The light continued for long, searing moments, although Robin also consciously knew it could not have been longer than a few seconds. He still found himself almost bored, but the light was so intense that his eyes simply would not open.
Without warning, the light faded to nothing, the sheer inability to open his eyes vanishing with the white void. Robin opened them immediately, both arm blades already extended, examining his surroundings while darting his gaze around for May.
He was alone.
I figured I would be, but it would have been a lot easier… I wonder if she is going to be forcing her way in? If the Dungeon will let her… It might be sealed off, since it has an occupant, invader, dungeon-crawler, or whatever inside. Robin exhaled from his nose slightly. Am I technically a stowaway? Or is the term for me more along the lines of boarder?
Robin found his thoughtful inspection of the hallway interrupted by a notification. He elected to read it immediately, willing it to expand.
Extant Minor Nemesis The actions of yourself and another have led or contributed to the creation of a Minor Nemesis! The Minor Nemesis will pursue its target endlessly, though it may be restricted in these pursuits due to the unique nature of Nemeses. Should the Nemesis defeat or kill any of its individual targets, it may bestow a Curse, Geas, or Burden, the nature of which varies depending upon the individual Nemesis. If the target has been slain, the Curse, Geas, or Burden will fall on the individual with the closest ties to the target, or if none are available, a person similar in description to the target will be randomly chosen.
Rewards: x1 Nemesis Mote, x1 2 Red Iron Motes, x1 Automatic Level Increase, +10 SP, x1 Class Ability Upgrade
Robin was mentally reeling at the “opportunity” with which he had just been presented. The massive rewards combined with the bitter unfairness of the penalties for losing made it a very frightening, very tempting questline to pursue, but he was fairly sure that he would not have chosen to attempt it alone. It was all too cake-or-death for his taste...
If he had been given a choice. Robin willed the notification window to close, and another popped up immediately on its tail. Robin scanned it, crouching to present a lower silhouette in case anyone (or anything) came into the hallway.
Folly of Beast, Madness of Man You have cracked the golden pride of the Lion of the Sea, showing the cheap iron beneath. His rage has poured outwards, consuming him and everything in his path as he moves through tight, winding halls, now more beast than man. Should you be defeated, your class will change to Captain of the Ship of Graves, binding you forever to the ship, and the newly-born Iron Reaver will be released to travel the world freely, no longer bound to the dungeon.
Oh, cool. Cool cool cool. I hope that is the Curse, Gease, or Burden, otherwise... I will get two “punishments” if I fail. Ugh... and why does the second one not have any rewards!? It can give me an eternal curse, but no quest rewards? Lame.
The cramped hallway he had found himself in was completely empty of other people, animals, monsters, or any of the other things Robin had imagined gruesomely eviscerating him at the start of the blinding light. It was, however, only a meter or so wide, with dripping, rusted pipes jutting out into the walking path.
Robin began moving down the cramped hallway, the feeling that something was behind him refusing to fade, no matter how many times he looked behind him. He had moved no more than a dozen or so meters before what could only be an ancient Public Announcement system screeched into activity. It startled Robin so much that he very nearly put an arm blade through the old aluminum cone-speaker when it had started screaming right beside him.
“I know you’re there, boy. Come to the Cargo Hold, and we’ll settle this like men. I’ll even light the way for you. Just follow the red lights. Come face down Tao, the Iron Reaver of the Sea, and know your doom.”
As Tao had promised from the speaker, Robin saw two red lights click on further down the hallway. He could see more red light coming from around the curve.
I might as well follow it. There’s not exactly anything here… Robin had noticed something unusual about the hallway, something that made him suspect he did not really have a choice in whether or not he faced Tao at this exact moment.
The hallway had no doors.
Robin continued forward, slowing his steps briefly while he checked the ammunition in the ΔU-Revenant. After checking to make sure it was full, he redoubled his pace, the echo of his footsteps chasing him down the hallway.
The hallway ran far longer than it should have. Robin knew he was not the most spatially aware person, as far as that went, but…
Dungeon physics do not make much sense. ‘Bigger on the inside’ mechanics in shows always kinda weirded me out… can I emerge from any point of the ‘inner’ area, and if so, what happens to me when I do that? Am I an equivalent distance away from the ship, or is there an arbitrary or technological barrier or limit that will uncompress or stop compressing my atoms? If it did spread me out over that big of an area, I would just be loose dust.
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Robin glared at the pipes on the walls. He had long since stopped trying to completely avoid the dripping liquids, only making significant effort to avoid those that were more than sporadic drips. The gloomy interior of the ship was bad enough, but adding in the red lights and the weird spatial distortion that made him feel like he had no idea where he was…
“I never thought that I would miss the Laboratory of the Mad Scientist.”
His voice echoed for almost a full minute after he spoke, giving him long enough to regret speaking aloud. As his echoes themselves echoed, his voice grew more and more distorted, warping further until it finally sounded like the ship itself was speaking to him, the words coming from everywhere he could see in front and behind him.
Robin paused for a break, breathing deeply. He shook his head hard, the sweat flying from his head in beads. Some of it landed on the pipes, where it sizzled, vanishing almost immediately.
Robin stared at it in shock.
