Chương 60: Chapter 137: Ancient Temple of Steel

With no regard for his personal safety, William Oh didn't hesitate a single heartbeat, charging into the ancient dungeon alone and headlong, eager to take on the raid boss that he knew in his heart was there. Once he found Silverdeath, he stood his ground and challenged it to a fair fight, bouncing it's piercing spikes off his blessed steel bracers before taking the monster apart in a long, grueling battle that tested his strength and Abilities to their limits.

Never once did the thought of retreat even cross his mind. Some idiot who doesn't understand Climbing, Ringside Tavern. Will set them down fifty paces distant from the lake. It was unknown whether the Raid boss they were looking for was making its home near, on, or in the ziggurat, and Will wanted them to meet it on their feet rather than get attacked as they were descending. Rushing in like an idiot was to be avoided.

They descended into the jungle, which had an eerie feeling of descending into a different layer of reality as the sunlight and gentle breeze was swallowed by the shade and stillness of the jungle floor. The sounds changed too. With thousands of bird and insect mating calls seemingly reaching a startled apex as they arrived before going silent, waiting to see what these strange two-legged creatures would do.

The eight of them began unstrapping from the sled and immediately armed themselves, but actually getting off the sled was a bit of a challenge, given how thick the underbrush was, rising above them in every direction, presenting a nearly-impenetrable wall.

"One moment," Mason said, touching the Ring of Consideration on his finger to confirm its existence before he swiftly 'cleared' space around them. With fire. Will felt a bit of warm air wash over him as the Ring of Consideration kept Mason's Conflagrations from damaging his Party. In the blink of an eye, there was nothing but ash around them for twenty feet in every direction. Reggie and Will jumped off first, followed by all the Bees and then their three casters.

"Alright, it's about fifty paces that way." Will said, pointing at a wall of underbrush. The eight of them studied the solid wall of greenery for a moment.

"Makes you wonder why nobody ever found it, am I right?" Reggie quipped.

"Alright, who wants to be the Flagbearer?" Jason asked, rubbing his hands together. Flagbearer Active: 1 charge Designate one entity as the 'Flagbearer'. Any ally of the target who can see them receives a large buff as long as the Flagbearer remains alive. Should the flagbearer die or be captured, the buff switches to a minor debuff. All eyes turned to Will.

"Yeah, I'll do it." Will said. It was a bummer to miss out on a large buff, but it did raise the average of the party, and Will needed a buff far less than everyone else. Plus if he were killed or captured, they were probably gonna die anyway. Will felt a Charge manifest from Jason and settle over him like a mantle. You are now the Flagbearer. Your allies in visual range will gain a large buff as long as you are free and alive. Death or capture will invert the buff.

"Balls," Travis muttered, eyes wide as he inspected his stats.

"That's my long-term buff. After that, we've got my short-term buff Made Manifest, where I can make one of you fight like a legend for about five minutes. And then my ultra-short buff, Hand of Fate, where I can make you lucky for about ninety seconds."

"define 'lucky'." Travis asked.

"Idunno. Lucky. You know. Lucky. Good things happen more, bad things happen less." Jason said with a shrug. In Will's opinion he was definitely getting Travis back for teasing him the day before.

"Fair enough," Travis said with a shrug, not rising to the bait. In a matter of seconds they were organized and cutting their way through the underbrush, With Reggie in the lead, carving a path to the lake ahead of them, the sight of which didn't manifest until they chopped through the last three feet of undergrowth to reveal their target. The lake itself seemed to be a perfect circle, almost like a bowl that the waterfall above was pouring into.

In fact, the waterfall seemed strangely unnatural as well, as it jutted out partly over the water, the stone holding it up seemingly carved into a chiseled edge, water emerging from the very center… like the spout of a carafe of water. The waterfall and lake were clearly manmade, and that was before the eye even settled on the ziggurat in the middle of the lake. The weathered stone pyramid was an ancient thing, nearly consumed by the trees that had somehow found purchase in the crumbling stone façade.

Only a bit of actual stone showed through the crush of plants constricting it, but from its straight edges and uniform shape, it was clearly a manmade building. Plus, the ominous hole near the very top. A pitch-black opening cluttered with roots and vines, that weren't quite thick enough to disguise the doorway. Will allowed his eyes to slide past the ziggurat, instead scanning the water and shore, keeping his eyes open for some sign of the raid boss that Arkesh assured them was there.

The big mysterious pyramid in the center of a manmade lake was eye-catching and all, but slimes didn't have a flair for the dramatic. It might just as easily be sucking on hematite on the opposite shore or licking ore from the side of the waterfall's cliff. They needed to make absolutely sure nothing was going to catch them from behind before confidently marching into a half-sunk dungeon.

