The crack coursed through Ryan's whole body. He slightly pulled on his sleeve, quickly seeing dark purple bruises form. Tiar's patterns were anxiously moving around, as if trying to figure out a way to fix Ryan's arm, but he quickly looked at the symbiote's patterns with a smile to calm them down.
"Don't worry, it's fine, it doesn't hurt that much," he explained, slowly taking the shield off his arm. He couldn't risk blocking with this again, so he just threw it to the side for now. Since he could only use one of his arms now, he figured going for the steel bat was the better option. Worst-case, he could block with it to some degree as well. Plus, with just the bat, he could concentrate on dodging a bit better, which was definitely necessary right now.
The mascot was swinging its arm around like some kind of whip; Ryan could hear its muscles and skin tearing every so slightly the more that it did so. Dark, almost brownish blood was flung around together with chunks of flesh and the maggots that had burrowed into them. At least this would all disappear when the area boss was dead, so it wasn't that big a deal for now.
During the boss' rampage where it just wildly swung its arm, it was otherwise fairly stationary, probably because its leg was only hanging on by a thread as well. A thread that Maximus was aiming to cut just then.
The knight ran across the ground, dodging out of the way skilfully every time the mascot was trying to swing its arm at him, soon reaching its legs. Turning his body and almost dragging the sword the he was carrying behind him, Maximus cut through the mascot's leg, or the parts that were still attached. Immediately, the monster's body slumped down, sliding off the chunk of flesh that used to be its foot.
The arm that it was swinging around wasn't particularly helping with its stability either, so Ryan knew that it was a good chance to counterattack and make it fall completely. He glanced at the arm, waiting for the right moment, and then swung the metal bat right at the knee of the mascot's 'healthy' leg, though even that one was maggot-infested to the point where Ryan was shocked that it could still stand on that.
At the very least, it seemed like that attack did something, and the mascot almost toppled over. It tried to reach out to Ryan as it fell, but he quickly stepped backward out of reach. Though, of course, there was still its other arm that it was swinging around haphazardly, and it was headed straight for Ryan's head. Without even seeing it, Ryan instinctively squatted down, feeling the arm swoosh by above his head. He was covered in splatters of rotting blood, but that was better than having his skull smashed in.
The mascot now completely lost its balance, and it fell down toward its right side. Since it could no longer use its right arm to halt its fall, it dropped right onto its shoulder, crushing its already injured arm under its weight. As it tried to stand back up, what used to be its limb was torn off from the last bits that it was holding onto, now laying limp on the ground.
Ignoring the gushes of blood and gore, Maximus threw the dagger-sized sword at the mascot's chest, lodging it solidly above its heart. But somehow, it didn't seem to have gone deep enough. Ryan saw the mascot try to reach out to Maximus who was trying his best to keep it distracted for a few moments by attempting to climb onto its body, and Ryan quickly moved around its right side that was now left completely defenceless.
With a swift motion, Ryan swung the steel bat at the dagger lodged in the mascot's chest. Like a hammer smashing in a nail, he forced the dagger deeper inside, feeling its rib bones break, stabbing the sword straight into its heart. Though... it didn't react. The other mascots still died when their hearts were crushed or stabbed, but the area boss seemed to be too far gone into the direction of some rotting undead for that to work anymore.
Though, it seemed to have a little bit of an effect, at least. The mascot was getting really mad. Incredibly, incredibly mad, so Ryan had to build a little bit of distance between himself and the mascot.
"Maximus, we need to crush its brain," Ryan pointed out to the knight, who once more quickly joined his keeper's side. Without warning, Maximus stepped through the domain to safely position himself on the metal bat, and Ryan quickly stretched the bat out closer toward the mascot's chest. Maximus jumped onto it to try and pull the sword out, and Ryan immediately swung the bat at the mascot's remaining arm to distract and stop it from grabbing onto the knight as he was doing so.
It seemed to be working well enough, and it looked like Ryan at least broke a finger or two with that swing, but he still quickly jumped back to dodge out of the way as the mascot tried to strike at him.
