Solarus
What a loser.
The thoughts kept forcing their way into my mind.
Here comes the Power farm!
Entirely unabated.
Everyone line up! Fresh B Rank up here on a silver platter!
Was this even still a hallway anymore or just a channel carved through my soul? Filled with knee deep snow so that I would have to trudge through this nightmare? That much alone though wasn't the problem, another flare of fire burned away the monster that attempted to ambush me while I was distracted.
Distracted? Is that what you were distracted when boulders containing creatures so far beneath you crushed you? Were you distracted when they took power that was rightfully yours? Grew in power while you remained stagnant? You were distracted?
"SHUT UPP!" I flared my power, I took the light in the air and I released the raw fire into the halls of the dungeon incinerating everything that the flames came into contact with, sadly that included myself.
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Keeper
I watched with a sigh as I saw Solarus respawn.
"I'm going again!" The snake bird woman didn't even bother to get my opinion on the matter as she went back into Grave's tunnel to conquer the dungeon again.
Well good luck with that anyway. I didn't have much to do until my body respawns anyway, let's see how Frankenstein's project is doing. You could tell that Frankie looked nervous despite his bony self, but this was necessary to our goals, it's not like we can beat Leviathan by normal means. For now I spawned the Schema he had given me.
[C Rank Schema Bottle Squid-A heavily mutated hybrid of multiple species of monster, though small it's stomach contains an enormous amount of space that can swallow most dungeons whole and trap them inside of itself]
It wasn't easy, we started with a Spatial Jellyfish, added Flail Snail for the magic repelling shell for a container, crossing that with a poltergeist possessed bottle was the finishing touch and I now spawned the new born schema, Frankie probably tried mixing in various different schema's along the way too but I'll omit that. He has been busy, these schema slides were hanging from the ceiling like a wind chime exhibition, but for now I focused on the bottle in my hand made from a see-through rainbow glass with clear liquid inside of it.
I held a point of awareness up to the opening and watched a few tendrils come out to shake my hand. Good work Frankie.
"It is an honour to fight my master's foes." Frankenstein bowed to me and got back to work, trying more of the combinations in the slides. In the mean time I turned my attention to a more immediate concern.
[Fire Frost Fiend 00:43:09]
I suppose I need to make measures to deal with this one now don't I? I sealed off the FFF's spawn point with a marble block, with luck it'll spawn directly inside of the block and be offed that way. Still I've spawned monsters inside of blocks before, even if the chance is minuscule psycho me could still use the brief gap given to rampage. So I also created another block around that, Marble reinforced with steel, hollow if not for what I filled it with. Water is actually quite flammable when you think about it, it's actually composed of a combination of flamable gasses, oxygen and Hydrogen, it's why people...
***my hands fumbled with the fire extinguisher, I never learned how to work one of these things, it didn't help that the bloody clasp was getting so hot from the fire! Forget about the extinguisher I need to get to somewhere***
I sucked in a breath. The Hell did I just go through? I heard a ringing sound echoing in my ears like a tuning fork that someone took to a bell, I checked on my core and sighed with relief. The last time I got access to my past life memories it nearly broke my core, the time around I had the adamantine base to protect me but even it was shaking like a leaf. I threw mountains of mana at this stuff and it didn't even make a scratch but one peak behind the curtain and it's ready to snap in two? Okay now. Clearing my throat, and trying very, very hard not to think about how close I just came to shattering like an opera singer's wine glass, I turned back to my preparations.
In lieu of water I filled the outer-box full of another fire suppressant, Carbon Dioxide, which was actually a by product of fire burning oxygen, which means that it can't burn either. So I've covered all the possibilities of using fire but how do I cover using ice? I looked through the memories of the items that I've consumed, loot from other dungeons, specifically equipment used by Jack's raid team.
[Ring of Water Repellant: A magic ring that can form a bubble around a target that repels all water that is not part of the wearer's body in whatever form it may have]
Which would do to keep ice away from me. Without the ability to produce fire or ice I shouldn't be able to break out of this prison and I should die off properly inside of the block of stone. Now to deal with my other problem. The horse man sent me a list of demands for the route to the breach, evidently he wasn't willing to accept his personnel being picked up by thing and swallowed every time that they wanted to use my floor, so I had to make what you would call... adjustments.
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Charles
I sat with the Mustang representative, one of the people under my command was pouring drinks for us as we watched Thing disentangle himself from Treyni's tree to get up and walk into the water where Levi use to lay. I watched the pile of bones lay out flat on his sternum and rest his hands on the beach before sitting his chin into the sand, at the moment Keeper should be remaking the Gashadokuro's internal structure so that it's easier for the horses to reach the breach.
