Catherine took in the molten scenery around her, still on top of the stone pillar she had jumped to after abandoning a chunk of her body. She groaned inside her mind as she looked around, nothing but lava in her immediate vicinity but lava and the entrance to the floor she had been flew out of. ‘Now what?’ she thought to herself, glancing back at the pillar of lava that was still in exploding behind her, a remnant of the body.
Her body below her started to sizzle as the heat from the rock was starting to get to her. ‘This is going to be a bigger pain then what I thought…’ she morphed into her high elf form and stood up, attempting to balance on the small space she had on her stony perch. The heat was still getting to her body, evaporating the bottom of her feet, she quickly took out some old boots she got from the numerous soldiers she killed and put them on.
“Delvin said, any creature that lives in lava but…” She took another look around at the sea of lava dotted by stone pillars and a few platforms. She then took a closure look at the surface of the lava, unable to see anything that lied bellow it. “Not seeing any signs of life anywhere.” She assumed that Delvin didn’t just dump her into a random pit in her dungeon to dispose of her, especially not after giving her all this important stuff.
‘But I guess more importantly…’ She took one final look around herself, the nearest thing to her was the staircase leading up. “How the hell am I supposed to get anywhere!” She screamed only herself. Catherine was effectively stranded on her pillar with the only nearest thing she could realistically get to was the entrance. “Fucking dumbass Imp, how is anyone supposed to move here? Fly? I can’t fly!” As if to prove a point, she tried her best to recreate the wings she saw on the fairy, Dea, but they came out misshapen and incomplete. Nonetheless she gave them a flap but gained no altitude.
Catherine groaned, dissolving the wings and sat down on the pillar, ignoring the fact her body was slowly evaporating from the heat as she went over her options. Nothing she had in her storage could help, just a bunch of heavy space gear, empty magic guns, drained power cells, some spare bodies, a bow without any arrows… a bow?
Catherine took out the bow from within her body, looking it over for a second before aiming it towards the entrance and gave the string an experimental pull and release “Might work… “ She stood up and aimed again, but this time when she pulled back the string a part of her body split off from her arm and formed an arrow and, while hoping for the best, released the arrow.
She watched as the arrow flew through the air, halfway to her target it started to lose its detailed form but it continued to fly, eventually hitting its target and splatting against the wall above the entrance. The splattered slime after a bit of a delay, reformed itself and waved back towards Catherine with a little nub. “Well… I can get back now.” She then turned, bow in hand as she aimed for a faraway pillar and repeated the process.
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Nocking another self-made arrow into place she soon fired, watching as her arrow lost its detailed form and soon after losing all its velocity and plummeting into the lava below. “Too far…” She muttered. That was the closest piece of land to her other than the entrance, but her body lacked the durability to make it.
Watching the area where her arrow fell into the lava bubble and explode, she raised an eyebrow as noticed bubbles starting to form next to it “what is that?” She then watched as the lava rose, forming a sizable hill a few meters tall before the lava burst. A giant eel like creature covered in red, burning scales rose into the air before turning and slamming its open maw into the lava, swallowing whole whatever was left of Catherine’s arrow before vanishing under the lava once more.
Catherine stared, watching the lava settle before screaming “whatever lives in the lava Catherine! Just kill it! It will be simple Catherine!” She yelled “What do you expect me to do you stupid imp?! Dive into the lava?! Fucking wrestle it or let it eat you and kill it on the inside like you usually do! Yeah, sure don’t worry about evaporating when it goes under just kill it fast!” She fell back, plopping down on her pillar.
She let out a sigh, calming down a bit “That thing was huge… I doubt I could kill something like that “ It was simply too big, and the environment match up was too bad. One mistake and she would wind up like her abandoned body, or worse, food. She gave a shrug, she could try and lure it out, or something smaller, and just abandon the body if things got to bad but that carried it’s own risks as she learned in her fight with Rose.
Transferring her body was one thing, doing it in a fight while controlling multiples of herself was another, much harder thing to do. She also didn’t understand the limits herself, but she didn’t want to find out anything new while fighting a giant lava monster in its home territory. What she did know for certain that if a body that wasn’t the main one took enough damage during a fight, that was it, it was gone and she couldn’t transfer to it. Something Rose took advantage of in the fight, either by blind luck or she figured it out. If by chance that monster kicks up some lava and destroys her copy while they fight then Catherine is done.
She gave another sigh, she really needed some *me* time to test all her limits, read some books on magic, and just gather her thoughts but she had not been given the chance to do so. She glanced down to her chest, tapping on the leash “It doesn’t help I have this damn thing on me.” She grumbled.
Answering her complaints, the small ball lit up, glowing as it spoke [RECALL ACTIVATED: PLEASE RETURN IMMEDIATELY! REPEAT: RECALL ACTIVATED: RETURN IMMEDIATELY] “Great.” She groaned, standing up. “Well, not like I figured out how to handle this mess anyways.” She then stored all her equipment she brought out, morphed into her slime form and shrunk to the size of a golf ball and in the next moment her point of view shifted. She was now looking out into a lake of lava with a small, white golf ball sized slime sitting on a pillar evaporating.
She then unstuck herself from the wall and fell, landing at the base of the stairs she started the long climb up.