I don't own digimon.

Chapter 54

Puzzled

Taking the stairs up two at a time, we find ourselves nearing the top of this tower. If the piece of land that's jutting out counts as a floor, that means that Adarnamon is waiting up above… while we're down a member. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Because that's how it's going to be for today.

Blaze's gaze shot up to the ceiling. Sorry about that. I need to get that out of my system before we reach Adarnamon.

"Good to know." Blaze remarked and looked down towards his hands. Even with the healing done by Bubbles, the damage is quite visible. A perfect storm of an awkward situation, far from ideal healing and of course… far away from home. This is probably going to sound counter-intuitive and goes about everything that's happened with you guys, but maybe you should ditch the scimitar and stick to say… unarmed? I'm very much aware you're not quite a fist fighter, but that is a perfect chance to change things up.

The dancer's gaze shot up to the ceiling. To be fair, I don't believe what I'm about to tell you. Mostly because it flies in the face of the advice of everything I've said on the topic (heard or otherwise). As a dancer, you want to take as light of a load as possible into battle. Especially if your dancing also requires you to dodge attacks. The last thing you want is something heavy to slow your movement or make you unbalanced. Heck, your infusion power doesn't even need a weapon to begin with - just give the bad guys a couple kicks or even bang your elbow into them.

Looking away from the ceiling and down towards his scimitar, Blaze took a deep breath. I'm going to assume that this was the weapon your parents used or some other kind of sentimental value? Or is there something else at play here that you've not made me aware of?

"Not really." Blaze answered and carefully poked at the blade with his fingers. Trying his best to not actually grab the blade, he pushed the scimitar out. Dropping down the with a *thud, the scimitar sits peacefully on the stairs.

This feels so wrong, especially after making the mental notes for you guys to not forget your weapons. Here though, it's something different. More of a refocusing? Yeah, let's call it that.

If nothing else, you can just give Rantha the scimitar. That way he has something better to defend himself with that isn't that stupid knife.

Gazes on the ceiling, I feel kind of dumb for not thinking of that in the first place. That's a far better solution to this problem. Would that work for you, Rantha?

Rantha shrugged, making his way over to the discarded weapon. Picking it up, the artisan takes a couple light swings. Then a couple more swings. Finally, he did a couple swings while throwing up an empty vial into the air. Okay, you're just showing off at this point. Yes, that trick is quite impressive (even if you weren't on a stair at the moment), but we need to continue on at the moment. Especially if we're going to deal with Adarnamon and find that diary.

"It'll work." Rantha muttered, shooting the ceiling just one more look. I'll just ignore that for the moment. "Thanks, Blaze."

The dancer nodded, shifting the position of his purse to the other side of his body. After, it was time to get back to walking. Thankfully, there aren't many more stairs that need to be climbed at this point.

For this floor, what looks to be an astrological theme has been chosen. The walls had been painted a shade of black to mimic that of the sky, with white dots littering the ceiling. Brass instrumentation sits idle, no switch or mechanism as far as one can tell to activate their function. Which is on top of the lack of windows. Someone really wants to showcase their particular view of the night's sky. Or a version of it at least.

Finally, we have the staircase. Which is of course blocked off. In this particular case, a slightly transparent panel decorated in more of those dots. A note looks to be placed down there. Could one of you maybe pick that up for me?

Melody walked over, picking the note up. Giving the piece of paper a quick look, it's right back to the rest of the party.

Have the courage to freeze the stars, for then the door to the heart shall open

"This is kind of on the nose." Ella remarked, passing the note onto Bubbles. For the moment, it was Phusitmon who was reading it over. Though, our little dragon is trying his hardest to find some meaning within all of that. Though it looks to have gone over his head. Fair enough. I doubt it's something simple like 'walk in a straight line' or 'wait patiently'. That would be silly and almost counter-intuitive to everything else we've done with this place. Yet, the paper passed over to Yvonne at the moment.

"Yeah." the knight remarked, Munbimon jumping from her shoulder to do a quick aerial examination. Swooping about, we can see the various brass instruments on full display - a large globe based on this world, what looks to be a couple rings spinning about and what looks to be a large collection of gears on a circle. Looks quite warm. Probably the end point. Just means we need to find the point where it starts. Then we can do the puzzle, open the panel and head on through to the top floor. Simple as that. "Kind of weird that this is the place to put such a thing."

What do you mean?

