After fighting our way through a vicious pack of salamanders and several groups of what were apparently called “sun-sprites”, we found ourselves at the Sun Temple itself. This one was definitely more intact than either the Moon or Jaguar Temples; it was a fantastic step-pyramid, not quite a lookalike of that famous one down in Mexico, but near enough that I did a double-take on it. At the top was a stone that had been shaped into a likeness of the sun-disc motif from the mysterious writing Ari and Healina had deciphered. This particular Hoh'mateca symbol wasn't hard to recognize; it was round, with a few radiant-points coming out of it and an eye near the top-left part of the disc.
“Bet it won't be long before we can see real places like this,” Lizzy remarked as we made our way towards the steps.
“Our senior trip next year might even be virtual,” Healina agreed.
“That'd be a switch, but I doubt it.” the blonde girl shrugged.
“Oh?”
“There's probably some study or another going on right now that'll come to the conclusion that all this VR stuff is bad for us and then it'll all be confiscated or restricted or something like that... and you know how the senior teachers, let alone our principal, are spooked about technology.”
“Eh, that's... well, mostly true...” the Sea Elf with platinum hair shrugged back.
“I'd go on one.” I said as we began our ascent up to the top.
“That would be really cool,” Ariana smiled. “Maybe they'll even be able to simulate outer-space or something!”
“I bet someone's already working on it after seeing this,” I grinned back.
“Oh totally.” Lizzy nodded, a serious expression on her face. “I bet the military's using this sort of technology too.”
“Yikes.” I returned with a bemused expression.
We bantered on a few more minutes about virtual-reality and the possibilities it was opening up before finally reaching the top, whereupon we discovered a door that led down into the pyramid itself. I lowered myself down the ladder cautiously, and once on level-flooring I drew out my daggers to stand guard while the others followed me down.
I looked around, using Shadow Vision to scan for nearby enemies; this time I could see that the temple here had several rooms and corridors filled with monsters waiting for passersby to walk in and be mobbed by. The largest chamber seemed to have a boss or at least an elite-level monster in it as well. Ariana used her Mystic Vision to spy on this room when she got down, and looked closely.
“There's a door in that room; it probably leads further down. All of these monsters seem to be fire or heat-related in some way,” she remarked.
“Right, I guess some will have more obvious guardians than others,” I nodded.
“Still puzzling out the corpses from the Moon Temple?” Lizzy grinned.
“I mean,” I said with a shrug, “I get it? Kind of... but also not really.”
“Right?” Healina agreed.
“Definitely.” Ari also nodded. “I'll use my cold-skills here; Heali? I think you should summon the ice-sprites and the frost-bird for this one,” she continued, and our healer-slash-summoner nodded back.
“Will do.” she replied.
“Ehh... no actual cold skills here...” I sighed, and Lizzy shrugged.
“We don't really need them, even if they would help.” she said, and as I nodded back I noted Healina finishing her summons for the bird and sprites, and when that was done I began to prowl ahead, keeping wary of the monsters I had seen.
The first group we ran into were labeled as flame-elementals; they were basically large sun-sprites, but more dangerous. As I expected, they had a moderately high resistance to the physical attacks that Lizzy and I used, but we inflicted enough damage to keep their attention on us so that Ariana could swiftly take them down. Healina's pets helped as well; the bird placed a debuff on them to weaken their resistance to physical attacks, and the sprites lowered their accuracy with attacks, to say nothing of the incidental cold damage they inflicted by just being there. It wasn't really all that much, but it helped.
Once we got into a groove with that fight and then the second, we began making our way through the temple at a good pace. The elite by the door gave us some trouble, vanishing at certain points of the fight only to reappear with three clone copies of itself running around to help fight us, but we latched on to his tricks soon enough and then managed to beat him.
We picked up our rhythm again for the next few floors, and then we found the final chamber at the bottom where a boss monster called Wyrdfire was waiting for us. This guy was a lot like the elite, except worse. In addition to cloning himself he would also summon a random wave of minions and allies of varying difficulty, including a wave of elites that also had the cloning mechanic. Yeah... that was a pain. And it was a long, long battle.
