TS6 - Chapter 10

Kat stood at the edge of the moat of dark brown hissing liquid.  About a hundred paces in front of her, the tower leading out of the eighteenth floor jutted out of the ground, the bubbling brown tar around it serving as an unappealing moat.

“Are you sure the entrance is under the water level?”  Kaleek asked unhappily, his nose scrunching at the heavy scent of sulfur that clogged the air.  “Maybe we should look for another.  Really hard.  Anywhere.  Please.”

“Sorry,” Kat said apologetically.  “I checked earlier.  If there’s an entrance above ground, I can’t see it, and we both know that my vision is absurdly good at this point.”

“Hold on,” he said hurriedly, putting down his backpack and beginning to rifle through it.  “I have some Russo Fruit root in here.  It tastes awful, but it has mana in it and it’s known for improving the senses.  Maybe you’ll be able to spot another door if-”

“There is no other door,” Dorrik cut in, both of his lower arms extended toward both of them with cloth masks clutched in either hand.  “Unless we are willing to take a three to four day detour looking for another town and tracking down an alternative spire, I am afraid that the three of us are going to have to submerge ourselves.”

“That’s tar,” Kaleek replied, pointing at the gently bubbling expanse.  “If I dive into tar, it's going to gunk up my fur.  Without modern shampoos, it will be easier to shave me than clean me.”

“Yes,” Dorrik agreed, the faintest hint of satisfaction in his voice.  “I am sure that Miss Kat and I will be very disappointed when we have to shave you.”

“There has to be some sort of alternative,” Kaleek said nervously.  “Seriously.  Is there any sort of alternative?”

“No,” Dorrik replied, passing off the cloth masks one by one.

Kat looked down at hers.  Mana tingled across her fingers as the mask’s enchantments began to activate.  The actual material of the mask was cheap.  Some sort of alien version of cotton.  The magic laid into it was powerful but slipshod.  She could feel the energy sparking off of it, but at the same time that usually wasn’t a good sign for the item’s longevity.

The mask would have a powerful effect, but there was a limit to how long it could be used.  In this case, about six hours.  Four to be cautious.

With a sigh, she put the mask on.  Her entire body tingled as a static charge went through it and the sulfurous rotten eggs smell wafting up from the tar pit disappeared immediately.

“You’re just saying giving me one word answers to get back at me for booking a vacation to Earth,” Kaleek said dourly, playing with the mask Dorrik had handed him.

Dorrik glanced back at the desoph, his muzzle twisting into a smile.

“Yes,” he replied, crest fluttering playfully.

“Fine,” Kaleek growled, putting his mask on.  “But as soon as Kat finishes taking of the world and ruling with an iron fist or whatever it is she’s in the middle of, I’m going to make you go swimming with me in an actual ocean.  I’ve been reading about Earth’s whales, and they seem like they’d make great pets.”

Kat coughed awkwardly, shuffling her feet.

“Actually, most of the whales are gone,” she said sheepishly.  “Global warming destroyed a lot of their natural habitats and a number of CEOs made private aquariums and kidnapped the rest.  I’m pretty sure my company has an inland sea with some humpbacks in it for a group of mid level executives that are nostalgic about that sort of thing.  I can look into letting you borrow it when I wake up.”

“Oh,” Kaleek replied, disappointed.  “I really wanted to swim with them in the wild.  Maybe I should talk to my pod about selling your environmental restoration equipment on the cheap once your quarantine is lifted.  I’m sure a primitive world with as much ocean as yours would make a prime tourist destination.”

“That…” Kat began only to pause, cocking her head to the side.  “That actually sounds like a pretty good deal.  I’d like to get a cash infusion from someplace other than ‘selling all of our mineral reserves to predatory space moles,’ so that might be a nice place to start.”

“But for now,” Dorrik cut in.  “The tar pit.”

“Right,” Kat replied.  “The tar pit.  I am assuming that we are going to want heat resistance spells before we go in?”

“Of course,” Dorrik agreed, reaching into a pouch to carefully hand her a tiny vial.  “You should also put one drop of this liquid in each eye.  It is designed to grant sight through thick fog, but it will work on the tar.  After all, it will be a challenge for us to fight the floor guardian if it can see us but we can’t see it.”

Kat began mouthing the incantations to the requested spells as Dorrik and Kaleek finished up their preparations.  Each of them was already wearing a pendant of wind resistance, something that would cut back a bit on how much the thick tar impeded them.  Ideally it would turn the heavy liquid into something more like water so that they could swim while fighting the floor guardian, but it was something.

Finally, the spells were done and it was her turn for the eyedrops.  The tar bubbled, belching sulfurous air.  Underneath the surface, something stirred, sending a slow motion ripple toward the shore.