"So now that the dungeon is horse accessible are you going to make any more demands for the Keeper?" I was annoyed, Keeper was annoyed, we all were annoyed. This horse bastard came over here and dictated terms to us, and while we did invite him that didn't mean that we enjoyed being bossed around either. I breathed deep and let out a breath.
"Problem?" The Mustang guy asked sounding concerned. "No." Keeper's mana had been contaminated by the embodiment of rage and it was starting to bleed out over into the city proper, I was a fire user like the affecting mana so I was being the most strongly affected, things that would've annoyed me before is now making me pissed, I was still able to stay rational, I suspect mostly because I was I was getting whatever the Keeper was getting second hand, I can't imagine what it's gonna be like for him when he has to deal with it.
"To answer your concerns there are convoys of Centaurs on their way over, with proper housing set up." Yet another way this horse bastard was changing the city to his own liking. "We can begin using the trade routes that your dungeon has proposed." Speaking of which, I watched as the giant skeleton in the water shook. It was too soon for the Turtle to finish his breach, but I think Keeper mentioned that the Skunk Ape's dungeon had started his breach around the same time as Bellfast's?
"I should check that out, with luck it will lead to some place profitable." Taking the olive branch for what it was I removed myself from the irritant and went to address the newly breached dungeon.
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Solarus
This time I did not enter the dungeon, not yet. The Keeper's dungeon air was thick with fire, Aziraphale, Satan, Hephaestus, and until the fiend respawns it is all mine for the taking, so I unleashed the blend of powers into the dungeon I had been sent to raid, mixed in with my own blessing from Quetzalcoatls. The Mixture of fire elements were released into the dungeon, the fires that Purify and Destroy unmade everything in their path, destroying the blessing of Phthonus's blessing that kept whispering words of envy into my ears, I quickly released the mixed power back into the Keep before anyone could notice what I did and quickly made my way through the enemies halls. It was easy without being blasted by my own failures or getting harassed by monsters and I made it to the core room in record time and then dropping it into the main dungeon on the Mortal plane, laughing to myself at my good job. And then I died, my head twisted backwards I saw the one who killed me, an angelic figure made of ice and stone.
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Lucifer
I returned to the inside of my chambers from possessing the Gargoyle. I didn't even bother getting Phthonus's core back, in all honesty? The Loser could use a win. I turned my attention to my plant within the Keeper's dungeon. He suspected that loot from Leviathan would carry elements of my power? He was correct. The Loot dropped by Leviathan's Admiral was possessed, giving me a inside look into the Keep while everything was going on, as I bore witness to the spawn point for the Keeper's little possessed body, and I watched the mana build up in the stone block. So he intended to telefrag himself like he did to Leviathan? How cute. I doubted Hel would answer my call, But I left a message for her anyway. [If you wanted the wedding gifts from my friends in our divorce, all you had to do was say so, I'll even give you the last one back with no strings attached, enjoy!] And with that I had my own gargoyle within the Dream lounge return its dungeon core to the mortal plane, just in time to watch the Fiend respawn. Oh this was gonna be fun!
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Keeper
[Fire Frost Fiend 00:00:00]
I breathed deep as I re-entered this BLOODY GOD DAMNED CURSE OF A-ahem. This would take some getting-I SWEAR IF I EVER SEE THAT ASSHOLE SATAN AGAIN I WOULD-! That would benefit no one. Right now I just needed to-
[Mission from Hel Completed: Returning you to the Mortal Plane now]
Son of aAAARRRGGGHHH! My entire dungeon Shifted, my core room was ripped out of the top of the tower and I passed by two fully formed breaches and a third in progressed before I slammed back into THIS BLOODY MISERABLE HOLE IN THE GROUND-again.
[You have Exceeded enough points to Obtain a new Floor]
NOT THE TIME YOU MISERABLE SON OF A RAT! AAAHHH!
I mentally screeched in anguish as I was sunk even deeper into the ground past my fourth floor.
[Please select your-ERROR Theme Selected]
What the? I don't even GET TO CHOOSE THE BLOODY WALL PAPER YOU SON OF A BISCUIT!?
I watched my world be consumed by flames, even the floor seemed to melt away and give ground to a huge volcanic cavern with lava falls coming out the walls into a lake filled with Lava. In the centre of the chamber I emerged WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU UP TO NOW YOU USELESS RODENT!?
[Please choose a New Schema for your floor from one of the Three Choices]
[Lava Sli-]
A pause as if THE WORTHLESS LITTLE RAT had just noticed something. My list of Monsters opened up, then slowly started to scroll down, then faster and faster, as if the person viewing it wasn't even reading it any more and just desperately trying to reach the bottom of the list, but THE LITTLE QUITTER closed the menu before they reached that point.
