Benjamin – Sal’Yiu – Alpha Zone #30,192
Our stay on the elf planet, like with all of the many me's plans thus far, had most regrettably gone almost completely tits up.
That wasn’t to say it had been totally unprofitable, as all of us were now proverbially rolling in pilfered manamotes from the mindless Orcs and their pathetically woeful resistance.
The glaring downside however, as there always seemed to be, was that they all seemed to share the same trait of [Battle Fugue]. Which, if any of us guessed correctly, had something to do with both their blatant rage and also their lack of self preservation. Though when all things were considered, most of me would be glad to be rid of the mushroom infested planet and its pointy eared and demanding inhabitants.
Thus, as one of me surveyed the upturned clearing around City #22,010 for any more of the homicidal green lemming like bastards, another me was pondering exactly how to break it to my fragile yet ever present, fragile chaperon, that we now planned to clear their conveyance quest.
My minds were still not in complete agreement about if we should even let the alien supermodels as a whole to learn of our intent. Instead the majority of us thought it best to allow them to more...organically learn of it after we had done the deed as it were.
However, despite our rocky beginnings, the shouty and mistrustful silver haired sidekick had grown on all of me of late. Mostly on account of having not accused me of some form of malicious wrongdoings for at least several space days. But if the triumvirate was going to make an abrupt change to our way of life, even after helping them so prolifically with their orc infestation, it was best if we were upfront about such things, at least when it came to the case of our clumsy chaperon.
Pulling up the quest information a me perused it with a fresh mind, reconfirming its trademark lack of enemy descriptor, somehow even reduced from the previous one we had completed:
Phase Conveyance (T4) – Reward = 50,000 Manamotes + based on contribution
Level Recommendation: 95
Recommended Group: 100,000 – 300,000
Restrictions: Only one tier four quest acceptable at any one time.
Time Till Expiry: N/A
Description: Travel to Epsilon Zone #1 and dispatch the Phasic Boss, Od’Uu. Quest is shareable.
Caution: Once the Phasic Boss is defeated this will initiate the planets shift to Phase 2, prepare accordingly!
Warning: Engaging the Phasic Zone Boss will break its containment field and cause it to traverse Zones randomly should it not be defeated!
Finding no survivors during the other me's ocular survey of the disheveled terrain, the power of jolly cooperation bought us to where the elf in question waited. This in turn caused her to flinch only slightly, which was a marked improvement based off of her previous slapstick like performances.
Scowling at us like we are all a badly behaved pet, all of me can tell she’s about to grace us with another of her decidedly wounding assessments of our short comings and we elect that now is as good a time as any to pull the band-aid off. And if it halts another alien verbal lampooning in the process? All the better
Which leads one of me to prompt.
“So Euy’La...This is the last of the Wo’Dan forces correct?”
Her eye barely twitches as she grudgingly supplies.
“It is as you say…Human.”
Nodding a me adds.
“So this concludes our bargain if I’m not mistaken-“
She makes to interject but the me holds up a hand and forges ahead.
“-And so I feel it only fair that I inform you that I plan to clear your Phase Conveyance quest.”
Her mouth works for a moment, before she shakes her head, and one of me gets mesmerized by her silvery pony tail as it bobs in the otherworldly luminescence of its afternoon sun.
Another of me notes the odd absence of her perennially distrustful scowl, which seems to have been replaced with a look of resolute conviction as she announces.
“I will come with you.”
Wait what?
Three of me are more than a little confused at the lack of shouting as one of me eventually retrieves our grey jaw from the floor long enough to wittily stammer.
“W-what did you say?”
Her scowl returns and I collectively start to relax a little as she renews.
“Are all Humans this wisdom deficient? I said that ‘I will come with you.’”
Still no less collectively confused, a me counters.
“But why?”
A runner from the City’s gate is about to interrupt us but Euy’La swiftly sends the warrior away with a hand signal, before replying.
“I will be required to ensure the Epsilon Zone guards do not attack you.”
