(Strive 8:3)
Wind rushed past me as I fell. The thought of death filled my mind with sudden clarity, and I twisted my fingers into the Retrieve Item command. As the hotelier’s plunger materialized in my hand, I slammed it into the side of the chute. The rubber cup skidded against the wall with a screeching noise before it stuck.
My elbows jerked in pain as they took my full body weight. Everything wobbled before slowly, gradually, settling into stillness. I took a shaky breath, my heart continuing to pound.
Curiosity made me peer downward to where the metal chute ended in a circular opening. Beyond that, there was only darkness and the yawning void of outer space.
Everything suddenly seemed upside down, and I felt like a frog at the bottom of a well, peering up at a circle of night sky. I squeezed my eyes shut as vertigo threatened to overwhelm me. The stars were supposed to be above my head, not under my dangling feet.
I looked back up (at least, the direction gravity told me was up) to find that I’d fallen just a few meters, but there were no handholds on the smooth steel wall I was adhered to. Only my new strength kept me hanging on. And the plunger, I supposed. And, to my surprise, the thought of my new raccoon friend.
It was one thing for me to fall here. My failure would be on myself alone, and it’d be deserved in a sense. But without me, El would be left to fend for herself, alone…
I hated having others depend on me, and usually tried to avoid it at all costs. Yet somehow, I’d ended up with a talking trash panda called El Bandito in my care. It was ridiculous. A few days ago, I would’ve happily thrown her into a fast-moving river. Now, I kept remembering that image of her snoring on a hotel bed, her tiny hand outstretched like a child’s.
I struggled to lift myself to no avail. The other side of the shaft was too far for me to brace against, and if I tried to use the plunger as a handhold, the soft rubber cup tipped precariously.
Fuck, I thought. This really might be it—
“Oy,” came a voice from above. “Finally found you.”
I craned my neck back in disbelief. “Is that you, El?”
“In the flesh. How’d you end up down there? And why’re you naked?”
“Glass golem,” I said. “Jesus, am I glad to see you. Wanna help me get up?”
“I don’t think I could lift you,” said El dubiously. The shadow of her ears and snout poked over the lip of the ledge. “You’re too far down. Unless…” El paused for a moment before she explained her idea.
“Are you serious?” I said. “Would that even work?”
“Hey.” Her silhouette shrugged. “I’m all ears if you got anything better.”
My arms were starting to ache, and sweat made my hands slippery. I heard a low clanking noise as another panel of the floor dropped away. “Fuck it. Fine.” I dropped my right hand from the plunger to Harden myself, and the red aura flared to life. “Try to avoid the groin area, alright?”
I clenched my kada hand, and the letter S appeared on my wrist.
“Ready?” I asked El.
A few moments later, she replied, “Ready.”
“On my mark, get set, go!”
I signed T, and the Stow Item command sucked the plunger into my inventory. At the same time, El’s bracelet flashed blue, and an explosion rocked the air under me. I was launched upward by the force of the Firecracker spell, popping out of the hole. Time seemed to slow as I rocketed up past the floor, past El, toward the top of the chamber, and I twisted cat-like to meet the ceiling with my limbs and push off horizontally. That move apparently used up my badassery quota for the day, as I landed in a sprawled heap on the dark room’s floor, panting.
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El let out a low whistle. “Pretty impressive for a two-legs.”
Chamber #03 cleared.
The lights blinked on, and I saw that I’d been hanging a literal step away from the exit the entire time.
“Appreciate the lift.” I rose unsteadily as my aura shield dissipated, the red mist fading along with wisps of smoke that came from my lower body. My ears rang from the concussive force of the explosion, but otherwise I felt unharmed. “How’d you get into my test chambers anyway? I thought they wanted us in single-player mode for this floor.”
“A while after you left, the wall opened up and let me into the first room,” El said. “Saw your note, but it all seemed like a real pain in the ass.” She pointed her Lux lamp upwards at a missing patch of ceiling that exposed a hidden crawlspace. “So I Pickpocketed a couple ceiling panels to get up there, then dropped down on your side.”
It was the most raccoon approach ever, and I laughed and ruffled El’s fur. “You know, I thought I was going to have to save you, but here you are, bailing my ass out. Shows what I know.”
“Of course,” said El. “Couldn’t let you one-up me again. I already owed you for your help with that big iron mutt.”
“True enough. Now, let’s get out of here.” We stepped through the exit doorway into a futuristic room with a chute that hung from the ceiling like a hamster’s feeding tube, and my contact lit up.
Test chambers completed. Dispensing reward…
A buffet of multicolored candies rained down on us, too many different kinds to list. There were Pills of Psychokinesis, Ballet-Step Bonbons, Lozenges of Ligament Strengthening, and such an abundance of annoying alliterations that it started to kind of piss me off.
“‘Caramels of Constant Constitution,’” I blinked at the words hovering in my display. “Who comes up with these names, Willy Wonka?”
“I decided,” said El, “that the blue ones usually taste the best. Save those for me.”
“If you say so.” Despite the cutesy naming, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I scooped up some reds and greens and tasted one. The reddish Lozenge of Ligament Strengthening tasted sweet and spicy and oddly familiar. Loquat syrup, maybe?
At this point, the heat spreading through my body wasn’t as unpleasant as before. It almost felt rejuvenating, like whiskey on a cold day, and I was rewarded with the information that I felt strong!
A large metal diving bell stood at the far side of the room. It hung from a thick metal chain that disappeared upwards into a hole in the ceiling. It was clear that this was some sort of conveyance that would bring us to the next floor, and El and I stepped into it. The interior was cramped, with only a ring around the edge to sit on and a lever in the center. Small portholes looked out onto the room we’d entered from.
“Ready?” I asked, and El nodded.
Initially, the lever was too heavy for both of us. It was only after popping what felt like a million Lozenges of Ligament Strengthening and increasing my strength to Donkey doo-doo that I was able to heave it into the ON position. With a clinking sound, the chain went taut and began hauling us up to the next floor.
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(Strive 9:1)
As we passed into the ceiling, the portholes grew dark, so our bumpy ascent was lit only by a single bare bulb that swung and flickered in the center of the diving bell. I wiped sweat off my face, wondering idly what the next floor would bring.
“Is it getting hot in here,” I said aloud, “or have I eaten too many of these stupid spicy things?”
We passed through a current of flowing magma that cast the interior of the diving bell in a sinister orange glow.
“Alrighty, then.”
A moment later, we breached the surface, and the door swung open, a rush of hot sulfurous air buffeting us as we stumbled out of the conveyance. If I’d been wearing clothes before, I probably would’ve shed them here. Even breathing seemed to scald my throat.
We had arrived on a patch of ground in the middle of a magma-filled cavern. It reminded me of the fourth floor arena where we’d fought the cube beasts, but with a lake of crackling molten rock instead of icy water. Swimming through that had been unpleasant; here, it would be fatal.
A spire of rock rose up into the ceiling of the cave, and I stepped slowly around it. Although it was thick enough to conceivably hold a spiral staircase inside, there were no entrances as far as I could tell. Likewise, there were no paths leading off the island. I wiped more sweat off my forehead. Damn, it was hot.
“Hey,” El said. “Doesn’t it feel like the lava’s rising?”
Our island did seem to be shrinking by the second, now that I looked. The stifling air temperature climbed another few degrees, and my skin prickled with heat.
“It’s actually called ‘magma’ when it’s underground,” I said informatively, as scraggly weeds near my foot caught on fire.
The raccoon’s whiskers twitched. “I should've left you in that pit.”