I think we were actually about to lose the fight -- Ariana was low on magic and wasn't using potions, which usually meant she was out; Healina was in nearly the same position, casting several minor healing spells instead of her now-usual Vivifying Jolts; Lizzy seemed more sluggish by that point; and I was running out of tricks -- when suddenly the boss began to do an induction for its split-mechanic yet again. But this time I happened to notice that, as it did, it focused all its attention on a crystal in the center of the ceiling.
Why didn't I notice that earlier? I wondered, then recalled that I had been too busy fending off minions to think about it. I dodged out of the way of the thing attacking me, hastily drew out my bow, and used my most powerful ranged attack on the crystal. It cracked. I looked back at the boss. His induction had been interrupted. Yes!
“What the -- nice!” Lizzy exclaimed, suddenly looking as if she was back to a hundred-percent.
“Lana! Again!” Ariana called out to me as she fended off a wave of sprites heading my way. I obliged her quickly, firing three more shots in rapid succession until the crystal in the ceiling was nothing but shards, and then to our surprise the boss merely gave up the ghost and died, exploding into shards and leaving behind the obligatory loot chests. A key for the Serpent Temple appeared in my inventory, but I only paid it a brief notice.
“Whew,” Healina practically gasped for breath, and the four of us slumped down.
“Daaang it,” Lizzy sighed. “I think I'm tired for the night. Let's find a safe place and log out.” she said, and Healina nodded in agreement.
“I think we should.” Ariana added. “We can make more potions with our PATs tomorrow and continue our search after that.”
“We are low on potions after all that fighting,” I had to agree. PATs, by the way, stands for Portable Alchemy Stations, useful for potion-making or even culinary-crafters. “Wasn't there an empty house or something on a nearby hill? Let's log out there,” I suggested, and we agreed to this, swiftly dividing the loot we had won and exiting the Sun Temple.
We found the abandoned building--more a manor than a house--at a nearly perfect place for the next time we logged in, and situated ourselves in comfortable positions, marking the spot as ours until we came back.
“No one can come in here until we leave,” Lizzy told us. It was a useful feature for logging out in open fields like this when you didn't have time to get to a designated safe-spot; you could mark a temporary one until your next log-in. With that, we logged out pretty much simultaneously, and when I had pulled off the Dream Machine I fell asleep.
***
“Mr. Daniels? Mr. Daniels, is there something wrong?” the voice of our math teacher suddenly clicked in my mind.
“Uh? Ah, no, sir.” I replied.
“Then would you mind giving us the answer to this problem, Mr. Daniels?” the man said, tapping the board; I heard some of the others snickering or giggling.
“Ah...” I started, stumbling at first but eventually I came to an answer that satisfied him. When lunch finally came around after our fourth class I was all too relieved.
Tuesday morning had started off more or less the same old way -- except it was partly cloudy instead of rainy today. The trip to school was uneventful; Rachel and I met with a smile, arriving at the same time for a change; and our first two classes went by pretty decently. But by the time Math came around I wasn't in a mood for it. I spaced out thinking about the game, and hence my earlier bullet-dodging.
“You okay?” Rachel asked as she turned around for lunch.
“I am, just got spaced out...” I returned with a sigh.
“Hmm?” she remarked pretty knowingly. “Did we even get a level last night? Because I feel like we should have.”
“I think we did; maybe even got half of the next, too... that was a rotten fight until the last few moments.” I said.
“You're telling me,” Rachel nodded as we began setting up our lunches. “I thought we were actually going to lose for a change. Which could have been fun,” she shrugged, a faint smile on her face.
“Yeah, probably,” I shrugged as well.
“Hey!” Ellie said as she and Andrea showed up. “Professor Tyson would not give up on the astrophysics rabbit-trail he got into last period,” she remarked grumpily as the two of them pulled a desk over to sit with us.
“It really was something,” the other girl agreed.
“Um. It was boooor-ing, hel-lo?” the reply came, and Rachel and I almost burst out laughing. “So what about you two?”
“Nothing really exciting here, just spacing out in lectures.” Rachel replied.
“Heh.”
“What was that key we got?” Andrea wondered. “I just now thought about it and realized we didn't even look at it.”