More than a little annoyed at having to take even longer to get to said zone, so as not to make the squishy elf loose consciousness for what feels like the thousandth time. My minds try and think of a reasonable excuse to refuse her demand yet unfortunately find none. This in turn leads a me to regrettably grumble.
“Fine...Are you ready?”
She studies me intently for a moment before nodding in consent. Unfortunately when I scoop her up, she fails to release a cute yelp like she used to...Evidently desensitized by now to our hands on form of transportation.
Mildly annoyed by her developed passive resistance our minds turn to the business of traversing through the zones at a leisurely pace. By way of one of us keeps an eye out for threats and the lucidity of our passenger, whilst the other two me’s manage the super-humanly logistical side of things:
You have entered Epsilon Zone #1 Level 100.
After diligently following the translucent and unfortunately still mute Greeny into a half vine obstructed gaping tunnel entrance, a me trots along its dripping and dank interior more than a little eager to clear the quest. Hopefully nabbing a usable trait for our elf based troubles in the process.
A couple of minutes pass as we clank along beneath the glow worm infested ceiling, deftly dodging what is likely their magical pee, falling like rain from above. Eventually we reach an impasse and one of me slowly puts down my delicate chaperon on her unsteady and uncoordinated feet.
In front of us are some clearly alarmed and shouty guards all but obscured within a brutalist looking gate house. The gate itself is reinforced stone with clearly cautionary red elven lettering where the metal bracing and hinges are not. All around the gate from floor to ceiling, a couple of hundred murder holes stud the surrounding walls seamless stonework.
“IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!”
A more coherent and authoritative occupant of the gatehouse demands.
However Euy’La merely straightens out her attire, utterly indifferent to my nonplussed looks or the arrow points and readied spells leveled at us through the murder holes sconces. Eventually though, she deigns to disperse the growing tension as she gestures to herself then me while announcing.
“My name is Euy’La, I am the liaison for The Benjamin, do not impede our progress.”
There is a moment of whispered conference within what is likely a small meeting room, entombed further within the wall come gatehouse as they fail to keep their high level talks from being overheard by our unfairly souped up hearing.
“We need to confirm this is authorized by The Elected!”
“Do you want to tell the Cataclysmic Liberator It’s not allowed to pass for a week whilst we send a runner to do so or should I?!”
“Surely you weren’t asleep during our induction! Do you not remember the line about ‘Let none pass or our world shall fall to ruin!’”
“Maybe Iej’Der is right?...It should be fine seeing as one of ours is with it right?”
“Of course I’m right Sda’Jik…Besides they don’t have breathing apparatus for the toxic gasses, so they wont even be alive long enough to bring the ruin...”
“Ok…But I want it on the ledger that you were the one who authorized their entry!”
“Now just wait a moment I neve-“
“No Iej’Der! I’m not taking the blame like last time when you snuck in a level 59 Initiate Beguiler for ‘stress relief’ and an Elected’s Selected just happened to show up for a random site inspection!”
“T-that wasn’t my fault Sda’Jik and you know it! I would have lost my stipend and the position with it! Not all of us are related to a Selected to g-“
“I don’t want to hear more of your bleeding heart'ed blathering Iej’Der, just tell the garrison to stand down and let them through!”
“And remember…Don’t blame us when The Elected or their Selected come seeking answers!”
There was some more muttering and shouting of orders from within the gatehouse as spells dissipated and bows were lowered. And it was barely a minute and a half had passed when the same speaker as before confirmed.
“VERY WELL LIBERATOR...YOU MAY PASS!”
Following which the stone gates parted as the stone and metal slabs traveled along well worn metal tracks cut within the tunnels floor to support the likely hundreds of tons heavy defensive measures. No sooner had they parted a few feet, then noxious looking green fumes began to spill into the tunnel.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Turning to my companion a me added with mock solemnity.
“Thanks for your help Euy’La, but it looks like this is as far as yo-“
However the farewell the me was about to complete was rendered null and void as the stunning young elf fished out a mask looking thing with glowing runes studding its exterior, from the [Moderate Bag of Holding] she had picked up from the fifth City we had ‘liberated’. Although we were unable to see her face, all of us were 100% certain that there was stupidly attractive alien smirking taking place underneath the freshly donned magical device, when she replied with a smug and somewhat muffled.
