Author's Note: Okay so this took longer to publish than I thought it would. No matter, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 57: The Dungeon in Zeltoble
Katarina was in the waiting room of a black smith's shop, in Zeltoble. Looking out the window the lingering signs of battle in the weeks before was still present with holes punched into walls and gouged out of the ground. They had come here chasing leads about the dungeon in this area that would give her and her associates another boost in power before they go to fight the next directional beast, but before then Katarina had another lead she wanted to track down.
"Apologies for making you wait." A elderly Wanui walked into the room and sat a trey of tea on a unclaimed stool and took one of the cups himself. Tyrion, as he had introduced himself during their first trek into Zeltoble, had claimed to be the best blacksmith in Zeltoble if not the world. Katarina wasn't sure about how much of that was true, but all of his weapons were a cut above the rest, even Erhard's. So when Katarina had material she wanted to turn into weapons that Erhard wasn't able to manage, she decided to go to said cut above the rest.
"You mentioned that you had some monster material you wanted me to turn into a weapon for you?" To this question Katarina held out her spear and dumped out it's contents, a pile of turtle shell, leather and mythril ignots that led to the black smith to blink stupidly for a few moments. "How much time do I have?"
"We'd like them to be ready in time for the next directional beast to awaken in less than a week." Elena stated prompting Tyrion slowly turn and face her and stare.
"'Them?'" Tyrion quoted for emphasis.
"Spear, Sword, Bow, Whip and whatever other Seven Star weapons we can find before the critter we're looking for wakes up." Elena stated bluntly. Four weapons, with more that needs to be made on top of that.
"Bason it's a good thing you're cute." Tyrion stated letting out a sigh. "Even if that was possible in case you haven't noticed business isn't exactly booming around here."
"Meaning?" Elena asked glaring suspiciously.
"That because of the downfall of his country my own homeland has made the executive decision to call me back."
"Okay. Where is that?" Katarina asked figuring they could just pop over to the place in question.
"I can't say." Tyrion stated causing Katarina to become confused.
"Q'Ten Lo?" Elena asked and the black smith neither confirmed nor denied.
"Why Q'Ten Lo?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"Super secretive nation. Lot's of paranoid conspiracy theories. I didn't even know they were letting their people out of their borders." Elena stated looking at the Black Smith suspiciously.
"Keeping myself cooped up in one place keeps me from learning how to make new kinds of weapons or working with new materials. Case in point." Which he would be more justified in stating was he not a old geezer already pushing the nineties.
"You're saying that you still wanna improve yourself at your age?" Elena asked a look of clear disbelief on her features.
"Why would I ever want to stop learning?" The old man stated in response.
"Right. While you're working on that we need to go into the dungeon." Katarina stated as she stood up.
Trying to find anything in this town was a nightmare thanks to a few centuries worth of constantly rebuilding it, more so now with the gang war tearing the country to pieces. Thus on top of having to look for the dungeon they also had to fend off attacks from the roaming fighting criminals. Faubrey had already made a grab for the countries mercenary forces, but they weren't a country that was doing so hot these days either.
"In retrospect." Elena was looking down at a rather unflattering wanted poster of herself and the rest of the party as she sat on top of a pile of bodies from the fighting mercenaries. "We probably should've made sure we had no more business here before we went ahead and ruined the country."
"Tanya says things will stabilise eventually. She thinks." Katarina on the other hand didn't look too sure.
"Speaking of which how long is that gonna take?" Elena asked looking at the massive hole Katarina had dug.
They had went looking for leads on where the dungeon was located, given the chaotic nature of the country they figured the hero might've put in a land mark in the area and so took over the oldest of the three Colosseum's in search of that land mark. Hence Katarina was now digging a hole in hopes of breaking into the dungeon.
"Are you sure that the entrance is sealed?" Katarina asked as she continued to use the shovel spear to make a deeper and deeper hole. In response Elena whipped out her crossbow and shot a man who had been trying to sneak up on her.
