AFTER THE DUST HAS SUBLIMATED

I always thought the sixth floor of the Lomari Labyrinth was weird. It was almost as if whoever designed the floors was running out of ideas and just spitballed something random. So, in between the mostly water filled fifth floor and the dense jungle of the seventh, the sixth floor was essentially a hostile bouncy castle. Every single surface was bouncy in some way, making you feel like you were in some sort of weird trampoline park. It was an absolute nightmare. All the monsters were large and heavy, and bounced around the room, ramming into you with enough force to break bones. The general rule of thumb with the Lomari was that floors got harder the further you went. The exception to this rule were the floors divisible by six. I.E. the 6th and 12th, both of which were unusually hard. The general consensus was that the 6th floor was about as difficult as the 9th, while the 12th was absolute hell. The furthest anyone had gone was the 14th and the only reason they came back then was because they were running out of supplies. All that said, I’m mostly just complaining because I’m bored. Me and the other members of my team are finally leaving the frustrating sixth floor. And onto the rather nice seventh. The seventh floor is widely considered as sort of rest area. While the monsters are bad, they are rather sparce and in return the jungle is packed with edible plants and wildlife. “I am so glad to be leaving this hell behind,” I said to my two other party members behind me as we walked down the stairs. “You just don’t like the sixth because you got trapped in a bouncy castle for nine hours when you were a kid and have hated anything bouncy ever since,” said Nina, our mage and dedicated boss killer. “Please don’t give me another emotionally scarring backstory,” I said. “You’re no fun,” she shot back. Our other party member was Steve. He had a wild speed blessing that made him nearly omnipresent. He used it to dice up hordes of small monsters. My job was to keep the big stuff off of Nina long enough that she could disintegrate them.

“Why do you always profess your hatred towards the sixth floor as we’re leaving? I would expect you to complain about it as we’re entering,” Steve asked. “Honestly? I feel like it’s tradition at this point. Like how Nina always tries to give me some weird backstory whenever I complain about anything.” “To be fair, you do complain a lot,” Nina said. “Also, I’m sorry for ribbing you all the time. I know you had a long-lost little brother who always used to give you weird backstories before he died of some terminal illness,” Nina said. I chuckled at that one. “Okay, that one was funny,” I admitted as we were approaching the bottom of the stairs. “Wait, do you goys hear that?” Steve asked. “What?” I said, as I fell quiet. Listening for any concerning noises. I heard nothing. “I don’t hear anything,” Nina said, all mirth removed from her tone. “That’s just it, Shouldn’t we hear something from the jungle by now?” Now that he mentioned it, the staircase was deafeningly quiet. I took the large, enchanted shield off my back, looping my forearms though the grips. “Steve,” I said, echoed by Nina. In an instant he blurred down the rest of the stairs and out into the jungle. Me and Nina waited in silence for him to return. Instead, we heard him call from the bottom of the stairs. “Guys, come see this,” he said. He sounded concerned, but not urgently. We went down the stairs quickly, still ready for a fight… and nearly dropped our weapons at what we saw. The entirety of the sixth floor was now a massive crater.

We descended into the aforementioned massive crater that the sixth floor had become not knowing what to expect, we kept out heads on a swivel and the banter to the absolute minimum. The crater was very off. The ground wasn’t scorched like one might expect, instead it seemed like something had caused it to form into some sort of crystals. Thin flat things, layered over one another like scales. They were long and slightly raised from the ground, large enough to hold my footprint but only just so. They crunched when we stepped on them, shattering and grinding into tiny pieces. It was one of the most unnatural things I’d ever seen. Even so, if we were going to find anything, it would likely be in the crater, well not strictly speaking, but it was a notable landmark, and seemed like the place we should start our search. We didn’t send Steve ahead to scout this time as we had decided to go by horror movie rules, which was rather fitting, seeing as just like any good horror movie, the tension was so high if you were to climb it, you’d be able to taste the clouds. Descending further, the first noise we heard that wasn’t made by the three of us was not one that we expected, but also not one that was particularly welcome. It was the distinct sound of a little girl crying. “Gods that’s creepy,” Nina muttered behind me. “Indeed,” Steve said. I said nothing, just gripped my shield tighter. Finally reaching the bottom, the first thing we noticed was that the crystals, for some reason, had taken on a slight purple hue, this was strange on it’s own, but the other odd thing was that we found the source of the crying. There was a little girl, probably no older then my nephew who was… 13 this year. She had long, shimmering, silver-white hair, and dull grey-blue skin. She was curled in a ball, facing away from us, and clearly crying. She wasn’t wearing anything but was covered in a fine crystalline layer, partially shattered from her movements. We stood there for a good several seconds before all turning to each other.