Handing the note off to Blaze, Yvonne's gaze shifted back to the ceiling. Which provided the perfect opportunity for Munbimon to land back on her shoulder.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to have something guarding this floor over a puzzle?" the knight continued, a question that I would agree with. And maybe there was some sort of grand beast guarding this place from intruders. But considering that the natural monster for such a job - a dragon, was downstairs running a bar of all things with dancers decked out in bunny girl outfits, I can understand why they went with something else entirely. Or perhaps the system running this place had a back-up plan. Who can really say. Sorry if that's not quite the answer you were expecting to come out of me.

Yet, I seem to get a nod. A deep breath following from our knight. Then it's right back to looking at Melody. Fair enough. If nothing else, this is a good time to get ready. Make sure you have everything how you want before we head up those stairs.

"Still… What happens once we dispatch my partner? Will the tower just disappear? Will the walls that lock us in go away?" Rantha remarked, Blaze handing him the paper for the moment. I think that's more of a question for DM rather than me. You do have an answer to that… hopefully? It's very much okay if you don't.

I'm actually not too sure on that front. Yes, it's likely that you'll be able to leave this place. But outside of that, I have no real clue. This is all one big long learning process. One that I don't doubt is going to end anytime soon. Though, I doubt this will be the last time we'll be paired up again. Hopefully in a place that isn't Malibu. Perhaps you'll get to be on my doorstep for once, That would be a nice change of pace.

"Where?" Bubbles remarked, gaze looking up to the dots. Good point. It's all well and good that we can go wherever we want. But if we don't know where you reside currently, it makes for quite a challenge of actually trying to find you and trade notes.

Oh right. I'm currently located in Hagukumi City, Japan. More specifically, I'm in a building that the former CEO decided needed to be in the ocean of all places. Which is quite possibly the single dumbest thing he could do. Well, outside of making the chief counselor an obviously insane person. But that's beyond the point.

"We'll keep that in mind." Madame remarked as Rantha handed the slip over to them. Giving it a quick look and handing it back to Melody, their attention shifted over to Kollmon. "Are you going to be alright?"

Kollmon took a deep breath, gaze down on her claws. On one hand, just the idea of finally getting to know their former partner's name was quite extraordinary. This was a major reason for even coming all this way to the tower in the first place. Sure, it had brought about a couple nasty memories. There was still a chance of getting to live through a happy memory. Those had to exist in the mole digimon's mind, right?

By that same token, this also meant having to confront - possibly even live through all the other bad and awful things she did to 'her'. No, the kollmon that had existed then. The kollmon that thought it was a-okay to just assume that their actions would have no consequences in the grand scheme of life - hurling insults and not standing with their human for the sake of not quite getting why they were doing the things they had. Of actively trying to get others to hurt their human because they didn't get the choices they were making in regards to their identity. The kollmon… that was afraid of change. But that Kollmon was long gone, left in the past and reborn into a new kollmon - one ready to face this head on.

"Yes." Kollmon answered and focused back on Madame for the moment. "I think I like got all my frustration out for the moment."

Getting a nod in return, our attention returns to Melody. Now that everyone has read through the note, time to get to solving this puzzle.

"Understood." Melody remarked, looking about the room once more. Eventually, her gaze focused on a small pedestal made out of brass. How that managed to evade our initial gaze is beyond me. Not that it matters right now. We now have a good idea where the start and end of this puzzle are. Should be as simple as shooting a mote over the pedestal and watching it fly.

Melody closed her eyes and concentrated, an icy spike forming in front of her. Firing it off towards the pedestal, eyes opening back up as the mote past right over. Doesn't explain why it slowed down a touch. Not exactly sure how helpful that is.

"Maybe it's so that you can do other stuff?" Cinemon suggested, the spike falling to the ground mere inches from the first instrument - a brass globe. Oh. Come on! That's absolutely cruel and devious. We're so close to our goal. At least toss us a bone before the big fight?

Were you really expecting the second-to-last floor of this place to be 'easy'? There has to be something significant to make up for the lack of a dragon or other large beast.

"Maybe we can move the instruments?" Phusitmon suggested, Ella already making her way over to one of the globes. Giving it a slight push, the instrument moved. So she pushed even more. But that was too much for this globe. At least now it's in the line of the sight of the starting pedestal and not just out of reach by mere inches. Which is a very weird design flaw for your puzzle to have. You would think the people building this would at least notice that. But no. That was asking too much. But I digress.

Once more, Melody concentrated. The air around her chilled, another icy spike forming. Firing this one off, we got a much better result - our projectile actually reaching the first globe. Didn't get much farther than that. There's no sign of any instrument where it lands. Maybe there's something else that's needed for here - something that's related to the slow speed of the projectile after it passes over the pedestal. Melody, just how sturdy is the mote when you create it?

