Valley Of Los Restoration Block 5
"Huh? Risabeel?" Blake suddenly stopped as he was going up a flight of stairs to the 'Storage House' that Bai and Risabeel were in.
"What's wrong, Chum, tummy ache?" Moco asked still on Blake's back and swung her head into his view.
"Something like that..." Blake answered, holding a hand to his chest after getting a bad feeling. "...Come on, guys, I think we might have to do more than just look around for them." He kept going from there with Gram and Saffire giving him some looks.
"And it looks like you're right," Saffire confirmed Blake's worries as they got to the top and found a group of crafters hovering over a stone door, seemingly trying to break it down.
"Goddess be dammed! Why did it close!?" A human man cussed striking at the wall with his hammer in tandem with an Orc woman. "GRRR! Get something heavier!"
"Heavier?! This thing hasn't even cracked yet! Get the blast charges!" Another worker suggested, holding up a bent and cracked hammer.
"Hey! Did a Smith-Knight, Dragon horse-looking thing, and Demon girl go in there?" Blake called out to them after running up to the crafters.
"Eh? That guy from the Tenno Kingdom? Yeah. Did that thing with the anvil and went inside but not it locked up on us after a bit." The Orc woman explained while pointing over to the stone anvil next to the door. "Ugh, Pius told us he's like a guest of honor here and if something happens to that guy our asses might be used as support beams." She groaned about ready to go with the bomb option until she noticed Blake approaching the anvil. "No chance, only Bai can open those things."
"You sure?" Blake smirked as he got his hammer and gave it a bit of a spin before slamming it down on the anvil. "There we go!" To the workers' shock, the stone door started to slide open like it did for Bai a few minutes.
"What?! But how?! Are you a Smith-Knight too!?" One of the workers yelled out while just staring at Blake and the anvil.
"Looks like it, hehe?" Blake tossed a joke their way as he got inside the 'Storage House' followed by the others.
"Adventure!" Moco cheered once they were in and looked around enthusiastically for anything fun and/or tasty. "Stone..." Then sat her head down on Blake's after quickly getting bored of her surroundings which reminded her of her old cage. "Chum, I don't like this place! Let's leave!" Then a barrage of soft punches fell on Blake's chest.
Saffire rolled eyes at Moco's fit. "Hey, you were all ~adventure~ a second ago right?" She joked a little by making a cutesy face like Moco for a moment until the door to the Storage House slid shut behind them after the group got further in. "RAH!?" She smashed a fist into the now shut door and after a bit of a small explosion, not a dent was left on the stone. "Scaleless! Do something!" Then wheeled around to Blake expecting him to fix that.
"No anvil? No way out. So we keep going deeper and maybe there's a back door?" Blake shrugged these Storage Houses always did something different each time he'd been in one so a door locking them inside of one wasn't too surprising now. "It probably means there's something in here keeping people in, it might be another Moco case. At least Golems aren't coming out of the walls." He did a quick once over to make sure that wasn't the case and thankfully no walking bombs were coming after them. "Alright let's get a move on." Blake declared looking at the compass.
"Ugh, and we were about to get lunch..." Saffire grumbled as she followed behind Blake with Gram still coming between them. "Seriously what is up with Furball?"
Gram just sniffed at the air and kept walking. "Yo, Alpha, that way smells like Risabeel." He pointed his nose at the pathway.
"Huh? But the compass is pointing that way?" Blake double-checked the compass and sure enough, it was pointing in the opposite way Gram's nose was bringing him. "Hold on?" He checked where Gram was pointing and found an empty room with no way out of it other than the one he was looking into. "Dead-end so they might have just looked inside..." Then he went down where the compass was going and found another dead-end. "Looks like we're in a shifting dungeon."
"What's that?" Moco asked when Blake put the compass away and went down a random path.
"It means this place changes with time or a trigger," Blake explained, tapping against a wall with his hammer to see if anything would happen. "Best if we mark each room we go through in case we get looped?" He thought out loud to the others and turned around just in time to see Gram lifting one of his hind legs. "I meant with your claws but that'll work I guess."
From there the group tried their best to navigate the place only going around in a circle once or twice thanks to Gram's 'signs'. "Hehe." All the while Moco was just flopping her tail behind Blake's back. "Oooh! Big room!" She cheered when they entered a large room filled with lit braziers and a large door that led to a wall.
"Hmm? They were in this room for a while..." Gram sniffed around a bit until he came to the wall at the door. "...then went that way."
Blake walked up the wall and tapped on it. "It sounds hollow...hey, Saffire, try punching this one."
