Rise and Grind
I woke up the next morning in Jess' basement apartment. I got up just after dawn to use the bathroom, and decided to stay up to make some coffee and hang out on the couch, since I didn't know when she would get up on days she wasn't working.
Jess had a little year old black kitten named Furio, who strutted up to me, mewing and rubbing up against my legs in a desperate ploy for breakfast and attention. I wasn't going to give the little devil any treats, but I conceded some scritches behind his ears.
I sat thinking about what last night had meant. I was happy to have made a new friend and for there to be some eros in my life now, between all the boredom and existential dread, but everything about the future felt so uncertain.
A few minutes later, Jess herself emerged, naked and groggy, from the bedroom.
"Morning!" I chirped holding my coffee.
"Uuugh..." she groaned, taking a seat next to me on the couch. "Morning."
I handed Jess a mug of hot black coffee. "I was just playing around on the console, since I didn't know when you wake up."
"Mmmmm..." she hummed.
"Do you mind if I fool around in Cannibal Hymn?" I asked.
Jess' eyes lit up.
"Actually... do you wanna see what it's like late into the game?" she asked.
"Uh, sure."
"Hand me the controller." She commanded as she stretched her pale body across the couch.
Jess navigated around the character selection screen and chose a female avatar with goofy bright pink hair and teal tattoos along its body.
Seternis
LVL - 46
Blood-drops to level up - 8932
HP - 878
STA - 115
VIT - 23
ATT - 8
END - 22
STR - 20
DEX - 25
RES - 11
INT - 10
FAI - 0
She was loading a save in an area called 'Sechuran Mountains'.
Jess rose up on her knees and kissed me. "I'm like, maybe a little more than halfway through the game. There are these mountains up on the very northernmost edge of the worldmap, and I'm in these caves trying to kill this spider-god-thing. I've been working at this boss all week, and today I'm feeling lucky."
The game loaded up and Seternis stood in the center of a vast torchlit cavern, clad in a white silk gown wrapped over skirted silver armor. In her left hand she held a chalky white shield with the insignia of a mint green luna moth with the heads of serpents for its antennas.
Jess pulled up the item menu and equipped a weapon that appeared to be a long serated-head spear which resembled a long fireplace poker.
Pascuan War Harpoon
LVL - 6
SPEAR
WEIGHT - 6.0
DURABILITY - 200
PHS ATK - 299
MAG ATK - 0
FIR ATK - 0
LIG ATK - 0
STR BON - D
DEX BON - C
INT BON - NA
FAI BON - NA
PHS DEF - 40
MAG DEF - 10
FIR DEF - 30
LIG DEF - 30
The item description read: 'These weapons were first made with palm-wood shafts and chert blades in prehistoric times by the Quingnam fisherpeople for whaling and spearing fish. Over the centuries, Pascuan pirates and raiding parties improved upon the design for man-to-man combat through casting the barbed tip in metal alloys.'
"So this is the weapon I'm using right now. These things kick ass because they're really fast and have so much reach."
Seternis marched through the great chamber, past its surface of pockmarked stone and carved friezes of warriors engaged in mythic battles with monsters which gleamed an eerie lime green in the caverns' strange torchlight.
Then, from up ahead in the darkness came a scratching noise, like steel dragging on gravel. As Seternis approached, two figures closed in on her from either side, both brass-armored warriors, their mouths obscured beneath large crescent shaped septum-rings, brandished gleaming hand-saws and round shields bearing the insignia of a black spider.
The first of the warriors lunged at Seternis, who gracefully dodged before piercing the attacker's side with a heaving jab of her harpoon for -254 damage, driving its HP bar down to half of its starting vitality.
Seternis' counter-strike had left her back exposed to the second warrior. He slashed at Seternis' right shoulder, drawing -240 damage and inflicting a modest dent on her health.
Jess growled.
Seternis launched a volley of three quick attacks, killing the first warrior with a slash of -259, and wounding the warrior attacking on her left for -233 damage, but he was quick to raise his shield and block her second strike.
The two combatants circled each other around the narrow passage of the cave, their shields raised. Then, to my surprise, Jess simply dropped her guard, and started walking slowly towards her enemy with an impressive confidence.
For a moment the warrior hesitated and kept his shield held high, but as she grew nearer, and the opening to deliver a crushing blow ripened, the attacker couldn't resist. He drew down his shield and swung his ragged-toothed saw down on her shoulder.
Just at the last split second, Seternis raised her shield, meeting the enemy's saw-blade and careening the warrior's attacking arm off course, and pulling him off-balance.