Maximus managed to pull out the sword, and now used that deep wound as a foothold to jump up higher. He swung the sword right at the mascot's face, trying to cut through its eye first and foremost, but the mascot's mouth opened up immediately. Maximus ended up cutting through the sides of the boss' mouth and deep into its tongue, filling the mouth with a thick puddle of blood almost immediately.
The mascot tried to bite down on Maximus, but before it could, the spirit twisted the sword upside down. Its tip pointed upward, digging into the roof of the mascot's mouth, while the hilt pushed down into the puddle of blood. Ryan watched as the mascot's jaw slammed shut around Maximus. But he also watched as the mascot fell down backward, like a tree that was just cut down.
Ryan immediately dropped his bat and rushed over to the mascot, pushing its mouth open. Since it was already dead and falling apart, it was pretty easy to do. Maximus climbed out of the mascot's mouth, covered in blood and maggots. Parts of his armour were scratched and the cloth covering his lower body was torn, as were his gloves.
"I'll get you fixed up later, alright?" Ryan said as he carefully picked the knight up, who just nodded his head.
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[You have killed the Level 10 -Mascot Boss-]
[Jester's excitement has risen slightly]
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Ryan sighed as he saw the message. Every once in a while, messages like these would pop up, as Jester the Harlequin's 'excitement' rose in response to things Ryan and Maximus did here in the dungeon. Whether it was an ambush, or defeating an annoying or particularly tough mascot, or anything of the sort. The last time Ryan got one of these was when a dragon mascot nearly scorched Ryan's hair off.
Though, at least Jester's quest seemed to be proceeding; Gregor still wasn't waking up or responding no matter what they were doing. But for now, he had to concentrate on something else anyway. Since the area boss was dead, there was nothing stopping other mascots from swarming them anymore.
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"Gaia, come over here!" Ryan exclaimed, "And Anders, we could use some help!"
Immediately as Ryan said so, the dwarf's footsteps could be heard, "Aye, good job on that. What'd ya need help with?" he asked, almost yawning, and Ryan quickly explained.
"My arm's broken, so we should probably head out and meet Kula."
Anders glanced down at Ryan's left arm that he was carefully holding against his body, "Ya fought like that with yer arm broken?"
"It broke toward the end of it all," Ryan pointed out, groaning lightly as he looked at his arm, "Would you mind helping me out with my stuff?"
With an immediate nod, Anders walked over to Ryan's shield and bat, "Of course, that's what I'm here for. Need help picking up that loot?"
"I think the sub-golems are going to take care of that," Ryan pointed out, already looking over to Gaia whose two sub-golems quickly fell from her torso. They quickly ran over toward the large pile of plastic coins that had fallen out from the area boss' bag. It seemed like it would take a little while until the boss fully fell apart, so Ryan used that time to take a closer look at the bag's former contents. There was something else mixed in there as well.
Buried by those coins stood a small plastic statue painted in golden paint, displaying the mascot that they had just killed; a gorilla. However, as Ryan looked over toward the mascot, he could see the hints of another one of these statues being left behind.
"Uh... So why is it carrying around all these coins?" Ryan asked, looking over at Anders. The dwarf finished a long yawn and scratched the back of his head.
"That's its loot. Looks like ya got pretty lucky; this one killed another area boss."
"Huh? Wait, so, the boss goes around killing other mascots and then takes their drops? But why would it do that?"
"I don't know. It's just kind of aggressive that way," Anders replied, shrugging.
"That's not what I mean, like... why would the dungeon make a monster that goes around killing other monsters? I may not know a ton about dungeons, but I at least know that they don't tend to be self-destructive like that, so there has to be some kind of benefit to the area boss doing this," Ryan pointed out, and the dwarf was silent for a few moments.
"I got no clue, kid. I've only been here a couple of times. Ask yer uncle, he should know somethin' more."
"... I guess I'll do that," Ryan muttered as he picked up the small statue. He still didn't know what these were for, but he was definitely curious now. Though, for now, it was time for them to make their way out of the dungeon to where Kula was waiting.
They picked up the other statue that the freshly-killed area boss dropped as well as the dagger that had still been stuck in its head, and then made their way back to the entrance. Anders took out a few mascots on the way as if they were annoying bugs. He didn't really have to do much to take each of them out, but it was enough for Ryan to figure out his class.