"Huh? You think it'll work now?" Saffire raised a brow at Blake's request. The last wall she punched took it better than most monsters she fought.
"Maybe the inner walls are weaker than the outer ones? Just try it, please." Blake guessed while tapping on the wall again and got another hollow sound from it. "Worth a shot."
Saffire shrugged and came up to the wall, balling her right hand into a fist then covered it with scales and fire. "RAAAH!" With a loud shout, she stepped forward and slammed a red-hot haymaker into the stone, covering her in black smoke for a moment until she appeared out of it. "Oh?" And to the group's surprise, a sizeable hole was made in the wall. "Come on! Let's g-" But before they could even take a step inside the hole closed up on them in a flash. "Stupid dungeon." Saffire scuffed as she turned to Blake. "Well, got another idea?"
"Give me a sec?" Blake muttered while looking around the place a little. "Maybe those?" He pointed at one of the braziers. "Moco, a little water please."
"Splash!" Moco shot a jet of water from her float ring and out the brazier went. "Oh!" Then came some rumbling from the room as the walled-off door shifted to a hallway. "It worked! Give me a treat!" Moco cheered while rubbing her face on Blake's.
"Huh, that was easy?" Saffire stepped inside and looked around a bit followed by Gram sniffing the air.
"Ow! Moco calm down! I'll get you something when we get out of here, okay!" Blake was too busy pushing the Merchild away to follow after Saffire and Gram. "Huh?" Just in time to see the door closing up on him. "Oh come on!" He made a dash for the door. "Shit!" But he wasn't fast enough and the last thing he saw was Saffire and Gram turning around to him.
"Scaleless! Alpha!" Saffire and Gram yelled when the door closed shut on them followed by some shifting of the rooms.
Blake slammed his fists to the door a few times hearing the muffled voices of his two items behind it getting quiet. "The braziers!" He wheeled around to the brazier Moco put out. "Gotta light it!" He ran his hands around his belt a bit to find some flint and lit the brazier back. "Come on! Come on! Come on!" Then dashed to the door as it was opening back up. "Fuck!" And cussed when the room was empty now or more likely that it had moved.
"They're gone...?" Moco poked her head into the room to look around a little. "Wah!" Then got pulled back by Blake and pressed to his chest. "Chum?"
"Moco, right now, I need you to transform and stay like that until we get out okay?" Blake held Moco like a princess before she nodded and now in his hand was a trident. "Alright, time to take things a bit seriously now." He spun Moco around with the leftover water from her float ring following the spearhead.
"Yeah! We're gonna save everyone then get food!" Moco cheered as Blake stepped into the room and it started to move bringing them to who knows where in this ever-moving maze.
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With Risabeel, Bai, Jiho
This trio was going through things with much fewer worries and dangers than the others were dealing with. "Hmm, Sir Blake?" Risabeel suddenly stopped when she felt as if Blake was nearby. "Is it our pact? Then does that mean he is awake? Is he here?" Her mind was filled with these and many more thoughts as she looked at a hallway randomly.
"Risabeel, something the matter?" Bai questioned, noticing she had stopped for some reason.
"Ah," Risabeel gasped a little when Bai spoke and turned to him. "Oh no, it is just that I believe Sir Blake is awake and that he is...here?" Now she looked at the room they had just come out of, as it was shifting away. "But I do not believe the chance of us meeting in this place is high." A bit of a sad look came to her face after that. "Oh, Vas? What has come over you?" Her pet frog leaped off her head and into her hand.
It croaked at her then turned to yet another hallway for the group to take.
"Oh I see, Sir Blake is that way?" Risabeel asked the purple frog and it croaked in agreement. "Bai, could we go down this path?"
"I see no reason not to we have been going around at random at this point, right Jiho?" Bai nodded over to his equine friend who snorted some air out in annoyance. "Yes, yes, I know you do not enjoy this but you would never leave my side now would you?" Bai patted Jiho's head with Jiho's whiskers wrapping around his hand.
Risabeel giggled lightly at the two, getting a bit of an image of Blake and Nash coming to her mind. "Smith-Knights are quite alike even if I have only met two..." She mused then something at the back of her mind came to her. "...has it only been two?" The Demon thought while moving down the path picked by Vas. "Or was there another?" A mixture of familiarity and confusion came over her as she made her way through the halls of the everchanging Storage House, almost like a puppet on a string. "Yes, they should have been another. Otherwise, I would not have been an Ore when Blake found me. And I should not have a memory of them but yet there is something here that I know of..."
