Zero Gravity
"So, anyone have any idea how we are going to get to the next dungeon?" Art looked around at the group were all as lost on that as he was. From Ana's notes and directions the next dungeon was a castle that was floating in the sky, far above the ground.
"What about the mages that teleportation to get us up the peak in Island of Mana?" Fenix reminding them that they have moved such a distance before and that was the best clue they had so far, so they called for the Whale Dragon and headed back to the island. The area still as beautiful as ever, as they walked through the town people greeted them as if old friends and even the knights in town gave them a warm welcome back. They headed to the mages at the edge of town.
"Welcome back heroes of Eternia." They looked around at each other trying to figure out what Eternia was, but when it was obvious none of them knew the mage laughed, "Eternia is the world, how could you not know?" All of them felt pretty stupid and wondered how they could have gone so long without ever having learned the name of the world itself, something that didn't come up in every day conversation.
"Right, it has been a while sense we actually heard anyone refer to it by name I guess." Meekle trying to cover for them, not that it would make a difference if they said they were from another world. She gave him a questionable smile and nodded.
"Of course, so what brings us the honor of meeting you again?"
"We are looking for a way to get up to a dungeon in the sky, is there a chance your teleportation magic could get us up there?" Vixen always the first to get to the point. The mages looked shocked at the request and looked at one another before they shook their heads.
"Sorry, that is not within our power, we are only able to teleport to a position we have previously made or one that was originally made. If you were able to find the teleport circle we would be able to activate it for you, otherwise we are unable to help." The group knew this was a long shot to begin with but it still was hard to hear. They gave a bow and started heading back into the town trying to think of their next move, they decided to pay King Rom a visit and see if he had any information for them.
In fact he did, he sat them down at the table, as it had been some time sense he saw them and was glad to see them safe. Food was brought out and he sat with them and looked around, they were not eating as they did last time, not filling themselves, they just picked at the food as they talked, told him of the situation they were in and how the Legion had been playing them.
"Well, there has been stories that there is a transporter North of Crystalis, but I have no idea if these are true, I have never been there." He tossed his hands up, stating this was all the information he had.
"Hey, King Rom. How is it you have all this information?" Fenix feeling like he always had just the right answers when it came to the dungeons and it put him on edge after all they had been through.
"That would be because I, along with the other Kings in the world and the young guild master you met, are all descendants of the great heroes." They all stopped for a moment and looked at him.
"Does that mean the King of Crystalis is also a descendant of the heroes?" Art being the first to break the silence. Rom raised a brow to him and tilted his head.
"There is no King of Crystalis, there hasn't been for many years. Who ever you met is an impostor, possibly one from the Legion." All of their jaws dropped, you could see the pieces of the puzzles trying to fit together in their minds as they learned this information. Was that why he didn't give us a formal name, is this why they pushed us to start the story line. All of them in a bit of panic at the moment but quickly snapped out of it as King Rom clapped his hands to get their attention. "It is a waist to think back on that, now is the time to buckle down and find your next path. If you are going to the Northern mountain to find the transport then I will send a mage with you to open it."
He informed them that they would need new cloths, something to keep them warm, as it got into freezing temperature on the mountain. He called for the mage they spoke to before and they were shown to the a room full of beautiful cloths and told to find the biggest and warmest things they could to take with them. They took this chance to try on lots of cloths, some weird, some cool but they enjoyed the hunt around the room to find what they needed. Soon they gathered what they picked out and headed to the main entrance where the King and the mage waited for them.
"A pleasure to see you once again, I am Astaria." She granted them her name, seeing as they would be traveling together for the time being. With that they left, heading to the beach side but Astaria was hesitant on climbing into the mouth of a beast, she offered to create a shell on top of the Whale Dragon that would keep them safe, which they all were more than excited to hear, finally getting to see as they traveled under water.
There were other large beasts and the world under the water looked so beautiful, much more peaceful that it did on the land at the moment. But soon they surfaced and everything was covered in white, snow fell from the sky and even through the magical shell they could feel just how cold it was as they rushed to put on all the heavy cloths they had got from King Rom. There were many clusters of land around but this was the largest, the others just flat planes while this one had mountains and even a city it would seem. Their best bet was to go there and see if anyone had any information, now that they knew the Kings held most of the information it gave them a good place to start.
