Im excited :) Finally getting through bosses at a halfway decent pace. Although I'm not very good at boss fights - I do have a co-author that is. Next chapter is gonna be a good one. This is just a buildup.
much love and kiss.
Armour: Brimflame
Weapon: Winter's Fury(Unusable), Stormfront Razor
Acc(11/11): The Bee, Celestial cuffs, Mana Flower, Sorcerer Emblem, Cryo Wings, Ankh Shield, Deific Amulet, FrostSpark Boots, Grand Gelatin, Permafrost's Concotion, Evasion Scarf. (Unlimited Buffs)
Health: (500/430)
Armour: Aerospec Armour (Ranger)
Weapon: Galeforce (Jester Arrows); Arkhalis
Acc(11/11): Band of Regeneration, Amidas Spark, Frostspark Boots, Luxor's Gift, Deific Amulet, Counter Scarf, Crown Jewel, Bundle of Balloons, Harpy Ring, Aero Stone, Skyline Wings
Health: (400/400)
"What!? What do you mean he got taken?!"
The Guide was absolutely beside himself. He was so close. So close to accomplishing his goal. By some stroke of miraculous luck, The Brain of Cthulhu had confused The Terrarian to the degree that his short term memory was all a mess. It just so happened he had also forgotten about The Dryad - whose death had (rightfully) caused a rift between them. But The Guide was well aware that this sort of memory loss was only temporary. It would sort itself out quickly. The Guide needed to finish his mission before The Terrarian gained full faculty of himself...
(He asked The Lunatic Cultist to paint his grass, then-)
"The Lunatic Cultist! The Lunatic Cultist kidnapped him!?"
And it just so happened that the moment they seemed to be getting along okay... just when he figured The Terrarian would do as he was told - the brat decided to run ahead and get himself kidnapped? And kidnapped by The Lunatic Cultist no less!? What the hell was this! They had happily been returning from a successful expedition when The Terrarian heard a bang and went running. The two of them had already landed somewhere inside the perimeter of sunflowers so The Guide was in no danger of being eaten by monstrosities, but by the time he arrived - panting - at The Compound, he found nothing but a patch of burned grass, a can of paint and eerie silence.
(...)
"So that's it! Just gone?! You're a CC Agent! The Cultist is an enemy of The Empire! Are you so spineless that you dare not confront him? What are you doing, hiding here like a dog? Pathetic!"
The sun was hot against the back of his neck. The gentle grass waved in the breeze. Small lilies lifted their heads to him and the patch of moonglows on The Dryad's grave emitted a sweet aroma, attracting a flock of butterflies and bees. Yet despite the idyllic breeze against his eyelashes, The Guide curled his lip into a snarl and barked like a drill Sergeant. He smelled foul. He felt foul. And right now, anyone unlucky enough to speak to him was going to feel the full extent of his foulness.
Ridiculous!
The Guide pressed his lips together in an thin angry line as he glared furiously at The Party Girl. Although she was a monstrously strong soldier who could snap him in two over her knee if she so willed it, she cowed before his barely veiled anger. He had no problem shouting at her. He knew how to bend brutes to his will.
The backs of his eyeballs hurt as he glared daggers at the pink haired woman hidden behind the stack of firewood. She was seated there, curled up and staring at him with her big watery eyes. He huffed, exhaling hard through his nostrils.
"What a fucking mess."
He turned on his heel and marched back towards his house, taking special care to detour and stomp out the patch of moonglows. Why was this so arduous?! Of course he knew full well how difficult his task was, but he had only expected to fight an Old God, not Amidas, nor The Demolitoinist, nor The Arms Dealer, nor The Dryad, nor The Cultist!
I need to do this... I must succeed. But everyone and everything is getting in my way!
Was it not enough that his enemy was The Great Dreamer? He was contending with The sleeper of R'lyeh. Great dead Cthulhu who was torn to pieces by The Dryads... but even dead, even if his eyes were torn from his skull and crushed, even if his flesh and blood spilled to the ground to grow as a wild, uncontrollable cancer, even if his brain was cut out to languish in the vile depths... Even if his body was chained up in The Western dungeon, covered in machinations and thoroughly dried, the Old One still had grasp on this world in the most terrible way.
The Wall...
That abomination. The millions of screaming, faceless souls - a fate that befell all who were slain by The Eldritch god and all who dared to opposed him. Every unfortunate to die in The Crimson was there. Every creature whose blood was tainted with ichor was collected in that fleshy hell. Every single person who lived in The Guide's village for the past century was suffering in melting torment... If he didn't kill The Wall, all was naught.
Ridiculous.
This was madness. He? A Man? Destroy a god? But fate was madness. Even the beings who dared to call themselves 'gods' were subject to the sway of black chaos. The Dreaming God had been torn to shreds. The Eyes were dead. The Brain was Dead. The Worms were Dead. The Wall was next. Would he succeed? Nobody could know. This was the law of chaos. The wild tilting of the invisible hand. The contradictory prophecy written in the stars. The empty glare of echoing noise. The rules of madness. The Guide had seen it. He had glimpsed the inscrutable, contradictory mind of the ancient cosmos. A shard of maddening knowledge lived in the recesses of his brain, causing him to seize in terror and perplexity each time he glimpsed it. He did not dare to plumb its depths, for already he felt his mind slipping.
