-Catacombs of Bhashera-
-LVL 2-
Amara
A wailing wall of shining onyx cascaded towards her. It was composed of nothing but the innumerable foes she'd faced during her time in this forsaken place, as though the corpses of the little insignificant scarabs who had burned under her flames or been crushed under her bare feet had come together to enact vengeance against her.
Knowing this place - acknowledging its sheer unknowable nature, she reasoned that such a possibility probably wasn't completely out of the ordinary.
RUN, boomed her mother's voice again.
Without hesitation, she obeyed. She ran.
All the while she kept up her infernal cloak, feeling the wall of relentless scarabs throw itself against her defenses. With each impact, she felt herself thrown back against the walls of the winding corridors like a mere child's ball. The mosaics behind her were nothing now but obstacles in her path. Trivialities she wished she could simply singe away.
Just as the thought of burning them to a crisp rose inside her, she remembered: her resources. In here, under the constant pressure of mass combat, she had to keep watch as her power drained from her:
GLANCE: 25/40
Her reserves drying up, she decided to turn and face them, backing up slowly with each new gout of fire that streamed through her fingers towards them.
GLANCE: Firebite
Pyromancy (SEEKER LVL)
DMG: 10pts/2secs (Target)
Cost: 2 pts/sec
She watched each creature's little chittering form crisp up, dissolve into nothing, and then simply regenerate and throw themselves at her as their single organic mass.
Panic set in. She breathed. She felt the power of the fire coat her lungs, her body, and even weave itself through her eyes, but the sight of the towering conglomeration was beyond her strength. She knew it as she focused on them and realized her mother had been right:
Morphology: Scarab Congregation
HP: 60/60
Synergy: Symbiotic Bond
IMM: PYRO, BLDG, ERTH, WIND
IMM...
Immunity!
She had no chance. Was this really the kind of sneaky tricks the Everloft was going to pull on her? Make her feel strong, capable, secure - and then take it all away in an instant of pulse-pounding terror?
Even as she heard her mother scream for her to continue her flight, she looked into the mass of solid black, all feelers and teeth, and calmly continued to step back, letting her flames trickle around her body as her best defense against them.
GLANCE: 15/20
You must go, Amara! I did not bring you here to watch you die now!
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"I know!" she screamed back at her pounding head. But her eyes were now surveying the rest of the temple - she was checking the walls around her, checking the chipped ground under her feet, trying to find the thing that would help her.
She backed into a high ceilinged chamber full of empty sarcophagi. Someone had obviously emptied this place before. But what caught her eye was not the ruined, ransacked chests and urns that must once have contained wondrous gems or alchemical reagents, but the loose pieces of stonework that, after her recent experiences, sparkled in front of her eyes.
Her appraisal served her well, this time. Now, she knew what to look for.
Appraisal: Success
Mechanics: Bolt-trap
DMG: 1-35 PRC/sec
PRC...not immune to that, are you?
Keeping up her cloak, she uncorked her remaining Arcanists' Elixir and downed its contents.
GLANCE: + 15
GLANCE: 30/40
Amara! Her mother yelled over the ever-buzzing din of the scarab wall. Using a rare item like this right now will leave you vulnerable. You still have an entire floor after this one to clear.
"I really wish you'd TOLD ME THAT BEFORE!"
She felt fury respond to her cry, but blanked it out, and continued her slow backwards-walk into the center of the ransacked chamber.
"Come on," she said to the relentless congregation. "Come on..."
Now!
As the mass of creatures cleared the doorway and expanded till it coated the rooms' walls, she let fly two fireballs from either hand, watching their flickering smoke tails trail through the air towards the traps on either side of the room.
Bolt Trap: ACTIVATED
She listened to the mechanized servos wail within the walls and spit a volley of bolts through the entire chamber. The doors closed, new holes opened, and other such traps emptied their payload into the now shaking mass of dying scarabs. She spared a second to watch them die - hundreds at a time - before jumping into the nearest vase and sequestering herself there, still keeping her flame cloak active lest some desperate stragglers from the fading horde try to follow her. In the process, two bolts pierced through her left arm, but she barely felt their sting. The satisfaction of hearing the creatures cry out as they expired, like a chorus intoning an Amaratian prayer of despair, was strong enough to overpower her other senses.
Amara, her mother cautioned through the wails of the dying insects. We need to talk.
"Mom!" she cried out. "Not now. Not yet. I need the experience. You told me that, didn't you? I need to get stronger!"
The wall of scarabs came tumbling down as the last of their core fell away, splintered into black, oozing pieces by the turrets, and the remainder of the horde scurried away to the smallest cracks of the chamber.
Then, with an unceremonious *click*, the turrets stopped their infernal fire, and the room was silent.
Amara emerged after dispelling her cloak, prospecting the legion of decimated insect corpses all around her. Her bare feet crunched the remains of their carcasses under her soles, and she closed her eyes as she felt the power that death brought in this realm course through her:
Foe Vanquished: Scarab Congregation
EXP: +80
"Eighty!" she screamed at the top of her soot-filled lungs. She screamed it again, cackling with hysterical laughter, smashing more of the pathetic insects beneath her heels.
"I'm almost next level already!" she roared. "See, mum? See? No matter what this place throws at me, I can take it. I've been through worse. That's what you taught me up there, right?"
Amara, I-
She kicked at more of the bugs, pummeling their desiccated remains into the ground.
"After all," she snorted, her laugh dropping to a low, bestial growl. "That's the whole point of me being here, right? Me, and me alone. I've gotta do this. No one else. I've gotta rise above them all and burn the world to ash. That's what you said, right?"
Another indignant stomp - the exoskeleton of another scarab crushed.
Amara! her mother shouted in her mind.
She stopped for a second. Her eyes widened, taking in the sight of the twitching insect corpses all around her, and then, slowly, like a child trying to escape their punishment through wicked malice, her laugh returned.
"And I can't even do that right, can I?" she chuckled, hoarse and defiant. "I've done everything you said. I only listen. And yet all I get is pain and - and -"
Amara. You are not -
"AND YOU AREN'T EVEN PROUD OF ME FOR IT! ANY OF IT!"
She screeched this through the only energy that remained in her lungs, punctuating her defiant roar with a ring of fire that shot out from her hands on impulse, throwing the scarabs against the walls and scorching the painted figures she hadn't even notice beyond recognition.
"You've shown me everything," she said quietly, with a gulp of sadness that she swallowed with the rest of her pain, as she always did. "You taught me I could be strong. You taught me I could win out over all the bad things that happened to me. But it's all still happening. It's never going to end, is it? I'm going to be alone, forever. That's what you really want, isn't it? That's why you made me watch Anna die like...like that."
She clenched her fists when she heard no reply.
"Deny it," she demanded.
Nothing stirred within her. The throbbing in her head had totally ceased.
"Well?" she snapped. "Aren't you going to say something? Go on. I'm listening. I said: deny it!"
No response.
She bit her lip.
More anger.
"WELL!?"
Nothing.
Fury.
She struck out at the ground this time, her feet slamming into the hot sandstone and spawning a wave of flame that radiated out from her toes and melted the rest of the insect husks that still dared to twitch before her.
And then, in her tear-soaked rage, she heard it:
*click*
She had time only to gasp as the ground opened up under her, and she plummeted below, into darkness, into confusion.
Into the only fate she had ever known.