Going through all of those keys was painfully exhausting, but somehow they were able to do it. The original Daemonium finally got himself together and started helping out, and Fake Damonium pitched in as well. They did have to stop Green Daemonium from eating every key in sight, but that just meant that if they found a key that didn't work they'd just feed it that key. This mutualistic relationship meant that after about 145,782 keys were tested, the group were finally able to make their way up.
So to the seventh floor they went. The key was out in the open yet again, this time being on top of a pile of rocks. Upon closer inspection though, it clearly wasn't just a pile of rocks. Standing up to reveal a large humanoid form, with a red glowing core in the center, it was quite clearly a stone golem.
"A Golem!" Daemonium was overjoyed to be able to see one in the flesh. As the bouldering titan stood over him, Daemonium simply looked at it with amazement.
"Yo guys," he said, waving to the other Daemoniums. "Want to learn a fun fact about golems?"
He pointed to the red orb in the center before continuing. "This is a golem's core. That's the only part of a golem that's technically alive. The rocks you see around it technically aren't a part of its body, they're just being manipulated with mana. So if you remove this core here..."
Daemonium put his hands on the core and pulled as hard as possible, finding the task much more difficult than he originally thought. Putting all his strength and focus into pulling on it, Daemonium failed to notice the golem reaching down and picking him up from the hair, dangling him like a ball tied to a rope.
"Umm... a little help please?"
Before the golem could do anything of note Dead Daemonium smashed the core, turning the golem into a mere pile of rocks. Daemonium fell to the ground and screamed, but was fortunately caught by Green Daemonium before hitting the ground. Daemonium could only look down at the red orb with a hole punched into it with sadness, showing nothing but disappointment on his face.
"I thought we could've use the golem to make another Daemonium," he said sadly. "Maybe I could call it Stone Daemonium, or Rock Daemonium. That would've been cool, right?"
The other Daemoniums didn't seem to care, simply taking the key and dragging him over to the next floor. Daemonium simply looked back at the rocks with disappointment, as if he had lost a very close friend.
Floor eight had two golems! Daemonium was quite excited until Dead Daemonium destroyed them both.
Floor nine had three golems. But like before, Dead Daemonium smashed them to pieces.
Floor ten had four golems, and this time Daemonium told Dead Daemonium to do let him do it himself. He was going to flood them with Lovely Pheromones, but golems take a bit too long to attract so he was almost killed in the process. As such, Dead Daemonium killed them all for even attempting to lay a finger on Daemonium.
Three floors in one paragraph. That's a new record already.
Daemonium looked sadly at the cores beaten so hard they were turned into shards of glass. His reaction wasn't as strong as when he saw the first orb get punched through, but he was still visibly upset.
Floor eleven didn't have anymore golems to beat. Instead, the room looked like an office of sorts. There were cabinets filled with hundreds of papers, messy desks covered with unorganized folders and more papers, stacks of so many papers that one had to wonder how many trees were harmed in making this, and a water fountain.
Daemonium ran to the water fountain, thinking it may be one of the last times he got to have nourishment before reaching the top. He drank a bit but quickly spat it out once he realized that it was spraying sand instead of water.
The gang searched everywhere for the key, until they finally located it in a strange, tall, box. It seemed to have a shelf of sorts inside, with the key sitting right in the center. Only the front part was transparent, like a window into this box's soul. Dead Daemonium tried to smash it, but it was seemingly indestructable.
For a bit they were stumped, until Daemonium noticed a flap on the bottom. Pushing it, he found that his hand could reach inside through the tiny door. The only problem was that his hand wasn't long enough, so that wasn't a good idea.
Dead Daemonium thought otherwise. They thought it was a great idea. The only problem here was that the wron person tried it. And who was the right person? Dead Daemonium turned to Green Daemonium, put their hands on its shoulder and smiled, much to the confusion of Green Daemonium.
After some fighting and Dead Daemonium literally kicking Green Daemonium through the flap, they finally got the key. And so it was onwards to the next floor as the group said goodbye to the office. Daemonium looked back at the strange box, wondering what its purpose could've possibly been. Spoiler alert: it's just an ordinary vending machine. They don't have vending machines in this world, which is odd considering that they seem to have water fountains and modern guns. I'll have to ask the author about this odd world building next time.
So now to floor twelve. Taking up about three quarters of the room, right in the middle of it was a large and deep pool of water. The pool seemed far too deep for anything to be seen beyond the reflection on top of the water, but the key was no where else so it was likely down there.
"Do any of you know how to swim?" Daemonium seemed a bit concerned. "Because I don't."
Fake Daemonium shook this fox's head. Dead Daemonium and Green Daemonium did the same. Daemonium sighed, as it looked like they needed another way to get the key.
As Daemonium and Fake Daemonium discussed a possible way to get the key, Green Daemonium tapped Dead Daemonium on the shoulder and smiled. Realizing what such a gesture meant by now, cue a flashback of all the times the two fought earlier in the arc, Dead Daemonium leapt up high in fear. They leapt a bit too high though, hitting their head on the ceiling and finding themself right above the pool of water they didn't know how to swim in. Green Daemonium simply smiled and waved goodbye as Dead Daemonium realized they played themself.