Terrifying things... tremendous protoplasmic abominations, consumers of dying Stars. Rings of teeth and eyes and teeth and eyes. Deities of the cold dark abyss... lumbering screeching creatures which sway in tune with the thoroghs of unholy chanting... the blackness of- No... stop...
The Guide glared and shook the creeping thoughts from his head.
He had to end this soon.
The Slayer... he would return alive. Right?
The Guide could not know.
He had little time.
Yet I can do nothing but wait.
He was remarkably similar.
A few inches shorter. Quite a bit stockier. His skin was a darker, almost greyish pallor. His eyes were blank and pale. Like The Hero, his face somewhere between boyish and handsome - but something about this... clone seemed artificial, uncanny, like he was an alien mimicking a human or a homunculus made of corpses.
In fact, that was exactly how he looked. As if somebody had butchered The Hero, replaced his eyes with glass beads, and carefully stitched him back together. Each feature on his face was almost identical to that of The Hero - but there was just something off. A tweak here, a shadow there... the resulting visage was entirely distinct. They were similar - yes. Were they related? Probably... but The Clone lacked something very essential. The Lunatic Cultist could not put his finger on exactly what - but something in The Clone's constitution was different.
*boom-boom-boom-boom*
How curious. Was it possible Draedon created this clone? No. Last time The Cultist checked, reports said Draedon was still struggling to create a Terrarian in his lab. According to his contact in The Capitol, a man whose younger sister worked as a scientist in Draedon's hybrid/zoology department, 'Project Nephelim' remained unsuccessful. But even if it were successful - why would the result look exactly like The Hero? And if he were Draedon's, why was he dottering about in a tiny circle in the middle of The Crimson? Nonsense. The Clone must have appeared during The Hero's initial summoning. The Area he lived was fairly close to the original summoning circle. It was only reasonable...
I thought I calculated the exact number of souls I needed to summon a single Terrarian... could I have made such a gross miscalculation that I've created two?
Well, on any other day, The Cultist would have been quite upset to find he'd made an error. Magic and summonings were dangerous practices. Oftentimes, a mistake meant death. But today, The Cultist found that his mistake just might be his salvation. He might just be able to pass him off to The Resistance in exchange for pulling his Moon Lord Project. Moreover, this 'hero' seemed to be far more obedient.
He's strong enough... I'll dress him like his 'brother' and try to teach him some magic... nobody will know the difference.
Although teaching him magic... The Cultist could already see the difficulty. This Clone seemed rather dull. He didn't seem very smart, certainly not as smart as The Hero. But, The Cultist could tell he was much more easily influenced. Although his general demeanor was far slower and more docile, he fought with a ruthless violence. When Skeletron burst out of The Old Man and rushed towards them, The Clone needed no prompting. He leapt straight into battle without the slightest hint of hesitation. He behaved himself with the savagery of a beast that far surpassed that of his enemy. Perhaps he was a Terrarian... but there most certainly some 'animal' in him. Could animals learn the intricacies of magic? It could be an interesting experiment...
*boom-boom-boom*
The air smelled like bloodlust. The night rang out with roars and the clang of steel against bone. The Clone's movements were similar. Like The Hero, his movements flowed like water. He seemed to defy gravity when he so willed it... but The Hero didn't fight like this. He had been trained in magic, and only magic. He was graceful in his movement - his weapons were flames that fell from the sky. But The Clone? He held his life in his hands and rushed into battle like a berserker. This... 'insanity' wasn't surprising. There was a certain type of man that became aggressive when put under immense pressure... What was surprising was that The Clone was winning.
*screeech- boom!*
The Cultist watched from his perch as The Clone's small figure danced and leapt around, sometimes shooting from his seemingly unlimited stash of arrows, sometimes drawing a flashing blade to repel attacks and cleave through bone. Skeletron had lost one arm already; the second was rapidly losing its structural integrity. Its bony surface was becoming increasingly peppered with holes until with a great splitting noise, it snapped in two and collapsed to the ground. The surface of its skull was ravaged, having been pierced and burned with frostflame bolts. The process was slow, yes, but The Clone showed no signs of tiring. There was neither fatigue nor weakness in his movements. Interestingly, The Cultist noticed The Clone was missing the last two fingers on his left hand. Luckily it didn't seem to effect his efficiency with the bow but...
Terrarians are not supposed to lose limbs... hm... regardless, he should be good enough for The Resistance.
*screech*
The black night sky seemed to writhe as The Dungeon's skeletal guardian unhinged its jaw and roared. The waves were whipped into a frenzy. The sand of the acidic sea rumbled as the wind howled, viscously blustering across the barren landscape. If The Clone was fearful, he didn't show it. He was singlemindedly focused on butchering the foe before him. Skeletron lifted one of its remaining arms to slam into the ground, attempting to crush The Clone beneath its weight.
