You eye the imposing gateway and roll your shoulders, limbering up your muscles for some real exertion. "Back up a bit," you say lightly. "Not sure how big a mess this is gonna make."
Linnea looks curious but backs up as you ask, giving you a bit more space to work. Shadow seems like she almost wants to say something, but whatever it is she decides against it, getting out of the splash radius as well. You take a deep breath and a step back, lowering your shoulder as you activate the mental 'switch' that's been blinking at the edge of your thoughts since you tried to lift the gate and failed. Activating your new 'abilities' still feels weird, but the rush of heat and power that fills your muscles as you charge forward at the otherwise impassible barrier. Is it just you or are you actually glowing?
It only lasts for a second in any case as you smash into the gate as an utterly unstoppable force, the sound of stressed metal and crumbling stone rings in your ears as you rip through the metal barrier like it was a rice paper screen and came out on the other side, trailing debris. It takes a second to reorient yourself as the ability fades and you glance down at yourself and then back at the gate. Not a scratch on you, but entire chunks of the door frame are missing and the bars of the portcullis are snapped and bend at weird angles leaving an opening easily big enough for your companions to get through.
Then you notice something else, the cool air of the tower now seems to hold an omnipresent malevolence, a pressure that seems to rest on your shoulders and make your skin crawl as if you were being watched. It's creepy, even if Linnea peeking her head through the opening you left a few seconds later distracts you from it.
"Some people back home would love you," the short plant girl comments as she hops over the broken bars, "Can you do that to anything constructed?"
"Anything that counts as an 'obstacle', I guess," you respond simply, brushing a bit of stone dust off your clothes.
"Being a walking, talking battering ram does seem pretty useful," Shadow adds as she follows behind, glancing around the corridor beyond cautiously. "I guess you'll never have to worry about being locked up, huh?"
"S'pose not," you reply, wandering why that would be her first thought. On the other hand… that is a good point, barely started on the tower and you've already become literally impossible to contain. This place is pretty ridiculous. It makes you wonder how many of the old myths are exaggerations. "I wonder if I could just plow through the ceiling and skip to the next floor," you wonder aloud as the three of you continue on.
"Maybe you can try if it takes too long to find the stairs," Linnea says, "I think the floors are supposed to get a lot harder the higher you go though."
You simply nod, you're intending to go floor skipping yet, if it's even possible, a niggling feeling tells you that it probably isn't that easy. Silence falls again, as you traverse the hall with an eye out for traps. There aren't any though, but you suppose the next room makes up for it, a cavernous chamber with walls alight with flickering magical runes, and at it's far end, a raised dais holding a flickering brazier of green fire. That isn't what draws your attention though. No, that's probably the four armored giant zombies standing stiffly against the four pillars the hold up the long room. Unlike your previous enemies their sallow grey flesh is protected by iron plates bolted right down into their bodies in a caricature of half plate armor, and their gauntlet covered hands hold heavy executioners axes big enough to give you pause.
They also seem to awaken the moment you enter the room, turning to face the entrance in exact time with each other. You hear Shadow curse under her breath as you feel four sets of dead eyes lock on you. "Well. Looks like you might get a shot at using those heals today Lin," you say with a laugh though, ready for your first real rumble in the tower.
"Don't lose your head, I can't fix that," is her dry response even as roots erupt from beneath one of the two closer enemies, binding it in place.
"You're crazy," Shadow mutters already circling away from you. "I'm going to focus on the one close right."
That's all the time for chit chat you have before battle is joined, Shadow's little knife trick punches through armor just as easily as it does flesh you find, but there's an awful lot of zombie to carve. Your attack crumbles the things helmet inward in what would be a lethal blow on a living thing, but the zombie ignores the fact that it's own brains are pouring out of the seams in it's helmet and attacks you anyway. Although you don't have much problem dodging the slow attack… his two friends joining in is more of a problem.
You have to bite back a scream as your block is a hair too slow to stop the third axe that comes your way from biting into your side. Luckily it catches on your ribs and doesn't go any deeper than that. Too make matters worse the brazier at the end of the room flares brightly, the flames briefly taking the appearance of a massive skull that spits out a bolt of green fire… at the wounded zombie. You curse as you see it's wounds knitting together.
Fairs fair though, because a second later warmth and comfort washes over your wounded side. You're almost distracted a moment later though when you hear Shadow snarl something guttural and ugly in a language you don't recognize and for an instant the room seems to grow darker before the air over your head warps and twists, tearing open to disgorge a writhing ball of shadows and eyes that fires like an arrow into the clearly animated brazier and explodes, sending broken bits of metal and glowing green coals everywhere as it's destroyed.