“Eh, it was... for the Serpent Temple?” I recalled, a bit fuzzy about it. “I'm pretty sure...”
“Lovely.” Ellie quipped. “We'll have to prepare antivenom as well as our normal potions.”
“I think some of the plants around where we are might be helpful for those, maybe,” Andrea said. “Not that I've been emphasizing learning things in a game over learning things at school, but, you know.”
“We know.” Rachel smiled back.
“Oh by the way,” Ellie said as she downed some of her chips, “We ran into Mary, the principal's daughter, during our classroom change for third and fourth,” she recalled, and we nodded. The juniors and seniors change classrooms after second period--probably something I neglected to mention earlier. “She said she had something she wanted to ask us about of all people, so I invited her over.” Ellie explained, and right on cue the girl in question appeared.
I hadn't seen much of her since the Justin-incidents, but she was just taller than Ellie, her black hair tied back in a ponytail and green-blue eyes that were almost piercing, like her father's. She almost shyly waved as she entered the room and sat down with Ellie and Andrea gracefully, like some sort of princess.
Come to think of it, where's your pals? I wondered internally.
“Hi guys,” Mary said to us, and we gave her a welcoming reply, wondering what the visit was about. “So... I've been into something lately, and because I've been into it I've heard some rumors... about an informal 'game-club' that meets around lunch time?” she continued. Rachel gave me a quick smirk, and Ellie took the initiative.
“Oh cool! You play in Panarena then?” she quickly replied, and Mary nodded, like a giddy grade-schooler sharing some precious secret that no adult was ever supposed to know.
“I got it just before school; it's so hard to stay on top of my grades and everything because of it but I've managed so far. I'm only to level fifty or so, though.” the older girl said.
“Hey, same as us!” Ellie said with a smile.
“Really!” Mary brightened up.
“What's your character?” the blonde girl then said.
“Ah! She's... I'm a Cymbroga shield-user.” the reply came.
“Oh, nice!” Andrea piped up. “We don't have a shield-user in our group; Ellie goes around rage-tanking with her halberd,” this earned a pouty-glare from the girl in question, “But I bet a shield-user would be a lot easier to heal!” she quipped with a merry look in her eyes to Ellie.
“Shut. Up.” Ellie stuck her tongue out, and Mary laughed.
“Ahh, this is so good! I can finally talk about this with people who get it!” she said, a glowing smile on her face.
“We're glad to talk about it with you,” Rachel smiled back. “I had no idea you were in to games!”
“It's my second. I used to play Age of Hyperborea as well, but after being beaten in the Fourth Year's Tournament Champion Arena by someone called Lana Windrider I kind of slacked off in it.” she said. I couldn't help but nearly choke. “You okay?” Mary asked as I recovered myself.
“Ahh... yeah... I'm fine,” I returned somewhat sheepishly.
“Heh, you too, huh?” Ellie grinned.
“Oh? You played that as well?” Mary latched on with interest.
“I did; I was the last match-up for Lana, if you remember.” the other girl replied.
“Oh right! I do remember that. You totally had her, them, whoever it was; if they hadn't magically evaded that attack you'd have won.”
“Don't remind me,” Ellie sighed wistfully. “Fun fact: Lana plays this one too. She's on our side, though.” she added, and Mary nodded.
“I thought that was the same Lana. I see a lot about her on the forums, when I care to read them; she seems a lot more popular now.” the black-haired girl remarked. “So she's in your group? But...” Mary continued, looking over us. Her eyes alighted on me. “… No way, right?” she said to me with a faint grin.
“Hmm?” I wondered back.
“Sean, are you...?” Mary returned, leaving the words unspoken.
Ehh, what do I do here... I might as well just come out and say it. It's not like it would remain a secret for long anyway...
“I know Ellie just said 'she', but I know how game-identities sometimes separate from real ones. I'm not judging you, honest.” she continued.
Right. Here we go.
“Ahh... Lana... yeah... is me.” I quietly said, and the expression on her face looked ready to explode with laughter.
“I guess that means it was you in that tournament.” Mary said as she looked at me with a very strong amusement.
“Ahh... yeah... it was.” I replied with a bashful expression.