"Mason, Travis, can you two flush out the surrounding area?" Will asked. Travis nodded, and Will felt a Charge flow through the Master Decoy's body. A moment later, an illusory Party snapped into existence in front of them. The illusion marched down the coast until they were about a quarter-way around the massive circle. The illusion of Travis put his fingers in his mouth and unleashed an annoying whistle that made Will want to reflexively punch him.

Will caught Jason's chest with a hand as his Hype Man took a step forward to do exactly that. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. In a matter of seconds, a large variety of monsters flooded out of the jungle, congregating around the fake party. BOOM! The explosion neatly vaporized or crisped up the flood of monsters, ensuring that none of them would sneak up behind their party.

Will watched the ripples from the explosion cross the lake and lap up against the ziggurat. I'm not sure I like that.

"Whoah!" Jason said, eyes sparkling.

"Let's see what Withering Repudiation can do." Will said, turning his attention back to the monster extermination.

"These things have minds."

"YES!" Jason said, rolling up his sleeve. They went forward and repeated the process. This time, Jason simply glared at the crush of monsters ahead of them, and the monsters assaulting the illusionary party just… died. The area of effect seemed to be a bit smaller than Mason's Conflagration, but the effect was comparable. Minus the damage to the surroundings and the attention-grabbing explosion. All told, everyone was very impressed at how clean the kills were, rivalling Alicia in their ability to snuff out a life.

If we got rid of the 'must have a mind' requirement, could he make stone crumble by hurting its feelings? Will didn't see how it was possible to inflict psychic damage to something without a mind. That seemed like the hard limit, but who knew? He'd been surprised before. Still no raid boss though, huh? Will thought, glancing at the ziggurat. They went all the way around the lake, making sure the raid boss wasn't hiding in or around the water anywhere, then it was time to go in.

"Okay, here's the deal. Bee, one of you stays out here and watches our back. One of you stays with the group, and one of you goes ahead of us." The idea was, they could know immediately if the raid boss snuck up on them or if the Bee ahead of them stumbled into it.

"Aw man, lookout? That's boring." All three Bee said.

"Look at it this way. One of you gets to go in that big scary hole before any of us do. Who knows, if there's treasure in there, you might be able to Phantom Thief it before I can. I leave it to you to figure out who does what." Now that I'm thinking about it… Phantom Eye 123->122 Charge remaining. Will sent his Phantom Eye ahead, and inspected the entrance. The faint light of day filtering in was enough for his enhanced senses to study the root-worn stone staircase that descended into the darkness.

To Will's surprise, he came across a strangely shiny, rust-free steel door decorated with an intricate mural depicting a man being sacrificed to… The Tower, perhaps? Or a god? Will didn't know. It was hard to tell, since it was partially melted along the bottom, as if something had corroded its way through. A good sign the metallic slime had at least been there.

"Will?" Bee's voice drew him back to his regular eyes, refocusing on the Tangled.

"Eh?" Will grunted.

"I'm going with you." Bee thumbed her chest.

"I'm going ahead." Another one said proudly.

"I'm…staying here…" the last one muttered, kicking a rock into the lake.

"It's a really important job," Will said, clapping her on the shoulder.

"Yeah…sure." She groused.

"Here, have some caramel." Will said, handing her a piece of caramel wrapped in wax paper that Anna had made earlier.

"Oooh!" Bee said, snatching the sweet out of his hand.

"She gets caramel and I don't!?" Jason demanded.

"You wanna stay here?" Will asked.

"…no?"

"Alright, let's go," Will said, stepping onto the lake and hardening it with Aspect. An instant later they were marching across the lake towards the ziggurat. The 'vanguard' Bee rushed ahead with a barely suppressed giggle of excitement while the 'tagalong' Bee joined the Party at the back, peering around them to try and get a clear view.

Will assigned the Phantom Eye to follow along over their vanguard's shoulder, keepin an eye on both her and her surroundings, trying not to get caught up marvelling at the strange interior of the stone temple.

"This place is made of stone, right?" Reggie asked as he ran a hand along the melted steel door before ducking under and passing through. Will didn't think a Metallic slime was smart enough to engrave itself with a mural, but he stabbed the shiny steel door and confirmed that it was just a door before ducking under. Never hurt to be sure. On the other side of the door was a strange sight.

Metallic tubes and sharp-featured steel statues stretched the length of the hall, plunging deeper into the ziggurat that seemed to be larger on the inside. The quiet steel statues lining the hall must've been terrifically impressive in their day, but their once stoic, brutal features had been long since melted away by something that fed on metal, leaving behind half-melted expressions that struck a completely different tone. Haunted, abandoned, creepy.