“I would provide you with one but alas I only seem to have the singular unit. I’m sure the guards would be willing to sell you o-”
Not interested in dealing with the arrogantly gloating knife eared being for any longer then absolutely necessary, no matter how enticingly her mamaries might jiggle...we were moderately pleased to note her widening eyes as we collectively clanked into the welcoming embrace of the no-doubt-normally-lethal green billowing vapor.
Refusing to visually confirm whether or not the elf had budged from her haughty entrenchment, all of me suppressed a snicker when one of us heard from within the gatehouse.
“I think we might have made a blunder Iej’Der...”
“It’s too late to back out now Sda’Jik, quickly close the gates so they can’t get back out!”
Followed by some hasty, yet clumsy, leather footfalls from behind us as Euy'La scurried to catch up as the gates began to roll shut further to our rear.
One of me nit picked that we were being pointlessly over dramatic as any of us could have already cleared the gate and the tunnel without asking for any such officiously alien permission. The other me not on danger watch countered that there was little point in having a chaperon if we couldn’t annoy and confuse the shit out of her attractive, if excessively snooty, alien behind.
And so, we traveled in practiced silence for a couple more minutes along the now light less, and thus urinating glow worm free tunnels and their slightly upward incline. It was when we were free of the large dank tunnel however that we emerged to find that night had fallen and the three moons were bisecting the sky, allowing us to take a collective moment’s pause to survey the eerily illuminated Zone before the us.
Taking out our [Green Doi’kol Moss] plugs a me took an all too long moment to sample the caustic aromas vintage and found that at least in this intergalactic case, it was not just smellz.
The best descriptor any of me could formulate is that someone filled a giant swamp full of dead possum’s and forgot to leave the window open for several months.
Thanking my selves’ for re-plugging my achilies nasal passages, we were now better able to focus on the terrain itself. Upon further less aromatic inspection that as an after thought to the all pervasive aroma of dead possum, the architect of the Epsilon Zone threw in some floating miniature brown and amorphous islands, connected by fleshy tethers for good measure.
Collectively shaking our head at the other worldly shit hole we now found ourselves in, a me took it upon themselves to address our disconcertingly German accented extraterrestrial companion.
“So, any idea what I’m about to face?”
Looking to me’s with a magical face mask full of bafflement Euy’La demanded.
“How would you expect me to know Human?! No Sal’Eir has been stupid or arrogant enough to think themselves capable of whatever the zone contains without Contractual assurances of aid from The Galactic Confederacy, should they fail!”
Nodding sagely at her wisdom, a me rejoined.
“So why exactly are you here again?”
Her scowling resumed with renewed force as she huffed while crossing her arms to better frame her leather clad breasts before she took to petulantly insisting.
“I am here to act as witness to your unparalleled hubris Human!”
Shrugging, a me cautioned.
“Well I get you’re a strong and independent Sal’Eir and all, but just make sure you witness it from a safe distance...The last time I fought one of these things, it didn’t exactly go according to plan…”
Taking her muffled sputtering as acquiescence, all of me ventured further into the apparently foliage free swamp as our squelching passage displaced the chin high gas. This in turn led the cloying vapor to waft over our head like we were but a white haired submarines bow, cresting an ethereally caustic sea.
Minutes of trudging passed as a me continued to hum the theme song to Hunt For The Red October while another me seamlessly deployed our 'we're-just-an-innocent-and-defenceless-post-human-bean' baiting tactic we’d perfected whilst clearing the Orcs. Meanwhile a third me began to wonder if this gas was the remains of whatever used to dwell within the zone after having died of boredom and that we were simply wasting our time altogether.
As if the fleeting thought was some kind of trigger ,several loud and wet *POCK*ing sounds came from overhead, and a me snapped our head up to discern the source of the successive noises. Frowning as one of us slowed our perception of time, another of me tried to make sense of what exactly was taking place some two hundred or so meters directly above.