"Would you want these people to get their hands on it?"
"Good point." Eventually Katarina's digging showed fruits of their labours as she hit a satisfying thunk indicating that she hit something that wasn't earth. Breaking through was a some what harder task as the thing she was trying to break through was made out of metal and not stone or earth that she could easily manipulate with her Earth type Spears. So instead she went looking for the entrance.
"Earth Wave!" Cue Katarina systematically actually literally tearing the entire country apart through the use of her numerous earth manipulating skills. Of course the mercenaries eventually took note of the little legendary weapon wielding mole and tried to stop her. Midori and his hammers had something to say about that. Eventually... "Found it!" Katarina shouted having eventually tore down a wall in the market place revealing a door in the process.
"And not a moment too soon." Elena noted, looking behind her at the army of fearsome mercenaries with weapons trained on them that were quaking in mind numbing terror with the Zeltoble that had been put through a massive earthquake in the background. "Let's get the magic and get out of here."
Shoving aside the sliding door Katarina's party, got something that they weren't expecting.
"A pot?" Rino stated looking dumb founded.
"I believe it's a funeral urn." Elena corrected looking at the ancient looking urn with scrawl going around the sides depicting snakes, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, frogs, lizards, blow fish and various plants. What was more disconcerting was the distinct lack of entrance leading to elsewhere, like the underground structure they spent the past day excavating.
"Well what are we going to do?" Kyurie asked as Katarina started examining the urn. "It's not like there's a dungeon in there." As he said that, Katarina took the lid off of the urn.
Suddenly Katarina, Elena, Rino, Midori and Kyurie were all sent swirling around through the air and sucked inside of the urn that then clattered as the lid fell back into place.
"What just happened?" One of the thugs asked looking deeply concerned.
"I have no idea. The boss thought they were trying to excavate the bunker he was staying in." Another thug replied looking at the excavated structures in question.
"I have a better question." A third thug picked that moment to pipe up. "What are we gonna do with that?" Thus all eyes were on the urn containing the sum of their current problems.
"KATARINA IF WE GET OUT HERE ALIVE I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Elena screamed at the top of her lungs as she entered a impressive free fall over a large purple landscape.
"Kyurie! Midori!" Kyurie grabbed hold of Midori, who then put his hammers to use creating floating platforms for everyone else to grab a hold of and safely be lowered to the ground. Well, safely was relative. When the ground steams, hisses and eats the soles off of your boots when you touch the ground you stay far, far away from it.
"These were brand new boots!" Elena snapped wiggling her toes where the acidic ground ate through her boot.
"Any one got any idea's on where this horrible place is?" Rino asked as she adjusted her position on the hammer to make sure she doesn't fall off.
"One." Kyurie was looking off at distance, at massive walls covered with familiar looking pictures of snakes, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, frogs, lizards and blow fish. There was one difference though: they were all facing the other direction when they were on the other side of the pot, the outside. "I don't think you're gonna like it though." Looking up at the sky the group could see the sun and cloud in the sky, painted onto the lid of the pot that had reattached itself.
"We're inside of the urn." Elena stated her tone of voice mad with the sheer absurdity of the situation. "We were sucked inside of a actual literal urn!"
"If I was you I'd calm down before the situation gets any worst." Midori stated looking quite concerned.
"How exactly is this situation going to get any worst?" Elena asked as her brow started twitching madly. "Please enlighten me!" Midori raised his hand and indicated the walls of the urn.
"Those are all poisonous." The poison type filolial stated indicating the various monsters on the wall. Poison type monsters have been trapped inside of this urn at least as long as Faubrey has existed, slaughtering each other in such vast numbers that their toxic fluids have seeped into the ground until it has the rough consistency of acid. Looking around plants that Midori knew was suppose to be green and red had been dyed blue, purple, orange and yellow by the array of toxic fluids that had been absorbed into them in a cocktail of toxicity, and that was on top of being poisonous plants already.