“Wow, you get the royal treatment; it took Rachel over a week and me nearly a week to figure it out,” Ellie quipped as she slurpingly sipped her drink. “Or is it because she's the principal's daughter that you're owning up so fast this time around?”
“N-no!” I retorted defensively.
“It's okay.” Rachel said, patting my hands, grinning at me. “He usually is squirrelly about Lana here, but once we're in the game that goes away.” she said to Mary who nodded back, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. Ellie shot me an apologetic glance, and I shrugged back.
“I absolutely cannot wait.” she said excitedly. “Where are you guys, anyway? I'm in Woody Heights, but I'm pretty much just lingering around there for no reason.”
“We're north of you,” Ellie said, “Running through the Marshes on this quest we got in Cedarville.”
“Oh you have that quest,” Mary said with surprise.
“Is it well-known?” I wondered.
“It kind of is? But no one says anything about it. There's some sort of weird pact about the whole thing, but whatever. How far along are you?” she asked us.
“We found a side-quest that should give us the first real clues we need; I'm sure you could catch up in no time.” Andrea told her.
“I did mess around in... Berrydell, I think, for a little while; there was a quest from one of the hauflins that I ignored before heading back to Cedarville. I wonder if that was it...” Mary pondered as she chewed thoughtfully on her lunch.
“Probably. Once you join up with us we'll know; it should advance you to our stage as well.” Ellie replied.
“That'd be nice,” the other girl nodded back. “But I'll talk to you a bit more about that once school's over.”
“Gotcha.” the blonde girl agreed. We then spent the rest of our lunch talking about how our classes and assignments were coming along for the year; by the time lunch was over, the five of us were almost shocked at how the time had flown by, and Mary agreed to come by for lunch with us more often.
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“And Sean,” she added as she left the room, “I can't wait to see you tonight.” she said with a wink, and then headed off to her locker.
“Ahh...” I stood there uncertainly, trying to process what I had just heard.
“Don't tell me she likes him,” Rachel said with a troubled expression.
Gwahh?!
“Hmm?” Ellie returned. “Dunno... Andrea?”
Hyehh!?
“I mean, last year there was this rumor about a ninth-grader she liked...” Andrea told us.
N-wh-huh?! Wha--!? EHHHH?!?!
“I'm not sure it was Sean, though.” she added with a shrug. “It could have been George Watts.”
“Oh, right!” Ellie nodded. “That makes more sense, the two of them hung out a lot last year.” she added, and Rachel seemed more relieved at that -- me too, by the way. I am not into that sort of thing.
Saved... in more ways than one...
We went our mostly separate ways for the afternoon, and when classes were over Rachel and I almost flew to our lockers, barely remembering to collect our homework assignment for the week. Our Chinese teacher had been doing this lately, instead of giving us homework every night she would give us an assignment on Monday or Tuesday to be turned in on Friday. I liked it, and everyone else in the class seemed to prefer it as well. It was, after all, one of the hardest languages to learn.
“I can't wait! Our fifth member!” Rachel said as we got to our lockers. “This really is exciting!”
“Right?” I agreed as we opened our lockers to begin packing up. “Just in time, too; I feel like these quests are going to get a lot harder.”
“True!” she nodded. “And...” she paused a moment, looking over at me.
“Hmm?” I looked back at her. She had a hand over her mouth, her cheeks red and her expression almost... hurt? Sad?
“I feel like an idiot. I don't know what it is. I like Mary; but the way she said that to you...” Rachel said to me, and I rubbed the back of my head, my own face scrunching up into a bemused look.
“Ehh... she's probably just one of those people who like to tease. I think.” I replied. That was what I remembered of her in previous years, but then, being a social outcast for the most part, I wasn't certain. But it helped defuse Rachel's tension. She gave me a hug and held me close.
“I don't want anyone coming between us.” she said after a moment.
“I don't either.” I replied, patting her on the back. We let go to finish packing, and then hurried off to our buses. “Maybe we should just let Ellie drive us home from now on,” I quipped as we rushed out the door, and she gently laughed.
“Maybe!” she agreed as we parted with another hug. I then made my way to the usual old bus, where Ty gave me a flick as I sat down.