Now in slow motion, the brown amorphous islands that a me coined ‘Small Islands of Poop’ for descriptive efficacy, were somehow tightening their loose, flesh like tethers, to combine and form what it subsequently dubbed ‘Gigantic Flying Shit’.
Unwilling to dive, or worse, be somehow sucked into the floating mountain of turd like substance. A me opened up Mr Pocket directly between us and it whilst willing free a medium sized stronk boulder before increasing its velocity with a max strength [Lesser Repulse] directly at the heart of Gigantic Flying Shit. Following which it promptly closed Mr Pocket, lest whatever the hell constituted the thing fall into his dimensionally pristine confines when the boulder impacts.
Endeavoring to remain unsullied like our holey friendi, we utilize the power of jolly cooperation to get free of the rapidly expanding radius of the vindaloo like, displaced matter.
The air and green gas, cracks at our passage as both are displaced by our near maximum speed and we reach about halfway to the surly recoiling elf before a me turns to inspect my slow motion handiwork.
Internal back pats are in order as from a safe remove we witness the brown matter splatter the marsh beneath it to send up a multitude of fountains, which consist of mud gas and further displaced bits of GFS.
Unfortunately my preemptive poop snookering does not yield a kill notification and our own slowed perception reveals that the GFS is in fact increasing in size even faster than before. The triumvirate though is undeterred by our initial failure, as we elect to try a not-so-new approach on our effluent like foe.
Using just enough oomph, two of me jump in a lazy arc that brings us just shy of the GFS’s outer edge allowing one of me to cast [Lesser Gravidic Focal Point] with a max increase effect on it, before continuing our arc to make a squelching swampfall.
Inspecting the complicated fluid dynamics at play on the GFS, a me finds close to a quarter of its mass seems to be forming a less than stable orifice whilst the rest undulates in the considerable effort of maintaining cohesion.
Smiling to my selves at the simplistic genius of the tactic, internal debate ensues about the next step to take when the me with only half of its mind on danger watch barely sorties the rest of us to dodge the mass of cannon ball sized compacted brown blur, blistering through where our head had just been.
That’s when things take a decidedly unpleasant turn, as having failed its first attempted poo cannoning of the not-quite-human that’s in the process of giving it magical reconstructive surgery. It takes it upon its unctuous self to multiply its efforts a hundredfold.
All of me would like to be able to say that we exited the exchange on top.
That our body was like a tight tiger and nimble like a gazelle.
That our armor and flesh remained unmarred by the stinking excrement like volley that came our way.
That we had the presence of minds to activate a spell like the mage we were supposed to be.
Or that we had the preternatural instinct to get clear of the splatter zone in the first place .
Alas space frens.
None of these things held true for what occurred next.
After managing to dodge the first thirty or so rounds of the shit salvo, we had backed my-selves into a proverbial corner. Thus coming to a sickly viscous conundrum that inevitably got the better of all of us.
As the split nanosecond choice of bearing the brunt of the next few shots of poop projectiles or letting our slow to react clumsy chaperon get obliterated.
We chose what any sexually frustrated intergalactic traveler would have chosen, in the faintest of hopes tat our sacrifice might be rewarded by the otherworldly remonstrations of the elfin beauty.
We chose to weather the peppering of supersonic poop projectiles like the thirstiest post-human in the cosmos.
We were relatively unrustled for a few seconds if we're being completely candid. The first ten or so rounds only obliterating our bracers, before gradually knocking our method of attempted shielding akimbo like a jackhammer through sandstone. The ones following them however? Well even though our red health bare barely flinched. They shattered the rest of our flimsy armor thanks to our limbs unfortunately displaced nature, shunting me’s back a few meters almost to the now frantically back peddling elf whom had refused to heed our so prescient earlier warning.