Bai watched Risabeel closely as he followed her, for the most part, Risabeel seemed like a well-mannered girl with a large clumsy side to her over the 2 days she and her friends spent at his home. Her lack of memory and the fact that she was found in one of these Storage Houses as he called them now were already things that piqued his interest but now he had sensed a quick shift in her demeanor. "She's moving a bit too smoothly now." He thought after going through a few more rooms with Risabeel's picking of paths taking less and less time almost as if she had a map of the place and even the rooms seemed to be changing course to meet her wants. "Jiho, this might be the fastest we've gone through one of these places, haha," He joked turning to Jiho with a laugh.
The Qilin nodded with his master then shot his head forward at Risabeel who just walked into another room before he and Bai could follow her. "!" Jiho let out a a quick snort to alert Bai.
"What? Risabeel? Please wait!" Bai yelled after Risabeel as both he and Jiho rushed up to the door Risabeel took right as it was closing off on them. "Damn!" He patted at the stone wall before moving back then held out his right hand. "Jiho!" Instantly Jiho had transformed and in Bai's hand was his lightning spear. "Lightning Snarl!" A bolt of blue was shot at the wall and smashed it open. "Damn it!" But on the other side, Risabeel was already gone and the hole was closing up as well. "Jiho, we're doing this the hard way!" He leaped through the hole before it fully closed then and scanned the room for any signs of a door getting closed. "There!" He spotted a wall coming up on the right and ran toward it in hopes of catching up with Risabeel.
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Back with Blake and Moco
"Chum! Are we going the right way!?" Moco whined as her spear rob wiggled in Blake's hold. They had been going around for a bit now and everything just looked the same to her at this point and staying as trident for this long was starting to make her stiff. "And I want food!" That as well.
"Don't know, and I'll feed you later." Blake, on the other hand, stayed focused for the most part while keeping a read on where Risabeel was as best he could. "Okay, I think we're getting closer to her, just gotta pick the right rooms..." He muttered, taking things a bit slow now compared to rushing headlong like before.
"What about Saffire and Gram?" Moco asked with her trident head coming into Blake's view.
"Those two can handle themselves, the only bad thing that can happen to them is fighting each other." Blake was pretty sure nothing could go wrong with Saffire and Gram in this place as long as they weren't stuck for too long. "They might just start breaking down the place if they can't find us in a bit...hmm?" At that, he was suddenly wondering why the only thing this place did was move the rooms around. "It's only a little bit harder than Risabeel's..."
"Was Risabeel's easy?" Moco asked as they got into a room with only one way out at 1st then once Blake got to the middle of it a stairwell opened up at his feet. "Oooh!"
"Yeah, it was? I kind of just walked in and found her Ore," Blake answered as he went down the stairs with a few torches lighting up and the sense of Risabeel getting closer and closer. "Wished the other two were a bit like that and this one right now."
"Mine wasn't so bad you caught fish and played tag with me?" Moco wiggled herself at Blake, childishly oblivious to the fact that she tried to drown most of them and took a bit out of Blake's arm after everything was done.
"Something like that..." Blake muttered after getting to the bottom of the stairs and entered a room that looked a bit different from the others. "...what's this place?" He questioned, looking around a bit, in the middle of the room was a stone slab that was big enough to have someone lay down on it, and six pillars around it with what looked like gemstones on top of them. "That's a big rock..." Looking up at the ceiling he found a much bigger gemstone up top that was perfectly in line with the slab below it. "...weird room in an equally as weird place." He did a once over of the room looking for the next door out.
"Blake! Over there!" Moco cheered when a new door opened up on the other side of the room.
"Risabeel!" Next to cheer was Blake at the sight of the Demon girl he was looking for appearing out of the door with a curious look on her face as she looked around.
"Ah, Sir Blake!" Soon she spotted Blake and ran up to him in a flash. "Are you well? Should you be moving about? Have you eaten? Why is Moco transformed? Were you in battle?" Then rained down questions on him like a volley of arrows and hovered around him like a mother hen. "Ah!" Until a light tap from Blake's hammer came down on her head.
"You know I should be the one asking questions since I'm in here looking for you," Blake smirked at her and then ran her through on why he was in there. "Speaking of looking for people where's Bai and his horse?" He added after noticing that those 2 weren't with Risabeel and they hadn't come out of the door she used which was closing up now.
"Hmm, but they are right behind me?" Risabeel looked back at the door, now completely closed off. "Ah?" She then realized that she had been moving inside the 'Storage House' on her own for some time now. "I seem to have lost them on my way here...how odd? I thought we were moving together all this time?"
"Great even more people to look for in here." Balke groaned and took a load off on the stone slab followed by Risabeel taking a sit next to him. "Well anyhow, I'm glad you're alright." He let Moco go after that to let her float around the room a little.