“Dang, boy, you late.” he remarked.
“Had some homework to wrangle.” I shrugged.
“Yeah, man; I mean, I get it. But that stuff is just a pain...”
“Ehh, I don't mind some of it.”
“Well then you can do mine,” he quipped with the faintest hint of a smile. This time I gently flicked him back, and he quietly laughed. “Naw, Dans, I wouldn't do that to you. Dumb-@$$ assignment like I get you wouldn't figure out anyway.”
“Oh yeah?” I returned.
“Yo, you wanna find out how all this city infrastructure stuff gets going?” he asked me, and I grimaced, a guttural noise coming out of my mouth. “Didn't think so, Dans.”
“What the heck kind of elective did you end up in?”
“Some experimental course, Infrastructure Development; my dad was a construction worker, so I figured I'd try to get into it.”
“Oh nice; heh, sounds like a cool way to connect with him.” I remarked.
“Sure is that, Dans, sure is that.” he nodded. “What about you, anyway?”
“There's nothing I want to connect with my parents about.” I said with conviction; he raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged.
“Bet they wouldn't say the same,” he said. I couldn't think of a reply, so I let the words hang. The bus ride was mostly quiet after that, but he did give me another flick before I got dropped off. I could only grin back, and then made my way home to get things done before game-time.
I logged in later that evening to find Ariana and Elizasmith waiting for me; Healina was not in the room with us. I waved to the other two, and then brought up the social list.
“Oh, Heali's heading south to get Mary.” Lizzy said to me as I did, and I looked up at her with a puzzled look. “She tamed a salamander for a mount and rode off,” the blonde girl shrugged.
“H-heh?” I said with interest, closing the panel to look outside. “That should save a lot of time, anyway,” I remarked.
“Yep!” the reply came.
“We got the Serpent Key, you said?” Ariana asked me.
“Oh! Right, that was it,” I said as I looked through my inventory and alighted upon it.
“Antivenoms!” Lizzy then said at once, and Ari nodded back.
“Heali has the better potion-making, but I can do a few emergency ones.” she said, and we headed out to collect plants, herbs, mushrooms, and anything else that might work in an antivenom potion.
By the time Healina came back with Mary--Maryn Brightshield, as her character was called--we had amassed quite a pile of ingredients and potential ingredients. Maryn looked nearly the same as her real self, except the eyes were crystal-blue and the hair unbound. She went to shake hands with Lizzy first, then Ari, and then she stopped at me. Her almost silver armor had a mystical gleam in the light, and a tower-shield hung on her back. She smiled at me, and then wrapped me in a hug. I could see Lizzy and Heali affecting wry grins, while Ari seemed a bit put off.
“Ahh... hi...” I said with an awkwardness. She let go, and gave me a clap on the shoulder.
“Nice to meet you, Lana.” Maryn said with a wink.
Oh boy. Don't tell me the rumor was actually about me?
“S-same,” I replied; Ari came over and linked her arm in mine.
“Collecting alchemy ingredients?” our new shield-user asked us, and we nodded.
“I should look a bit myself, you might have missed a few that I can detect.” Healina said, heading off with Lizzy--as well as the salamander she had tamed.
“Oh! The quest,” I said, bringing up the log.
“Don't worry, Andr--ahh, Healina already shared it. We're on the same page.” Maryn told me. “I don't know, I like this you better somehow.” she then remarked.
“Ah-heh...”
“Hrrmm.” Ari protested with a pout.
“I'm not stealing him, don't worry!” Maryn laughed at once. “Can't come between the Silvernight Twins, after all.” she smiled back.
I gave Ari a smile, and she let out a sigh, smiling as well.
“Oh, well then what about a guild invite?” I asked her.
“Hmm? That didn't come up yet. I'd like to join, though, if you want me to.” the answer came.
“Of course we do!” Ariana replied. “Here!” she then said with a smile.
Oh right, only you and I can invite people for now, I remembered as Maryn's face lit up with a smile. She accepted the invitation, and then gave Ari a hug, which was returned in kind. Girls can be complicated like this, huh? I thought to myself with an awkward grin.