[Please choose a New Schema for your Floor Later]
LOSER!
[Your Monster, the Fire Frost Fiend is now Evolving]
Oh oh oh oh HELL NO!
[Blessing of Hephaestus, Blessing of Echidna, Blessing of Hel, Blessing of Aziraphale, Blessing of Satan, Blessing of Quetzalcoatls Achievements: Giant Slayer, Aquatics, Ogre Slayer]
Oh I like nothing about this. Before me I saw the Schema of the Fire Frost Fiend, and then I saw parts being removed and replaced, having the essence of six gods (When did I get Quetzalcoatls anyway?) and the Three Achievements were having what you call an effect. I liked the idea of this less and less, I watched my schema shrink down to the size of one of the dwarfs to as tall as Jack, two eyes were fused into one before growing six more, wings replaced my ears before sliding down to my wrists and growing bigger, then my hips where they grew even bigger, before going down my ankles and returning to the size of the wrist wings, Horns grew out my head and split, twisted, formed a crown and curled up as a tail came down my back, Water and Fire elements attempted to mix together forming ice, boiling water and steam all at once.
When Jack called me chaos before he wasn't kidding! The Random Gacha of eyes, horns, size, wings, tails and gods know what else seemed to finish it's selection without showing me the final combination, a evolutionary Cocoon wrapped around my body as it was about to initiate the changes. OH HELL NO! I grabbed hold of the cocoon's threads and pulled, tore them apart as the Cocoon attempted to form, even despite the intensified ringing of my pedestal.
[Cease and Desist! A Cocoon of Evolution is a pivotal part of the transformation process! Without it-]
I. DON'T. CARE! I tore apart the cocoon, and then the flames of wroth were really unleashed.
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Lucifer
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" The Master of Cocoytus was leaning back into his throne and cackling madly as he watched the Keeper doom himself. "Leviathan, your window of opportunity has arisen."
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Charles
The ground was shaking, the familiar sound of 'Grind, Clack, Grind' typical of a dungeon gaining a new floor. It was an oddly specific noise, but when you spend enough time around dungeons you start to pick up on things like this. The odd thing was that Keeper should still be in Helheim, when did he get his core back? That was not the most immediate concern though, because I have no idea what has possessed that fool now but the ground was changing. The earth in the middle of the town was bubbling up and up climbing into the air like a mountain. Or a Volcano! I could see an impossible amount of Fire type energy at the centre of the mountain, soon it's top was blown off revealing boiling lava that was starting to creep over the edges.
My body moved before I knew what I was doing. I flew to the top of the mountain hovering on jets of flame coming from the soles of my feet and with a finger I began carving a magic formation into the stone. Heat into Kinetic energy, then before the Lava could further destroy the town I had all of it expelled in the form of raw kinetic force straight into the air. I wiped sweat away from both the pressure and the heat as I looked into the hole.
"Keeper better have a good explanation for this." Suddenly a mass of fire was shot out of the top of the Volcano as a fire soon formed in midair.
"AAARRRGGGHHH!" The Keepers body was growing and shrinking, appendages appeared, disappeared and colours shifted from blue to red all the while the fiery monster held his head and screamed.
"Well it doesn't explain much but it is an explanation."
Apas
[The Named Fire Frost Fiend Dungeon Keeper's evolution Cocoon has been broken open during the mid transformation process]
A system message appeared in my eyes and they went wide with terror.
[A Evolution Cocoon protects the subject's body from absorbing stray or ambient mana during the transformation process, without it random mutations can appear leading to pain, agony and cancerous growths] Ah but the hits kept coming anyway. [The Keeper's Body contains multiple contradictory blessings, Life and Death, Purity and Corruption, Hot and Cold, Creation and Destruction, without the Evolutionary process to select and discard blessings they are instead eating each other and ripping the Keeper's body apart]
The More she read the Wider my eyes went with horror.
"Mommy?" Maat's voice drew my attention down to my cubs who were all looking up at her with concern. "Is something wrong?"
I leaned over and gave each of my cubs a lick on the head, no need to worry them needlessly.
"Mommy's gotta go deal with another of Dad's messes, I'll be right back soon." I walked out of the dungeon, while I wasn't looking Thing had turned himself into a walkway, but he was the least of my concerns right now. In front of me a distorting and shifting mass of flame was high above the city over a newly formed volcano, behind me however a fog bank was moving in from the ocean, above several things resembling bird were flying in with the invaders. "I don't know what Levi is doing right now but she's not doing her job very well." I went over to where a meeting was being held, The Guild leader, the Mage's tower professor, and Charles. "Leviathan is invading," I flew over and dropped down in front of the two knuckle heads whose job it is to keep this place up and running. "Keeper is self destructing, would somebody please explain to me what madness has over taken us!?"
