Under the blanket of fading daylight, Sally narrowed her eyes and drew out her sword. The Guardian ahead looked to be melee focused. Dual-wielding shields, but she couldn’t see their face to determine what kind of Monster they might be.
“Defensive-focused Guardian might be a problem,” she said and rubbed the side of her head.
[Poppy: Sounds like a slog…]
[Poppy: Should we wait?]
“Nah. Nothing will change by morning.” She turned her head back toward her miniscule horde of three. They’d not fare too well in combat against such an opponent. “Either of you have like… paint or something?”
Claude shook his head, looking rather tired already.
[Poppy: Oh, I do… oil paint. White, green, or blue?]
[Poppy: They were a gift… but I never used them.]
“White please.” She held out her hand and received the small tube. Stepping over to the one zombie facing the wrong direction, she turned him around and held his head still. “I’ll not name you, little goof, but I want to keep you around to see what makes you tick.” Putting a blob on her finger, she then drew a rough x of white paint over his forehead.
The other two could just get mulched. Rather mean of her, but generally her zombies weren’t anything more than pawns of the System, anyway. She might be way off with her assumption with the whole souls thing, and it would be too much effort to drag around all the corpses she had a hand in raising. This goober was just a little different - and she knew something like that was a clue.
She looked down at Archie. “You alright there? You seem distracted.”
Emerald eyes focused on her. “Hmm, yes. Sorry. Being an intangible being is rather droll. You need to start fighting to entertain me.”
Sally narrowed her eyes. That didn’t seem like it… but he was half right, at least. Three-quarters correct if Poppy was asked. Daylight was soon gone, so breaking apart the Guardian so that they could get this Dungeon finished might be better than standing around prodding her zombies.
“I can’t invite him to the Party,” she thought out loud. “But I’d like to keep him functional for as long as possible, just in case.” Her eyebrow raised as she turned back to Claude.
“It is not something I am happy about, but I will allow no harm to come to him.”
[Poppy: Same!!]
The knight tilted her head as the marked zombie tripped over his own feet and rolled down the slight incline.
----------------------------------------
Theo breathed heavily as his legs shook beneath him. His right arm was bent awkwardly behind him - dislocated at the least - so the warhammer was in his left hand. Despite the lethargy, he grinned at the giant across from him.
Borin was also trying to catch his breath, but didn’t share the smile on his own face. “You have yet to actually strike me, you realize?”
[Warhammer (+3128 exp)]
[Warhammer Rank 7 Achieved]
[Warhammer Rank 8 Achieved]
[Warhammer Rank 9 Achieved]
“Do I even need to? You have yet to kill me, despite that being your only purpose in life.”
“Insect,” the giant growled. “I’ve killed you countless times. Are you now losing your mind?”
“You’ve defeated me, sure.” The vampire ran his tongue across his fangs. “But I still stand before you, living. True death is something you will never be able to inflict on me. Isn’t that maddening?”
Borin readied up his weapons. “It is not something that concerns me. Despite your protestations, you are no closer to winning.”
“Impressed by my improvement, though?” Theo spun the warhammer around in his off-hand. “You ready to give up that nugget of knowledge yet?”
With a deep sigh, the giant relaxed his weapons slightly. “I’ve always had an affinity for… agriculture. I would be a farmer.”
“Neat. Say, is there a way to get a second warhammer? Using just the one is getting boring.”
----------------------------------------
Dent drummed his metal fingers on the desk. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down?” Chuck continued to pace around the circular meeting room. “Someone has vanished from the System - or at least the scope of my vision.”
“That shouldn’t be possible. There has to be another explanation.”
Edward wrinkled up his face, sitting opposite the pair. He had his feet up at the edge of the table and his hands behind his head. “Definitely not dead, right?”
The Architect shot him a glare. “Definitely. I have safeguards for even if someone finds a way around the respawn and restricted PvP systems.”
Humphrey pushed the demon so that his feet fell back to the floor. “No longer taking this so seriously?”
“You broke the oath,” Edward murmured. “It’s no fun now that we’re not buddy-cops. Let the gods figure it out.” He rolled his eyes.