The city was much different, the buildings all made out of some red clay that stood out even covered under snow. The people explained how it was crushed lava rock, that produced head for them so they could stay warm, the ground was even paved with it and the castle was made out of the same stuff, it was quite amazing for them to see, sense most all the towns were made out of stone of some sort. Everyone in town seemed in a panic though, words of the Legion having come through town and were still in the area whispered around town. It didn't seem like they were going to get any useful information from the people so they headed straight to the castle.
The King was willing to see them but unlike the others they had met, he was shy and closed off, he did not stand tall and was not as excited about them being there. They gave a respectful bow to him and informed him of the situation.
"Yes, yes, I have heard of you but how am I to know you are who you say you are." He scoffed at them, turning his head then glancing back to see how they would react. They took a moment to process his words.
"He said 'you' a lot in that small sentence." Art joked and they all tried to hold back their laughs.
"Sire, we can prove we are the heroes." Fenix said with a bit of laughter in his voice. He looked around at them all, reaching into his bag and pulling one of the relic pieces out, the rest catching on and doing the same, showing that they had three of them so far.
"Hmm, I have heard the Legion also has some." Vixen shook her head at the King.
"No, they only have one that they stole from us."
"So you are saying you can't keep them safe from the Legion then." He sat up in his chair, his back strait and his chin high. "How can I give you information if you can't promise me that you can keep them safe."
"We have already found a way to stop them from taking any more, we promise and we have three of them, the more we have the better the odds are." Razah bit at her lip, hoping her words would get through to him. He sighed and fell back slouching in his throne as he rubbed two of his fingers at his temple.
"I told the soldiers I wasn't made for this, bloodline or not." He whined out, as if he didn't want to be there or make these types of decisions. "If you must know there is a path, it is behind the castle, there is a cave that will lead to the transport." He waved them away, as if he didn't actually care in the first place. Just putting on a show for the public, so that he could say checked them all, he was definitely not like the other Kings.
They quickly left the town along with Astaria and started looking for the cave that was talked about. Unlike the other areas, monsters roamed pretty freely here, large wolves, ice golem and ice elemental orbs rushed them as they started trying to find the cave, it wasn't like anything they were use to. The town seemed like the only safe place but they fought them off, Art using his flame sword to cut through them one after another and Vixen raining fire arrows down on them. This made quick work of these monsters till they finally found the cave and headed in.
Having even less luck inside, with snow white lizard men and ice slimes to add to it. There slime jell skin was coated in a layer of ice that came to a point on their head that they used to bash against them. Still they made their way through, the path led them to a dead end, no triggers or latches, feeling as though they were lied to they started heading back down the cave, till they came to an area that looked like it was iced over, having not noticed it their first time through as they were occupied with the fighting.
They burned through it to show another entrance that led them to a opening in the cave that fell into a small hidden area where grass was growing and no snow fell to the floor. They climbed down the side of the cave to this small area that, it was bright and warm there and as they looked up into the sky they could see a large floating island above them.
"This must be it, the transporter tends to resonate in the area it is in. That would explain the warmth and lack of snow." Astaria explained before she started chanting, the ground lit up, as if each blade of grass was a glowing light. They looked to the mage and she nodded, letting them know she would wait there for them, so that they had a way back.
As they stepped in they were faced with a large castle, the wind blew hard up there and snow covered over the black stone of the castle. As they approached they saw no sign of Legion members, taking their first steps inside showed the place to be much different than expected. There was no hall or throne room, it was gutted and looked more like a dungeon inside, there were moving platforms everywhere, showing that this would be a slow moving dungeon as they jumped onto the first moving platform. Once they were on it a monster popped up in the middle, a floating orb that they had little room to attack it back.
Art unable to swing his sword freely this was left to Fenix to attack at till it fell apart, all the rest trying to defend the best they could on the small platform.
