Hari took a moment to pour red sand from her boot as Brines let his green aura spill out over the group. Bearer and Growl-Whine had both taken hits during the fight, with the spider already looking fully fit but the former courier needing a few minutes to undo a nasty gash on her arm. Floor twenty five was starting to show the limits of what the spider could do to carry them.
The floor was shaped like drifting dunes and rocky mountains, with machines and stonework poking out of red sand. The wind kicked up wisps of grit that drifted through what looked like giant hollow statues made of bony fingers between patches of twisted forgotten machines. Growl-Whine had been pushing them in a path that threaded far away from what looked like mountain sized skulls wired with thousands and thousands of metal towers. She had no desire to find out why: Hari's curiosity for this barren set of floors had run out.
There was little time to rest. Save one floor, Hari had seen evidence of organized resistance on top of the monsters getting stronger. Their spider guide and guardian had broken most of her weapons destroying hunting packs of sand-sailing lizard men with crab like barnacles forming parasitic armor. The little bug would kill one or two then crack a weapon and discard it or use it as a shiv until it broke as well. The why seemed obvious after Hari thought about it: The spider had given up its grinding teeth at floor 20.
She wasn't the only change: Brines had stopped complaining, having found his niche in their fights with a second elemental dagger that blasted out lightning a few feet from the blade. His control with the dragon's tooth he was using earlier (though he insisted it was a 'firebreathing dagger') helped them form a solid defensive triangle when Growl-Whine picked a fight. Seeing him toughen up, it was hard to think of him as the same man who had been taken hostage by Nyx and Lady Blood Claw without putting up a fight.
Bearer of Burdens, on the other hand, had not changed too much. She was punching harder, and now had accumulated a few extra pieces of odd armor that made her tougher and faster, but she had spent the downtime as they climbed just trying to see if she could get Brines to blush, and a few times asking Hari if they considered sharing Corvayne or whatever else she could do to nettle her companions, save The Spider who she could not safely irritate.
It was a pretty obvious ploy, Hari realized sitting around a campfire back on floor 23, to keep her from falling into a funk. If she were to step away from herself, she'd realize they were going to run close to their day seven deadline. Now, with one more night inside the tower to make it to the exit, she was worried they wouldn't draw the right powers. She feared death as much as any other adventurer, but having to choose to dilute herself with another person's soul or watch her lover die... it was getting harder to goad herself forward as she became more sure that was the choice she'd have.
The Spider also was spending more time fighting rather than just teleporting, clearly killing patrols as often as she was scouring the path ahead. The constant use of [Blink] to pull four people clearly was too much strain after whipping through a nomad camp of lizard-men, grinding them down while casting the spell over and over to minimize damage from getting peppered with metal bows and spears. After some of the fights they'd walk, or hide and let patrols pass.
The next patrol was ahead, blocking the path around a broad corner in a metal valley, peppered with metal scraps and carpeted in red sand. Six of the lizards were trudging across the dirt, two of them heavily armored in barnacle and bone and two of them with bows. Hari was thankful that the airfoil hadn't shown any signs of wear and tear, as even without armor their hide was strong enough that she didn't always penetrate it with her barrages.
She crouched behind scrap and cast [Shadows] on the group. Growl-Whine was already positioning itself behind the monsters and above. She had taken a pair of crude weapons from the last encounter that were intact enough she could break them on her opening strike.
Bearer and Brines faded as Hari's spell helped them blend into the metal and sand they were crouched beside. The lizards, despite their heritage, mostly used sight and started trudging right past the group. Hari felt gripped her rapier's tighter. The floor was cool, but it was hard not to feel her pulse surge at the impending violence.
As the first armored figure stepped beside where Bearer had hidden they sprang the Ambush. Bearer slammed frozen fists into one of the heavy armor lizards, blasting bits of frozen armor and lizard off while both archers only started hissing a warning before there was a sharp sound of Growl-Whine shattering her blades and their backs. Hari moved as fast as she could, belting out a [Blink-Strike] to smoothly attack one of the spear-lizard from behind, setting her up for [Backstab]. As always it made a sound like a hundred blacksmith hammers all slamming anvils, the attack blasting out flesh from the monster's back but Hari was moving away, knowing it wouldn't take the burly monster down alone.
Sparks flew as Brines trained one dagger on the armored lizard, causing it to try to protect itself with its club. The other monster was screeching as it hadn't moved away fast enough and was ablaze.
Hari didn't have time to see more, as the monster's spear came flying around, looking to take her head. Hari, however, had sparred with Corvayne. The lizards were strong but not nearly as frustratingly perfect with their movements, and she slipped under its swing and got her blade into its armpit twice before rolling past. She had a moment to assess, and took the moment to cast [Anchor] on the armored monster charging at Brines.
The lizard halted and Brines backpedalled, turning to shock the armored monster that Bearer was fighting. Hari squared back up with her lizard, who had turned and started thrusting its spear at her. She kept far out of range, confident seeing Growl-Whine downing the burning spear-lizard.
When the lizard drew back for a lunge, Hari used [Blink-Strike] to move around it, using positioning she had copied from Corvayne's swapping to set herself up to pivot and [Backstab] the monster as it ran past. This time she struck something vital and the monster dropped two steps after pulling itself off her rapier. Turning, she saw that the second armored Lizard had been downed with a combination of lightning and being clubbed to death by one of its allies bows.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Everyone okay?” Hari asked as she watched Growl-Whine toss the mangled bows it had been using as a club away. The spider turned and coughed and hissed at her which meant at least it was saying her name. Then it gave a thumbs up. Hari gave a thumbs up back. “Good work Growl-Whine.”
Brines was sweating. “These daggers still take too much out of me.”
