As soon as Hana landed next to him, Topher saw the blocky figure react; it rotated swiftly and smoothly, turning its head sideways and lengthening it into an oblong shape, as two more arms and legs sprouted from its midsection. In an instant, it rocked slightly to the left and settled onto four quadrupedal legs, as each of its now four arms splayed wide to cover their positions. Topher winced. What the fuck is this? It grows extra limbs for each target? He squinted at it, and a Status window appeared above what he supposed was its head:

Construct: Class IV Emerald Sentinel

Then, before either of them could react, it attacked again.

He'd expected another spray of viridescent flame, but it surprised him again; two of its truncated, rectangular limbs shot out bright blue beams of pure energy, while a third launched a whirling spiked chain at extreme velocity directly at his face.

Hana ducked under the rightmost beam, but Topher wasn't so lucky; the left beam hit him squarely in the chest, punching through his Arch Shielding like it wasn't even there, and seared a hole clean through his midsection. He grunted dizzily, but at least got his arm up to block the spiked bola; it wrapped around his arm, digging vicious barbed hooks into his flesh.

Hana shouted in alarm at his predicament, but he waved a hand dismissively. "I'm fine," he croaked, feeling the odd sensation as his lungs and heart reformed in his chest almost instantly. But before he could retaliate, a loud whirring noise came from the creature, and he abruptly felt himself pulled off his feet towards it as it retracted the chain; uh oh, he managed to think, but the force abruptly disappeared as Hana slashed through the chain with her Flux Blade. Caught off-balance by the twin shifts in his equilibrium, Topher fell to his knees, but managed to slap his hands out to arrest his fall. Goddamn. Shoulda worn a life alert bracelet.

He glared up at the guardian, and decided he'd had enough of this; summoning his Stylus and giving it five quick spins, he snapped it down at the now-insectoid thing and incanted "Moj Vum Koth!" The augmented Fleet Zephyr swept forth, a shockwave of deadly sharpness, and plowed into the creature with palpable force; however, the hard stone of its body rejected most of the damage, though he could see he'd scored a big chunk out of its two rightmost arms. He frowned. Might take more than five spins.

To his right, Hana darted forward, slashing low with her Flux Blade in the angelic-looking sword-form she'd favored since killing Vashyarl; the creature scuttled back adeptly, but a shockwave of whitish force from her blow snapped its left front leg in half and caused it to teeter precariously for a moment. Then it rotated again, redistributing its limbs; two of its arms combined while it absorbed the stump of the truncated leg, rotating its three remaining legs into a tripod-like configuration. Curiously, its head changed again as well, now becoming triangular; Topher began spinning his wand again, trying to build up to fifteen spins this time.

Then the creature did something he'd never expected; it pointed the larger, thicker conjoined limb at his feet, and a smooth metal sphere shot out with a hollow thoomp sound. But rather than launching forward with high velocity, the sphere merely bounced and rolled over to him; Topher frowned and cocked his head. Where have I seen something like --

"Grenade!" Hana screamed, a split-second before it exploded; instantly, Topher's mind snapped like a coiled whip, and he made a sweeping gesture towards the guardian. Then there was a bright flash of light, a burst of heat, and a whump sound; both of them were thrown backwards with tremendous force, but it was only the shockwave. Topher sighed as he struggled to his feet; the construct was shot through and covered with shrapnel, but none of it had struck him or Hana. "I made him the endpoint of all the vectors," he commented, but quickly saw he wouldn't have time to explain; riddled with chips and cracks as it was, the guardian was already starting to move again and continue its attack. Hana lashed out at it again, but this time it didn't even bother trying to dodge; instead, a spherical shield of shimmering, translucent blue energy surrounded it, and the young Japanese woman's attack bounced off as though she'd struck a rubber ball.

Then, suddenly, the strangest thing happened; shimmering, curving lines arced through the air, tracing patterns and pathways around and through nothing at all. Topher blinked, and they faded; but it gave him an idea. "Try to hold off for a minute," he grunted, stepping back and summoning another Wall of Force between it and them; then, as it directed more unstoppable beams through the resulting obstacle, he let his mind slip into a Metaphrasty trance.