Melody walked over to one of the fallen spikes and picked the projectile up. Giving it a slight toss, she grabbed it with her opposite hand. Looks to be pretty sturdy.

"Enough to be hit at least once by a weapon." the mystic remarked, gaze turning to Yvonne of all people for the moment. Not even saying a word, Yvonne made her way over to where the second spike had fallen down. "Never thought I would actually have to do something like this."

If you don't mind me asking, do you have an occupation back with this 'fleet' place? I know that you were on a ship before getting swept up into this mess with Distant Harmony and everyone else.

"I was a scout." Melody continued, already getting the next spike ready. Firing it over the pedestal, her eyes open up once more. "My people need to eventually land in order to reconnect - to find our goddess."

Uh… I hate to break it to you, but most deities are at war. The odds of find- Wait. That woman from before. If someone like her exists, there must be other deities. How exactly have they managed to evade getting pulled into such a war? Even the best efforts of some pantheons have resulted in them getting caught up with in-fighting and/or getting found. There must be something that's helping them keep such a low profile. Though, it's a question of where exactly they are and if we can actually get there, explore the place and eventually… return back to Aldia. Though, that's something more to keep in the back of your mind for the future. Right now, our focus needs to be on solving this stupid puzzle and dealing with Adarnamon.

Melody nodded and shot the spike out. Much like the previous two attempts, the spike shot forward towards the first instrument. Bouncing off of that, it's onto Yvonne. Who is currently being very careful with her khakkhara. You know. Don't want to break it after getting the dang thing the day before. That's beyond the point, the staff making contact with the spike and headed for the next instrument. Colliding with it, the spike heads for the large panel. Connecting, the dots upon it glow… but the panel does not slide away. That should've been the last part to solve this thing. What part of this are we still missing? We directed that spike into the wa- The ceiling! Maybe all those dots need to be lit up - even those on the ceiling for some reason. Maybe then the panel will open up and we can head on through.

Our heroes gaze shot up to the ceiling. Compared to the panel, the dots up here remained unlit. Hopefully this is the last thing we need to do to head on to our final challenge. So carefully, Melody concentrated one more time, another ice spike forming in front of her. Launching this one straight up, the projectile makes contact with the ceiling. The dots light up, groaning echoing out from the far end of the room.

"That did it." Rantha muttered, everyone's gaze on him. To be fair. This is the last chance you have to prepare. Anything that needs to be done now for the sake of securing victory you might want to do right now. Of course, having a meal would probably help as well.

The next couple minutes were quite peaceful, just the consumption of rations. Of course, Blaze needed a little help in eating. Kind of hard to even open the ration tin when you can't use your hands in the first place. Somehow, the dancer managed to pull it open. Which just made it a matter of slurping it up… without actually picking the container up and stuff.

"Would you like some help?" Rantha inquired and got a nod in return from Blaze. Grabbing the tin, he carefully poured the contents into the dancer's mouth. Definitely not the way he was expecting to get that meal.

"Sorry about this." Blaze whispered, getting a chuckle from the artisan in return. Setting the ration down, Rantha let out a deep breath.

"You didn't know." he muttered and looked down toward the scimitar at his side. I would say you're both even at this point. Okay… You're probably not, but that's beyond the point. That can be decided once we're all back in Aldia. Might even get a short break… hopefully. Don't quote me on that. The future is quite an unpredictable thing at all times. "I'll take your word for it."

Collecting all their ration tins together and putting them into one of the brass globes, we head up the stairs.

[Tower at the edge of the world F7]

Okay, calling this an actual flight of stairs would be disgracing all the other flights we've climbed in these past two days. Yet, we come upon a makeshift throne room of sorts. High above, a large chunk of land hangs over our head with a bunch of piping coming straight out of it. Glass surrounds us on all sides, making the staircase that snakes around all the more clearer in this moment. Cyan carpet decorated with a pretty pattern around the edges served as our floor, if you can see it under all the rubble from the ceiling. Oh dear.

Of course, the titular Adarnamon standing at the far end of the room. Doesn't exactly look happy to see us. I probably wouldn't be either. But that's just me.

"I've been expecting you." Adarnamon greeted and let his focus shift to Rantha. What sounds like a chuckle follows that statement. "Let's finish this, once and for all."

Notes:

Oh my.

So it turns out writing puzzles is hard and stuff.

Next chapter is longer. A lot longer.

.

Next Time: Keep me in your memories, leave out all the rest.