Bearer laughed as she tapped the armored monster she had been fighting. “You sure you can't roast this lizard more? I'm kinda hungry and it looks cold.”
He waved her away, instead sitting and letting his white aura fan out to help them get ready to hike again. After a few minutes they stood and started jogging across the sands again. Hari took a moment to marvel at the size of the landscape she could see. The twenty fifth floor had impossibly clear air and they were on a rise, letting her see the vast maze of metal from a commanding position.
Moments later her position blurred a few times, and Hari was so caught up in thinking about the scenery that she was stunned when she realized she was looking at the stairs up.
Brines laughed for the first time in a few days. “Oh thank GOD I thought this would never end.”
“Everything ends.” Bearer shrugged, and pulled out a cigarette and smoked it while Growl-Whine took a moment to drink another blue potion.
Hari cleared her throat. “Boss time. We're better equipped than before, so distract and slow whatever the monster is so Growl-Whine can finish it off.”
No inn this time either, instead spitting them out in a large lobby that was a dark room full of machines trailing ribbons of tape. A single window out into a dark gray sky tinged with red suggested smoke and the ruins of a great city. Hari made a small warding gesture, hoping it wasn't a portent for what she'd find on the other side of this tower.
They entered the boss arena through a pair of steel double doors, and stepped into what looked like a familiar garbage ridden street in Old Town Cascadia. Standing at the far end was a copy of Argyle, the robe clad monk who had killed her once. Growl Whine didn't wait for them to try to draw out what Argyle did, instead lowering her ears and hissing like crazy at the figure then dashing forward.
Argyle vanished, and Hari was turning to try to cover their flanks, but there was a sort of sharp noise and she saw Argyle flung back to where he had tried to vanish from.
Hari rushed in as Argyle tried to skewer Growl-Whine with a wave of bamboo spikes, activating [Backstab] with her Airfoil rapier. The blade barely could penetrate his robes and back, but she did see pricks of red before she used [Blink] to retreat before the monk could stop time and catch her flank with another wave of green spines.
He instead appeared behind Bearer, but she threw up a wood arm and took the hit, hissing in pain but countering with two rapid punches into the monk's gut. A moment later the Monk vanished, and Growl-Whine was on him, trading her last few bone weapons to parry and start gutting Argyle.
Hari cast [Anchor] again. She felt it snap as the monk moved, but he only got a few feet from where he had been before, putting him in a spot where Brines could open up with both magic daggers, blasting him with a torrent of fire and lightning. His battle sense had gotten better, as he threw himself to the side just before Argyle's stave flew through where he was. A second later Growl-Whine was on his back and Hari heard the satisfying crunch of [Backstab] landing a serious hit.
Argyle vanished and she heard the droning of a flying machine, prompting Hari to start moving for cover. The spider didn't bother, instead making a sputtering hiss with a little dance. It might have been laughing, as she took her empty silk weapon-bag and hurled it to where the vehicle was coming around a building. Almost instantly it snared the blades and there was a horrible metal on metal sound as it got caught on the windmill that made helicopters fly, tripping the entire vehicle with catastrophic results for it and its pilot as they fell twenty feet onto concrete and shattered.
Growl Whine teleported and slammed the shards of her last weapon into Argyle's prone form. With that, Hari fell into the dark of her mindscape.
The garden was just before winter now, with hints of red dirt coming from a metal gate marked with a skull hosting a radio tower atop it. Hari understood it hinted at invisible communication, but even so she didn't rush to it, considering all the options to make sure there was nothing new. After a minute of reviewing, she stepped through it.
[You are more attuned with the System]
Hari woke up shouting “Fuck!”
Brines looked over. “What's wrong?”
“I didn't get some form of telepathy.” She felt bitter irony that it was an outcome she would have wanted badly any other time. The thought stilled her. Did her desire for it before change the outcome? Greed. They had been right, she was a better human than elf.
Then the spider woke, and blinked, then ran over to where Brines was looking at a graffiti covered chest. The little spider slapped him, then stopped moving.
Brines started hissing and clawing at his head for a good five seconds, then blinked. He hissed something and then tapped his head, looking directly into Hari's eyes.
A moment later he stiffened and the spider startled awake and started running for the exit. Brines stumbled and Hari snapped her fingers. “Bearer, take care of him!”
Brines was hissing, pinching his nose. “She was in my head! … But it feels like she punched me in the face.”
Bearer didn't bother actually going to Brines, instead saluting from where she was looting the chest. “Go! Run free! Save your boytoy!”
Hari hurtled through a pair of metal doors out to the ruins. The Spider had not waited for her, so she started running out of the gloomy tunnel out of the The Source and into the morning sun. Looking over, she could see something like a fifty foot tall ring of spikes where camp used to be. Her heart stopped a moment, wondering if she was too late.
She saw the Spider still teleporting across the scrubland, so she used [Blink] liberally, pushing to get off the huge mountian of ruins and across field and black brick, rushing past lines of huge black crystal spikes that had upturned the dirt. She heard shouting and saw that Nyx and Grunt and Spears were fighting what looked like a pack of adventurers. Part of her twinged in annoyance: She had hoped they'd steer entirely clear of the Adventuer's Guild and its thugs.
She turned back to the goal at the center of those spines. Corvayne was writhing on a black crystal platform that had thickened to be something like a bed, eyes shut as his body kept erupting in horrific spurts of organs that just as quickly joined a pond of mush around the space he was on. The Spider teleported next to him, and placed her hand on his head.
Hari relaxed for a moment as she saw Corvayne twitch. It was all on Growl-Whine and the gods.
A moment later, after wiping her eyes, she drew her weapon and turned to the melee happening at one of the cracks into the bowl of black crystal Corvayne had made. She'd make sure the Spider had no interruptions.