Immediately, he could see what he'd glimpsed before much more clearly; the air was thick with magic here, almost soupy, in ways he'd never seen before. Runes and symbols swam by like lazy fish; he gaped in wonder, but didn't have time to dwell on it. Instead, he cast about for something that looked like it might be useful; most of the sequences looked fragmented or nonsensical, but he could see a few that looked similar to spells he already knew how to cast. With any luck, there'd be --

"Got you," Topher snarled, and he stretched his fingers out towards the guardian; it was scuttling to the side now, reconfiguring its arms into two blocky, elongated shapes that Topher could see were going to be some kooky futuristic magic version of automatic cannons. Quickly and deftly, he traced a rune in the air between the two of them and intoned "Akq Vord Viak Moxix, Kuus Ozi Ib." The guardian stuttered, shuddered, and then fell apart into a pile of tiny, cubical inert stones.

Panting for breath, Hana skidded to a halt from where she'd been trying to bound leftward around the creature's flank. She prodded cautiously at its remains with her Flux Blade, but the mound of orthodox pebbles simply shifted and crumbled slightly. She blinked. "Is it dead?"

"Not sure it was alive," Topher disagreed, "but it's toast now. Hit it with a Rune of Deanimation -- some kinda anti-golem spell."

Hana frowned. "Bailey-sama, if you had a spell like that, why didn't you use it right away?"

"I didn't, actually," Topher admitted. "There's all kind of spells floating around in the ether here in the Metaphrastic realm, and I grabbed that one and cast it since it looked compatible with my Class. Kind of a long shot, but it worked." He let himself slip back into the trance and marveled at what he was seeing; I can read them all. That one's Shield of Shards, that one's Contingent Venom, and that one's... eww, Flesh Wall? Gross. "Tons of spells, way more than even the Archmages have access to -- all just flapping around like they got loose from their spellbooks, or something."

Hana stood up and stretched, looking around warily for more threats. "What do you think it means?"

"How the hell should I know?" Topher complained, kicking the remains of the guardian out of his way as he stepped forward. "Let's not pretend I know what I'm doing, here. I just want to get my wife and get the fuck out of here."

Cautiously, they proceeded; the tunnel sloped slightly downwards in the direction the guardian had come from, so they picked that direction for lack of better options and continued on. Another "Class IV Emerald Guardian" formed out of the wall to block their path about a hundred yards further in, but this time Hana was ready; as soon as it separated from the tunnel, she cleaved it downwards straight through its head and chest in a single blow, and it fell apart into twitching halves that sparked and squirmed as they tried to recombine or reconfigure themselves. Stepping back, Topher lined them up and traced another Rune of Deanimation at them; the result was the same as before, and they dispatched the second guardian much more efficiently than the first. "If this is all this guy has to throw at us, we're in pretty good shape," he commented to Hana breezily.

"Maybe," she hedged, flourishing her Flux Blade. "How long can we keep doing that, however?"

"Oh, uh... whoops." Topher flushed as he realized he hadn't checked how much MP any of this had cost him. "Guess I should check my MP. One second." He muttered the command to open his Status window, then scowled at the result powerfully:

Name:

Christopher Bailey

Level:

1138

Class:

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Clerk

HP:

3416/3416

MP:

4451/4603

SP:

789/1138

Strength:

Rank C

Dexterity:

Rank F

Constitution:

Rank C

Intelligence:

Rank D

Wisdom:

Rank D

Charisma:

Rank D

Skills:

Literacy (Rank D)

Mathematics (Rank B)

Cooking (Rank F)

Customer Service (Rank D)

Data Entry and Filing (Rank B)

Packaging and Shipping (Rank D)

Home Appliance Repair (Rank F)

Pen Spinning (Rank A)

[Disease Resistance (Rank C)]

[Poison Resistance (Rank C)]

Special Skills:

Disrupt Illusion

Improved Status

Summon Ledger

Summon Stylus

Detect Status

Metaphrasty (Rank S)

Kilimancy (Rank F)

Encrypt Document

Authenticate Document

Duplicate Document

Validate Document

Restore Document

Locate Document

Minor Theurgy (Rank C)

Minor Wizardry (Rank C)

Transcendent Integrity

[Pass Without Trace (Rank C)]

[Elemental Resistance (Rank C)]

[Damage Resistance (Rank C)]

[Status Resistance (Rank C)]

[Improved Mana (Rank D)]

Unique Skill:

Attract Object

"This keeps getting stupider," he complained. "Over Level 1000 now. What, we just get free Levels for being on the moon?"