You don't know what the fuck that was, but your grateful for it anyway as you charge up an arc smash yourself your glowing club smashing all three zombies back with varying amounts of damage. The first axe you dodge, the second you catch on your club with a sound like a gong being struck, but once again, you can't entirely stop the third from getting under your guard. This time on your leg, you can also hear the sounds of the fourth zombie breaking free, which doesn't exactly make things better.
Still, the wound knits together almost as soon as it's made, so you don't pay it too much mind. You see Shadows knife-hand tear through most of the first zombies thigh, sending it tumbling to the ground in a wreck, and your own blow pulps the shoulder of the other, leaving the limb barely hanging on and sending it's axe tumbling to the floor. Even with the previously trapped zombie lumbering in to attack, you manage not to get wounded this time, helped along by one of your enemies lacking a weapon.
You find yourself grinning, that was a bit hairy for a second, but you feel like you've got this. Shadow puts down the one who's arm you took off a second later, and your follow up sends the other damaged zombie staggering. They're tough bastards, but between you and Shadow they go down pretty quick. You gotta give it to the girl, she is really good at killing things.
You take a deep breath when the last of the zombies falls, stepping back to avoid the things smelly guts landing on your sandles as it crumbles. Your poor gear is gonna need some… Huh, wait a second. You eye the bloody patch on the side of your armor incredulously, no tear at all. "Huh… didn't notice that before," you comment.
"What is it?" Shadow asks, you glance her way as she casts nervously around the room, is it just you or are the bags under her eyes a little darker?
"Looks like our stuff fixes itself," you respond, pointy to the places where blood stains your clothes, but no rip can be found.
She looks a bit incredulous herself, but your undamaged gear tells the truth of it. You glance down to see Linnea inspecting you as well. "This place really is weird. It tries to kill us, but fixes our stuff?" She sounds kind of bemused. She then glances up to meet your eyes, "Good job not losing your head."
"I'm pretty attached to it," you respond dryly in return. A glance to the side shows the glowing mist coalescing into your rewards is pretty big this time. As it solidifies you can see why. There are several pieces of gear as well as a veritable mountain of shards… at least in comparison to your previous hauls.
Giant Executioner's Axe: A heavy iron blade drowned in blood. If held close to the ear, one can hear the final screams of it's victims. Quality 2 10% chance to deal double damage on a successful hit. [Great Axe]
Green Skull Lantern: A clay facsimile in the shape of a skull, green fire dances in the eye sockets. Quality 2 [Talisman]
27 Shards
+25 XP
It's weird how you can apparently see short text descriptions just by looking at stuff. Still, that's a pretty darn good pile of shards. LInnea is the first to react, crouching down to scoop up the weird little skull in her hands, turning it over curiously to stare into the eyes, "I have a Talisman skill, and that's what it says this is, so what does it…" She mutters under her breath. She frowns eyes scanning over something you can't see and then smiles. "Oh, it makes my spells better." She seems pleased, and then almost drops the thing when it's jaw drops open and a short burst of green fire belches out.
"Good thing you turned it around," you say with some amusement as she fumbles with the thing. "Now if you can figure out how to do it on purpose you'll have a way to attack."
"I'll get the hang of it," she responds, with a pout. "Do you two mind if I take it? I can give up some shards from this fight."
"That sounds fair," Shadow responds. "Maybe we can split whatever we can sell the axe for. Unless you want it Yuuka."
You consider that for a second. Do you want it? You aren't any good with axes, but who knows what leveling up your job will give you.
[][Loot] Vote on Loot Allocation.
Once you've figured that out, the three of you search through the now empty room for an exit. It's Linnea that find it, being able to find the hollow space behind the false wall that conceals the next corridor. The next several hours are less exciting. The enemies here are stronger… zombies have armor and skeletons have proper weapons, but you don't run into any more truly dangerous groups, although you have a few close calls with dart and swinging blade traps. Linnea still uses up another heal and you another arc smash on the way though. You collect a decent number of shards and enough experience to gain a level but no further equipment. Who knew dungeon delving involved so much walking around in empty corridors?
+9 Shards
+8 XP
It's probably around mid afternoon, when you arrive at another contentious crossroads. One path goes dry returning the base state of the tower and the other is lit by eerie, floating will' o' wisps.
[] Dry Hall
[] Wispy Hall
(Hope folks don't mind the way I'm doing things in this one, but something that wore on me a bit in other quests was writing out the more trivial fights, so I'm going to stick with glossing over fights that aren't particularly tense or introduce something new and compiling their rewards in one blob.)
-2 Arc Smashes, -1 Annoying!