Chapter 2: First Contact, Well, Technically Second
*Due to self-conscious difficulties, this chapter (and probably the rest of the text) will be written in a 3rd person point of view. MacroniDude's quick thinking no longer takes lead.*
"Why do we have to go in with a party of four?" MacroniDude protests out loud. He's already satisfied with his current plan with the party of eleven people. As long as things go according to Plan B, nothing should stand in their way.
"Sir Luther said that by entering the mysterious dungeon with a team of four people, according to the rule of the Master Guild in Underfoot, we will be a role model as a party. If we managed to leave, the results will show the rest of the Dungeon Fighters that anyone can clear that place with the standard procedures." Cleric John answers the Mechanic's question. MacroniDude scoffs at his response as he fumbles through the innards of his deactivated flying robot.
"Sound reason, but that quantity considerably cripples our effectiveness as a team." Screwing a screw, MacroniDude provides a comeback. SteeStee shifts her legs uncomfortably.
"Quality over quantity, and besides," FlameOnFeet responds with a classic idea "four people is actually pretty effective. A squad of elite soldiers could eliminate an entire nation if they operate right. Why do I know this? I don't know."
"Okay fine, guess it's no use arguing." There is already three people in the party by default: MacroniDude himself, John, and SteeStee. The Mechanic observes the banquet hall once again. The last remaining slot is very important. That last person may be the saving grace of the party, or the death of them. Who will be up for such as task? SteeStee glares at him while he crosses off each member on a mental list as he slowly judges everyone around the room. It doesn't long for him to notice her odd enmity towards him.
"Hey, what's her deal?" MacroniDude whispers to FlameOnFeet, assuming he knew a lot about this Witch.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"
"Hey girl what's your problem?" Straight jumps to the point. "What's with your attitude? Why you acting like I'm the reason the Metastasis happened? Oh and also you shouldn't show so much skin for someone your age." He stares at her short shorts.
SteeStee's glares into his soul through his eye sockets. She clicks her tongue and speaks for the first time: "Shut up, don't talk to me! Gosh you're so damn annoying!" And with that she jumps off her chair and walks off somewhere in the back. The hall makes no noise. In the end Tamakorosu was picked for the job. MacroniDude told him he's counting on his Kazan and Bremen.
The time has finally come. MacroniDude bid his possible final farewell to the guild, along with Tamakorosu. The party of four walks to the harbor in an awkward silence. While their ship was being prepared, SteeStee walks off to sit at a nearby bench, counting her potions. MacroniDude stares at her. Generic tsundere. He thinks. Teenage girl just entering puberty. Hm...So Kento knows her?
He takes out an invention from Empyrean, a cell phone, and snaps a picture of her sitting at the bench. He then sends it to his contact, Kento. Luckily there is some Wi-Fi. A reply was received almost instantaneously.
"dude wtf? why do u hav a pic of her?" Kento seems to be worried.
"uh she's an acquaintance I guess." MacroniDude responds to his text.
"yooo she real delicious :))) im jelly. Why you u with her? Is she with cree?"
"cree's kind of missing. She and I along with some other peeps are investigating some stuff"
"ok hf i have to escort my BAE to her bath :)))))))))"
Their ship was ready just as he finishes reading the text message. No much were to be discussed. After some time they finally arrive at the gigantic Interdimensional Portal. Captain Luther bids them good luck and shoves them in after making sure MacroniDude's flying robot has began recording. After what seems to be hours of endless falling and drifting and spinning they finally land somewhere. John heals their fall damage with haste. The party then examines their environment. They are in the middle of the first area of Dark Side, except there were no monsters anywhere to be seen.
"Uh is this really the place? It looks exactly just like Dark Side, although I don't feel so much chills in my spine." MacroniDude deploys a Land runner to scout their surroundings. It spots a gate to the next area. That leads to the next place, MacroniDude is thinking, I'm sure there will be something waiting for us. All right. He studies his party once again.
"Okay, so our tactics as a party are..." He starts from John, who looks as determined to save his friend as ever. "John for support. Cereal for buffs and debuffs. Stee is a Witch, so we can rely on her for holds and perhaps status aliments. I'm the main damage dealer here then. So it's all magic huh..."