“That’s not…” the Death Knight began, before a gemstone inlaid on one of his fingers bloomed into red light. Immediately, he grabbed the demon by the suit, and in a flash of blue, they vanished.
As soon as they landed in darkness, Humphrey withdrew his greatsword with a flourish - a burst of crimson fire flickering down the wide blade.
The light illuminated familiar shapes. Edges of furniture, long curtains, and the large four-poster bed where he usually slept.
A figure sat near the middle, yellow eyes burning bright with unquenchable fury. The Death Knight clicked his fingers and the lanterns around them bloomed with light, bringing the scene into focus.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Norah sat, blood soaked through the bandages around her stomach where she clutched at the wound. The bed had absorbed it, a wet circle of crimson around her.
“Some motherfucker just appeared and stabbed me,” she seethed as she ground her teeth together.
----------------------------------------
Sally’s sword spun from her hand, bouncing across the muddy ground as she rolled to the side. The Guardian struck empty air as one of their sharp tower shields pierced into the dirt where she had been standing.
Growling, she returned to her feet and spun the dagger up into her grip. What she wouldn’t give to have her [Skeleton Key] or one of the other Outsiders to be here to give a hand. The downside of both her and Poppy being defensive Classes was that they had trouble beating down an equally protected opponent. Two shields were just unfair.
Some manner of humanoid, but not something that resembled any fantasy trope she could recall. The tower shields looked like flesh turned to metal, organic growths that emerged from the ends of their arms. No eyes or face - just a smooth silvered helmet, while the rest of their body was a dark weave of sinewy cables.
It stepped forward over her dropped weapon so that she couldn’t retrieve it at the same time as blocking the sword swing of the knight.
“Perhaps we should fall back and attempt later,” Claude said, his voice raised to be heard over the battle.
Unacceptable. Sally bared her fangs. “Poppy, charge!”
The knight gave her a brief nod before a burst of light surrounded her, her own shield raising and drawing her forth at speed.
As she closed in, the Monster brought both of its shields together to weather the impact. There was a mighty clang as the pair collided, knocking both shields back but not doing any damage.
But Sally was there, sliding through the ground underneath the raised defensive arms of the Guardian. They flashed back down just as she rose to stab it in the thigh, using the purchase of the dagger to pull herself up to repeat the thrust into their chest and then neck, fully within the darkness of the shields brought together.
The Guardian twitched and stumbled backwards, arms going limp as it toppled to the ground.
“Couldn’t eat their brains because of the metal hat,” she pulled a sour face at the fallen creature.
[Poppy: Sally! Your arm!!!]
Sally looked down to see that her left arm had been severed off near the elbow. Apparently she wasn’t as fully within safe range of the Monster as she had believed. “Oh, balls,” she murmured.
To her side, the one remaining zombie with the cross on his head stumbled into her, holding her removed arm in his hands.
“Bless you…” She pouted. “You’re making it really difficult not to name you… Cross. Damnit.”
A pulsing heal went through her as Claude moved up closer. “I’m… I’m not sure what I can…”
“Eh.” Sally turned to the knight. “You have a sewing kit, Poppy? This hasn’t happened before, but I’m a zombie so…”
[Poppy: I do! One sec…]
The knight stepped over, shedding her gauntlets to the floor so that she could work the needle and thread withdrawn with her bare hands. While Sally stood still, holding her arm in place, Poppy slowly worked around to try to affix it as best she could. The wound couldn't decide if she should bleed like a Player or stay inert like a corpse, so just compromised by slowly dripping blood to the grass below.
[Poppy: That’s all I can manage…]
“You have remarkably steady hands considering the context.” She grinned back at the knight as they both gradually removed their support of the arm.
[Poppy: Trauma will do that ^^]
[Poppy: Not my first dismemberment.]
The attached limb flopped to her side. “C’mon, System.” Sally ran her tongue across her lips. “I’m the favorite, remember? Throw me another heal, Claude?”
He did as such, the warmth of the power running through her body.
