Chapter 63: Human Hazards (Part 1!)

In the tower, caution and safety precautions were thrown to the wind. Both because of budgetary constraints but also that the Soul Gems had a strange… disruptive quality.

What kind, how could Soul Gems possibly be volatile? After all, a soul’s literal and physical death surely doesn’t bring any hostile consequences like transfiguration, time dilation, multiple mental and bodily diseases, and possible dismemberment and death.

Well, MOST Soul Gems don’t. However, the room Vega and Krimm were being transported to, there was a lot of… all of the shit I just mentioned… maybe even a bit more.

But that’s neither here nor there dear student, all you need to worry about is this simple question.

“WHY THE FUCK-FUCK DOES KALIBER HAVE SO MANY SOUL GEMS!?!” Vega cried out, being blown through a tornado of wind. Hearing anything beyond the screeching and pounding waves of air was a little difficult to say the least. What was even harder was keeping herself together.

Well, in the literal sense. Vega’s very seams frayed and split apart by the wind. It had only been a minute since she was fighting Krimm, this sudden change in atmosphere was incredibly jarring.

Not only because having a fucking tornado underground is impossible with ordinary circumstances, but because HOW the fuck did a tornado get underground?

Soul Gems is the easy and the true solution. Not a very pleasant one, no, but the answer nonetheless.

Krimm was not far behind Vega, managing to fly into and proceed to pin her against what seemed to be a wall.

“Die, die, die! Your music sucks and you’re a bitch!” Krimm was unbelievably furious that a scarecrow managed to put her on the backfoot. She was an Assassin, a Galtin elf fairy, this was totally humiliating. She didn’t lose of course, but the idea that Vega could pose a threat was something she could not handle, let alone entertain.

“WHAT?” Apparently, at least to Krimm’s knowledge, the scarecrow had no clue of the anguish going on with Krimm, as wind had only grown even more intense. All she could do was put on a smile, which made her even more mad.

“I hate your ‘I’m such a gullible idiot’ personality, I hate the fact people like you over me, and I fucking hate your speech impediment!” Krimm tried to grind Vega’s face against the wall, but the wind ended up just making Krimm use her as a surfboard.

“WHAT?!”

“Your speech impediment is one of the dumbest things in all of existence!” Krimm, sparing no expense, shape shifted into a copy of Vega. “Haha, look at me, I repeated a word-word twice. I’m so quirky. Shut up! Shut your mouth!” Krimm screeched at the top of her lungs, returning to her base form. In fact, that wasn’t even enough for her. Summoning up a celestial energy, and dulling her sense of touch and smell, she built up a great thunder in her voice.

“...wha-”

“I HATE YOU BECAUSE SOMEHOW YOU HAVE FRIENDS!”

“...” Vega only gave a sly smile. A smile which told Krimm that Vega could hear her the whole time. Sure it sounded very muffled, but she could hear her frustration easily. Krimm’s face was a volcano, burning hot like magma ready to explode outward.

“...you know what… you win…” Krimm took a breath and turned away from Vega. If the scarecrow was going to annoy her at every turn, she wasn’t going to give her anything. It would make the job a lot more boring, not being able to shit talk.

But compared to the cost of being played by a farming implement, that was hardly anything.

“ALRIGHT constructs. OBSTACLE TWO HAS FINISHED RENDERING.” The tower voice spoke again. The two tried to find where it was coming from, but eventually settled on staring forward.

“Ya have any clue what rendering means?”

“...”

“Yeah, me-me neither.”

“ACCORDING TO PROTOCOL, if there are more than one persons, THERE MUST BE A TEST TO DETERMINE WHICH IS REAL AND WHICH IS A SMALL CHILD THAT MUST BE SACRIFICED.”

There was a very uncomfortable silence for a bit.

“HOLY SHIT, I’M MAKING A JOKE. CHILDREN WOULDN’T HAVE LIVED THIS LONG. STARTING TEST.”

The wind died down rapidly, sending the two flying down a deep dark chasm. In only five seconds, they went from overwhelming noise to sinister silence. All Vega could think about was how this tower was set up. Elaborate in detail and scale, she wondered about how long it took to make. She then wondered how long it would take to win the obstacle.

“Well good thing I’m the actual con-contruct. It would have been bad if…” Vega saw Krimm shapeshift into a scarecrow before her eyes, who gave her a head shake. Like, the most disappointed head shake in all of existence.

From the walls, protruded two specters that floated alongside them, glowing enough so that they could see again. With a quick red flash at them, they left and Krimm returned to her base form.

“Ah… well that sucks.”

“Yeah. This sucks a lot.” Krimm put a hand on her chin and started to kick her legs in the air because she was very bored. She knew she could probably try to take down Vega here, but a fight in the air wasn't really exciting. After what Vega did, she didn’t really have it in her to try to gain any enjoyment out of this.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Surprisingly, Vega could detect this out of her. Her uneven eyelashes batted slowly, as Krimm poked at her ruined face. This fight between them might have been what Krimm had been looking forward to for a long time. Afterall, the Assassin did give her a brutal treatment, so in a weird way that could only make sense to her, Vega knew that she mattered to Krimm.

If for only a couple moments, Vega felt a sympathy rise for the Assassin again, but not before another thing would hit her.

“Hey, do ya think it will take a long time-” The ground decided to interrupt, since Vega directly impacted it with full force. Like glass being broken was the sound that came from her crash.

“OBSTACLE TWO IS NOW LOADED.”

A few pale lights shuttered open, all in sequence. They came from where they fell, which Vega turned on her back to look up at. A massive chasm that seemed to go on forever, unending and unceasing. If this place was a memory, this had to be a dream of some sort, Vega thought.