SteeStee looks very irritated. She gets in front of him and delivers a punch as fast as lightning to MacroniDude's gut. Actually it was a lightning punch after all, she had a Florae coiled on her arm, generating intense electricity. MacroniDude instantly faints upon receiving the blow and foams spews out of his mouth.
"W-wha, is that what they call a Ducking Body Blow?" Tamakorosu comments, but does nothing to help.
"Miss Stee! What are you doing to Sir Mac?!" John crouches down to heal him, but it's too late. He's no longer breathing. In the end MacroniDude has to spend one of his precious tokens just because a slight misunderstanding.
"Y-you idiot, do you have any idea what you just did!?" MacroniDude points at SteeStee, rubbing his stomach nervously. "Token usage is limited here! We can only use about six or seven more times! I only have one left..." But all SteeStee responds is an evil and somewhat mischievous smile.
"That's what you get for telling me what to do."
"What? You—Why are you even here?! This is an important mission to us and may even affect Arad on a scale large enough to be compared to the Great Metastasis! If you keep on fooling around you can endanger us all!" She is slowly getting on his nerves.
"Me? I'm here because I actually care about my relative, unlike you. I came rushing when I heard Luther talking about his disappearance. What about you? You were standing around like an idiot even when the news was delivered."
"Why do you have such an attitude? Were you scarred by your uncle when you were young or something? I was 'standing there like an idiot' because I was thinking how-"
"Enough." a voice suddenly booms. An echo rebounds around the the charred battlefield. "Arguing with your teammate, how foolish, both of you!"
This voice...It can't be! John suddenly realizes who the voice belongs to. An extremely bright light shines, descending down from the black skies. It blinds them so bad they are close to becoming Asuras. Soon the illuminating light dissipates and a figure, clad in a now holy light, slowly drifts down some distance in front of the party. The light wears off, and a tall man with a large stature is standing in front of them, arms crossed. His brilliant, golden armor looks as if they can create the blinding light again, and he carries a cross on his back, made of holy light. An unmistakable sign of an agent of God.
"You...you're Archbishop Buf! Thank the lord, you're unharmed!" John runs up to him, but a Skytree Nut thrown from behind quickly repels him away from the Crusader.
"You idiot! That's dangerous! He could be an Imposter, or has been even corrupted! This is Ozma's territory, after all, or at least, seems to be." MacroniDude drags John back, maintaining a considerable distance. BufYoWeakAss stays silent. The two party exchanges no words for a good while of time, each waiting to make the first move. Only John is nervous. Is this Buf, fake? The idea of Imposters boggles his mind, even if the church tries their best to educates him. Minions of Ozma that slaughters others and steals their identity? If this Buf is an Imposter, then does that mean the real Buf is...John's mind slowly gives into despair at the thought of losing his friend. For three years they've been helping each other out in church duties, and for three years BufYoWeakAss stayed his only friend.
"Hahaha!" A laugh breaks the silence, tension, and John's wavering doubts. It was BufYoWeakAss, who decides to laugh suddenly. "It looks like you guys are the real deal. I didn't think John would be here." He slowly walks up to the party. MacroniDude and SteeStee goes on guard, ready for any move he may do.
"Calm down, I am not here to fight you. Hey, I thought you guys were Imposters, disguising as an unlikely combination of people. But then I saw John. No Imposter can slay John without facing the wrath of whatever's up there." BufYoWeakAss explains what he was thinking. The party doesn't look so convinced, however. "Fine, here." He casts a basic blessing, Strike, on MacroniDude. However, with it coming from an Archbishop and a Paladin, that Strike may as well be Slaughter.
"What's this? I feel like I can make snap someone's neck with just a twist." MacroniDude feels a rush of insane strength flowing through his body. "Heh..." He gives SteeStee an evil grin.
"W-Wait, what are you doing? That's not funny! Stop!" SteeStee, who sudden realizes what he was about to do. MacroniDude gave a long chase around the blackened grounds with SteeStee, who whips out her broomstick out of nowhere.