“It looks like the floor guardian woke up,” Kat said, pulling her knife from its sheath and twirling it around her finger.  Part of her wanted to cast Pseudopod and use the water tentacle to draw her spare, but she suspected that ordinary liquids wouldn’t do well trying to pass through the thicker and heavier tar.

“We spent long enough lingering outside its lair,” Dorrik replied, his upper set of hands fiddling with the face mask that barely fit over the end of his muzzle.  “It is time to dive below the surface, otherwise it will begin attacking us from behind its range and we will end up risking damage for nothing.”

“Fine,” Kaleek grumbled, his aggrieved voice partially muffled by his mask.  “But I want everyone here to remember how much I suffered.  I expect Kat to find me an absolutely pristine spot for swimming once I get to Earth.  I’m talking about the finest of sea sprays coming off the water in the morning and the most delicate of seaweed and fish wraps for my meals.”

“Sushi,” Kat responded.  “Got it.”

Kaleek’s eyes lit up behind her as she dove into the tar pit.  He opened his mouth to say something, but the thick black substance swallowed Kat up before she had a chance to hear.

Despite all of their preparations, Kat wasn’t ready for the tar.  It was hot and stuck to her skin, burning and tingling unpleasantly despite all of her preparations.  Her movements were slow and sluggish.  Even with the freedom of movement enchantment clinging to her like a second set of clothes, the tar was thicker than water.  Not so heavy that she couldn’t move, but it felt more like she was trying to swim in pudding or gelatin than an actual liquid.

A ripple through the tar shook Kat from her thoughts.  Her vision was strange, turning the world under the surface into a dim grayscale where every pocket of air and sulfurous gas was just as visible as the walls around the edge of the pit and the towering staircase jutting out of the center.

Tar rushed toward Kat, pushing her slightly backward as a multi-jointed arm swung toward her.  She could barely see the dozen or so claws jutting from its end like thorns, but that was enough for her to know that she wanted no part of it.

She reached out mentally, grabbing hold of gravity and trying to pull herself downward, willing herself into the depths and away from the oncoming attack

Kat didn’t move.  

Her freedom of movement aura apparently didn’t interact with any outside forces like gravity or wind resistance.  Every effort she made to pull herself to freedom treated the sticky tar like the almost solid it was.

She barely managed to cross her arms in front of her chest before the multi sectioned arm hit her.  Kat had only moved a handspan in that time, but that handspan was the difference between life and death.  Hooked talons cut deep into armor and flesh, slashing through her chin and clicking off of Kat’s collar bone.

Pain screamed through her, and Kat went sailing through the thick tar even as ice water flushed through Kat’s veins.  That attack would’ve torn out her throat if she hadn’t managed to sink just enough to throw off the monster’s targeting.

The wall of the pit slammed into her back, knocking the air from Kat’s lungs.  She gasped for breath, trying to focus on the words to Cure Wounds through the pain as Kaleek and Dorrik dove into the tar above her.

Almost immediately, crackling bolts of purple energy tore through the tar, slamming into a giant and amorphous hemisphere of flesh that clung to the bottom of the stairwell.  Another clawed arm whipsawed through the murk toward Dorrik only for the lokkel to glow with violet light and swim up and over the attack.

Kat finished her incantation and the cuts on her face and neck began to close.  Sharp pain erupted near her upper ribs as a wound she hadn’t seen began to knit itself shut as well.

A quick eye to her status sheet showed her hit points ticking upward.  In another five or so seconds, she’d be ready to rejoin Dorrik as he distracted the guardian.

Two more arms swished through the tar one, swinging upward from underneath while the other swung from side to side.  Dorrik’s entire body was glowing purple as he kicked and twisted, corkscrewing just enough to dodge both and somehow, against all logic, slashing outward with one of his swords, drawing a slim line of blood from the side of the vertical arm.

Beneath them, the hemisphere that marked the floor guardian pulsed with rage, sending another wave through the tar that had already been disturbed by its previous attacks.  Kat caught a glimpse of Kaleek, still falling steadily and more or less unnoticed by the monster before she kicked off the wall behind her.

Bones creaked as she began swimming, and Kat could feel strips of leather flapping at her side as her damaged armor resisted her efforts to return to the fray.  She came to a stop some fifteen or twenty paces away from Dorrik and rapidly took stock of her abilities.

Crossbows would do nothing, as soon as the bolt left her weapon it would also shed the magic that was letting Kat move.  It was unlikely that the quarrel would make it more than three paces before it slowed to a stop, trapped by the heavy tar.