"And the same to you as well..." Risabeel nodded in agreement and then scanned the room more closely. "...Sir Blake does this room seem somewhat important to you?" She asked, feeling that same sense of familiarity come over her as if she knew what this room was for but the true reason escaped her.
"Huh?" Blake was too focused on watching Moco float by to notice Risabeel's question at first. "Well, it's different from all the other rooms in here, so something must be up with it, yeah?" He answered, but the look Risabeel was giving him said he didn't say what she wanted. "You got any ideas, then?"
Risabeel put a finger to her chin at that. "I'm not sure myself but I feel as if I have been here before..." She laid down the slab as she thought about what this room meant to her then an idea came to her mind. "...Sir Blake, may you stand up and offer me your hand?" She asked while looking up at the large gem up above.
"Uhm sure?" Blake went along with her request since they didn't have anything else better to do with no doors opening up yet. "Like this?" He looked down at her with their hands held and grew slightly red in the face. "What's your problem?" He raised a brow at Moco who was glaring at him for some reason.
"Hmm? This is similar to when we first met is it not?" Risabeel asked, looking up at Blake and a bit of an examining expression came to her face as if he was a mysterious creature that she had just found.
"Oh right, back in Fairmaw before all this happened." Blake got what she meant as he flashbacked to finding the Storage House with Risabeel in it and his whole adventure out into the world took off.
"Huh?" Moco noticed one of the gems on the pillars light up then floated to it and gave it a poke while Blake and Risabeel were talking. "Oooh!" It pulsed at each touch followed by the others lighting up as well.
"Yes, that is right! This is what I have been feeling since entering here it is as if I was here before." Risabeel exclaimed, sitting up quickly and right into Blake's face with stars in her eyes.
Blake leaned back a little, growing redder by the minute while he was a flirt, whenever Risabeel got in his face like that he couldn't help turning into a shy boy with his crush. "Same with Baba too, my defense is weak." He also thought about how Baba poked fun at him too and he was starting to wonder what she had planned for him when they got back. "Well, this place giving off the same vibe as the one you were makes sense? It is all part of Golgonooza."
"True but it does seem like I have been here before, I know it..." Risabeel pondered on it more deeply trying her best to find some lost memory in hopes of learning more about her past if anything at all.
"It is my past, not yours..." Risabeel's own voice came to her mind but it was filled with such vile bitterness and hate that she felt her soul drop. "...and I would rather you not act like it is unless you want something unkind to you or our dear Smith-Knight? Now begone." It warned before disappearing as quickly as it came.
"What?!" Risabeel shot up in fright after her voice threw cutting words at her. "AH!" And then her entire being surged with dark mana that began to swirl around her
"Risabeel!" Blake quickly grabbed hold of her at the sight of her mana going out of control. "Shit!" But got pulled into the now rage pillar of mana along with her. "What now!?" He racked his mind for a way for this before whatever this mana was building up to went off.
"WAH!" On the outside of that Moco was in panic as not only Blake and Risabeel had disappeared from her view but now all of those gemstones on the pillars had lit up along the big one. "Chum! Risabeel! What do I do!? What do I do!?" The best she could come up with was to shoot jets of water at the mass of mana but that did little to nothing. "AHH!" More worries came to the poor child when one of the walls of the room started to crumble with fire coming out of it. "WAAHH!" Followed by another wall doing the same but this one had lightning zapping out of it.
"What's going on in here!?!" Saffire in her Dragon form appeared after the wall with fire went down and saw Moco screaming her head off at a twister of dark mana.
"Don't know but Alpha and Risabeel are in the middle of it!" Gram rushed past her the next moment as he got into the room and went to the mana twister. "That smells bad!" He tried to claw and bite at it but all he got was air. "Really bad!" Then jumped back when some of it tried to latch on to him.
Over at the other wall, Bai appeared with lightning trailing behind him. "Huh?" And the sight in front of him was a Dragon, Greater Wolf, and Merechild desperately trying to destroy a twirling mass of mana that was swiping across the room at an alarming rate. "Jiho! We have to do something about that!" His grip on Jiho tightened up preparing to try something.
While all that was going on, inside of the mana hurricane was Blake trying his dammest to keep a hold of Risabeel as she was still letting out mana and had carried him into the air. "Risabeel! I don't know what's going but we gotta stop it!" He pulled himself back down to the floor and smirked at her. "And don't worry I'm here with you so use whatever know-how that mage taught and work something out."