“You have no idea how fun this is so far.” Maryn said as the hug ended. “Everyone's so used to Mary the principal's daughter; Mary the straight-A student; Mary can't do anything wrong; she'd never goof off or play stupid games; la-te-ya-ti-da... uggh.”
“I guess people did seem to think that way...” I admitted. “I don't think I ever really thought about it much.”
“I kinda figured you had some sort of wild side.” Ariana said with a grin.
“H-heh?” I looked over at her in surprise, and Maryn grinned back.
“You think?” the older girl wondered.
“When you move around like I have you start to notice things about people pretty quickly.” Ari replied, and Maryn nodded.
“Oh right, you were a transfer-in this year. Sticking around I hope?”
“Definitely. There's some things that still need to get sorted out first, but I'll be here to finish high school at least.”
“Good!” Maryn smiled.
Phew... I sighed inwardly.
“We're back!” Lizzy announced. “Get your PATs out and let's get crafting!” she said, and our two potion crafters set to work. Around ten Panarena-minutes later, we had enough antivenoms and cure-alls to take care of any foreseeable issues with poison and such, and we made our way to the Serpent Temple.
Our new pet, at least for the moment, stalked alongside me as we made our way through the swampy terrain. It got warmer as we neared the Serpent Temple; the heart of the fire-swamp region was looming closer. As we expected, there were serpentine monsters all around the area. This time, it was a lot easier to get through the masses that began to swarm us; nothing against Lizzy at all, but she herself often comments she's not really a tank. With Maryn, the difference in crowd-control was very noticeable. Between her aggro-holding and Ari's stun skills, we were able to practically mow down the enemies before us.
“Lana!” she called at me, briefly gesturing with her sword towards a large, python-looking creature heading our way. I took the cue and dashed off to distract it.
“What the--!!” Lizzy started to say as she caught sight of it, only to be re-immersed in her own fight a second later.
All-righty, how do we handle-- yipes!! I pondered to myself before noticing the Great Python, as its ID read, had noticed me and was trying to enact some sort of skill on me.
“Shadow Veil!” I vanished from sight just in time, rushing around its side to recover myself.
Let's see here... snakes and serpents in video-games are usually associated with stuns and poisons... I'm not sure which was coming at me, but its eyes were glowing, so I'm guessing there was a hypnosis effect about to be placed on me. Hyeck! I suddenly skidded to a halt and scrambled up a tree. There was a second one coming. I quickly shot a message to Ariana, warning her about the second one and the possibility of hypnosis or paralyzing attacks.
As the second Great Python slithered underneath my perch, I began thinking quickly. I brought up the monster's ID to examine it; four-hundred *thousand* health? Seventy-five percent resistance to physical and elemental attacks? Cannot be taunted?! What the heck, man!?
“Lana?!” Lizzy called out. “Are you alive out there!?”
“Run for the temple, now!!” I cried out, dropping from my perch and racing towards the stone structure. “Run, dang it, run!” I shouted again as I began passing by them. Lizzy and Ari did so at once; Healina paused only to give Maryn another heal, and then those two began running after us as well.
“What is it?” Maryn asked me.
“They can't be taunted, they have a lot of health, and their resistances are pretty high!” I told her as we made our way towards the temple.
“Flame Geysers!” Ariana called out, leaving behind pretty much what you might guess.
A bunch of holes appeared in the ground behind or around us, each of them spewing up fiery liquid that hindered our larger enemies and killed the weaker ones. The Great Pythons, I was sorry to see, were not perturbed.
“How high is their health?” Maryn wonderd.
“Four-hundred thousand HP,” I reported as we gained the door.
“Ho-ly...!” she returned with a touch of shock.
“That's about world-boss level,” Lizzy said to us.
“And a hypnosis effect, too?” Ariana grimaced. “Sounds like a plain-out death trap!”
“So they're probably just a kill-all mechanic we have to avoid.” Lizzy remarked as I quickly brought the key out and set it in the door.
“Come on, come on, come on!” I said hurriedly, and the door unlocked. “Inside!!” I said as it opened; the five of us practically scrambled inside, and then I shut the door with a frenzy just as those two monsters got ready to attack us. I have never been so satisfied to hear a door click shut in my life. We paused to catch our breath for a few moments, and then Maryn laughed.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha; ah wow! That was great!” she said with a smile.
