Three more bolts sank into the body of the guardian, yet its health remained at a hundred percent. Whatever the creature was, fighting it with conventional methods proved ineffective. Even Falkner was puzzled by the outcome. According to the boy, ranged weapons were supposed to deal just as much damage they would deal to any other creature. And yet, they clearly didn’t.

Aim for the eyes, Dallion thought. That was all good and well, if there were any to be found. The entire party had been fighting the creature for over a minute, and all they had succeeded in doing was to avoid its attacks. To make matters worse, the guardian was adept at targeting multiple targets simultaneously.

“Split up!” Dallion shouted. The one weakness he had managed to spot, thanks to Cellano, was that the scylla preferred to have five legs or more attached to the ceiling. Despite frequent opportunities, it had allowed itself to attack with half its legs only once. “Make it stretch a bit.”

There always was the option for Dallion to use music. As long as he remained on the opposite side of the hall, the scylla wasn’t going to target him. However, the experience from the previous guardian encounter was far too fresh. Each time he thought about drawing his harpsisword, the pain in his head returned. The feeling was so intense, that for a moment Dallion wondered if he hadn’t acquired a new limiting echo somehow.

There has to be a way! Dallion thought. The captains hadn’t chosen a task that couldn’t be completed. It was all just a puzzle, all the party had to do was identify the correct pieces, then solve it.

“Try aiming for the end of its legs,” Dallion shouted. “Maybe we can get it to fall off the ceiling.”

“Already tried that,” Bel yelled back. “Doesn’t work.”

“Not to pressure you or anything, but we won’t be able to evade forever,” Arthurows said. “What do we do?”

Process of elimination, Dallion thought. There was always the option to flee, then rest a bit and have another go. As far as he was aware, there was no time limit imposed. What would that change, though? If they couldn’t even injure the guardian now, there was little chance they would be able to later.

It had to be something related to the item’s current level. Dallion had guessed correctly that the guardian was linked to the perception attribute. Maybe there was a hint in the class? That was the only information available.

“Art, I’ll need some guarding.” Damn it all! Dallion grabbed his harpsisword. Even if this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down, he would be a fool if he didn’t try. “Keep it occupied on your end,” he shouted as he ran to get out of the scylla’s reach.

When Dallion was at a safe distance, he focused on the scylla, using his music skills. At first there was nothing, as if the darkness had swallowed any emotions the creature might have. It was as if he was staring at a blob of tar come to life. After a few seconds, though, faint blue lines began to emerge. Like veins, they spread from a spot on the belly of the creature to the very extremities of its legs. Strangely enough, the only emotion that Dallion could feel was absolute calm, as if the creature was sleeping…

Holding his breath, Dallion pulled the harpsisword’s string. A blue marker appeared. Thankfully, so far there wasn’t any sign of a headache. Taking advantage of the fact, Dallion waited until the precise moment, then played the string again. The guardian froze. The ‘heart’ pulsed twice, sending colored pulses down the legs. That was new. Encouraged by the hint, Dallion waited and played the string again, and again. Each time, the pulsing of the heart increased. At the fifth time, the organ sprouted like a rose. Vibrant blue colors filled the inside of the creature, merging into a mix of gratitude and desire for battle. Before Dallion’s very eyes, a humanoid form of a nymph appeared within the mass of “tar” The legs moved back, becoming snake-like tentacles on the creature’s back, as the tall elegant creature stepped onto the floor of the chamber like a ballerina.

Looking at Dallion, the guardian smiled. Two things made an immediate impression: a series of large eyes had appeared scattered all over the nymph’s body; also the nymph was male.

COMBAT INITIATED

“You gotta be kidding me!” Cellano shouted. “The battle starts now?”

“Go for the eyes!” Dallion quickly let go of the harpsisword with one hand, as he drew the dartbow. With markers being shared between party members, all he needed to do was to target the eyes and the rest would take care of things.

Weak spot marks emerged on several of the eyes, just as predicted. Unfortunately, the scylla had no intention of letting himself be hit that easily. Two of the black tentacles darted in the direction of Dallion. It was only thanks to Arthurows’ quick reaction that the attack was blocked.

“Shoot!” Dallion shouted, moving back. With Arthurows in the way he no longer had a clear line of sight. Thankfully, that no longer mattered. Having had a glimpse of the enemy’s weak spots, the rest of the party jumped into action.

Cellano was the first to act, rushing forward as a human hatchet, taking the guardian head on. While not nearly as ineffective, each of his strikes managed to chip off a few percent of the scylla’s health. Thrilled by the experience, the guardian pulled back its tentacles, attacking the young man with all four of them. The remaining four moved about in chaotic fashion, forming a makeshift shield. Even so, every now and again eyes would open and close all over his body in a mesmerizingly disturbing fashion.

Why can’t you hit him? Dallion sheathed his harpsisword and aimed at the guardian over Arthurows’ shoulder.

“Careful there,” Arthurows said. “He’s stronger than he looks!”

