Miho

Well, we were in quite a pickle.

Seven Searing Tearing Ghouls had suddenly appeared and attacked us after Alexa started singing her song.

Turns out we had been really quiet until now. More quiet than we thought. Turns out we had unknowingly been avoiding the attention of several packs of ghouls skulking around the building. Turns out that Alexa’s microphone was really loud.

So now there was an undetermined amount of ghouls that we unknowingly slipped past, climbing up the stairs to join the fight. They had probably been on the floors we just outright skipped. And probably just as many coming in from above. No telling how many, but the screams and running feet told us it wasn’t just one or two of them.

I couldn’t really blame Alexa; she was just a child after all. And we did tell her to use her singing powers for the next fight. I probably should’ve specified that she should’ve done so after I snuck up on the squirrel, rather than before. Gracious, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I suddenly heard such a loud voice behind me without warning, being as startled as the squirrel itself. My keen wolf hearing probably hadn’t helped me there.

Mistakes were made, but there was no point dwelling on them. I myself made the mistake that I should’ve reacted faster; I couldn’t afford hesitating too long in this hellish place. So the child wasn’t the only one at fault, and even if she had been then we adults would’ve still carried part of the blame for not stopping her in time.

The current situation was a bit more hectic, though. The squirrel wasn’t very strong up close so I wasn’t at risk fighting it, but I anticipated that I could take a while to finish it when I pounced. Now, the jagged breaths of the undead monsters behind me grew ever closer and I wasn’t killing this beast fast enough. Perhaps I should’ve stayed in my Vespa form after all, or turned into a Krutnik. If I started the fight spitting acid, I could just leave the squirrel to die on its own. But I wanted to practise my other forms too, and picking the stealthier wolf creature seemed like a good choice at the time.

And then this happened.

Say what you will about Alexa, but she didn’t stop singing when those monsters appeared. The others threw themselves at the new foes without hesitation as well, showing me that I should really toughen up mentally to keep up.

Even now a part of me was focused on the wrong things. As I bit into the squirrel’s neck and shook my head to make blood spray everywhere, I couldn’t help but think that the song she was singing was quite inappropriate for a girl her age.

It was a familiar song. I hadn’t heard it in quite a while now, but I remembered the tune and how cheery it was. Of course that was still back in the real world, when English wasn’t automatically translated for me and this song was still a lot of cheery gibberish. Never knew that it was about such uncouth topics. Then again, Alexa was still young, so she might not understand what she was singing.

I gave the squirrel one last shake just to be safe, even though the loot screen, experience notification and depleted health bar told me it was dead, and then spat it out. Already ate one before, so no need to swallow this one.

Looking at the burning ghouls and reading their description, I wisely changed forms to the Krutnik. Let’s not make it too easy to take a bite out of me, shall we? I spat acid at the one least obscured by my allies, my aim still wasn’t that great and acid to the back was always an unpleasant surprise, and it screamed shrilly as the acid exposed muscle and bone on their left arm.

I quickly joined the fight. I was a tank in this form, and without Darryl here we only had Elise to keep these guys off of Thomas and Alexa.

And of course-

I quickly rushed towards little Cuddles as it was snapping at a ghoul, the foul creature only failing to bite into the bird-horse because Cuddles bit into his nose and refused to let go.

The poor thing was already covered in scorched feathers and second degree burns, but kept on clawing at the ghoul with unbridled fury. It was hanging in there, the little guy, but another ghoul already noticed the easy meal. They all went for Elise at first, as she was the biggest meal around, but then they noticed that she wasn’t easy pickings.

I grunted as the ghoul bit into my plated back, their teeth not piercing through but the heat of their claws and breath dealing quite some damage.

___ ___ ___ ___

Darryl

Damn it!

Why was this so hard!? Why couldn’t I just…?

If I still had tear ducts, my eyes would’ve watered from the sheer frustration.

The island of light was still behind me, and I could still count the steps I took on both hands. I tried to keep moving, but my paralysing fear and indecisiveness was only getting worse!

Was it the poison, maybe?

