7:21
The idea of needing a bath while underwater was odd, but it was all he could think about as he crawled out of the beast’s head. The war beast had collapsed in the small arena while Owin feasted. Shortly after, he had resummoned Shade as a full body outside after the skeleton repeatedly protested to being inside the cathkabel corpse.
As soon as Owin emerged, silver blood slid off his armor joining the dark cloud that hung in the water in front of the war beast’s face.
“Absolutely disgusting,” Shade said.
“Nothing else to say?”
“Not this time.”
It was only a small hop back to the ground. Owin dropped and shook out his arms. Bits of brain still clung underneath his nails.
Shade stood a few feet away from the war beast’s head. Some silver blood leaked from his eye sockets. The skeleton stared at Owin, not saying anything else.
That alone was concerning. When did Shade ever stop talking?
“What did you do?”
“I certainly don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shade took a step closer, causing blood to burst from his eyes into the water.
“Why are your eye sockets bleeding?”
“No reason.”
“Shade.” Owin shook his head, helping the brains and blood leave his ears. It took him a few steps to pass the cloud to see Shade clearly. Owin motioned for Shade to crouch, which the skeleton readily did.
Shade’s eye sockets opened even wider than normal.
“Shade.”
“Yes?”
Owin sighed. The entire inside of the skeleton’s head was full. “Did you shove brains into your head?”
“No.”
“Shade.”
“Let me have this,” he whispered.
Owin sighed again and walked away from the skeleton, back toward the crater. “Where did you drop my knife earlier?”
“Somewhere over there.”
Owin had already figured that out. He looked inside the crater first, and after failing to see anything that looked like a bone, he checked behind where the rock had previously been. Shade had left it sitting on the rocky ground.
“I’m not trusting you with my weapons anymore,” Owin called.
Shade wobbled a bit as he walked. “That is probably a good idea. I don’t like weapons. I think I’ve made that clear enough. And what kind of joke is it to give a skeleton a bone?”
Owin chuckled softly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Shade tripped over a rock and fell on his face, spilling brains out his eyes. He yelped and tried to scoop them back in, but only made a bigger mess as he smeared silver blood over his face.
“Was I smarter?” he asked quietly.
“No.”
“Ah. Fine.” The skeleton sat back and waved his hand through the new cloud of blood. “What about you? After that feast you had, I hope you’re smarter. How do you not have a belly? After too many pastries, I was usually bloated. I don’t think that’s a food that normally bloats people, but you know, it was a different time. Literally. How long ago was it? Pastries were different back then. Did you know that?”
“No, Shade. I didn’t know that. Why would I know that?”
Shade’s index appeared in front of his face. “My goodness, Owin. What are you?”
Owin grinned. Mana wasn’t going to be a problem with his Power 1 spells anymore.
Before fighting the warbeast, his intelligence was 275.
Hero
Owin
Deficient Wizard
Nimble Hog Hero Company
Level: 1
Strength: 416
Constitution: 310
Dexterity: 270
Intelligence: 467
Wisdom: 169
Charisma: 160
“I’m a wizard.”
“I don’t want to be that skeleton, but you are still and always will be deficient.”
Owin waved Shade closer, and as soon as the skeleton was close enough, Owin pushed him into the crater. Shade flailed as he fell and stayed lying on his back once he landed.
“I probably deserved that.” Shade spread out at the bottom of the crater. “Do I look like a sea star?”
“Sure. Stay there. I’ll be right back.” Owin slipped the bone knife into his belt as he walked away from the crater, past the war beast corpse, to the chest holding the mana battery. He picked up the orb, holding it in both hands. It was warm, which was welcome in the cold water. Even if he had mostly gotten used to the feeling of constantly being surrounded by the ocean, it would never be comfortable.
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When Owin returned to the crater, Shade was still lying in the same position, staring at the surface far above. Some silver blood continued leaking from his eye sockets.
“Can you put this in the box?” Owin asked, holding out the battery.
“Pass it down.” Shade held his arms straight into the air.
Owin tossed the orb into the crater, hitting Shade directly in the face. The skeleton rolled over, grabbed it, and curled into a ball.
Summon the Withered Shade
Summon the Withered Shade
Shade reappeared beside Owin, yawning and stretching. “I guess it’s time for the third boss?”
“Is there anything else we could do?”
“Probably not. We could sit and tell jokes back and forth. Or, a better idea, we could find some paint and make portraits of one another.”
Owin took a step away. “Let’s go find the boss.”
“We’ll save that portrait idea for another time.”
6:58
They had accidentally ended up back in the girhuma settlement while searching for the third boss. They had already been against the boundary wall while fighting the turtle and the cathkabel, which meant there was nothing else that could be on that side of the floor. With the coral reef on one side and the girhuma settlement and cave each backing up to a boundary wall, that left only one side of the square floor to check.
It took another twenty minutes to get to the other side of the floor. Two sea stars tried to attack on the way, but now that Owin knew how to handle them, it was easy enough to kill the creatures.
The third boss was in the corner of the map by the back of the cave, opposite from the cathkabel war beast. Owin spotted it first, almost walking directly into the creature. Shade screamed, grabbing the boss’s full attention, and yanked Owin backward in a helpless gesture.
“What is that thing?” Owin asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea!” Shade turned and sprinted away.
Owin grabbed the lich bone and crouched, ready to pounce. The third boss was a mound of foliage and meat with three legs. Owin fully expected it to be labeled as one of the Horrors.
Ocean Mob
Refuse Golem
Level 54
“It’s called a refuse golem,” Owin shouted.
