This Floating Discharge guy seems upset about the shield.

Before he could push me into that nasty pool, the guard knocks him out into the corridor.

His response is loud, containing even more electric discharges.

They're long blue arcs that zap everything in the concrete hallway but can't reach me from there.

It does affect the tin can kicked over earlier though.

Poor thing's blown open, and whatever was inside doesn't look edible now.

Well, it shouldn't be that bad if it's pure electricity. It might still be salvageable.

If only there were a spoon nearby... Ah, no, idiot, there's something more important than that.

Let's ensure this ball of lightning is well insulated from that filthy body of water.

Apart from shocking me to death, it might kill itself there too. Why can't he understand?

Here it comes, it tries another zapping attack, crackling as the electrons bend the air around him.

It's so pretty not going to lie. And loud, he's so God damn loud.

Some intrusive thoughts suggest it'd be fine to poke it with the sword, only to see what kind of arc it would pull.

That's silly, of course, it's too dangerous to do it without gloves to insulate the metal blade.

Those currents are more than capable of killing. Guess what? Dying hurts, so let's not do that.

He's floating back inside, and while I'm no expert on reading the mood of a literal lightning ball, he's pissed.

What a weird situation this is. The place resembles the arcade's basement, but where are the games?

And what are these things floating around the edges of the view?

Three boxes appear below the tiny hearts which indicated when the rats injured my ankles.

Blinking at them changes their content. It starts with the round shield and blade in these hands.

No, wait there's a text above them, so fancy. It calls these a Heraldic Shield and a Gladius.

Oh. There's a vial with some green fluids dubbed as Healing Potion too.

Yeah, as if such things would exist. This is all serious while these bits and bobs make it look like a game.

So which one is it? Is he going to kill me for whatever reason, or is this how they play?

If he's a baddie, there should be something more useful than a blade to fight it.

After a double-blink, the first two items in those boxes turn into a bow and quiver of arrows.

Now that's convenient. That must be way safer to use from a distance.

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It's much better than touching the guy with a metal object up close.

Even if this brings that filthy pool closer, backing away from him is the only reasonable option.

Try not to fall on those rusty stairs. It's clear that he's getting angry, the blue sparks are turning into yellow and orange and grow in size.

There's also some yelling, but the words make no sense. Is it Russian? Ukrainian?

He had no problem talking in English earlier. Yeah, there is no doubt about it, he's mad.

Why? I push him into safety, and this is his reaction. Those words sound like swearing, or at least the tone is nasty.

Well okay then, let's calm him down with a warning shot. Whatever his deal is, it's self-defense.

The first arrow misses and breaks on the concrete walls behind him. It's already surprising how well this weapon handles.

When did I become an expert in medieval archery? Does he even have a solid body to hit?

He looks angrier after the shot, does he feel warned though? That was the goal, but he's still coming, so let's try again.

The second attempt to convince him hits. This scream is way worse than the one before.

"Fuck, you're loud." Talking isn't the best idea. Once the mouth opens, he sucks away all the air from the lungs and the headache it induces is worse than ever.

I need that air back, dude, you're not playing nice, so safety hazard or not, let's smash you with the sword after all.

He floats too close to take shots at him anyway, and the shield has proven valuable to keep him at arm's length.

Except he won't have any of it.

Touching the guard, he discharges enough energy to fling me across the room.

He smashes this poor body against the concrete wall on the other side, and it's not the best experience.

Well, the pain's bearable, it should have hurt a lot more, so could this be a silly dream?

A few more little hearts popped at the bottom of the view regardless. What if they run out? Let's not wait for that, they can't mean anything good.

It's like he said, - in whatever language he uses, - to keep using the bow instead.

Sure, why not, it feels nice in the hand. Look, I'm a marksman now, how cool is that?

Forget about the arcade games and dreams, this hypes me up.

"Well, you asked for it." It's a clean bullseye, and a random text appearing calls it a critical hit too.

Sure enough, the ball of lightning pops right above the pool. It turns into an even prettier firework than those rats did. Or are these pixels?

[You killed a Poltergeist +1140 Exp]

None of this makes sense until realization slaps harder than his electric attacks.

It's like the head gets pulled out from deep underwater. The ears ring so loud, and the heart rate goes crazy as if something extraordinary happened here.

Wait, something did happen, what the fuck was that? Where is this place?

I entered the corridor and there were those voices and... A status effect. Did it say Insanity? There's nothing there now, other than the exhaustion.

God this headache is brutal. Scrolling through the logs shows a fight with twelve Death Rats not long ago.

Down here? When? How? Why don't I have any recollection of this?

And what is this pit filled with trash and water? Holy crap, so a Poltergeist is down too?

That's a nice amount of experience points, and it happened less than a minute ago.

The avatar is below half-health. Whatever happened, a healing potion is well justified.

Oh, there's a Medpack in the inventory too, okay, let's try that one.

Pulling it out, it's a big orange box, and rather than drinking it, the avatar makes it flat-out turn into pixels.

Whatever it does, it feels way less miserable after it evaporates.

Even the ear ringing and the headache got better, so insanity or not, it's over.

Holy shit, the memories from the past few... Minutes? Hours? Seconds? It's slow and painful, but they are coming back.

It's four o'clock, are you kidding? Did the avatar pass out, or something?

The logs say it was a status effect caused by the Poltergeist. Once he died, it ended.

Okay, so is that it? This thing was the Guardian that not even DragonSlayer could kill?

Was it a tough fight? He went down from two arrows, one being a critical hit. There's no recollection, but I won, right? No more of these nasties?

[Guardians killed 1/4]

Ah, party-pooper. Well, it only makes sense.

The other three might be nearby too. Let's, um... Try to keep your sanity this time.

Although, as the logs suggest, it didn't make much difference.