No, it couldn’t be. I didn’t see any such notification in my menu, and I checked several times.

I just… I just couldn’t move. It was so hard just to get myself to move, and I didn’t understand why. This shouldn’t be just fear, unless Talossi were a lot more vulnerable to it. This was…

I didn’t know what this was.

I could move some when that vine noticed me and slithered over. For some reason I could take several steps in quick succession when that happened, immediately drawing its attention. I was still all but paralysed though, and me considering a few steps to be a sudden surge of speed was as much a mockery of my current sorry state as it was an odd event.

The vine grappled me and wound around my body several times, hard enough to deal some damage, but it lost interest not soon after and left.

So it couldn’t be the poison, or some kind of magic effect. When I was in the most danger, I could move more than I could now. It didn’t make any sense.

I heard something in the distance and quickly took out my shield.

Footsteps, and they were getting closer. Then light followed, dim and red but so very bright in this otherwise absolute darkness. Something humanoid, smouldering with embers coming off its skin, and it was slowly getting closer.

___ ___ ___ ___

Alexa

The AI was a meanie face.

I knew he could be a bit of an arse and the others definitely seemed to agree, but this was kinda the first time he was really mean to me.

New Achievement! Background Bitch!

An adventuring party consists of a few core elements! The hardy and reliable tank, slashing and hacking away from behind their shield! The sneaky rogue, scouting ahead and taking out enemies silently! The wizard, wielding fire and the arcane to blast swats of enemies to smithereens! And then there’s you. The background vocalist.

Well, at least your expectations of life are decent, voluntarily choosing to be someone else’s cheerleader instead of fighting and being awesome yourself! You know you’re not special, not great, not really cut out for this place! At least you’re making yourself somewhat useful by making others slightly better at what they do! You’re like that ugly friend that the popular girl always keeps next to her to look better by comparison! Better get used to being second fiddle forever, and try to die before the rest of the party does. A lone bard struggling to survive is more pathetic than amusing!

Reward: You got a Bronze Instrument Box!

Jerkface. I was totally gonna be awesome and keep fighting. Hell, we’d see who’s laughing when I reach the 18th floor and win this whole thing!

New Achievement! Song of Stealth

Sneakily~, sneakily~, sneakily creep past the guard~. Quietly~, quietly~ quietly so that they don’t hear~. Huh? Why are you guys looking at me like that? The guard spotted us? How? We were so quiet and I played my banjo so smoothly!

You decided to start singing a song at full volume to buff your party members, while they were sneaking! Wow, that takes a lot of ignorance, or just a complete disregard for your life and the respect of your friends! Anyway, and this may come as a surprise to you, bardic songs to buff stealth exist but they never actually work. You either know why, or I won’t say it because it would be hilarious if you really haven’t figured it out yet.

Reward: You received a Silver Irony Box! This is one of a set of five achievements, you get an additional Gold Bard Box if you collect them all!

New Achievement! Anathema!

Throwing a fireball at the enemies attacking your Dry Tumbleweedian pal! Having a massive Taunt passive effect while your skirmisher friend needs enemies to focus on him to use his best skills! Punching someone with your Exploding Corpse Fist, leaving the gunk so that the necromancer can raise it as… Oh right.

Sometimes your abilities just don’t synergise well with others. It happens to the best of us. Well, sometimes. Usually it just happens to noobs with no concept of stacking buffs and minmaxing their build! Like you! You got this achievement because at least one of your powers is ruining things for at least one member of your team!

Reward: You get a free reset card to pick a new class? Really? No, of course not! There’s no such thing! You’re stuck with the powers you picked, and the terrible synergy it has with the others! Either find yourself a new group, or enjoy your last few days before you die!

A real jerkface.

“Thum dum dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum, dum-dum dum dum dhum-dhum~” I continued singing while reading the achievements, vocalising the piano solo that I probably should’ve realised would be kind of awkward without an actual piano. But like hell I was skipping it, it was the best part of the song!