"Ah, right, you are!" Risabeel's panic lessened a little and pushed off what that voice told her and focused on the trouble at hand. "My mana is currently out of control with no way for me to get it back under control...at most times Nathan would order me to focus it on a spell to lessen its impact on my surroundings but with this much mana what kind of spell would have a safe effect?" She thought back to the magic training she had with Nathan but this was far worse than any of her other outbursts. "Those gems?" She looked at the gems currently a light thanks to her mana and the way they were placed reminded her of something. "Yes! That might work! Sir Blake, forgive me for any discomfort you may feel after this!"
"Huh? Sure! Whatever! Just do something! I'm starting to float again!" Blake was more worried about getting picked off his feet and likely smacked into the ceiling to care about what else might happen.
Risabeel nodded then closed her eyes to visualize Bai's home in her mind and began chanting. "Allow one to go where they wish...let it be done in an instant...without the need to move a foot...Now go forth in a grand flash! Warp!" She opened her eyes now glowing with purple light and raised a hand to the air as her mana filled out the room even more, consuming not only herself and Blake but everyone else before they even had a chance to react to it.
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Bai's home living room
"There! All set! Hehe!" Ume giggled after getting a table of food ready for Blake's return after getting her master and Risabeel. Roasted, boiled, and fried meats, many bowls of rice and noodles, a variety of soups, sliced fruit, and the crown jewel being a platter of mochi of different colors and designed like little animals and monsters. "Ah, the sake!" The Tanuki grasped nearly forgetting in her own head the most important part, that being alcohol. "Oh, and some tea or juice for the kids too?" She was about to make her way back to the kitchen when her nose twitched. "Bai-dono!" Then wheeled around and dashed for the front door. "Welco-eh?"
What she saw outside was this large mass of dark purple mana swirling around as if some Demon from the Underworld was making its way into the mortal world to wreak havoc upon all around it. A likely outcome as there were flames, lightning, and beastly growls coming out of it as well that filled Ume's heart with dread.
"Ling-Ling!" Ume screamed then transformed into a stone statue of herself.
One of the windows on the 2nd floor opened up and out came Ling-Ling's shell head. "What is it now, Ume?" She rolled her eyes around until she found what scared Ume. "Oh my!" She pulled out her fan and held it open in front of her.
"Hmm? Is it something bad?" Baba's voice came out as she poked her head out next to Ling-Ling's. "That does look bad?" She said in a deadpan then took a closer look at the flames coming out of the mana. "I know that fire..." She wiggled a finger and blew a gust of wind at the cloud and unlike everything else that tried to break the mana Baba's wind actually worked.
"GRRRRRAAAH!" And coming out of it first was Saffire still throwing flames around from her mouth. "Huh!? We're outside?" Then stopped in the middle smashing her claws down when she noticed they weren't trapped inside of dark mana and better yet were outside of that damn shifting Storage House.
"It would seem so?" Bai spoke up from under Saffire's claw with Jiho about ready to stab into Saffire, he lowered Jiho to his side and allowed the Qilin to transform back to normal. "And it looks like we're back home too?" A wave was sent Ling-Ling's way when Bai looked behind at his home. "Ume, the danger is gone now."
"Eh?" Ume dropped her stone form at the sound of her master's voice. "YAY!" Then quickly dashed up and right past him. "Gram! You're back! Hehe!"
Gram was under Saffire's other claw, looking about ready to dash into it. "Sup..." Then, he lightened up when Ume latched on to him all giggles. "...Oh?" He looked over at Bai currently with arms open wide for Ume until Jiho walked into them for his master.
"We're out! We're out! We're out!" Moco cheered while zooming around overhead. "That means I get food!"
In the middle of all of them were Blake and Risabeel with the Smith-Knight having his arms wrapped around the Demon girl. "Are we good?" He looked up to the blue sky above them with some relief coming to his mind. "Ugh!" Followed soon after by this feeling of his stomach turning inside out and he nearly keeled over if it wasn't Risabeel giving him a shoulder to rest on.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Sir Blake, I knew the transportation spell would make you unwell but it was the only thing I could think to use that mana on." Risabeel apologized while rubbing Blake's back. "All went well at least..." She was thankful that her spell didn't send them off to some random place in the Valley or worse miss fire with bombastic results. "...but what of that voice...my own voice?" But the cause of the dangerous mana crept back into her head and she dreaded even thinking about it in fear that the other 'her' would show up again. "Hmm?"
Pulling her out of those thoughts was Blake's hand coming to her other shoulder as he pulled himself up. "Ha, no worries, just need to take another of those candies and I'll be good!" He smiled through pain for Risabeel until she returned it. "Now come on, me coming to get you guys was so we could party now that I'm back on my feet." With some forced vigor and help from Risabeel, he made his way to Bai's place.
Chapter End