*crash*
It missed once.
*bang*
Twice.
*crunch*
The third time, it caught the small darting figure in its hand and crush him in its fist. With a sickening noise, armour crunched and bones cracked. Sinews snapped and things shattered. The Clone's armour was well crafted but of poor material. It could not withstand the power exerted upon it. Blood leaked from between the monster's fingers but there was no cry of pain. There was no death knell.
... oh shit.
There was a moment where time seemed to stand still. The wind ceased to buffet. The waves paused to watch. The Cultist began to panic. Did The Clone just die? He frowned deeply and levitated forward from his perch. Had he made a mistake? Clearly The Clone was a fighter, but perhaps The Cultist had pushed him too far. His current equipment was but enough to fight this enemy. Had he just killed his hop-
*snick-thud*
A sharp noise rang out.
One of Skeletron's five fingers was pried off. It fell to the ground where it trembled with unearthly power. Then another, then another. That flashing blade cut through ligament and bone - piece by piece dismantling the hand until it collapsed into a heap. The Clone leapt free. He looked dreadful. His armour caved in and crushed. Blood leaking out over the burnished metal plates... but he didn't seem to even notice. It was only now - that The Clone's helmet was half crushed, that The Cultist could see the light of feral insanity in his eyes. His face was warped in a clenched grin.
He's still going at it... hm, Good soldier.
And The Lunatic Cultist grinned as well.
Because he had found for himself a suitable 'Hero'.
I've found something terrible in the depths of The Dungeon.
A... creature? No... no creature like I've ever seen or read of.
It was... tremendous. I've never been particularity scared of things larger than me, but something about this thing just seemed to stretch past the bounderies of my imagination. I saw its dead, desiccated body and fled. Even now I am all a'trembling.
What is that?!
I only got a glimpse, but its massive shape still lumbers in the shadows of my mind. Its dead. It's dried. The tremendous tentacles are limp and dusty, chained to the walls and the ceiling. The eyes are gone, covering in beeping machinations. The Lower body is gone. I caught a flash of exposed ribcage and bone. The thing should have posed no danger to me, but I was so scared.
I fled like an insane man.
phew... pheew... ugh...
I had fallen prey to my curiosity. I didn't have to continue after I found (slaughtered my way to) The Lunatic Cultist's study. There I found thousands of summoning circle drafts. Many of them were marked with the label 'Hero for Resistance War' which I assume is me. Right then and there I could have turned around and gone home. But I didn't. I had become angry at these Cultist minions and had set my mind on killing them all. As I went deeper and deeper I saw their experiments. I saw men in half-transition to monsters. I saw mangled bodies floating in ammonitic fluid. I saw failed chimeras whose limbs and exposed organs hung in a most grotesque fashion.
And I decided to kill them. The Cultist minions, the experiments. Everything. I wiped them off the face of this earth. I didn't do it out of any particular sense of justice or love of humanity, mind you. It was a whim, and I followed my whim.
I chased The Cultist hoards into the depths of The Dungeon, seeking them out like a bloodhound hunting its prey. I found them all bunched up at the end of a long corridor - their backs to a locked door. They were armed. They attempted to fight me.
What were they guarding! What is that!
Needless to say, their resistance didn't amount to much - but perhaps I would be far happier had I been repelled by their efforts. I slaughtered them. I broke the lock on the door...
Don't think about that thing... just- it doesn't concern you. Just go... go...
How long have I been running?
Am I running in circles? It's been so long since I've begun to flee, and I've yet to reach the surface! I had brought two recall potions with me - but there seems to be a spell in this place that prevents teleportation. I used one to no effect. (I should have guessed as much. The Lunatic Cultist would not have any teleport into his study) I must leave The Dungeon first. I need to escape this place...
Move!
A skeleton guard sees me and approaches. Its teeth rattle as its distended jaw works up and down. I shove through it - bursting it into a million pieces in my effort to flee this place. Another skeleton lunges at me - I hurl my knife. Ahead, another one of those experiments. It's wearing a cultist's cape as it staggers up the steep steps. I throw my knife at it - but a razor tentacle shoots out from beneath those robes and parries my blade. It moves with such power that when it strikes me, I smash straight through the dungeon wall. Where does this power come from?! Is it from that dreadful creature in the depths? I don't know. I don't want to know. I continue to flee, running as fast as my legs will carry me.
A breeze!?
Is it my imagination?
No - I can feel it.
The acidic breeze that sears my throat and stings my eyes.
I'm almost there.
I'm almost out of this place.
Lunatic Cultist: I'm adopting you now.
Guide: What! He's mine! I'm calling the police.
Slayer: ?
Faze: Dad?! Did you finally get the milk!
LC: Stop calling me Dad.
Eyyyy
Almost time for fight :) :)