Hop, Skip, and a...

Hornet and I fell asleep in each others arms.

When I woke up so did she, we cuddled a bit, but then we had to get up as we both knew if I was going to make good on that promise to slay the Radiance I had to get stronger.

I went into the tunnel but not before Hornet gave a semi-tight hug and pleaded in my ear.

"please, don't leave me all alone." she asked of me

"I won't, I promise." I said

heading down the tunnel I saw the fork again, and this time headed right, it had more mushrooms and a brighter glow than that of the left path, but the path straight ahead was almost entirely mushrooms, barely any path.

as I continued down the path, I had wondered what charm I would get at the end of this way.

I came to a massive (relative to my size) cavern, you could fit almost four whole radiances in here and they wouldn't even be cramped.

and there it stood, ominously, it looked like the stone giant in risk of rain two, but with mushrooms.

as soon as I stepped three feet from the entrance the way was sealed with some barrier, locking me out of an escape route.

the stone giant's eye lit up, and it looked in my direction, it began to move towards me.

I immediately dive to the right where a large mushroom was that blocked the stone giants view of me.

*THUD*

I could hear it getting closer.

*THUD*

it was almost to the mushroom.

*THUD*

its right on top of me.

*SWOOSH*

it swung its massive stone blade and removed the mushroom.

*stone grinding*

it looked around for me, but it could not locate where I was.

and that's when I struck.

*CRACK!*

the stone giant fell to one knee as I had swiped my nail through it.

*rumbling noise*

it began trying to lift a ball of energy and stone to shoot me with.

*KACRACK!*

its arm fell off as I had swiftly taken it from its shoulder.

*ZUUU*

it tried charging up its eye laser.

*SHWING*

the stone giant fell backwards as I removed my nail from its eye.

and as I stood victorious over the stone giant, I saw a badge where it originally stood.

picking it up, the grin on my face was huge at what I saw.

{Troublesome Deluge, when equipped allows access to Risk of Rain items and modifiers, find its twin to unlock Risk of Rain two items and modifiers.} two notches but also takes up an additional space, meant for late game.

this, is almost as amazing as EM in potential.

I almost did a little dance like what I did when I first used focus, but didn't.

I pressed on, and found another room, this one was smaller, about the size of a bedroom.

it had a bench off to the side there, but what caught my attention was a body right in front of me, in the middle of the room.

it was that of one of the nail masters, I could not tell which one.

he had similar nail strikes on him, like the ones on elder bug, but more numerus and deeper.

the plot thickens.

I look around and see some notes that are somehow still intact, they are on some nail arts.

I manage to learn the spin and the slam from them.

I sit in the bench and teleport back to hub.

as soon as I arrived I was tackled off the bench into a hug by a very worried Hornet.

"areyouokdidyougethurtwha-" she was imitating an auction house auctioneer before I interrupted her.

"its ok Hornet, I'm ok." I placated.

"what happened in there? That barrier blocked me from seeing in." she asked.

and so I told her about the stone giant (omitting about how I was being kind of cocky) about the room I found, with the nail master and the writing, and about how he had familiar gashes on him.

"this is worrying." Hornet said.

"yes very worrying, but this new charm will help loads." I said.

{Screen upgrade possible. Change Charm Screen to Charm System?}

"w-what! yes!" I said, without thinking.

{Screen upgrading to Charm System. User will be unconscious for: 167 hours, get comfy.}

"wait wha-" I tried asking but was already out.

...To be continued, some time in the future, perhaps.