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Hearing a splash, Daemonium and Fake Daemonium ran to the pool. "Are you okay? Where's Dead Daemonium? Is he in the pool?" Daemonium drilled his green copy with great concern, Green Daemonium simply responding by pointing to the pool.
"This is a disaster! This is a disaster!" Daemonium paced back and forth around the room, filled with intense worry. While Dead Daemonium didn't need to breathe being a zombie and all, the fact that they couldn't swim meant that they might be trapped there forever. Daemonium couldn't just leave Dead Daemonium behind, but he couldn't swim and didn't have a rope or anything of the sort to drag them back up. Or did he?
"Green Daemonium," Daemonium called to his friend with an idea. "How long can you stretch?"
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Dead Daemonium slowly drifted down, the light from above starting to become dimmer and dimmer as they eventually reached the bottom. Eventually they hit the floor, which seemed like and eternity of falling. Dead Daemonium tried jumping up and getting back to the surface, but the water pressure certainly made it difficult. Dead Daemonium never went swimming before, so being submerged like this was a new experience for them. Dead Daemonium had seen people talk about their love of swimming before so they were quite excited to experience this, even if the situation wasn't ideal. Unfortunately, they could only describe the water as cold, wet, and quite hard to move in, so swimming was definitely trash.
As Dead Daemonium questioned why anyone in their right mind would want to do this, they noticed a gold sparkle in the distance. Moving so slow that even Sonic's swimming skills seemed like a master's compared to theirs, Dead Daemonium eventually found themself right in front of the golden key.
Wondering how they would get the key back up, Dead Daemonium then noticed a bright green rope lower down to them. Upon closer inspection, it was the same shade of green that could be found on Green Daemonium, likely meaning it stretched itself out like a rope in order to pull them up from the bottom of the pool. While Dead Daemonium certainly was greatful for the assisstance, they also held grudges.
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"I'm sure Dead Daemonium will grab on any second now." Daemonium sat by the edge of the pool, holding onto Green Daemonium as he fished for a Daemonium.
It took a bit, but eventually he felt something. Green Daemonium tugged like something was biting onto a fishing line and Daemonium pulled only to find that a Dead Daemonium was biting down! Literally biting down too might I add.
Dead Daemonium landed gracefully and perfectly on their feet while Green Daemonium, after returning to its favorite Daemonium form, was reasonably quite angry with the zombie biting down on it. The two almost fought before they could Daemonium ran up to Dead Daemonium and hugged him, much to Green Daemonium's annoyance.
"You're safe!" Daemonium smiled and hugged Dead Daemonium as tight as he could, which the zombie accepted with open arms. Daemonium closed his eyes and smiled, happy to see that the zombie wasn't hurt, only to open them and find that Green Daemonium had squeezed through and pushed Dead Daemonium out of the hug, being the one to hug him instead.
Dead Daemonium's response was to put their hand on its shoulder, smirk, and throw Green Daemonium to the other side of the room faster than you could say yeet.
Before Dead Daemonium could claim the prize Green Daemonium stretched its arms over the pool and dragged Daemonium over to where it was. Dead Daemonium wasn't out of the count yet, running around the pool so fast a cheetah might have been jealous. Dead Daemonium's arm smacked Green Daemonium in the face before running away, turning the face into complete mush as they grabbed Daemonium and ran. Luckily Green Daemonium had a great healing factor, so it quickly bounced back from the wound and stretched its arm across the pool. It was just long enough for Dead Daemonium to trip over it, tossing a confused Daemonium into the air and straight into Green Daemonium's other arm. Green Daemonium tried to run away, but Dead Daemonium was too fast for Green to avoid. They grabbed Daemonium and tried to pull him away from it, but Green Daemonium wouldn't let go. And thus, a tug of war began.
As the two literally fought over him, pulling him as hard as they could in attempt to take him away from each other, Daemonium's only thoughts were of how nice it would be to have meatballs later that day.
"Oh right!" Daemonium interrupted the fight with a sudden insight. "Dead Daemonium, did you see a key down there?"
Dead Daemonium suddenly remembered the key they brought up with them and looked everywhere for it, only to look sad upon realizing that it was probably dropped in the water during their fight with Green Daemonium.
"Don't worry about it. Is it in the pool?"
Dead Daemonium nodded.
"I see. That means that if you two work together we'll be able to get the key again!"
Dead Daemonium and Green Daemonium glared at each other after such a suggestion. The thought of them working together after all that happened seemed like an idiotic idea to them, but if Daemonium was the one suggesting it then maybe they could consider it.
As you could probably imagine, it didn't work out that well.
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General Info Stats Name: Dead Daemonium STR 86 Species: Zombie SPE 113 Age: 25days INT 53 HP: 155/155 DUR 56 Level: 26 Exp: 113,361/67,108,864 Spells Known: 0
General Info Stats Name: Green Daemonium STR 9 Species: 50% Slime + 50% Mimic SPE 10 Age: 82days INT 9 HP: 71/71 DUR 11 Level: 2 Exp: 1/4 Spells Known: 0