Where she landed seemed unprepared in a sense. Chunks of rock, stalactites and dripping water in big pools of cave water. Moss grew around the opening, with grass just underneath Vega.

Despite this, it had a strange quality to it. Like everything here was out of focus, like looking through muddy glass or foggy eyes. Where there should be curves, there were edges. The water had a stuttering moment, like it was taking steps instead of falling normally. But this could not be blamed on her perception, since everything in Obstacle 1 was perfectly fine up until the end. Something was wrong here, like the very world she was in could hardly hold her.

“Are you alright?” Krimm stood over Vega, her arms crossed and staring down with a faint disdain. Feeling a chance to help Krimm get back into an excited groove, Vega jumped up and pulled out a guitar.

“Ya ready to party!” Vega pointed out to Krimm, naively believing that a song might put her in the right mind. Krimm, as you might expect, was not impressed.

“Right… Well, let’s get this over with.” Krimm started marching up to her with her ax in hand. She was going fast, but not with the same burning hatred as before. Vega had genuinely worn her down.

“Alright!” Vega continued, trying to come up with a song on the spot. Starting to play a soft melody, one that fit this unceasing place, it went slow and tender. And just when she expected her hay magics to appear…

Nothing.

Not even a tuft of hair, or a string of vines.

“Uh… hold on! I think I’m having a magic malfunction.” Vega held out a palm to Krimm, who stared in amazement.

“Wait, you can’t do magic anymore? But you were just styling on me just… two minutes ago!”

“Sorry? This is my first time-time and-”

“Do not fucking make a sexual innuendo or else I will burn you alive.”

“HOLY SHIT BOTH OF YOU STOP TALKING.” The tower spoke again, echoing loud into the ears and the environment. Vega tried to cover her non-existent ears while Krimm plugged her actual ones. “TURNS OUT after multiple years of disrepair, THE MAGIC FROM THE SOUL GEMS CONTAINMAINTED OBSTACLE ONE. SO IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC SHIT, THAT’S PROBABLY THE REASON.”

“Was this-this guy like that with ya when ya entered?”

“He was actually nicer.”

“SHUT UP. ANYWAY, SINCE THERE ARE TWO CONSTRUCTS, one OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS HAVE TO DIE OR BE SEVERELY MAIMED IN ORDER TO CONTINUE.”

“...why?” Vega asked with the fiercest confusion possible.

“Yeah can’t we just-” Krimm tried walking forward a couple feet before bumping into a wall. An invisible wall.

“What the hell?” Vega patted her hands where Krimm suddenly bumped into, feeling a smooth, marble like surface. Punching it once, her fist stopped hard. The wall around them was solid and it certainly was going to break just for them.

“KALIBER DIDN’T MAKE THIS for the other one, BUT FOR THE ONE THAT IS SEARCHING.”

“...other one-one?”

Oh shit. That’s… huh… I think I’m starting to understand this… situation I’m in. But if there’s two that means…

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the tower being a huge asshole.

“SO, IN ORDER FOR SOMEONE TO CONTINUE, KILL YOURSELF OR EACHOTHER. I DON’T REALLY CARE BECAUSE I CAN’T verify WHO IS THE REAL ONE.”

The scarecrow and the Assassin gave each other looks of despair. Vega knew without the magic she could produce, she was basically dead. And Krimm really didn’t want to kill Vega, since she was her whole target and everything.

Then the Assassin came up with an idea.

“The tower said… maim right?”

“Yeah-yeah?”

“YEAH, MAIM. KALIBER DIDN’T HAVE MONEY TO HAVE THE OBSTACLE CONTAIN two people walking AROUND AT THE SAME TIME. IN FACT, THAT’S THE WHOLE REASON WHY THE WORLD SPLIT APART IN OBSTACLE ONE.”

“It’s not that there are two sentient beings here, but the fact we’re walking?” Krimm held out her arms in staunch protest. There had to be a more sophisticated reason than that.

“YEAH.”

“Not because of the magic-magic stuff breaking or whatever?” Vega proposed as well, but the tower was not having it.

“NO YOU FUCKERS. IT’S WALKING. TURNS OUT HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL SETTING THAT BE CAN BE WALKED ON is fucking EXPENSIVE AND DIFFICULT. GO FIGURE.”

“...Kaliber kinda sucks.” Krimm put a hand on her forehead, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“TELL ME ABOUT.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason for maiming! Yippee!” Vega hadn’t cheered like this for a long time. Finally some good news.

“What is it now?” Krimm didn’t even care to stare at Vega.

“Ya don’t have to kill-kill me, just cut off my legs!”

“...ah! You’re right. Because that will mean there is only one person not walking.”

“Yeah! …wait, hold on!” Vega put up her arms in protest, but it was a feeble defense against the Assassin’s axe.

The scarecrow was cleaved in two. But this time, at least it wasn’t the result of a black powder bomb. I mean, if I was going to bisected twice in a lifetime, I would like to be different on each occasion.

If I could give an opinion, getting cut in half has to be in my top ten ways to die. At least top five.

What was I doing? Right, back to the gore.

Vega finally had the wonderful opportunity of seeing her lower half being detached from her torso. All the string, the hay, and many of her belongings in there splatted outward like guts and flesh. Except this was family friendly.

“Uh… ya could have just cut my legs off.”

“Yeah. I could have.” A sadistic smile rose on Krimm’s face, only slightly. This job would suck, but at least she could now reclaim her dignity.

“Oh. Oh this-this isn’t so okie dokie.”