Her enemy's side exposed in front of her, Seternis grasped the harpoon in her fist and drove it down with severe force, puncturing through the warrior's neck for a fatal -267 damage, and driving him down to collapse dying on his knees, and then falling flat face-first onto the cave floor in a pool of blood.
"HAH! GET FUCKED ASSHOLE!" she shouted.
I looked at Jess.
"What?"
I rolled my eyes.
+ 2100 Blood-Drops Collected!
The next area opened out onto a subterranean expanse of cobwebs, strung into a vast metropolis of towers and spirals.
Area Discovered - Hive of the Great Loom
As Seternis strode through the tangled streets and alleways between the silky structures, she was beset by a crowd of giant spider after giant spider, who descended down from and leapt out at her from up ahead.
I could tell that Jess had perfected the quickest way to cross this part of the level as, like a running back carrying a football across the field, she deftly sidestepped and dodged her way through every ambush, trapdoor, and ensnaring thread that lay across the web-city's chaotic thoroughfares.
Jess breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she had made it to a tall wooden doorway painted in stark zig-zags of red and black, having outpaced her arachnid pursuers.
Seternis pressed open the immense double-door gate and emerged into a high domed chamber, from which hung irridescent spiderwebs woven into mesmerizing patterns and mandalas.
It was as she ran into the center of the arena, slinging her shield over her back and taking the harpoon in both hands, that I noticed the gleaming texture of the torchlit floor to be a carpet of skulls, ribs, and femurs.
A loud screech pierced the room and something seemed to whoosh down from the ceiling. A long HP bar appeared at the top of the screen:
Iyanchek, Lord of Weavers
Seternis strafed the side of the room as the massive black mass touched down softly in the center, dangling down its many needle-like limbs, an hour-glass bleeding out from the underbelly of its black carapace.
The massive creeping thing made the Lunar Rak look like a kitten.
Just as the boss was about to charge, Jess opened her inventory and selected an item:
Crushed Fire Ants
I took a quick glance at the effects description that read: "Smear this across the edge of a weapon to enhance strikes with fire damage for a period of sixty seconds."
Seternis doused the weapon in the crackling orange dust and rushed at Iyanchek. Jess leapt across the arena and slashed at Ianchaek's eyes with searing long slashes. -340!, -348!, -361!, The boss squeeled in pain and recoiled as half its HP disappeared in the first half a minute of the fight.
The spider god wailed a shrill and faintly feminine cry of pain, projecting a wide sonic attack that knocked Seternis down onto her back as the arachnid lurched forward onto her as she struggled to rise up, snipping and snapping and baring its tittering mandibles.
"Fuck!" Jess grunted as she repeatedly smashed the dodge button to no avail.
The lord of weavers pounced upon Seternis and tore at her back for -236 damage. It took her up in its sharp spindly arms and bore down on her neck with its bared fangs, draining Seternis for a -575, leaving her with only a sliver of health and chucking her across the room like an empty bottle after drinking her veins dry.
"Fuck fuck fuck" Jess rasped, slapping back and forth between the dodge and the quick attack button. Seternis got up and danced back and forth, rolling into range, quickly slashing, and rolling back out of Iyanchek's clutches. She managed to pull off these hit-and-runs four times. -347, -339, -352, -354!
Then, right in arm's length of the creeping boss, Seternis froze. Her stamina had been completely exhausted.
Iyanchek's dark and hairy body began to shudder. Its limbs recoiled, and its countless eyes gleamed. It was about to unleash the full force of a special attack.
Jess just straight up screamed at the TV.
As Iyanchek lunged across the length of its lair, mercilessly spearing the ground with its legs before it with every inch it advanced, Jess' stamina bar just barely recovered, enough so that she managed to hurl herself away from the war-path of the spider, who marauded forward all across its lair until hitting the cavern wall at the far end of the arena.
"Fuck You!" Jess shouted as Seternis double dove back into the breech, driving her harpoon down from on high into the spider's thorax.
"Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes YES" she cried as the boss reeled in damage.
-276!, -268!, -281!
The sound of the bronze spike perforating through the tarantula-god's chitinous armor and drilling through to its gooey underbelly echoed across the room. It's exploding abdomen cast a satisfying splatter across the floor.
SACRIFICE DEVOURED
+ 40000 Blood-Drops Collected!
Jess threw down the controller and flung herself onto me in victory, starting to kiss me deeply.
Her lips parted with mine and she whispered "So yeah, you should play too. We could team up."
"Sounds good, uhhh... Does it ever get less frustrating?" I asked.
"Not really." She sighed. "But it's kinda linear in the beginning. A lot of stuff opens up once you leave the Land of the Dead and make it to the first town. Just keep going until then!"