"So you really are Buf! I'm glad you are safe! It's been so long, friend! The church was even thinking of replace you, however you are unharmed, so they'll have to forget about that." John greets his long lost friend with enthusiasm. However, BufYoWeakAss looks confused.
"Huh? That's weird. I was wondering why you guys were here. Is the time here slower than the outside or something? We were only here thirty minutes ago."
"What? Really? I've never been to an Otherverse dungeon before, is this normal?" John admits honestly.
"No. The flow of time remains the same in any dungeon, even with the Otherverses. I'm assuming you guys are here to 'rescue' us? How long have we been out?"
"If I recall correctly, it's been three weeks."
"Hm...I see."
After MacroniDude's Strike wears off, BufYoWeakAss gathers the party for a brief meeting.
"As I said before, we only arrived here thirty minutes ago. We thought we landed in Dark Side by accident so we figured we might as well clear it. Joekr single handedly cleared the mobs in this room, so we moved on after our preparation. For some reason though, I can't walk past that gate over there." BufYoWeakAss points to the gate that leads to the next area. "I've been stuck here for a while, so I got bored and tried to hide up there and see if something's gonna come out." He then points up to the darkened skies.
"That's strange. Maybe it has something to do with the next room? What is in the next room?" SteeStee ponders.
"What, you've never done Dark Side before? Next room is Despairing Tiamat. Really annoying but he's relatively easy if you can hold him down like what you Witches are supposed to do." MacroniDude answers her honest question. She bites into his arm and the two fights again.
"Haha, Stee and a Mechanic that's not Kento. What brings them together? I thought Stee quit the guild too." BufYoWeakAss watches what he deems to be entertainment.
"Oh they just met. She said she came when she heard Cree's missing." Tamakorosu says. "They haven't got along ever since then. Say, what's that over there?" Being a Soul Bender, he has an archive in his head, brewed with the knowledge of souls and the undead, and because of that, he points at a pile of gray ash nearby.
"It was some spirit that tried to possess me. Probably Ozma's minion. It turned into that when it touched me." His gold armor shines as he finishes the sentence.
"That was one of Amme's creations." The Soul Bender digs his fingers through the crumbling ashes.
"Amme?"
"Oh that's right you weren't in Silver Crown after the Metastasis. It was basically an evil spirit that tried to take over Abnova by possessing monsters. I thought Amme was wiped out by some Dungeon Fighters. Why is one of his spirits here?" He studies the ashes carefully. "No, this feels different. This one feels a lot different than the original ones. I don't like where is this going..." Tamakorosu eyes at the gate nervously.
"Damn. They are in danger. They probably underestimated these spirits." BufYoWeakAss realizes the gravity of the situation. John frowns, then nods. "Hey you idiots! We are leaving, I fear Ozma or whatever the hell's in charge is cooking up something bad."
"What the hell is going on?" Some minutes later, MacroniDude fails another futile attempt. He watches SteeStee ram into the gate with her broomstick. It seems the neither of them can go beyond the gate. It is as if it is blocked by an invisible barrier. "I thought you guys already cleared the monsters here, so why..." The Mechanic slowly realizes the problem. SteeStee dusts off her clothes and together with Tamakorosu, too, figured out what was going on. BufYoWeakAss remains silent. Dreadfully silent. Only John is confused.
"Why are you all silent? We have to find out a way to get past this gate." John does not get it.
"John..." SteeStee grimaces. "If I'm right, that spirit thing over there, it tried to attack your friend, right?"
"Yes? What seems to be the issue?" John lifts one eyebrow in wonder. "It failed and received the smite of God."
"It's goal was to possess him, right? Although it died in the end, it still managed to touch him." SteeStee tries to explain this slowly.
"What are you trying to say Miss Stee?"
"She's saying that we have to kill him, or at least, defeat, in order to proceed. Even though he is not possessed, Feet is marked as a monster here." MacroniDude states the matter bluntly. It takes a while for John to absorb this information. Before he could react, BufYoWeakAss closes his eyes. He then walks away from the party and then casts a variety of buffs on them, including the legendary Divine Invocation.
"Try your best to defeat me, then. Let's do this, I wouldn't be going easy on you." He seizes the alpha strike as a spear made of holy light was thrown with the speed of the material it is made of.