Looking skeptical, Hana summoned her own Status and glanced at it quickly; she let out a tiny gasp, but then her brows furrowed and her mouth hardened into a thin line. "Of course. These guardians must be powerful enough to be a meaningful threat to the Demon Lord and his minions; it makes sense that their Levels would be comparable or even higher."

Topher sighed. "So you're saying they're like Level 5000, and because we beat one, we gained a bunch of Levels ourselves. Sounds great, but you don't find this suspicious at all?"

The young Japanese woman shook her head. "I don't see that it matters, Bailey-sama. Either we're been lucky enough that the Infinite King wasn't expecting this, or..." she trailed off. "What plan could possibly require us to be stronger?"

"I don't know," Topher growled, "but I bet we're not gonna like it." He hustled forward, turning a corner, but almost slammed his nose into a huge black wall that blocked the entire hallway; as he blinked at it in confusion, another Status window appeared:

Edict: Demurus Extemporus

"Shit." He cast about for a way around, but could see nothing; worse, he was pretty sure from the shape of it that it extended into the walls of the passageway too. "How the hell are we gonna get past this?"

Hana stepped up to it, placing her hand on it before Topher could stop her; she frowned, but didn't appear to be harmed. "Can you dispel it?"

"No, it's an Edict," Topher disagreed. "Can't affect it in any way. We might have to go back and look for other routes around it." If there even are any, he grumped to himself.

Hana drew her Flux Blade and prodded at the black expanse, studying the point of contact intently. "What about secret doors or passageways? Surely this passage would not be purposely blocked off."

"Hmm. Guess I could check." Topher muttered the runes for Find Traps And Secret Doors and was gratified to see a small white hatch picked out against the dark gray of the stone wall, not too far from the edge of the Edict. "Good call. There's a secret door over there."

Despite careful instructions, Hana couldn't see any sign of the hatch with mundane vision; even her attacks against the wall seemed fruitless, and Topher had to cast Unbar Way to get it to open. Sliding the hatch to one side, they discovered a steel ladder within a vertical shaft, which led down into the darkness beyond their range of sight. "Good thing I didn't come by myself," Hana murmured as they descended. "Being a non-mage can be a little frustrating sometimes."

Topher snorted. "Let's not pretend you couldn't have found a way."

Halting on the ladder, the young Japanese woman glared up at him. "Bailey-sama, my Class is --"

"Unimportant," Topher interrupted, pausing on the ladder and wishing he had a cigarette. "You coulda shaped your Flux Blade into a key, or brewed up a potion that duplicated the effects of Find Traps And Secret Doors, or any other number of ways to get past this shit. The only reason you don't is because I am here, and because you're so convinced you suck that you give up before you try most things."

He saw Hana's knuckles clench on the rungs of the stairs below him, but she didn't respond; after a long pause, he heard her hiss out a breath. "We should keep moving."

The ladder descended what felt like hundreds of feet, but Topher guessed that was just because climbing down it sucked; eventually, they fetched up another hatch, much like the first one. This one was locked with some sort of combination lock, but Topher just cast Unbar Way again and it clicked open; he looked at Hana and shrugged. "What? Probably sets off an alarm on the first wrong attempt. Screw this guy, I'm not playing his games."

Muttering darkly to herself, Hana pushed it open and cautiously peeked out; after a moment, she pushed the hatch open the rest of the way and beckoned him forward. "No enemies I can see, but there's something..."

Squeezing awkwardly out of the hatch, Topher immediately saw what she meant; rather than a sparse, severely-worked stone hallway, this area was a curious mix of metal and stone -- gleaming steel I-beams and scaffolds jutted out from mossy gothic spires and crypts, all jumbled together over a vast grid of chrome and moulder as the pattern continued downwards into more darkness below. "More stuff like the Parking Garage in Vashyarl's Tomb," he snorted. "The moon is a fucking dungeon."