"We should move one at a time if its going to be like this, otherwise none of us will be able to attack." Art was the first to leap off, landing on the other side of the room with a single door. As they entered they flew up into the air and fell onto the ceiling, making the room flip upside down.
"I think I am going to be sick." Meekle said as he tried to stand up, feeling weird, as they still felt upside down but could stand and walk around. When they looked down towards where they came from they could see that there was no longer a floor to stand on but a pit of spikes filling the room.
"I think we are supposed to shift the gravity to get back down, there is a door as well as a moving platform down there." Fenix making quick observations before leading the way across the room, as there was a door below there was also one up there with them. They went through and were met with large robots, they road on tank tracks for legs and there body had a full swivel to it. One arm had a sword attached the other had a laser gun on it and they attacked quick, throwing the group off as they dodged and charged the monster, Vixen finding that it has no element weakness. They started hacking and slashing at it, Razah in the back doing small spells to keep up the damage output, Tophuu whipping at it, keeping his beasts hidden for now, saving his mana for later.
After beating the robots that protected over the castle their attention was pulled to a large sphere on top of some type of machinery that was unlike anything they had seen before. It was glowing a bright blue color and they shrugged as they looked for a switch on it, but there was no luck as they found nothing and the room had no door on their side.
"Why don't I just hit it." Art said, looking around at them, they looked at him like he was crazy, all but Fenix who was still examining the machine.
"Give it a shot, it would seem there is no hidden panel, this may be pressure activated. By the look of it, I would guess this is what is changing the gravity, if we break it then it will still do what we want." Fenix turned and nodded to Art to go for it. As she slashed the light turned red and they fell from the ceiling to the floor again, two hidden doors opened and robots rushed in, three of the track runners and two of the floating orbs from before. There best attacks against these were their physical hits, doing good damage to the robots till they were busted up and digitized.
Once they finished they went to the only door in the room, leading them back into the spiked room they had to wait for the moving floor to get to them, Art jumped on first, dealing with the fly bot that popped up. The floor moved against the wall of the room, passing the door they originally came through and going over to the door on the right side of the room he opened it and then went back around to get everyone. Once they reached the new open door they jumped in as quickly as possible. The next room had no monsters waiting for them, it had halls that led in all directions, each one with a moving floor, some moving forward and other pushing them back so they couldn't get through.
They followed one of the paths but it led to another moving floor that wouldn't let them go past, on the other side of the entrance the came from was one of the moving floors that led back to the main room. Heading back and taking the next path they found a switch that reversed the floors. Making it possible to go back the way they came they went and checked the first path they had gone down and went farther into the path finding a mimic chest that they dealt with before trying to figure out how to get back again. The rest of the room was empty except a switch that flipped the floors once again, letting them out and going back to the main hall they had to go flip the switch they did the first time which got the middle path going the right way. It seemed both the switches had to be in the down position to make the main path moving the right way.
Once they got through there and found a room full of spikes, these platforms didn't move but there was large gaps between them. A look around the room would show similar platforms above but no ceiling, just more spikes. The door they needed to get through was at the far end of the room and none of them could make the jumps needed. That didn't stop Art from trying as he ran from platform to platform and then jumped, trying to go as far as he could, as soon as he jumped the gravity shifted and dragged him to the ceiling and smacking into the spikes, at which point he appeared back at the entrance with the rest of the group.
"Well, at least we know what we have to do now." Meekle said with a not so enthused voice as he looked at Art he was just starting to become solid again after a damage fall like that. The room itself felt simple after they figured out what to do, it was just a matter of timing to land on each of the safe spots and avoid the spikes, everyone was more shocked that it was Art that took the big risk and not Tophuu, who shrugged.
"Those are spikes." Tophuu explained as everyone looked at him, knowing exactly what they were thinking. Once they all got across that was when they noticed just how different this door was from the others, it was larger and cog wheels latched it shut, they had to spin them manually till the door clicked and unlocked. As the door slid open a steam crept out, clearing the air so they could see, at first it looked like a large work shop, with scraps of metal and machines all piled up.