"Why would someone even make a place like this!?" Elena shouted screaming up at the sky having officially lost her marbles.
"Elena! Not so loud!" Katarina stated as she looked around and realised that the soil had started to turn over from something making it's way to the surface.
"What's the point!? We're trapped here in a actual literal Poison Jar with no way out in sight surrounded by a mass of horrible monsters! Is there any way this situation could get objectively worst!?" The ground behind Elena exploded as a huge scorpion monster emerged behind her. "Whatever that is, it's still not any worst." As if proving Elena's point, one of Midori's spare hammer's slammed down on top of the scorpion crushing it in the process. "I rest my case."
"Elena what do you mean when you called this place a poison jar?" Katarina asked as something about this place didn't feel right, sure it was appropriate name considering that it was a jar full of poisons but...
"There's a legend out and about a Hero who took a jar and stuffed it full of poisonous insects. They apparently all ate each other with the survivor becoming the Hero's minion. The Hero was terrified for it knowing that if he ever mistreated it the survivor would turn against him."
"Hmm. Maybe that's a hint about how we're suppose to get out of this." First thing was first, they needed to secure their own safety. Using materials from the scorpion the group manufactured armour, especially boots, to protect themselves from the blatantly toxic environment. Secondly as they didn't know how long they would be there, and didn't eat before coming in there, they also used Katarina's spear to process the monster meat into food for their consumption, Midori just ate it all straight. Still had no idea how they were going to get out of there though. "If we follow the pattern up until now all we need to do is find the boss monster and kill it and that will give whatever magic is in this place." Katarina stated as she shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
"Space if I had to guess." Elena stated while she just closed her eyes and ate her boiled scorpion claw.
"What makes you say that?" Rino asked while she sucked the meat out of a scorpion leg.
"'Horrible poisonous monsters' doesn't have the same ring to it." Elena stated pointedly ignoring what she was eating.
Rino nodded to Elena's point which brought them to the next point.
"So we learned creation from a golem of some kind, time from a pair of heroes from the distant past, gravity from a castle floating in the sky, Metamorphosis from a shape shifting blob monster. Anyone got any idea of what a 'space monster' is like?" Katarina asked and she had five people who just might be able to figure it out.
A banging of a gavel indicated that Council of Katarina was in session.
"Today we're going to talk about the poison jar dungeon that we all seem to be trapped inside of right now." Chairman Katarina stated as a picture came up between them. It was the very epitome of a little green man complete with ray gun and space suit, or in other words, a space monster.
"I don't think the monster we have to fight here looks like that." Intellectual Katarina stated as she held her chin in thought.
"Come to think of it we don't really know what a space spell would really do in the first place." The five Katarina's all went into deep thought as they tried to figure out the answer to this question. "We don't have a lot of reference points for this kind of thing from our original world?" Timid Katarina stated scrunching her face up.
"We mostly read romance books. The only time that we even heard of space magic was from that one anime our dorky brother made us watch with him." Immediately all five of the Katarina's looked up at each other and stared at the same time. All five of the Katarina's had moved from the meeting room and in front of their TV where memories of their first life was playing while they watched.
They observed that the protagonist of their brother's anime could use space magic in one of three ways: first he could create... things, barriers to top projectiles, slashes of space it self to cut through things or telekinetically manipulate objects. Secondly: he could summon things, wolves specifically, from another dimension to fight for him or teleport from place to place shortening and expanding space between objects as needed. Thirdly: he could manipulate the direction of things like magic and projectiles that were already flying in the air to send them somewhere else.
"When you think about it, the only thing that can do anything like any of this is the urn itself." Hotblooded Katarina stated in a rare moment of intellect as the situation came to the most logical conclusion.
"That's crazy I mean it's a pot!" Cheerful Katarina stated in shock.