“At this distance, what could he do?” Dallion asked and instantly regretted it. One of the things he had noticed in this world, that jinxing was pretty much a law of nature. No sooner had he asked the question than two of the scylla’s tentacles splashed on the ground, transforming into a mischief of toothroaches.

I just had to ask, Dallion grumbled to himself. Either way, he wasn’t going to let a good target go to waste. Concentrating, he squeezed the trigger.

CRITICAL SHOT

Weak spot found!

Dealt damage was increased by 150%

The hit quickly reduced the guardian’s health by fifteen percent, forcing him to back away, using the rats as a defensive ring around him. With that and the previous attacks, there was only about two-thirds health. No, less than that—for some reason even the health continued to slowly decrease even without anyone hitting it.

Of course! Dallion thought.

“Hit the—” he began.

“Kill the toothroaches!” Falkner shouted, interrupting Dallion. “They are still part of him!”

It was slightly disappointing that the boy had managed to steal Dallion’s suggestion, but in the grand scope of things it didn’t matter. Even so, Dallion decided to one-up him.

“Cut the other tentacles! That way you’ll see the weak spots better.”

The final all out attack commenced. Eager to get some melee practice with his new weapon, Dallion took the harpsisword once more and charged forward. Everyone was following markers at this point, some effortlessly, others without even looking. Dallion was neither of these categories. While he had memorized quite a few guard patterns, attacks still required for him to rely on the tutorial.

It took him five seconds to get into position, then pick a strike that wouldn’t mesh with anyone else’s. The whole experience was a combination of cat’s cradle and reverse Jenga with Dallion trying to hit a weak spot before anyone else could. Alas for him, he failed. Bel and Falkner were the clear winners, hitting whatever target they wished from a distance, while Cellano dealt with the tentacles one by one.

In less than a minute, the scylla’s health had reached ten percent.

“Surrender,” Dallion shouted.

The guardian looked at him with a combination of thanks and amusement, but simply kept on fighting. It was clear to everyone that he was continuing a losing battle, but for some reason, he refused to give up. Soon enough the expected rectangle appeared.

DAGGER Level 2 has been cleared!

Claim your focus that suits you best and continue on to fulfil the DAGGER’s destiny!

“That was a bit anticlimactic,” Arthurows said, as he made his way to the reward rectangle. He had been the only member of the party not to deal any damage, and still the first to head in and claim his reward.

“I guess because he was an item scylla,” Falkner explained. “Usually, they’re much tougher than this.”

That was true. In Dallion’s view, the fight had been far too easy. Except for the initial hiccup, they had defeated the enemy far too easy, and it wasn’t because of his use of music skills. Something had kept the guardian from going all out.

“Not bad.” Vend approached once the action was over. “Of course, you could have just made enough noise to wake the guardian up. You were right that the focus of this level was perception, though you failed to make use of that. Perception is not only sight.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Arthurows replied in his casual fashion. “Any hints for the next one?”

“Sure. Don’t mess up. Failing so close to the end hurts a lot.”

As the rest of the party went to claim their level rewards, Dallion stayed behind.

“Vend,” he began. “Why is the rest so structured?”

“What do you mean?”

“The patterns, the levels based on awakened focus, the fact that the guardians don’t go all out. Both this one and the leopard could have done a lot more damage, and they didn’t. It was almost as if they had an echo limiting them.”

“A guardian with an echo.” Vend laughed. “That’s a good one. You’re right, though. Nothing serious is expected to happen to any of you during the trial. There’s not much we know about the sphere items, but some of them are better known than others. The Academy had determined the daggers to be training artefacts. The theory goes that the people before used them to prepare the children for the real thing. Given what’s involved, we assume that the times had been much more violent back then. Since the tests and guardians are simple enough, a lot of guilds buy some of them to use for trial purposes.”

That still wasn’t a complete answer to Dallion’s question, but it had to do for the moment.

“Then why give them out if they are fully cleared?”

“Because then they stop being a trial realm. Once all levels are unsealed, the item fulfills its destiny and becomes an ordinary item. Actually, it becomes slightly worse. While the item itself is almost unbreakable, it’s hollow.”

“Hollow?” The first thing Dallion imagined was one of those chocolate figurines wrapped in foil. They looked quite nice on the outside, but inside had nothing but air.

“They don’t have a guardian inside. Once completed, you get this whole realm, rivaling that of a building, but it’s completely empty. Most often people use them to place echoes for further training. The pyramid you entered during your battle with March used to be such an artifact. Captain Adzorg modified it to what you got to see.”

Sphere artifacts didn’t have guardians? That felt slightly weird, though not as much as Vend made it out to be; possibly because as someone born on Earth, Dallion didn’t find items without guardians all that strange. Even so, in a world in which every object had a conscience, this probably was the equivalent of an item carcass.

“Thanks.” Dallion nodded, then went to reclaim his level two reward.

As before, five options were presented to him; and just as before, Dallion picked the mysterious grey one. Four down, sixteen to go.