“What do we do?” Nina asked in a hushed tone. “She clearly isn’t human, probably some type of monster. Should probably kill her,” Steve replied. “But she’s crying, I’d feel horrible if we killed her,” Nina said. “I said we should kill her, not that I wanted to.” “What are the odds of her being some sort of mimic?” I asked. “Pretty good, you don’t often find authentic little girls on the seventh floor of the Lomari and, any monster that goes to the lengths of looking like a child is usually something that’ll snap you up the second you get too close,” Steve said. “Yeah, but she doesn’t look that human. If a monster went to all the trouble of looking like a human, why would it have that skin tone?” Nina asked. “I don’t know, I just think that we should be cautious no matter what we do.” Steve said. “I still want to at least try to talk to her,” Nina said. “Okay, how about this,” I began, “I’ll call out to her, and try to talk. You two stay behind me. If she’s nice she’s nice, if she attacks, I’ll be the closest and probably the who she goes for, which is my job anyways,” I said. Nina and Steve both gave their ascent, and I turned to face the crying girl. I walked out ahead of the others ready for anything. I was honestly on Nina’s side. I wanted to know if she was aggressive before just blindly attacking. Even so, I recognized the danger she could pose. When I was within about twenty meters of her, she suddenly perked up, apparently having heard me. She whirled, the layer of crystal over her shattering to dust. “Mary!” She said, hope and joy in her voice and on her tear-streaked face even before she locked eyes with me. But once she did lock eyes with me her face immediately fell. Now that she was facing me, I was struck by her glowing green eyes. Who was Mary? “H-hello?” I called out. The girl flopped back on her butt and raised her knees to her chest in a fetal position. She didn’t reply, only whimpered into her knees. “Hi, I’m John, that’s Steve, and the lady over there is Nina. Are you okay?” I asked. The little lady looked up at me, wide eyes glowing, face wet with tears. She sniffled. It was kind of cute. “I-I don’t…” she began, before a hard look crossed her face. I tensed, ready for her to come running at me but she didn’t. She took a deep breath and spoke. “How do I get stronger?” She asked. The sudden question threw me for a loop. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said what made sense. “Uh… I don’t know. Practice? Figure out what strengths you already have and try to improve them,” I said. The advice was middling at best, but her eyes gleamed with a determination uncharacteristic for her apparent age. “Okay,” she said, half to herself half to me. She balled her fists, stood, and ran. And she was fast, I watched her streak off up the crater wall, as she apparently sought to gain strength.

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How fascinating, a sentient undead. Not only sentient, but unbound. Usually, the undead need to either be bound to a necromancer or a simulacrum but apparently this one has a soul. Maybe that is what is taking the place of the simulacrum? I would try to repeat the experiment, but usually if one of my kind tries to use souls in necromancy, Mortella, well… kills us. I pace the throne room back and forth, Shinome sitting on the throne with some look on her face I didn’t bother to identify. Unfortunately, Shino let the creature escape, along with a random human so now I’ll have to retrieve it and kill the human. I leap up onto the throne and sit on Shino’s lap, I feel her tense beneath me. I place my chin in my hand and think. They left the floor about two hours ago. They shouldn’t have gotten too far, the eleventh floor usually leaves the unprepared wandering around for days unless they attract a spogrimm, then they’ll be running around for… well however long it takes for them to drop from exhaustion and get eaten by the thing. I highly doubt they could kill a spogrimm, the specimen is a child, and the human was apparently quite weak. Neither should be able to take down a silver rank monster. So, I need some undead that could survive the eleventh floor and potentially either kill or escape a spogrimm. I should probably make it able to handle some of the other floors as well. They probably aren’t making it any further then the ninth. The tenth is a nightmare but isn’t actually that dangerous so long as you don’t walk too close to the eggs or nests or get caught in a web. The ninth, however, is a massive mazelike cavern designed to take a very long time to get through although it is completely neutered by the ability to fly. So… I need an undead that is strong, good at tracking, somewhat independent, can fly, is fast, and can capture a small target. Maybe a stitchwraith? Their combat abilities are lacking, and they aren’t intelligent, but they can fly, move quite quickly in short bursts, can track, and capture adult sized targets. I’ll use that as the base. I sent a pulse through the network, having some zombies grab the supplies from the cellar. A large black sheet and a human with the right quality for higher undead. This would be interesting.

I hummed happily as I was putting the final finishing touches onto the nightmare I’d created. I had gone a little overboard. But not enough to make something silver rank. Only Shino was silver, and I didn’t want to go through the process of making another silver. “Julie,” Shino said from behind me. “Hmm?” I said, cutting off my bubbly tune. There was something so enjoyable about finishing up a complex project you’d worked hard on. It always put me in a good mood. “Please… don’t hurt her,” She said, a tone in her voice I hadn’t heard before. “Hurt it? I don’t want to hurt it. I’d like to get it back in as good of a condition as possible,” I said. “No, I mean… if you catch her… please, don’t hurt her… I-I’ll do anything, just….” I cut her off. “Shino, you’ll already do anything I tell you; you don’t really have anything to offer me,” I said. “Please Julie!” she said, raising her voice with a desperate strain. I’d never heard her like that. “How did you get so attached to this thing anyways? You shouldn’t be able to do that,” I said, considering. I turned to face Shino. Liches were complex and intelligent, but they didn’t have souls. I knew for a fact Shino didn’t have one, I made her, hell I’d held the damn thing in my hands own hands before I tossed it for the ether to claim. I could just command Shino to act like she usually did, but that would be dumb. Like anyone else, if my cat started talking, I wouldn’t just tell it to continue acting like a normal cat. I’d dissect it to see what made it tick… or better, tock. I giggled at my pun before finally filling my creation with necromantic magic. The dark fabric fluttered then whirled into the air taking on the rough form of a robe being worn by a human. I smiled wickedly as my creation arose before me. My giggles became more manic as the euphoria of creation hit me. “Blades,” I commanded. And immediately… there were blades.

I watched helplessly as Julie sent the monstrosity she had created after my daughter. I wanted to scream, to attack it. But I knew that if I did, Julie would just order me to stop, and then send another. No, instead I reached out carefully through the network and probed at the complex set of instructions it had been programmed with. I couldn’t override Julie’s orders, I didn’t have the authority, but I could add some of my own. And so long as they don’t interfere with what Julie said, they should remain undetected. The problem was the programming. Julie had given it very specific instructions on how to subdue and capture Dumpling the Despondylator. Going over them, I couldn’t help but picture it in my mind. Those horrific blades tearing into…. I cut off my thoughts, this was not the time. I reached into the core of the programming and added one tiny command. It wouldn’t stop the thing from attacking her, It had explicit instructions to do so, but the change made me relax slightly. She would be okay… she would be okay… I repeated it in my mind like a mantra. Trying to force myself to believe it.