The pile started falling all over as a large giant pushed itself up, it was made of scraps and had a echoing roar that sounded like metal pipes blowing loudly, its upper half was large but it had no lower body, large wire tubes came out of it and connected into the wall. It looked like a skeleton made out of metal, it grabbed at one of the broke down robots and threw it at the group as it started to laugh at them. The fight was just starting as they rushed in, nothing else to do but fight there way out of it, but Vixen had another job to do. She focused all she could on the Legion man that had been hunting them and started setting traps, dodging the large hands that swung at her and the falling scraps.
Art rushed to the side of it and started climbing it to get onto its back and up to its head where he started laying into it, slashing and cutting at it as much as he could, the Gigabot reached back, slapping its hand against itself to try and smash Art, who though trying to dodge fell off and onto the floor where he was met with the giant's hand. Fenix in his elephant form rushed it and smashed into its arm, freeing Art who ran to the other side of the room and started sifting through his items, he was having trouble finding a potion before he pulled just one out.
"Hey, did anyone else remember to replenish their items after the Ifrit battle?" He looked around at the others who all looked like stone as they realized just how deep they were into this. He downed the potion and ran back in, it was going to take all they had to finish off this boss with no more heals. Tophuu was quick to summon up the Slime King, this time it left him with some mana, it seemed like the Ifrit battle along with all the monsters they faced on the way here paid off well. He decided to summon his ShellBoar as well, he road on top of Slimey and rushed in with his whip to start bashing and slamming against the giant. Slimey spit out a large amount of slime all over the room some of the bits that hit the party started to heal them a bit.
Razah stayed her new course and continued using her medium spells, rather than just her heavy one. Slimey was grabbed between the hands of the Gigabot and squished, being called back to Tophuu who fell to the floor and ran away from it. The slime stayed and was able to give them an option of healing for a bit, the ShellBoar smashed into the side of it, knocking it around and Art climbed on to of the ShellBoar and started attacking at the giant once again, his swords coming out in a mass, his hands out trying to hold them all.
"Endless sword slash." He called out the name of his skill as the swords rained down on it like stars falling from the sky, but with that attack his mana was drained and he had nothing left but basic attacks. Vixen used up all her magic setting up traps for the Legion and was left shooting arrow after arrow at the Gigabot but in time she realized she had run out of arrows, along with potions she forgot to get more arrows and was now stuck with weak bashes at the boss with her bow and Razah was quickly running low on mana. Meekle continued to claw at it, doing the most damage at this time but his form wouldn't last and they were starting to feel like sitting ducks. Fenix reached into his bag and found one magic potion, at first he was going to give it to Razah but then he remembered.
He downed the potion and called out "Secret form, Ifrit." His body cracked and he grew large, his skin charred and flames burst from him, letting out a grizzly roar as he charged forward, slamming into the giant, fire sparked out and covered over both of them as he punched and whipped at it with the chains. Fenix health started to slowly fall from the flaming form he had taken. He continued hitting it, smashing against it, trying to beat it before his health fell to low, but he had to give up the form, the boss so close to being finished, it roared and started throwing robots and scraps around the room as they all dodged about. Tophuu's ShellBoar rushed in and slammed against the boss once more, clipping the rest of its health and ending the rain of metal as they all took breath after breath.
As the boss fell apart and the relic was shown a green puff of smoke filled the room just like last time, laughter called out from inside the smoke but was cut silent with the sound of whipping noises and groans, the traps had worked and the all rushed in, grabbing the seal out of the clutches of the man that was tangled up in vines that cut into him.
"You haven't won yet." He grumbled at them with a sickening glare. They knew they didn't have the strength to beat him and took the seal and left through the blue portal that showed up. None of them wanting to wait around for him to get free. They had finally got their third seal and rushed back to the transport, finding Astaria waiting for them, all of them looking beat up she looked at them for a moment in shock.
"You had a party without me." She stated before she laughed at them. They had to be as careful as possible till they made it back to the clay town near the mountains, even then they didn't want to stay with the Legion so close by. They got potions and items they needed and left town quickly, heading to the closest place they new they would be safe, the guild city, Faefrihed.