How do you defeat a seemingly omniscient enemy that's faster and stronger than you?
Most would suggest to get rid of one of these qualities, but then you'd be playing catch up, and catching up, or even escaping the dark itself, seems pretty impossible.
But the solution I found was just as great.
If your enemy is the darkness, simply bring them to the light!
As I chant the name of my new spell, I stared at where I'm pretty sure the enemy is.
I only have one shot. "Earth Magic: Shifting Stone!"
And before my eyes, the stone making up the ceiling began to peel upwards, like some invisible hand peeling a banana, and suddenly, the darkness was gone.
My fear, was gone…
The enemy, which I had assumed would be revealed in the light, seemed to have run away.
And the ambient magic of the world above flooded into the once abyssal depths. Allowing me to absorb some of it, and solidify the spell, so that the ceiling wouldn't come crashing down again or reform. With my blood pumping, I didn't even care that the wind was making me shiver again or of the pain in my chest.
As I look down the now revealed to be rather short hallway, I find at the other side, the sliced up and unmoving form of Sertentio.
I run over to him, terror filling by veins, but shockingly, it doesn't extend the hallway.
I quickly assessed the situation. He had a multitude of cut, all pitch black, spread all over his body, surprisingly, none of it bled.
But as I kneeled down to check his pulse, which was faint, but thankfully consistent, I felt as if I knelt down onto something soft.
I looked down, and nearly lost my breakfast.
It was his hand…
It had been cut off, luckily, he had only lost one. But even so…
Rage pulsed in my veins at the thought of the cowardly bastard that did this to him.
"Earth Magic: Earthen Whirlwind!" I manifested my flying mount, and picked him and his hand up, laying them gently on the mount, before stepping onto it as well, and starting to fly out of the massive hole in the ceiling. It's then that I heard a loud dragging.
'Wait a minute-' but before I could think another word, we had already made it out to the wasteland of hail, and before my eyes, my spell was suddenly being rejected somehow, and the stone suddenly curled back into place.
I checked my magic reserve, only to find that I didn't have enough to redo the spell, retrieve the man, and then recast my whirlwind, and recast it again…
Meaning that I just left a what was potentially a civilian of clover inside of that death trap, alone, with a homicidal spell hunting down any humans it came across…
I did throw up this time. But even as I panicked at the danger that the poor man was no doubt in, I glanced back at my senior, and his deadly state.
And with a grimace, I flew up back to the town. Intent on getting Sert to a hospital, resupplying, and calling for back up.
But that didn't stop the guilt from creeping in like a root. Nor my own resolve to save that young Man, no matter what.
- - - -
Ever experience cognitive dissonance, and unexplainable vertigo at the same time?
It fuckin sucks.
Here I was, walking along like normal, hurting all over, avoiding eye contact with the increasingly growing mass of eyes and teeth, and just hoping that there isn't a stair case at the end of this fuckin place.
When to my surprise, I feel like a gods damned rubber being snapped forward and back, and I'm suddenly flung -bear and all- into a room lit by cyan torches.
I would have thrown up, if not for the bear pressing me into the chilly wall…
And I definitely did not scream. Even as it pressed on the spike. And white hot agony shot through my side. Yup, definitely no screaming in pain on my end…
Oh god I've started jokeing to cope. You'd think I would have lost it sooner…
After I none-too painfully escaped being crushed by the stank ass bear's flank, I looked around.
It was bright as fuck. And painful on my eyes at that. Cyan torches light every meter of the rectangular room.
It wasn't nearly as bad as the last few times, since I was only in the dark for a small amount of time, but, still, ow.
The bear is in the way of seeing the other side, but in this side is a plaque made of a nearly light absorbing black metal.
The system was no where to be seen.
"Hey, system, can you read this?"
The system popped up, and after a few too many moments, wrote out [Read what?]
I responded by saying "this plaque? It Seems like it's in another language or something," it was true, as the nearly pitch black words were more like constantly shifting wisps of incomprehensible nothing.
[what plaque?] the system wrote with what might have been confusion
I pointed at the clearly defined black plaque, and say "that one, that's right in front of you?"
[User, nothings there. It's just an empty bit of wall.] shocked by this, I reluctantly withdrew my finger, and looked away from that wall…
'There might be some lore there, maybe even, a power up?' No no no, that's the voice of the devil speaking I'm not going to-
I turned around with a glint in my eye 'well… maybe one look wouldn't hurt.' And idled-up to the apparently empty wall.
Now that I get a closer look, although it looks like metal, it's more like a very compact mist.
I contemplate touching it, but before I can, the system board whips in the way, with a sentence on it's surface.
[The system has been patient enough! Either try your best to find the way out, or do something productive, instead of just looking at a stupid empty wall!]
I was taken aback at the board of text, and nodded somberly, before turning around. and as the system then moves to follow me, I turn back around and touch the plaque, just to be petty.
To be honest, that really was not a good move, and I'll accredit my lack of critical thinking to the thought that it was all in my head.
But as I touched the plaque, I didn't stop. when my finger met the wall, I accidentally slipped into the fuckin thing.
It was with dread that I hesitantly looked around. Only to find myself, not in total darkness, but just in a very dark room, like a storage closet, only illuminated by, a rough, ivory crystal, in a socket in the wall. Coming out of the crystal, is three lines, each a different color, each one most likely representing the three of the eight colors in the room where I fought the hydra.
Although only three, the yellow, cyan, and magenta lights appeared to be on, there were a multitude of slots at the tip of each of the lines, both the ones greyed out, and the ones shining.
The rest of the room is mundane in comparison, a bunch of boxes, some open, some closed…
Wait, boxes? As in, cardboard??
In a fantasy world that doesn't even know what a printer is???
I check the boxes, strange stones, each with the same sigil engraved on them.
There are some more on the floor below the crystal.
Each box holds a corresponding sigil, each have been etched with a unique color.
Seems like an easy enough puzzle to figure out.
Exept, line that seemed to indicate the cyan light, was red, the one on the yellow line was a deep blue, and the one on the magenta line was a vibrant green.
So it seems like a match it to the opposite kind of thing…
I tried to put a red one on the light that I surmised would be red, but no dice, it wouldn't even stick.
So, instead, I grabbed one of the cyan ones, and put it there, and it lit up red.
This really is a strange puzzle…
I continued to match the colors to their opposite, though it did feel a bit infantile, it was at least something to do, besides, I'd rather let the system cool down before returning.
After a minute, the light puzzle was completed.
And I felt something shift.
Again, I got so consumed by the assumption of a reward, that I didn't bother to question why I was doing it.
As I saw each of the runes slowly start dripping ichor, and the each light start to be filled in with black, slowly encroaching the core, i didn't bother to see what would happen next, and ran for the entrance.
Only to find none…
Mentally punching myself, I turned back around just in time to see the darkness start to encroach on the crystal itself, I was left feeling trepidation, as the crystal slowly went dark, and the entire room went along with it.
My eye twitched as I saw, just before the room went full dark, a health bar appear in the bottom of my vision, only to then be covered by that damned darkness.
I didn't even get to see the name…