“Y-you think so?” I wondered.
“Our first unbeatable boss escape,” Lizzy remarked with a grin. “I think we did pretty well!”
“True!” Ari nodded in agreement.
“It was rough...” Heali said. “But we did make it!”
“I wonder what else is in store for us tonight!” Maryn smiled, a determined look in her eyes. “I feel like I need to redeem myself a bit for running from those two,” she added a bit sheepishly.
“We all do,” Lizzy returned, a wry smile on her face.
“Well,” I said with my own grin, “We have about six hours of Panarena time left; I'm sure we can vindicate ourselves somehow or another.”
“Let's go!” our halberd-wielder said enthusiastically.
“Ahh--where's our friend?” I said, wondering where the salamander had gotten to.
“Hmm? Oh,” Healina said, faintly smiling as she pointed beside me. There it was, looking at me with almost dog-like eyes.
“Wh-wha...?” I wondered in amazement. “Shouldn't he be imprinting on you?” I asked.
“I dunno,” Heali returned with a more thoughtful tone, “I'm not sure about the specifics, but the forums say they sometimes latch on to a party member instead of the tamer for some reason.” she said; the salamander licked its lips in an almost bored manner. I shrugged.
“Come to think of it I think I read that too, somewhere... well, whatever. Come on, then...” I said to it, trying to think of a name but leaving it hanging as I headed off down the only visible corridor. And so began our adventure in the Serpent Temple.
***
As we got to the third floor, it kind of felt as it we had over-prepared for the place in general. Most of the monsters had hardly used their poison attacks, if they had any to begin with. This assumption was immediately challenged upon our arrival to the floor in question. I used Shadow Vision to scan the room; there were traps in various places, carefully set so that even I had a hard time identifying them at first. Most of them seemed tied to a release-valve, no doubt intended to unleash poisonous compounds in one form or another.
“This is gonna be tricky,” I said as I also noted the presence of increasingly stronger monsters throughout the level. “There's a bunch of elite packs around.”
“We can handle them; we'll just need to be more alert for venom or poison now.” Ariana said, looking with her Mystic Vision.
“True.” I agreed. “As well as the rest of the way down, too.”
“Healina, you have ward-skills, right?” Maryn asked her.
“I do. I've been saving them, though, for when it gets super bad.” the Sea Elf replied.
“That's fair,” our shield-user nodded back.
“It might get worse early on from the way these guys look, though...” I remarked.
“Just keep us away from the traps.” Lizzy said, patting my shoulder.
“I'll try,” I returned, “But we'll have to have Maryn taunt pretty much all these groups to do that, or we'll run into them anyway.”
“That's what I'm here for!” Maryn grinned, holding her sword at the ready.
“Let's go,” I nodded back, and we continued on our way.
It was difficult to navigate through the trapped corridors and rooms, but once we got to a clear spot it was fairly simple for Maryn to taunt the groups of monsters further ahead with either Guardian's Challenge or Shield Taunt. From there we were able to take them down within a couple minutes; as Ariana suspected, we began to actually use the store of antivenoms we had crafted, and a couple times some of the monsters even deliberately set off the traps (that was my assessment anyway; Lizzy thought it was coincidence, and the others weren't really sure, but I swear those rotten mobs purposefully set them off just to add to the pressure).
“See? Look!” I said the next time; one of them, an upright komodo-looking thing, ran to pull on a lever as Maryn's taunt caught its attention and that of its fellows. Poisonous gas began filling the corridor, and Healina raised her anti-venom wards.
“Well then!” Lizzy remarked in an astonished tone.
“Ruuuude.” Ariana groaned, aiming her first attack at that specific monster. It went down almost instantly--well, more accurately, it went flying backwards and then exploded into pixels--and then she focused her attention on the main pack.
“Gyek!” I gulped, once more reminding myself never to make her angry at me insofar as I could help it.
Once we finished with the monsters, we hastened out of the area and found ourselves at the entrance to the fourth floor. We looked around at each other knowingly. It had been pretty rough here, despite the advantage of my skills; we were probably in for a more difficult fight this time.