"It seems that we're under attack." Charles proved himself a master of stating the obvious. "The Professor here was about to explain his theory."
"In simple terms, the Keeper's body is being overloaded by too many contradictory powers." Professor Phalanges held up an eye Glass as he looked at the Keeper. "Normally a exceptionally skilled individual would be able to solidly maintain two affinities, to use the Fire Frost Fiend as a example, heat and it's absence cold, this is possible because instead of trying to mix them together the Keeper solidly keeps them separate from one another." He then indicated the distorted mass above them. "That on the other hand, is not."
"Life and Death, Pure and Corrupt, Hot and Cold, Creation and Destruction." I listed off the contents of the message from earlier. "Correct, the individual powers are trying to consume and repel one another and the Keeper is being torn apart in the process." Professor Phalanges put his tool away. "What we need is a way to separate the Myriad blessings from one another."
"All of this is mixed into fire right?" Grim walked in on the conversation carrying two items, a basket and a cage, and two creatures inside of them, a baby and a bird. "Can we use them?" The Pasista and the Peacock, never thought I would be happy to see the Keeper's bastardised offspring but then this day was full of surprises.
"Yes that can work. Come my apprentice! We need to get to work straight away!" While the Professor and the Student got to work Charles and I turned our attention to the horizon, and the fog that was creeping over it.
"You rally your people and I will rally mine." Charles talked but I didn't bother to listen, I flew into the air and used the wind to carry my voice.
"THING! TREYNI WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"
The giant skeleton rose up from the water, he grabbed one arm with another and pulled, mana surged and Bone Weapon Creation turned the limb into a huge club, lime stone dust fell from the empty forearm and wrapped around the bones in a layer of armour before the limb restored itself. Several of Treyni's roots were ripped out of the ground, each of them lodged into a creation by the Cyclopses, giant spear heads and axe heads big enough to rip apart one of Leviathan's ships. Next I flew down the elevator shaft and landed in Leonaidas's floor, the ring and armour was already waiting.
"Go to the surface and help the Professor and the Necromancer. They will explain the situation from there." I didn't bother waiting for Leonaidas's reply, Instead I went to the floor that I dreaded the most. "LEVI!" I shouted angrily into the slime wall.
"Bugger off I'm busy!" The Slime rippled and spat out a familiar voice.
"Not busy enough! Or have you not noticed that Leviathan is invading again!?" The Slime rippled as Levi's composite avatar pulled itself out of the slime wall.
"Excuse me?" Levi asked her features clearly displaying her disbelief.
"Get back here now!" I ordered as I left to check on the situation on the surface.
I noticed two things as I reached the surface, the first was that Leviathan had already sent forth his advance scouts, huge bird like skeletons covered in a layer of slime were flying above the town, light passed through their wings and released rainbow laser beams on the city below.
"What's the situation?"
"Your boss works fast." Work was being finalised on a simplified formation to absorb elemental energy, being carved into the bottoms of the basket and cage via Leonaidas's floating blades. "The monster situation is less than Ideal though." The Professor held out his eye glass and I held it over my face as I looked up into the air.
[B Rank Monster Shogoth-A concentrated mass of blessings from water type gods has gathered together inside of this creature and are attempting to fuse and devour one another, the end result has created a tumour from all the flesh and bodily fluid of it's former host, the remains of which it now puppets about for mobility, it hungrily seeks more flesh and soul to feed of as it continues to attempt to resolve the roiling energies inside of it's body]
"I can see Leviathan still doesn't know how to treat it's pets." I stated as I gave the old man back his eye glass. It was the same sort of thing that the Keeper was going through, they looked like more severe cases, if I had to guess from more blessings being shoved into their bodies.
"Leo, we're going after the Keeper, you take the cage I don't trust you with the baby." One of the flying corpses attempted to dive bomb on us only to smacked out of the air by Thing's club.
"That might be difficult." Leonaidas pointed through the air at the Keeper.
"RRREEEAAARRRGGG!" The Keeper turned into a spear of flame and shot through the sky slamming into the middle of Leviathan's fleet of ships.
"Huu." I could only sigh in response. "Should I comment that he at least recognises ally from enemy?" The two bosses watched several geysers of flame shooting through the fleet making waves and pushing the ships away from the shore. Indeed if Keeper was just going on a mindless rampage then he would've started over here instead of flying all the way over to the other side just to harass the ships.