"But why?" Hana wondered as they carefully picked their way across a crumbling bridge with red LED lights along its handrails. "Is the Infinite King its Guardian?"

"I don't think it's anything that simple," Topher disagreed; a horrid twelve-foot-tall undead creature swirled out of the darkness before them, a hideous grafted-on metal jaw gaping and a red laser shining from its right eye socket, but Topher cast a variant of Banish Dead and didn't even stop walking as the creature exploded into dust and hardware around him. "I don't have enough information to do more than guess, but if this guy really made this place -- shit, maybe made this whole world -- I think maybe he had to follow rules. Rules like how if you want guards past a certain level of strength, you have to have a dungeon for them to inhabit."

"It... would explain a lot of things," Hana agreed reluctantly, twirling her Flux Blade and hacking another undead-construct hybrid in half -- this one a sort of bloated, froglike thing with metal limbs and green slime gushing from its mouth -- with little obvious effort. "These things seem really weak, though."

"Check your Level," Topher returned grimly.

Hana did so, and sighed. "Twenty-five hundred. If we spent an hour or two killing these..."

"We'd be so high-Level that everything else would be a joke," Topher agreed tonelessly. "Which means the Infinite King probably wants us to do exactly that, rather than capitalizing on our advantage and maintaining our momentum. You don't stock your base with shit that meaningfully helps your enemies; whatever he's doing, I don't think more Levels are going to help us if he's giving them out this freely." Flexing his fingers, he summoned a dagger from his Trajectile Bracelet and imbued it with the same power he'd used against the elven Archmage; when three more towering, glowing zombies appeared, he constructed a curve of replicating nodes with his Attract Object power and sent the knife hurtling along its arc, destroying all three of them and returning the dagger neatly to his hand before he cast it aside to disappear. "Numbers going up is cool, but let's not forget what we came here for."

They made their way down a crumbling staircase, shot through with sparking wires, and passed through a huge pair of double doors; once inside, the architecture changed again, becoming an opulent mockery of medieval fashion. Thick, lush red carpets surrounded by fluffy white fur led them down gold-plated hallways; staircases of gleaming white marble, replete with shining silver bannisters, descended further into the darkness. "We're probably getting close," Topher observed. "This crap screams 'I have a mental disorder around the word King'."

They started to pass between two huge marble columns, mounted by great statues of glaring half-human beings; as Topher passed through them, however, superheated bolts of bright orange energy shot forth, exploding against him with scornful force and shattering his Arch Shielding again before blasting him backwards nearly twenty feet over Hana's head. Groaning, he picked himself up and recast Arch Shielding again; another two casts of Rune of Deanimation were sufficient to reduce the statues to rubble, but he still felt annoyed. "Look at this crap," he complained, gesturing at the detritus. "Not only is that a cheap shot that would have killed anybody else, but it's plagarism. He's ripping off Neverending Story, and not even trying to hide it."

Hana looked confused. "Is it an American film?"

"Huh?" Topher thought for a moment, then sighed. "Yeah. Kind of like when he ripped off Godzilla for Vashyarl's prison. This guy watched too many movies."

Cautiously, they proceeded further forward; the next obstacle was a pair of great mahogany doors set with two brass knockers shaped like faces; Topher hurriedly cast Unbar Way again and unlocked the doors at a distance, then opened them both simultaneously using Telekinesis without saying a word. I don't have the time or patience to figure out which one always tells the truth, and which one always lies. Fuck this place, seriously.

But the traps and gimmicks appeared to have come to an end, finally; beyond the doors (which, naturally, led to the exact same room), he could see that everything past this point was a straight path to a long staircase leading downwards, exactly like the one at the end of Vashyarl's dungeon. But rather than hanging in a long black void, this staircase led past hundreds of heavy gold frames -- paintings which glowed with gentle luminescence. As Topher drew near, his guts clenched. "Ah, shit. Don't look."

Hana stiffened. "What? Are they --" But it was too late; the image within the gold frame had already captured her attention, and her mouth fell open in shock. "What... no...!"