Obviously I died. The hydra got me good, guy.
I float.
But still, I had a lot of fun as a valkyrie. Though I don’t want to do it again so soon, truth be told. Made my brain feel a little itchy, you know? Like the whole time I felt like I wanted to take a scented candle and just stick it into my ear while praying. There’s something itchy in my brain, I still feel it now even without a body. Still, I found a new floor so that’s my minimum goal for this life achieved. Plus I don’t feel so bad, because the valkyrie can fly, so she probably won't get her eyes eaten so soon. Probably.
Probably.
I need to get past that hydra though. It doesn’t like it when you touch its garbage, which is interesting. I suppose they’re still dragons with a hoard at the end of the day, just of a different flavor. Though honestly, it’s collection of stuff and junk is probably more useful down here than any mountain of gold coins would be. Sorry papa. Papa. Papa. Papa. Papapapapapa- There’s something in the water, you know? It’s making me itchy. Something feels wrong, guy. Something is itching.
It grabs me. A little rougher than I would like it to, though actually, I think I’m starting to kind of enjoy i-
“LOOK OUT!” shouts BMMMM- as she grabs my arm, yanking me to the side and just in time, as the fireball explodes where I stood a second ago, entirely obliterating the group of black-water goblins that had all but surrounded me. Their oozy, corrupted, foul bodies singeing and hissing as the poison which they subsist of simmers and boils over in an instant, turning them all into a disgusting, splotchy mist that bubbles and oozes onto the ground like boiling pitch. The cascade of rushing flames is visible over her shoulders, as the scorching fires lick towards us as well. Thankfully dying short, just inches away; the super-heated air rushing and against my face, as we fly down to the side. My eyes sting a little and I clutch them tightly closed to protect them.
Somehow she manages to turn us in midair, not a second away from the ground as she takes the brunt of the fall and we roll together over the rough stone floors, as she holds me protectively.
“BMMMM!” shouts a voice from the side as we quickly get up back to our feet together.
The monk sharply turns back towards the source of the voice, to yell. “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE AIMING, DUMB-ASS! YOU ALMOST KILLED US BOTH!”
The grates around us bubble and splutter, as strange globs of goo pull themselves upwards and out of them. Strange, corrupted beings that once appeared to have been goblins seep together, coming into form. Bits of rotting meat and black-sludge all collecting together to build a group of fake gestalts. But the old, rusted swords that they drag up from the depths are all too real. It’s too many for just us two. This is bad.
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“Sorry!” calls a high-pitched voice out from the distance, I can’t see her from here. It’s too dark, there’s too much purple fog, too much poison in the air. But I can see her flames burning brightly on the other side of the gap, piercing through the veil. A strange pool of foul coagulation has separated us from the others. I look at the monk’s scorched back, the skin is red and breaking apart in some spots; burnt away through the yellow fabric. That will get infected down here in a heart-beat if we don’t do something about it.
I raise a hand, holding it out against her skin as the healing magic grows in my finger tips. Before I can finish though, she turns and grabs my hand, interrupting the spell as she yanks me forward and we keep running. “Ah! W- Wait!” I shout out, gasping for air. “We need to close that, before you get anything in it!” I yell at her between panting breaths. I’m really out of shape, honestly. But I’ve always been a little sickly and soft I suppose. Tiny feet splatter behind us as we run, they’re still coming and they’re catching up to us quickly. I’m too slow. Ever since we fell down to this floor and gotten separated from the rest, they’ve been coming non-stop. I hope the others are okay.
“I’ll be fine, Sandbags! Come on!” I hate that crass nickname and she knows it. Indifferently though, she tugs me and we break down towards the right, going down a dark corridor. Sensing perhaps the aura of protest coming from my body that she is dragging along behind her, she tightens the steel grip of her hand that is holding mine, the wooden beads rattling loudly against each other as we run together. I feel a little woozy, a little out of air and a little dizzy also honestly. But I’m still alive. The air here is beyond foul though, there really is something dark down here if this is any indication. They were right to send us. What kind of dungeon is this? This twisted place is the most hor-
A group of them appears before us, seeping out of the grates on the sides of the walls; cutting off our only way through. I quickly raise my hand and let out the collected energies from before. The white-magic flies forward in a dull, horizontal arc, cutting the black-water goblins in half; their legs quiver as their bodies fall over and return to the primordial slime once again. Old sabres and knives clank as they strike the wet floor. The black-water splashes high, as our boots strike into the thick puddles that are slowly coming back together. I look down as we run, at the old rotted, putrid fingers and toes and eyes that all float in the vague mass of grime that's slowly pulling itself back together.
We need to get to the others. I turn around and look further back to the ‘group’ that is chasing us. I don’t know if it's an it or a many, a they, though. It all mixes together into one putrid mess and it’s fast. Faster than we are. No. Faster than I am. A surging torrent of water chases after us, only even vaguely bothering to take the shape of the goblins now as it hounds us. It’s simply a great tide of black sludge that rushes down the stone corridor, crashing against the walls and flooding it entirely. Gloomy, horrified goblin faces stare out of it towards us, only taking shape for a second in the mass before being pulled back down into the drowning. They’re going to catch us. I’m too slow. I narrow my gaze, I need to protect her; them.
Once more, white-magic collects in the fingers of my free hand that flails behind myself as we run.
“Go! I’ll hold it back!” I yell at her and pull myself free, turning around to quickly build up the white magic and let it loose. A sheer, perfectly smooth wall of magical energies builds up before me. Entirely sealing off the corridor behind a prismatic glass window. I look back to the monk as I focus my energies on keeping the barrier up. “Keep goin-!”
Her fist smashes into my gut and I keel over forwards, my breath and spit knocked out of my body in one strike as I retch. A sharp shoulder presses into my bent over gut as an arm wraps itself around my back and the monk, strong as an ox, carries me away just like that. She doesn’t seem to be running even any slower than before.
“As if! Idiot!” she yells at me, her fingers pressing into my side. Ah, that’s gonna leave a bruise.
I sigh. Feeling woozy as I stare at the magical wall dissipating behind us, the black current crashing through it as it comes for us. I have such good friends.