“Ouch,” she complained, and then her fingers jolted into movement. With a pained expression on her face, she lifted the arm slowly. “All of my nerves are screaming out in agony as they reattach and my muscles and other arm-parts regrow together.”
[Poppy: Temporary, I hope??]
“We’ll see…” She grinned. “Won’t be able to use it for the rest of the day - but it’s saved. Thank you both. And you, Cross.” She looked back down to see the zombie was now holding her sword, albeit in a way in which he was pressing himself up against the sharp edges.
She gestured to the others. “See, this is what I mean. Normal zombies are not like this.”
“I will spend some time tonight trying to analyze him,” Archie offered. “I’m not sure what information I am able to access at present, but he is certainly not acting as expected.”
The other two zombies had been pulped, and had not shown any sliver of personality compared to Cross. Sally hummed to herself as the group went over to the entrance of the Dungeon. It would be just like her to somehow stumble into an error in this new System - or create one. Whether it had any bearing on the wider world or the issues in Thrimble remained to be seen.
“Guardian won’t respawn, right? If it’s just a puzzle room, we could rest inside?” She looked up at the building… it was almost like a tomb in design. Dark and dusty stonework, and a barred gate leading down a shadowed staircase. Under the ground once more. Not that she cared to engage in cliches, but it did look like a fitting place for her to catch some sleep.
“Guardians respawn every full twenty-four hours,” Claude informed her. “So… certainly, that seems like a reasonable idea. As long as there are no traps or time-gated parts to the puzzle, then approaching it with a sound mind in the morning seems pragmatic.”
[Poppy: Fine with me too, I am tiredddd~]
[Poppy: Been a while since we’ve had to properly adventure.]
The gates of the Dungeon swung open with a satisfying creak, and the trio descended slowly. Poppy brought out a lantern to bathe the short staircase in bright light. No traps that they could easily see. Reaching the bottom, they found themselves in a wider chamber. Gloomy, each wall had an engraved scene upon it on lighter, almost marble, stone.
Narrowing her eyes, it looked to Sally like it was depicting a battle… or perhaps something to do with the founding of the world? In the center of the room was a raised square surface, maybe only two feet across. Indented with odd shapes that didn’t seem to form any particular pattern.
“Wow,” she said, her voiced reverberating through the underground space. “I am definitely not enough brains for to do this right now.”
Claude gave her a tired glare, unsure how much she was putting that on with the awkwardy phrasing. “Let us rest for the night, then. Although, perhaps you’d like to tell us more about yourself before we drift off?”
“Sure! Settle down then, and I’ll…” she paused as Cross fell down the last of the steps behind them and collapsed onto his face. “I’ll tell you all about the history of Sally Danger and how I saved the world using only my appetite.”
Archie cleared his throat.
“Oh,” she continued. “And several years of effort alongside a wide gathering of oddballs and found family.”
[Poppy: Does the story have much romance?!]
“Eh.” Sally rubbed the back of her hair. “Mostly only in the epilogue - and even then I’ll only insinuate things happen through vague contextual clues.”
[Poppy: I’m looking forward to that part~]
Claude rolled his eyes and looked around the walls for his designated place to rest. “I’m much more interested in how you defeated a dragon… and with this 'greater cosmos' you allude to.”
“Spoiler alert. The simple answer is bullshit. For both things. Right, Arch?” she grinned and looked down at the cat, who was staring off. “Archie?”
“Hmm? Yes, to whatever you said.”
“Having chats without me? Anything I should know?” She put her hands on her hips as Poppy went to arrange somewhere of comfort for herself.
“Just an update on how the Outsiders are doing. Numbers and such.”
“Uh-huh.” She shook her head, but gave up. “I should prod Theo before I forget. No doubt he is already max level and dripped out in the best gear. I need to get my skates on so I can drag Humphrey here.”
Archie continued to watch her as she mumbled to herself, moving out of range to setup her own bed. His eye twitched as he tried to ignore the constant pings of Chat updating.
Things would be fine. They knew this would happen eventually.
But so soon? Hopefully they were prepared enough.
They'd have to be.