“And Lana's skills might not pick up traps on this floor,” Lizzy remarked as we opened the door and headed down the staircase.
“Thanks for that,” I returned flatly.
“What? It's true! We had to make a mad dash for that one boss room, girlfriend!” the blonde replied at once.
“Ahh...” I bemusedly sighed as recalled the incident with a wry smile.
“I hope we get the Jaguar or Skull Temple next...” Ariana said as we got to the bottom.
“Either of those could actually be worse.” I softly remarked.
“What was that?” she said with one of those don't-you-dare smiles, gently tugging on my ear.
“Ahh... I bet we get the Spider Temple next, just because!” I replied with a grin, berating myself for so quickly forgetting my own advice. She left out a little huff, and then smiled more genuinely at me.
“You're probably right.” she shrugged.
“Not that I like to be...” I added with a sigh.
“Hey! Sneak! Scout ahead, will ya?” Lizzy quipped as she poked me from behind.
“Right!” I nodded, and once again used Shadow Vision to espy the way ahead.
Nothing seemed to be much different from the third floor here; there was a pack of greater elites near what I assumed was the door to the boss room, and around them were about eight levers in various places. I'll have to look more closely when we get there, I noted to myself.
“It's about the same as before; let's be careful in that last room, though. I don't like it.” I told the others.
“Gotcha.” Maryn nodded.
“We haven't died as a group yet; be a shame to ruin our reputation now!” Lizzy smiled.
“Hehh? Did you die before joining us?” I asked her curiously.
“In the beta-testing, yeah, a couple times. But not since the game went live.” she told us.
“Is it... weird?” Ariana wondered.
“I mean... kind of?” Lizzy replied. “Depending on what gets you...”
“Ahh... yeah. Let's not.” I sheepishly smiled.
“Onward and downwards,” Maryn said, and our little salamander friend licked his lips again as we started off.
“You should really give it a name; but nothing too complicated.” Ariana suggested as we made our way along the corridor.
“Simple, huh?” I mused. “Then... Sally! As in Sallymander.” I proudly announced, quite satisfied with my dad-level pun.
“Not that simple!” the four real girls retorted in a nearly perfect chorus.
By the time we got to the room I wasn't sure about, I had (somehow or another) won the naming contest, and Sallymander seemed quite content with his (her? Its?) new name. Now I had the opportunity to examine the room more closely; there were two levers behind the mass of greater elites, one on the right wall, one on the left, and four on each of the four walls at a higher position. These four could be reached by an upward ramp that led to a platform which ran around the room. There were also two apertures on this “upper level”, and two more on the floor level big enough for something around our sizes to get through.
“O-kay... this is where crowd-control is going to come in on a serious note.” I said.
“Right,” Lizzy nodded. “I bet that those four openings let in something that pulls the levers at either random or scheduled points in the fight.”
“Exactly.” I said. “And there's four greater elites; I bet they're tied to the mechanic somehow.”
“Oh definitely.” our Nordian agreed. “We'll have to at least get the weaker ones out of the way first, and then we should probably go after the stronger four one at a time.”
“That's probably the safest strategy, aside from trying to disable the levers, which I'm sure would backfire on us.” I nodded back.
“What if I jam them up with Ice Block?” Ariana wondered. Lizzy and I exchanged a brief glance, and the blonde girl turned back to Ari.
“Worth a shot.” Lizzy said to her in reply.
“That would also help in case they're quicker than we want to hope.” I added. “I just hope it doesn't set the traps off by accident somehow.”
“It's at level eight now, so it shouldn't backfire that easily.” our mage told us with confidence.
“All right, partner, counting on you!” I said, and she smiled, nodding back. “So we'll stick to that general plan; down the weak ones, pick off the stronger ones one by one, Ariana will lock up the levers with her ice skill to try and slow down any potential incomers who want to pull them.” I recounted, and the others nodded back.
“I'll keep wards up just in case.” Healina added.
“Thanks, Heali.” I smiled back.
“All right, kids, let's go!” Lizzy said, and the five of us strode into the room for our second to last challenge in the Serpent Temple.