Finally the mind not managing our muscles nor the one managing our enhanced perception, kicked into gear and opened a [Lesser Dimensional Portal] in front of us with its exit to the side of the kinetic inclined poopetrator. The relief from the hammering of pewp wads was immediate as the still aloft and contorting mass rippled from the impacts as they *POCK*ed into and through it, to continue to whistle harmlessly into the foul night’s sky.
Seeming to take the hint that the forceful sharing of its unctuous matter was in no way an act of caring, the barrage of effluent was blessedly ceased.
Meanwhile, one of me could swear that we can feel an ever-so-slight pulling sensation toward the GFS as we universally tried to focus three minds on anything but the brown and viscous remnants that were clinging to our grey exposed skin.
Then thankfully, the GFS provided a much needed distraction by way of a sound that was a cross between a slurp and a tear as it separated itself from the quarter of itself still affected by our skill, pulling the parts it had launched from itself, swiftly inwards to subsume them. Following the sound, the thing rippled and released a new sound that was akin to a whales warble as it drifted closer toward me's.
The three of me decided it was time for far more drastic measures, made slightly more palatable by the fact that the cleanliness bonus, for mission completion had already well and truly been failed.
Jumping high and inadvertently dodging a not so fresh supersonic salvo of poo projectiles, we reached just above where a me thought the amorphous beasties center should be before the triumvirate initiated an 'Electo-Jellyfish Special Mk II'.
One of me cast a half strength [Increased Gravity] on ourselves while another me assumed a diving pose, so as to sheer through the oncoming rounds of excrement, whilst the third me maintained a slowed perception of the harrowing onslaught of kinetic, yet viscous sensations.
Like an oversized toothpick skewering rancid rumballs we passed through our foes expelled matter to get our selves to the very heart of the situation as quickly as inhumanly possible. In a desperate bid to bring about its overdue admission to the sewage treatment plant in the space nebula.
After the unpleasant split second of human missile versus brown hypersonic blobs. We re-tripled our will to not open our mouth and shout something pithy before we make contact with the GFS in all its rancid glory.
However, it is only once the me’s are tunneling through the thing that we realize there is no real way of knowing where the fucking shit's center is.
Making an uneducated guess that this nanosecond of our immersion in the poop in the sky is the one that is closest to its epicenter and sure as shit not wanting to repeat this traumatizing maneuver. One of me picks a point to our side and casts a max increase [Lesser Gravidic Focal Point] followed by [Lesser Dimensional Absence].
A moment of increased resistance to our passage causes a redundant reflex to inhale rise within a mind as another me begins to yell at that me that he will kick him out of the triumvirate if he lets the memory of even a drop of the GFS get within us and potential trait be damned!
Then we’re sailing free and clear into the green toxic fart gas to *THAWMP* into the swamp extended finger tips first and my selves score the maneuver, 9 – 10 – 10.
While two of me are arguing with the third about the reason for the minus point we trudge/swim out of our muddy crater to the surface. Meanwhile one of me checks out of the nonsensical argument and wonders if it’s the correct time to taunt the monster just as the notification signifying an end to the therapist funding ordeal, flashes across the center of our collective field of vision:
You have slain the Phasic Boss, Od’Uu LvL 100, unable to gain further experience due to Phase 1 level limitation.
Parasitic Mutator trait activated, do you wish to absorb Lesser Matter Manipulation trait y/n? 4 minutes 59 seconds remaining.
You have completed the quest – Phase Conveyance (T4) – 10,000,000 Manamotes awarded.
Planetary Phase 2 Elevation Shift initiated.
Please return to your habitations within 59 Days 23 Hours 59 Minutes 59 Seconds to ensure a comfortable transition to Phase 2 of the Elevation process.
We halt our emergence from the muck like a stuck 60's horror movie monster, and as we continued to mutely macerate in space mud while three of me wonder how it was possible our trait activated if we were so far clear of the GFS's implosion.
Dread suffuses all of us at the catastrophic realization that some bit of it must be lodged somewhere on, or worse in our ex-personage.
Screaming like a prepubescent girl who just found out her BFF stole her future husbando, a me instinctively opens [Lesser Dimensional Portal] with a hopefully much more sanitary destination in mind.