“A trash golem?” Shade audibly tripped and fell just behind Owin. “It probably doesn’t have a weakness if it’s a big pile of garbage.”
Each of its three legs were different sizes, all ending in a rounded foot. There was no discernible face or eyes, but Owin knew creatures didn’t need eyes to see. Shade had proved that. The golem moved with surprising speed, shuffling at Owin so quickly that he only had time to bring his arms up to block a kick from its wide, meaty leg.
He flipped backward, landed on his feet, and prepared for another attack. The golem lingered where Owin had just been standing, sliding one of its legs over the ground.
“Have you seen one of these before?”
“Not that I can remember.” Shade was still on the ground where he had tripped. “All golems need power. Did you see the chest?”
Owin nodded. The chest and mana battery had been right beside the golem before it spotted them.
“Then we might be able to get a second battery out of this.” Shade jumped to his feet. “How can we kill this?”
“You’re saying ‘we’ a lot even though you ran away at the start.”
The golem had yet to advance. It moved a lot, and moved quickly, but it didn’t get any closer. It was as if it was fidgeting in place.
“The cathkabel war beast kept throwing spells, but didn’t leave the arena, and the dragon turtle didn’t really move at all,” Owin said.
“While I do appreciate observations, I don’t think it is the right time to talk about past battles when a three legged pile of garbage is trying to murder you. And me. Or me.”
“It’s not.” Owin lowered the knife. “It can’t move past that line.” He took a step closer, causing the golem to shudder.
“Look at that. Good catch.” Shade pressed his hand down on Owin’s helmet. “How do we take advantage of that? Use our words? Apologies for intruding? Stab it?”
“See how close you can get before it hits you.”
Shade took a big step forward and waited. He was still a few feet from the golem. When he looked back, Owin waved him on. Shade took another step forward and took a full golem leg to the skull.
Summon the Withered Shade
“That close,” Shade said. He put his hands on his spine. “Those batteries do force me into some odd positions.”
“We’ll try to stop letting you die until we can get rid of those.”
“How kind.”
The refuse golem was stationary, other than the fidgeting. That would make it an easy target for someone like Myrsvai with a whole arsenal of ranged spells. For Owin, he only had his wands, and those had limited uses, especially underwater.
Luckily, there was one spell that could be helpful. He hadn’t had a chance to use it in a while. He pulled out his wand, pointed it just under the golem, and cast Magma Mine.
The rune appeared directly under the golem and . . . nothing happened.
“Spells like that are only activated when something touches it,” Shade said loudly right into Owin’s ear.
“Okay, I get it.” There were plenty of rocks on the ground. He picked one up and tossed it easily under the golem. As soon as the rock touched the red rune, magma erupted, blasting a hole straight through the center of the golem. The molten rock quickly froze, hardening into a column of obsidian that stood as a tower for a moment before falling to the side where it crashed against the rock. The corpse of the refuse golem remained around the column with the three legs moving gently in the disturbed water.
“I don’t know how many times I could consider one of our fights efficient.” Shade approached the golem and jabbed a bony finger into it a few times. “This was a good use of your wand. Eating that brain helped.”
“I’ve used that spell before.”
“Well, I feel like you are now smarter than you previously were, so I want you to also feel like you are smarter than you were before diving head first into that cathkabel’s skull. With that bumped intelligence, I sure hope you are now smart enough not to eat other creature’s brains. Some things are lucky to have them, you know. This golem, for instance, definitely did not have a brain. And, you know, some other people you know don’t have them either. Like Suta.”
Owin walked up to the golem remains and shook the closest leg. “Suta has a brain, Shade.”
“Okay, well I don’t and I’m a little sensitive about it.” He grabbed another leg and shook it until a handful of gold fell out. “This is disappointing.” He scooped it up and dropped it into Owin’s bag.
“Would the battery have been in the center?”
“Yes, but your spell wouldn’t have destroyed it.” Shade narrowed his eye sockets and looked up. “Oh.” He pointed. “It’s like a star.”
A blue orb shone high above. From their angle, Owin couldn’t tell if it was still going up or if it was on its way down. The spell had launched it right out of the golem, which was a lot better than destroying the battery.
“Keep watching it. I’ll grab the one from the chest.” Owin ran around the corpse, grabbed the battery in both his hands, and turned, almost running right into Shade. “I thought you were watching the other one.”
Shade pointed up, trailing the battery with his finger until it landed a foot away. “Perfect timing. I am good at this.” He grabbed the one off the ground and awkwardly took the other from Owin’s hands. “Send me to the void!”
Summon the Withered Shade
Summon the Withered Shade
“There is almost no room left in there. Really cramped.” He pointed to the opposite corner of the floor. “Fourth boss? We can take all these out and still have time to sit around and be bored for hours and hours.”
“Why did Sloswen give us so much time?”
Shade started walking. He avoided a few big, glowing crystals, but still stumbled as if the crystals had just appeared. They were the only real source of light, so it was hard to miss them.
“Most people need to eat and sleep. Especially sleep. By the time one gets to the sixth floor, it is time for a nap, at least. You could also just use all the batteries to contain the portal and use the stairs earlier. We don’t have to eat a demon.”
While Shade was right, Owin had no intention of going down early. He was coming across fewer buff potions, which left eating mobs as the only way to get stronger. The huge raise in intelligence from the cathkabel war beast was too important. Getting a boost even half as big in strength would help through the rest of the floors.
“We’re fighting the demon.”
“Yes, yes. I know. I figured that out already.” Shade grabbed Owin’s shoulders and turned him in the opposite direction. “The last battery should be somewhere in that direction. Onward!”