Dorrik crossed his swords, swinging both of them and unleashing a pair of purple arcs that zipped through the liquid like it wasn’t even there, cutting deep into the floor guardian below.  Once again, the tar shook and a clawed hand swished past Kat, the current created by its passage pulling her into its wake, as the monster swung at Dorrik.

Spells it was.  She immediately discarded her light and water magic.  Neither would be able to do much to the floor guardian through the tar.  Protection and healing could be useful, but neither would actually deal damage to the beast.  Instead, that left her with her old standby.

Gravity.  

Her eyes searched through the grainy black and white depths until Kat found her target, the spot where one of the multi jointed arms connected to the blob of flesh that represented the core of the guardian’s body.

She focused, trying to keep an eye on her surroundings as mana welled up inside her.  A half second later, the spell clicked into place and Crush Grasp appeared around the joint, locking it into place as it began to squeeze tighter and tighter.

The limb still swung back and forth, it had too many ‘elbows’ for one spell to stop it entirely, but there was no way for it to build up the killing speed that had shredded her armor during its opening attack.

Without two arms attacking at the same time, Dorrik was in his element.  He dodged the next attack by a scale’s width only to jam both of his swords directly into one of the limb’s joints.  Blood began to mix with tar as the creature tried to swing him back and forth, injuring itself further in a vain effort to throw him off.

Then, Kaleek landed.  One of the monster’s arms was still occupied by Kat’s spell, straining against the cracking mana construct as it tried to break free.  Dorrik was riding the other like a cowboy at a rodeo.  That left nothing with which to fight the desoph warrior.

His sword came down with the force of a landing meteor, cutting free almost a pace worth of rubbery flesh.  The floor guardian squealed and its entire body shuddered, arms churning as it tried to reach down and pick the angry otter off of its back.

Kat’s spell shattered, freeing the limb she had been restricting.  Before the handful of razors could swoop down and pluck him away, she renewed the spell, freezing it in place.

Kaleek continued hammering away, cutting his way deeper and deeper into the creature’s back.  It shuddered and screeched, thick flesh undulating madly.  Overhead, Dorrik rode the remaining arm back and forth, swords pulsing with purple light as his Psi skills went to work inside its wounds.

Tar hissed and bubbled around the cuts, searing the floor guardian’s flesh where it was exposed to the elements.  Kat kicked her feet gently keeping herself away from the monster’s core as chunks of its body slowly began to drift upward.

Finally, almost anticlimactically, it shuddered, arms going limp.  Near the bottom of the chamber, the fleshy hemisphere began to slip a way, slithering down a drain built around the base of the staircase.  Kat continued treading tar for another ten to fifteen seconds, making sure that the creature was well and truly dead before she dove and began swimming toward where Kaleek was standing astride its receding body.

She touched down a second or two after Dorrik, and after exchanging a nod, Kaleek opened the door to the stairwell, revealing a shimmering wall of energy that repelled the tar, keeping the interior nice and clean.

Kat stepped through, following Kaleek and Dorrik inside.  Almost immediately Kaleek ripped off his facemask, throwing the tar-covered piece of cloth at the wall where it stuck with a wet ‘thwap.’

“AaaaUgggh!” He yelled, grabbing a handful of the thick steaming liquid and pulling it free from his body.  Kat winced as she noticed the tufts of fur sticking out of the heavy tar.  She shuddered.  As gross as it felt to be covered in the filth, she’d prefer to leave it on her skin a little longer rather than risk peeling it off entirely.

“Here,” she said, directing a Water Jet at the desoph.  Kaleek staggered back a step as the water hammered into him slowly, sloughing off globs of tar.  “Clean yourself up.”

“Thank the architects,” he gushed.  “I don’t think I could take another five minutes of that gunk.  I don’t care if we have to hike halfway across the dreamscape next time.  I refuse to do something like that again.  It’s bad for the fur.”

A notification popped up, marking the final defeat of the floor guardian.

----

Congratulations Adventurer!  

You have defeated the Labrea Beast and ascended past the Eighteenth floor!

For achieving this feat with three or fewer players, a bonus attribute point has been awarded.  Assign it wisely!

For ascending a level as an Elite Gravity Adept, you gain the following benefits:

Gravity Domain + 1

Gravity Enhancement + 1

-----

Keep climbing!  Your answers and the Gardeners await you at the top!

“Fine,” Kat said, smiling as she took her own mask off.  The entire stairwell smelled like a rotten egg, but even that foul stench was welcome after the muted pressure of the tar pit itself.  “I can’t say that I’m thrilled about the way the tar is messing with my hair either.  Next time, the two of us can team up on Dorrik and try to convince him to avoid any overly sticky fights.”

“Splendid,” Kaleek replied.  “Now, tell me more about sushi.  I’m only about two weeks out from Earth and I need something to look forward to after all of this mess.”

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