"…I can't see a damn thing." Reggie said.

"Same." Bee whispered.

"Mason." Will whispered back. The Nuker flicked a spark above his head, where it remained suspended, giving off a glimmer of light. It was only about the light of a candle, but that was plenty. Even if the other Party member's eyesight wasn't as good as his, it was still superhuman. The extra light allowed Will to take in far more detail than he had a moment before. The thing that stood out most to Will was how little corrosion had occurred in this… What, eight-thousand-year-old temple, according to the old snake?

Will walked up to one of the statues and gave it a light rap with the back of his tomahawk. Ping!

"This is all Blessed Steel," Will mused, frowning. Blessed Steel is from stars. This Floor didn't have any stars, so… how did they get it? Matter of fact, none of the Floors he'd ever been in had stars, instead having that same unnatural moving sky. Does that mean they used to have a normal sky and Miasma changed it… at the end of the Coil? Is that part of the cataclysm at the end of a Coil? Too many questions to think about right now.

Will turned his attention to the grimy floor, slowly filled with dirt over the centuries as wind kicked it in through the entrance. Less water than I thought. I wonder if this place is actually flooded or not. Will turned his attention to Vanguard Bee, where she was eagerly (and blindly) fumbling her way through the halls, splitting into multiple copies as she came across rooms and cross-halls, eager to map it all out at once.

Even being unable to see, she was going to probably find their quarry faster than the rest of the Party. Which worked just fine for Will.

"I've seen some intense plumbing in the city but this is just crazy." Travis muttered, inspecting the wall.

"What do you mean?" Will asked, turning his attention to the Master Decoy. Travis Oilton came from a family of drillers who knew how to pump oil out of the ground. It was their trade before their Stronghold on the Third Floor was wiped out.

"Well, typically good plumbing is hidden. First, because people don't want to be staring at it, and second, if you expose it to the elements, it degrades faster. Best to seal it up."

"This feels like someone showing off. Any material that doesn't degrade in hundreds of years-""Thousands," Will corrected, earning a look from Travis. Will sheepishly motioned for him to continue.

"Any material that doesn't degrade in thousands of years has better uses than plumbing and statues. This is a show of force. With the way the pipes look like they grew out of the wall…feels like a last hurrah. Not to mention, you only need a handful of pipes for regular plumbing. Water in, water out." Travis counted the pipes on either side.

"A dozen pipes? That's just superfluous. Although…" Travis rubbed his chin and began muttering to himself.

"If there was some sort of energy capture system in the lake underneath the waterfall, it might be able to power…" Will scanned the surrounding pipes until he found one that was heavily corroded by the metallic slime's passing. Will walked up the side of the wall and peered down into the pipe where a small piece of the outer shielding had been melted away. Beneath the corroded layer of Blessed Steel There was some sort of keratinous substance that seemed to pulse with a heartbeat underneath it. Well…

I don't like that at all.

"It's not pumping water," Will said, returning to the ground.

"… Don't touch anything you don't have to." Bee gave a sudden sharp inhale of air, drawing Will's attention to her. The tiny girl pointed a shaking finger ahead and to the left, her skin pale. Phantom Eye. 122->121 Charges remaining. Will created a new Phantom Eye and sped it straight along the path that Bee was pointing, going through a solid stone, steel, and empty rooms, until he found what she was pointing at: Vanguard Bee suspended in midair by dozens of needle-like spears of liquid steel. Floor-wide Alert!

The Raid Boss, Silverdeath has been engaged on the 7 th Floor! Silverdeath was a common slime that chanced across a large deposit of powerful Relics and Blessed Steel. Millenia of absorbing these has evolved it into a metallic slime and given it strange and unnatural powers. Bounty: 2000 Ivory ten-pieces, 3, 000, 000 XP, to be shared among the Parties that claim the bounty. As Bee's copy died, The needles of liquid steel retracted into a lump of beautiful silvery metal the size of one of the caravan's wagons.

It then turned partially see-through and phased through the floor, vanishing from Will's sight in an instant.

"Back up the stairs! Travis, cover us!" Will said.

"Why-" Jason started to ask, but Mason was already grabbing Jason's shoulder and hauling him back the way they'd come at full speed. Will felt a charge flow through Travis, and an instant later, the Master Decoy's illusion was waggling his hips in the center of the room as the rest of them charged back the way they'd come.

"Nah, nah nah nah NAH!" Over his shoulder, Will spotted dozens of liquid metal spikes emerge from the walls and shoot straight through the decoy, buying them a couple extra seconds. It can move through walls and we can't. This is the absolute worst place to fight it.