Despite the cramped, obstructed passageway, Robin had not actually touched any of the pipes; his AGI score was high enough that he naturally avoided pipes that were placed at surprising angles combined with curves in the tunnel, seemingly designed to smash a shin or kneecap. Combined with the Flexibility title, Robin had moved through the tunnel like he was born there, albeit unhappily.
The heat was a surprise. He did not feel hot at all… He looked downwards, watching his chest rise and fall.
I am breathing really heavily for just running through a stupid tunnel. I can lower my body temperature by five degrees with the Peak Human abilities, which should help some. Robin focused on lowering his BODY temperature, willing it to drop as much as he could, and he felt a chill run through his body, almost like he had swallowed an ice cube whole.
That feels a little better. Why does it not feel hot?
Robin looked up, glaring at the pipes, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the lack of doors, and the endless hallway. The conical speakers that Tao had spoken through before, placed every ten or fifteen meters seemingly wherever they could fit screeched into life, brief feedback cutting through all the speakers at once. The hallway was filled with a cacophonous rattle, like someone was shaking nails in an old-fashioned metal coffee can, and it took Robin longer than he wanted to admit to realize that it was Tao laughing.
“The first time, I was under the assumption that the PA system was just old and badly maintained, that your voice was not coming through clearly… but it is, right?”
Robin did not wait for confirmation, speaking immediately. "You are also changing the ship." He had spoken softly, using a volume that was almost appropriate for a library. Tao seemed to be able to hear him anyway, as the reply that ripped into the air from the hallway speakers indicated.
“Caught me, did you? I can arrange all the hallways and doors in the… in MY ship as I see fit! You go where I want you to go, boy!”
The tearing-metal laughter rang out again, just like before, but this time Robin had had enough. He lashed out with his arm blade, severing the speaker wire that led to the cone. He only took a second to consider before puncturing the speaker at the core of the cone, as well. The other cones began wailing in unison, the metallic voice sounded anguished.
“Don’t lay a hand on my ship! I’ll have you working below decks until your grandchildren’s grandchildren have forgotten the voice of their long-dead mothers!”
Robin smiled. Tao was getting creative with his ranting, so he must be doing something right. He took off at a sprint, ignoring the oddly hard-to-notice heat as he dodged the out-jutting pipes and girders. He came up on another speaker, still shrieking threats, and hacked it off the wall with a swipe, dropping the remnants on the floor as he ran by.
Robin cut down another speaker, and another, the angry metallic ringing increasing and decreasing in volume rapidly. It sounds like a toddler is playing with the volume, he thought, gleefully vandalizing the dungeon.
Robin had cut down sixteen conical speakers before the shrieking changed. Robin cut down another before stopping to listen, only fully stopping his movement fully when he was in front of his next victim. It had the potential to become his eighteenth speaker. He held his arm blade up again threateningly, enjoying his role as destructive antagonist for a change.
“...through the door, you bug-brained buffoon!”
Robin barely managed to keep from laughing out loud. Note to self, never be alliterative when I am trying to be intimidating.
Robin turned around, and there was indeed a small door that he had missed, tucked behind several large pipes. It had a small wheel on it where a handle should be, and a tiny porthole in the middle of the top half of the door, although Robin could see without looking too carefully that it was too dirty for him to possibly be able to see through.
He reached out and grabbed the wheel, grateful that it began spinning easily. He had begun to tug the door open when it occurred to him that he should have been more wary of traps; Tao had already shown a willingness to use sneaky tactics.
Nothing happened, though, and he continued turning the wheel. It finally thunked into place, and Robin gave the door a push, wincing at the loud shriek of rusty hinges grinding open.
He stepped through the doorway, one arm wardingly held up in front of him, the arm blade extended. He kept his other hand on the ΔU-Revenant, readying it to draw by snapping the small restraining slap from the holster.
The room was large, the smooth metal walls extending more than ten meters into the air. The end of the cavernous room was several hundred meters away, and looked like it housed a deployment area for smaller boats, with several black motorboats tied to a metal docking structure, as well as one vessel that Robin could only describe as a very small gunboat. Each had the letters “USN” emblazoned on the side.
Robin almost, almost missed Tao in his excitement at seeing the boats.
The pirate was no longer the kind of person who could escape notice in any room, however.
He was now more than two meters tall, his shoulders as broad in his new form as they had been relative to his former, objectively human body. He had skin that looked like it was made from living metal, the metal the same mottled gray and red mix of polished iron ore.
His chest had the look of a cheap mall-ninja knife that had been anodized blue, the pattern reminiscent of a vest, seemingly circling around to his back. There was a circle of yellow-white on his chest. The pattern reminded Robin of a rainforest beetle, but… He was not so petty as to take all the face the Tao had remaining to him, so he let the comment slip away.
He had not said anything, but the expression that had reached his face seemed to infuriate the thing that had been Tao, and it roared, the barely-intelligible clash of industrial noises hard for Robin to parse until a moment after it had been said. To his annoyance, it was somehow harder to understand in person.
“You dare smirk!? I will keep you alive, little bug-man! I will keep you alive, bleed you, and soak in your blood long enough to rust!”
Robin was glad he appeared confident. His thoughts were scrambling, pouring through the knowledge he had gained from a lifetime spent delving into fictional worlds, and found himself coming up blank.
I have no idea how to defeat a golem!