That was kind of the only thing I could do right now. I could maybe start singing a different song, but I noticed that my first song’s buffs took a while before they actually started to work. Even if these songs didn’t consume any mana, apparently, there was a build-up to act as a reverse cooldown to dissuade me from switching too willy-nilly.

And it wasn’t as if I wasn’t aware of how tense the situation was, or how I would be more of a burden than help if I would start attacking these ghouls instead of singing. Mana Bubble sucked, and I would only put myself in danger for using it. And the others, when they’d have to jump in to protect me.

So I just stayed where I was, my head occasionally touching the ceiling as I flew high enough to be hopefully out of the reach of these ghouls. The first achievement stung, as it was too true that right now I was only good for mildly making the rest of my group better.

“I want to love you, feel you, wrap myself around you.” I continued the song that I learned to sing phonetically on the surface, but whose words I could now understand. Well, kinda. Some parts still made no sense, but that’s song lyrics for you, I guess. “I want to tease you, please you. And if you move real slow, I let it go!”

___ ___ ___ ___

Darryl

The figure approached, and a few smaller smouldering humanoids appeared from elsewhere as well.

I didn’t move, my shield still ready. This was bad, my shield wasn’t going to help me much if they flanked me. But for the time being, they were all still coming at me from the front.

“Hm? I dun member a hole here.” One of the smaller figures said with a raspy voice, their breath gasping and dry.

“Me either.” Another one said. “Vine?”

“No. This hole is right in front of the entrance above.” The big figure said. “Someone fell through.”

“Meat!?” One of the small ones said, immediately attentive.

“Food!” The other said, sounding like an excited, old and nicotine-addicted puppy. “Where? Where!?”

“They already left, idiots!” The big figure said. “Look for a trail, and hope they didn’t use a rope to climb back up or something.”

The two smaller figures crept forward, one standing upright sniffing the air and looking around wildly while the other pressed themselves flat against the floor and crawled forward holding their nose as close to the ground as they could while moving.

Searing Tearing Ghoul, lvl10

Ghouls are already nasty creatures. A necrotic curse of some forgotten god of hunger, these walking corpses exist solely to find and consume meat! Initially an act of cruelty since turned an added danger to these creatures, ghouls are just intelligent enough to be self-aware and able to lament their fate. Their hunger is still an overwhelming addiction, but at least they feel bad about it afterwards! Until their brains rot so far that they just no longer care, like these guys!

Searing Tearing Ghouls are what happens when you take an already nasty curse, and double up with a second divine curse. Talk about unlucky! Although these guys don’t seem to think so. Can’t really feel your flesh burning and your insides slowly turn to soup when you’re undead! As such, these guys continue to worship Emberus even after they became Touched by Him! Now their hunger actually serves a purpose, because the only way to keep their embers from burning up their body is to eat enough flesh to sate the eternal fire! Eat, eat, eat to sate your eternally screaming belly, but it will never be enough! Not like that changes much for a ghoul, though.

The two ghouls crept past me, ignoring my very existence.

“Some smell of foods.” One of them said. “No trails. No meats. Me sad.”

“Statue smells of foods. Many foods rub against statue.” The other one said, sniffing me.

The first one turned around, only now noticing my existence. “Pretty statue. Dunna member it being here before. Maybe foods hide in statue?”

“Nah. Smells old. Were here before, not now.” The other one rasped before smelling the rest of the area, both of them already having forgotten about my existence after concluding I wasn’t food.

“Something here. Smells like statue, smells like almost foods.” The first one said, having found the piece of iron that I spat out before. He sniffed it intently, and then immediately lost interest.

“You’re right, this thing wasn’t here before. Looks magical too, the eyes are glowing.” The big ghoul said, his eyes still trained on me. I already deduced that this guy was smarter than the others given his proper speech, so it was no surprise his focus lasted longer too.

The ghoul stepped towards me, his hulking 3 metre tall figure coming close enough for his description to pop out.

Shalanter Borethel – Emberus-Touched Goliath Ghoul Warpriest

Level 36 Borough Boss!

This is an Elite.

Well, shit.