"Is it so crazy though? I mean we already almost got mauled by a balloon." Intellectual Katarina stated which made the others pause in thought as they realised what she said was making sense.
Well on the bright side they got enough exotic animals to give a few weapon transformations to Katarina and give her a minor power boost, which would really be a good thing if she wasn't randomly zoning out in the middle of a battlefield. Again. Katarina's infrequent detachment from reality aside none of these monsters looked like the one that the magic that they were looking for, which was problematic as that was keeping them from escaping this awful horrible place filled with poison.
"I have an idea!" Katarina shouted as she suddenly stood back up.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." Elena stated sarcastically glaring down at Katarina. Katarina payed no mind to Elena's sarcasm as she turned her spear into a shovel. "Air Strike Javelin!" Said shovel was chucked at the wall of the pot.
"Katarina please tell me you aren't...!"
"Earth Hole!" The spear turned shovel punched a hole through the side of the urn. Suddenly the entire urn started to shake as the hole closed back up, healed, and someone called out.
"You miserable little sh-!" A angered voice echoed out and was cut off by the sound of the rumbling coming from all around them.
"The bosses don't normally talk do they?" Elena commented as a portal appeared and a new figure appeared, though figure might've been a strong word.
"Well there was the time travelers." Rino commented as she looked directly at a door.
Well gate might've been more accurate, but the fact remained that it was very un-monster like, primarily black with red lines not unlike one of the cursed series. If there was anything that was particularly monster like about it that would probably be the demonic skull with ghostly blue flames in it's eyes that had the ring for a door knocker in it's jaws.
"That would be the boss monster I take it?" Midori commented as he raised his hammers into the air.
"Do I go around inside of your stomach's and poke holes into-!" The door was rudely interrupted by a hammer coming down from the air and flooring it. The girls turned and glared at Midori.
"What we're suppose to fight the boss right?" Midori asked with a shrug of his shoulders.
"They don't usually talk to us." Elena countered rapidly becoming more and more concerned.
"You-!" The gate immediately stood back up again. "Fu-!" Only to be interrupted again as Midori slammed another hammer into it prompting another glare from his party members.
"He said we're in his stomach right? That technically means he ate us. If that's not a sign of hostility I don't know what is." Midori stated as he made use of perfectly flawless logic to explain his blatant hostility.
"DAMN YOU ALL!" Screaming that at the top of it's lungs the gate spat out a beam of energy that hit Katarina's spear. "BE GONE!" The gates swung open revealing a thing like a black hole on the other side of them which then proceeded to forcibly suck the party inside before slamming itself shut.
Katarina and her party were spat out of the awful jar full of poison without any prompt or ceremony and landed in a pile.
"Katarina..." Elena's muffled voice echoed out from the bottom of the pile. "Did you get the magic?" Katarina triumphantly raised her spear out of the pile in response.
"Space magic Got!" Elena forcibly stood up throwing the rest of the group off of her and brushed herself off as she assessed their surroundings.
"We aren't in Zeltoble anymore." Elena observed bluntly.
This was much nicer than the hole in the ground that was the Zeltoble strip mall they were in before and the soft swaying they were experiencing indicated they were on a boat, all of which made sense to a degree as it meant that the warring gangs had probably taken the opportunity to try and get rid of them by taking the urn and loading it on the first ship out of Zeltoble which while sensible was also highly inconvenient. Secondly it seems like they spent more time in that horrible jar of poison than what was strictly safe, because they felt a hit of massive fatigue and weakness, likely from whatever toxic fumes they were breathing in. They all drank some antidotes and waited for them to take effect as they moved on with their business.
"Let's get out on deck and then portal out of here." Katarina suggested as the group all nodded in agreement to her they all quickly began to move with the intention to escape.
Then they heard the ring of a black smith's forge and proceeded to make their way through the ship following the noise. The girls traced the source of the noise to a familiar smith who was busily beating away at a piece of jade green material.
