SKIPS-ONE-STEP

Skips was exhausted. She had been running to and fro, stabbing creatures, and fighting monsters. She was utterly and totally done with fighting and all she wanted was a good night's sleep -- or a good day's sleep as it might be. She looked at the boss portal in front of her. Almost done. She put her hand onto it and told the others to do so as well. They put their legs or mandibles and in one case the tail onto it, but the portal didn't open. Skips cussed. She then commanded: "Proceed! Open!" Nothing happened for a while, then the message appeared: "The party is not complete. Please assemble entire party to proceed."

Skips looked confused. Everyone that she knew to have joined was around. She checked the party composition that the Dungeon thought it had by a simple command: "Show Party." It had everyone. And then someone that she had never heard of before. A weird combination of characters, the class: Solidarity's Investigator and very low hitpoints. She asked for further information and received none. The species was shown as a weird string of characters. There was no further information. She thought about contacting Teki, but was aware that communication with the outside would not work in dungeons. She updated the group: "So, the dungeon thinks that there is an additional member of the group with us. And it needs that one to also come forth to proceed. Or to expire, I guess. As the species is not shown in a reasonable manner, I assume that it is a spider-of-Tsanh, though they live outside of the plain, so whoever this is must have gone way off-course."

Shivers asked: "Can you contact that creature to come forth? If it exists?"

Skips nodded: "I can do so via the team chat feature in dungeons. Let me try." Skips sent a message: "@Nketjdi if you are around, kindly step forth towards the glowing circle of light. We need you to put an appendage against the portal in order to defeat the boss and end the threat to our village."

There was a pause in which all the group heard was the rustling of vegetation. Then something that vaguely looked like a cross between a tumbleweed and a sea urchin rolled towards the group and put a spike onto the portal. The portal flashed and moments later, the group was on a small island. Around them was the sea, except that the water had a horrible colour and smell. Skips took a leaf off a plant and held it into the water. Moments later, the part under water was gone. Skips announced: "The water is actually a strong acid. Try your best not to fall in there."

The weird creature clicked in confirmation.

Nourishes turned to it: "Are you injured? I have never seen the likes of you before, but I assume you ought to have more than 2 hitpoints."

The weird creature responded in a voice that didn't sound like a spider-of-Tsanh at all: "Yes. Injured, but persisting."

Nourishes clicked in the way of struggling with mental tasks and then, the weird sea urchin-like creature was enveloped by a green light. Skips checked the party composition screen and saw the hitpoints of the creature continuously restoring to the point of 10 hit points while at the same time, the spikes and twig-like structures seemed to repair themselves and the texture of the creature's skin returned to a more healthy and more consistent appearance. For some reason, most likely related to Solidarity, Skips had a feeling as to what a healthy creature of its kind looked like and what it didn't.

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A loud roar dragged Skips out of her idle thoughts. She turned around and saw the boss of this dungeon and cursed. It was a Vanguard. A vanguard was a formidable monster. A rock monster the size of 5 people, except that this one was covered by a metal shell. Skips shouted: "This boss is called a Vanguard. More precisely, an Elite Vanguard. It's strong both against physical attacks as well as against magic. Nasty bugger in that way. It's immune to acid damage, to make things even less fair. It has a weakness but that is pretty hard to get to: the area of the forehead between both eyes. So basically, someone needs to climb this hunk of stone and metal. Or cause it to fall!"

Volley after volley of spells were thrown at the monster, which responded by trying to stomp onto the group. Skips felt insanely cramped on this tiny island, smaller than the bedroom she slept in at her father's house. Her foundational skill required space -- a whole lot of it. This was not available here. She could barely run here, and ever since getting her Longstrider foundational skill, she felt that this was something she had to do, that the distances were calling out for her to be crossed. On this tiny island, she had to suppress or partially suppress her foundational skill, else she'd run into the acid.

Skips could only throw rocks and other debris on the island at the Elite Vanguard, as well as shove people away when the Elite Vanguard tried to stomp them. The others were more successful: using ranged attacks towards the fontanella of the creature, but she was stuck and what little skills she had were not that useful. Sure, spearmanship might help, but with any wooden equipment being as rare as hen’s teeth, there was only one spear in the entire group. So if that one hit and got stuck or sailed into the acid sea, that would be it. As such, she merely struck at the inside of the knees of the Vanguard.

Shivers tried to climb the Vanguard and did a surprisingly good job at it. Then, the Vanguard moved in a weird pattern as if it was either having a seizure or trying to shake off a Tsanhian scorpion.

Shivers fell and Skips ran between xir and the acid, holding him and preventing xir from falling over into the acid ocean around them. And then shove xir away from the feet of the vanguard.

Moments later, she received a team chat message: “@Skips-One-Step: Throw your spear upwards right where you stand.” Without checking who sent it, she did so, as much and as strongly as possible. Moments later, the Vanguard fell, but in falling, it bled from its forehead. The weird, alien creature was stuck to its forehead. As the Vanguard fell into the acid sea, a chest appeared in the middle of the island. Skips looked around for the creature. It was injured. It tried to leave the vanguard to which it still was stuck, but some of its spikes got stuck in the vanguard’s shell and they wouldn’t budge.

Skips saw the sinking vanguard and ran over. She jumped from the island onto the vanguard, her steps weren’t accelerated by her foundational skill and this fact was grating on her immensely. She walked over to the creature and helped her dislodge the spear and the spike that was guiding it into the monster. Then, she tried to dislodge the other spikes, but it seemed difficult. Especially as the material seemed brittle and she was not sure if it was akin to ripping off a fingernail or an arm. “Hey, creature, can you re-generate your spikes?”

The response was again in a strange voice: “Can. Difficult. Why?”

Skips responded: “Because I need to get you out of here. The Vanguard is sinking and the sea is still acidic as heck.”

The creature responded coolly: “Assume can save Nketjdi, yes?”

Skips nodded before she spoke: “I hope so. Can you hold on to me? I need to get you onto the island fast after we’re done.”

As a response, it shifted some spikes so they stuck to her clothing. It responded: “Yes.”

Skips then tried to shove her scruples about how she was treating an alien to the back of her mind and ripped on the spikes, dislodging one of them and breaking two. She then held on to the spiky creature, which emitted sounds that she understood to be of pain and brought it to the island.