, tell me, how did you guys get inside? This prison is supposed to be impregnable. Quack”. Someone left the backdoor open. I dodged another [Frost Swan] and used [Confusion 5x] on Duckguy.
“If you won’t tell me I will have to beat it out of you! Quack!” Hey! That’s child abuse! Duckguy formed various floating [frost balls] around him and batted them at me. They were all curveballs and seemed to pack quite a punch. I created a bat with frost magic and batted the [frost balls] that I couldn't dodge. He used his wings to fly and kept sending the barrage of [Frost balls]. I’d like to steal this technique but at the moment I’m too busy trying to evade this rain of frost balls. I dove behind a wall and left a shadow clone behind while I [Shadow melded] and attempted to [Shadow sneak] the Duckguy. Hmm is this even a good idea? I won't be able to defeat this guy, maybe I should use this opportunity to just run away.
“Hmm I guess my infrared shades are useless against a fellow frost magic user, Quack!” Is this guy for real? I send my shadow clone at him while I escaped. I kidnapped Starbolt because he didn't notice that I swapped myself out with a shadow clone.
My buddies managed to get quite far so I achieved my objective. Since he seemed to have infrared shades, it would probably be a matter of time before he finds them again. In over an hour, the prisoners will get out so we will have to evade him for that long. I assume he knows that too so I hope my shadow clone can stall him for a bit longer. I will have to seriously find a way of how to deal with him. I can use [Confusion] and probably other skills that use up illusion layers but at the moment they are inaccessible… There is a way to fix that but I want to keep that as a last resort.
What else? Overload him with magic so he freezes himself and lost magic. Hmm, I asked Starbolt if he knows some strong skills but he was mainly support focused. I tried to learn a simple lightning spell from the spirit magic branch from him but it seemed quite different and quite complicated compared to the [Spirit bolt] I knew. I guess I can try and juice up my [Spirit bolt] and hope it hurts him, it probably won’t… I also don’t want to get too close to him because he has a lot of range and options so my speed is less effective against him. And he uses all his limbs and his wings to fight which isn't something I’m used to. This guy is a nightmare to fight and I'm sure he was just messing around. I get closer to my buddies but they seemed to have encountered a… thing, and are fighting it. It seems quite strong but they seem to be close to beating it. I can't describe what it looks like, it looks similar to the abomination we fought against in Boshi town but this looks more… human… don’t tell me they do experiments on the prisoners here…
I remember that Arby guy saying something about him being a leader of something and also that Gregory eavesdropped on some ministers in the palace and heard something similar. Maybe these are the failed version of the super soldiers Arby was bragging about. I sensed that one of my traps went off. I make it a point to make traps in triplets, one is obvious to a careful observer, the next one will most likely go off if the first one gets avoided and the third one is near undetectable. Sometimes I make the first trap painfully obvious so that my targets fall for the other 2 traps. Duckguy is one of those cases, there is no point in trying to make my first trap work because he will never fall for that, so I’ll have him fall for one of the other 2. It will make him wary but it will also slow him down. Starbolt notified me about something when I was getting close to my buddies. Another floor boss has appeared and is heading toward us. I arrived too late to land a final blow on the abomination and get a kill steal.
Guys we need to pick up the pace, another floor boss is coming at us. I don’t think I can stall both of them. We would like to but these abominations aren't pushovers. And they are creepy as fuck! They even said some words to trick us into being human like: it hurts, help me! And kill me! I don't think I will be able to sleep well tonight… I don't think they were trying to convince us that they’re human I think that they actually are human, or well were.
Yeh, they were probably failed experiments, just ignore them, these aren't the worst things that you can encounter. How so?
Because the androids surely will lock you guys in combat for way longer if not kick your asses, they are very precise and fast. Ahh shit! I forgot about those! We're doomed! Ted smacked Raishin.
Shut up and try to figure out how to teleport short distances in this place, it will help us immensely, even if it's just 10 meters! But this place is impossible to teleport in! And Agnis is here now he can solve it! Agnis is doing his best to stall our pursuers so that we don't get caught in a pincer attack. During this exchange, we were running toward a place where we could hide. I was also putting down some traps. The inmates would get released soon so hopefully; the movements of the floor bosses would be restricted. Gregory put up a [Shadow wall] and blocked several frost feathers that were aimed at us.
Hey, that guy is flying! Isn't that cheating?! I'm surprised that it took him this long to start flying. Duckguy dove at us. I threw a dagger at him which he evaded and I swapped him with the dagger I threw sending him in the opposite direction.
“How annoying! Quack!” Right guys, I don't mean this in a bad way but get the fuck out of here! Will do, good luck! Don’t die! Turn him into a fried duck!
“I heard that! I’m not a duck! I’m a swan! Quack!” If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it's a duck. I shot his frost feathers down with frost arrows. He went on a long tirade about me not knowing what the qualities of a swan are and other stuff I didn't listen to. Even though this situation sucked, letting him vent was buying me time. Starbolt was setting up some spirit magic circle around him but because he’s a minor spirit and not very strong it takes a while. I hope this skill does decent damage to him because I currently don't have many options in dealing with him. But man, this guy has a lot to say, I guess he doesn't get the chance to vent in this occupation.
Starbolt finished his spirit magic circle and put a nasty stun on Duckguy with an added damage over time (DoT) effect. He was unable to stay airborne and crashed into a cell. According to Starbolt, the stun will reapply whenever the DoT does damage. I need to learn this skill it sounds really strong! I will figure out something about the setup though. Unless the Duckguy has some special skills against this we have 3 minutes to get out of here. I hope he will leave us alone after we get out, in 10 minutes the inmates will get released, we could use a break.