"Tyrion?" Katarina asked prompting the man in question to turn around and face them.
"You're here? You shouldn't be." Tyrion stated as he resumed his work.
"Is this ship going to your home land?" Katarina asked looking around at what she was realising was the materials she had given to Tyrion earlier on.
"Unfortunately." Tyrion brushed off some of the material he had been working on before resuming his work. "Fortunately though the ship has a stop to make before it arrives there. The distance is much too great without restocking supplies. You should get off at that time."
"As soon as we get outside we'll just portal out of here and be on our way." Tyrion laughed to Katarina's statement as if she had said something funny. "What is it?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"Is your weapon functioning correctly?" A statement worded as a question.
Confused Katarina attempted to change over the form of her weapon only to discover that not only was it stuck in it's base form but also that it wouldn't change it's forms. On top of those issues looking through her H.U.D. Katarina realised a huge drop in her stats and that she couldn't use any of her skills.
"What's happening?" Katarina asked looking genuinely concerned as all of her companions soon realised the stat drop they had gone through.
"That would be the reason I am being called back." Tyrion used his two rings as whetstones to sharpen the edge of the blade he had been working on, another Svardstav made out of the jade coloured shell of the Spirit Tortoise. "A material was given to all of the black smith's of my native land and we were given instruction to turn it into a weapon, and I, being the extremely talented and competitive man that I am, proceeded to do so with more ease than I anticipated. Now both it and I am being called back to said home land where I will be chained to a anvil until I produce a satisfactory amount of them."
"And for some reason this unique weapon has anti-hero properties?" Elena asked looking confused.
"Not 'for some reason' that is precisely what it is designed to do." The black smith stated as he proceeded to place the weapon he had been working on next to the wall where he had another weapon waiting, a shield. "The good news is that if you can get to it then you can do something about the anti-hero field it produces." The black Smith stated bluntly.
"I understand that throwing it off the side of the ship will do something about the anti-hero field but how exactly is it designed to mess up Katarina's skills?" Elena asked looking suspicious.
"Not mess up. Interfere with them. If copied the weapon, a winged spear, will add extra effects to Katarina's skills that will offer them greater power in battle. But until then neither you nor your spear will be able to properly process what the Sitera destiny stone is doing to it. Secondly if you do toss the Spear over board then it means alerting them that you are moving against them, and while they are not yet ready to make you their enemy can you afford to make them yours at this time?"
The girls had a displeased look across their faces as they began sneaking their way through the ship. Luckily hero bonuses or no, Kyurie is still a shadow, and on top of that a vampire with the ability to cast spells the human ear cannot hear and with a powerful affinity for illusion magic. Cloaking the entire group was easy but they would still have to deal with people who were also very good at casting illusion magic. They also had weapons forged from the backbone of a god though.
"What are these?" The Guard, a bear type Demi-human, asked looking at Rino Suspiciously.
"Weapons forged by Master Tyrion." Rino stated holding up both the shield and the Svardstav that he had made out of the Spirit Tortoise shell. "He said we should put them with the Wing Spear." The Bear grunted in suspicion before opening the door. Rino kept the door open just long enough for Katarina to scurry inside and copy the wing spear before Rino left behind the weapons and the two of them left, after wards everyone was able to safely portal away.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: It needs some work done. Not particularly no. Nothing in particular, Takt isn't that intriguing. The imminent destruction of their soul is a pretty good start. Balloons. Of the current lot? Kuro.
Captain Imaginat: His final downfall came in the last chapter, or did you not notice Tanya's homemade Meteor come down on him? True. A shame I have no plans for a cockroach Demi-human.
Eevee: I'll try to include more home-made meteors in the future.
Guest: I don't think Katarina could use the magic of her world back in her home world, aside from a pitiful bump that is.
Nightshadegirl: Took a lot longer than I had planned for it to come around though truth be told.