Anders was a Brawler, or an adjacent class. It was the exact type that Ryan thought he would awaken with, rather than the Spirit Keeper class. It was interesting to see in person, since the Brawler class was all about rough, improvised combat, so Anders was really just kicking or throwing whatever trash he could find at the mascot's heads, crushing them completely. Of course, Ryan took the liberty to collect the coins that those mascots dropped.
Before long, they reached the outside of the old amusement park and approached Kula, the fully cloaked healer. He himself refused to enter the dungeon, seemingly for some kind of religious reason. Ryan remembered that there were some denominations of specific gods' followers that believed dungeons to be 'unholy', refusing to be even close to them. Luckily, Kula was fine with at least coming close to dungeons, but he refused to step foot inside even just momentarily.
"Ka-har," Kula sighed loudly as Ryan took off his reinforced jacket. He quickly grabbed that large golden ring and approached him. Kula leaned in closer, seemingly taking a look at Ryan's injury.
"Are you checking exactly how my bone broke? I heard that White Mages basically need to reconstruct a body to heal it, rather than just boosting natural recovery like other healing classes," Ryan pointed out curiously, but Kula seemed to ignore him for a few moments.
"Zhi-la mak gurag."
"Ah, alright, that's good. I'm glad that it's a clean break. It doesn't really hurt that much, either," Ryan replied with a relieved sigh, and Anders stared at him with a raised brow.
"Ya understood him?"
Ryan turned to the dwarf with a raised brow, "Huh? Oh, not fully I guess. I don't speak Jistian or anything, but I've been understanding the vibe of what Kula's saying. Like a combination of my type of 'Intuition' and 'Sociability', probably."
Kula looked at Ryan for a few moments before continuing to heal him. It was a somewhat weird feeling for Ryan. He could feel his bones shifting and moving into place, as his muscles and fat wrapped around them. The painful heat that was coursing through his arm until now was fading away as the swelling went down as well. In just a few minutes, Ryan's arm was perfectly healed.
"Just don't use it too much for the rest of the day," Kula said, speaking in perfect, accent-free Riverian. His cadence was a bit unusual, but it was still perfectly fluent.
"... You speak Riverian?"
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Modak walked into the café with an exhausted groan, putting his bag down onto the table that Silvia was sitting at. She was painting something on a piece of paper, though it seemed like just some kind of jumbled mess right now.
"Tough day at work?" Silvia asked, and Modak slowly nodded his head.
"Yeah, we've been trying to solve some vocal amplification issues all day... producing mana-infused sound through technology is way harder than I thought it would be," Modak groaned, and Silvia smiled.
"Yeah, but won't it be even cooler once you finally get it to work, then?"
The orc smiled lightly, "I guess so. Ryan's not back yet?"
"Nah, but he's on his way apparently," Silvia responded, as Runar came walking up to the table.
"He's working hard at reaching level 10, but it shouldn't take more than one more week. By the time Spirit Week comes around, his schedule should be freed up again," Runar explained, "Want something to drink?"
Modak thought about it for a moment, "Just a black coffee, maybe."
"Comin' right up," Runar replied, quickly making his way over behind the counter to pour Modak a coffee, as the orc looked back at Silvia.
"So, what are you making?"
The young elf grinned lightly, "Just playing around with something," she replied, finally looking up from the piece of paper, revealing a light glow in her eyes. Curious to see what she was making, Modak waited for a few moments, until Silvia seemed to have finished the colourful, jumbled drawing.
And then, she started to fold up the paper, and Modak quickly realized what it was. It was a paper airplane, and now, the jumbled parts finally made sense; once folded, they came together into a bird's wings.
With a smile, Silvia threw the paper plane into the air, and it was carried around the top of the busy space. The other customers looked up in surprise, watching it fly around without sinking at all and without a destination in mind. Though, at some point, it did run out of mana, and the effect of the magic Silvia placed on it ran out.
Just then, the café's door opened up, and Ryan stepped inside. The plane hit him straight on the forehead, crumpling the plane's tip. He caught the piece as it fell down, noticing that everyone was now staring at him.
"... Well, that's a greeting, I guess."