Even though this was Raishin’s responsibility, I started to try and work out how to teleport short distances in this teleport unfriendly prison. Every teleport ping I sent out got greatly distorted, probably because of the black hole, it wouldn't be a problem if the destination isn't important but the pings had a tendency to go toward the black hole so this would have only been useful while infiltrating, and not escaping, how bothersome. The best I could do is 2 meters, anything beyond that was unreliable. I can't think of a situation where a 2-meter teleport would be an advantage for me over just using my speed. Maybe if my movement was restricted? I caught up with my buddies and dropped a 5 layered illusion to hide.
Duckguy is CCed for 2 more minutes let's try and find an empty cell or a watchtower to hide and rest. How is the teleport going Raishin? Uhm, I can brute force it but I have no idea where we will end up if I do that. Yeah, let's not do that. My shadow clone found an area that has a lot of shadows, if we can get there I can [shadowmeld] us or we could even possibly hide in some shadows.
There is no possibility that these guys also imprison criminals within the shadows, right? Well, we had that one encounter but I don't think he got imprisoned like that, he somehow got trapped in the shadows. Yeah, so far there is no reason to believe that shadow imprisonment is practiced in this prison.
We managed to safely arrive at section 121 which had a multitude of dark shadows to sneak around and hide in. Gregory melded us into the shadows and we were hiding in the shadows in a small well.
So how was your interaction with Cygnus? Cygnus? The Duckguy,
Oh that guy, yeh he’s quite OP, Starbolt was of great help but I can’t keep relying on him because his spirit energy is getting quite low and I suck at helping him replenish it. So, is your plan to make himself freeze over?
I don’t know if I have skills that are mana efficient enough to do that, I don’t want to bring a [Meteor] down on this place or use skills that have similar destructive capabilities because destroying this building might send that blackhole loose and I think getting stuck in orbit around a blackhole is worse than dying. Hmm, that does indeed sound worse than dying. I’m already happy that you realized this and aren't recklessly blowing things up.
Hey! Raishin is Mr. Reckless Explosions! I at least give some thought to things before I blow them up! But the result is still the same… Anyway we have time to rest but I would prefer to try and escape before the curfew because the floor bosses will have more time and energy to chase us if we wait till then. Well, we need a plan for when we encounter those androids.
Quite easy, just run, they might be faster than you guys but at least you’ll not be wasting time staying at the same spot. Also, Greg can you cast a [Shadow cloak] on me before we split up, I don't think I will be able to avoid hits as well as I did previously. Sure. Why wouldn't you be able to avoid hits as well?
It might be related to the fact that since 10 minutes ago I need to supply more mana to those [Shadow anklets] to cancel out the increased gravity. The rate of mana that flows out of Agnis to our rings increased at that same moment. Yeah, the drain is slightly higher than when you guys were on floor 2, I think I would have to ask you to feed me energy till we split up Raishin. Roger! I guess they got serious in trying to catch us, but won’t this affect the inmates?
Something tells me they don’t care… Yeah, don’t forget that we have the potential to free inmates and make things way worse for them. I didn’t want to resort to this but I think I might.
Yeah, at this point we won't be able to escape unless you create more chaos. Guys, they are criminals! You can’t set them free! Well, technically they're still in prison so they aren't really free.
Listen, Ted, you have a point but firstly their movements will be severely restricted by time dilation and the increased gravity, and second, if we lose, we die, or worse we get imprisoned here for life. If we were humans that would suck but it would be acceptable but all of us are more or less crucial to the well-being of this planet so I don't think we can afford to die or get captured because of some sort of morality. Moreover, there is an extremely low chance that any of them can even use this chance to break out of this prison.
Ted had a difficult look on his face as if he couldn't accept this. I didn't feel like jumping in here, I was just receiving energy from Raishin, who was also quiet and tried to give some energy to Starbolt. In this situation, we’re all running on a time limit and what’s worse, the time limit is unclear. If I run out of mana then it’s game over but how soon that will happen depends on the situation. We can’t afford to make things difficult for ourselves. I realized something very important about this situation. You could argue that it’s quite logical but some things just become more logical and clearer after it has been reinforced by an event. And this logic is: don't go to jail.
Jail sucks. I used some energy I got from Raishin to charge frost marbles. With these, I can use magic without using mana. We had rested for about 2 hours and decided it was time to get out of here.
Ok, guys, I doubt that we will meet again until we get to layer 8. I messed with some teleports so we should be able to make it to layer 9 from which I already prepared a long-distance teleport to get us out. Depending on the situation I will need you to give me energy for that Raishin. Don’t get caught up in unnecessary fights, fighting normal guards is fine, just don't bother with the androids. Here is a [Shadow cloak] I can’t keep it up for too long because of the draining of my mana but you should at least be fine for 30 or 40 minutes.
Let's hope we can escape within that timeframe. Did you finish the analysis on that drug I found in the prisoner’s food? Yeah, give me 20 minutes and I will be able to make an antidote. It will be highly concentrated so you need to dilute it 100x to get a safe dose of 5 ml. Don’t forget! It won’t be a problem if they end up dying but it will severely limit the chaos you can cause. I stored this information in my archive and started preparing to cause mass chaos eh I mean a mass diversion. We also used this time to have some good food. Some things we ate were stuff I swiped from the canteen. It is important to enjoy the local specialties!
Oh, Agnis you said that another layer boss appeared right? That is Probably Geminga, I would recommend staying away from him, he’s the type of opponent you hate the most, he's like the Mountain but smaller, faster, smarter, stronger, and less naked. So, he’s nothing like the Mountain…
Well, uh yeah but he’s super tanky and uses earth magic but with gems and nothing you throw at him really works. Hmm, yeah, I hate those kinds of opponents, I’ll try to heed that advice. I got Gregory’s concoction and another set of instructions to make sure I remember.