The Ruined Fortress of Roha Vala, Part Five

"Ack!" A graceless sound escaped Neve's trembling lips as she landed on the next hovering platform, her unsteady feet landing on the very edge of it. Her arms flailed and Neve's body tilted backward slightly. Out of the corner of her right eye, she looked down and saw the lava lake below.

Using that potential of agonizing death as motivation, she willed herself to move forward and fell on her chest, hugging the platform.

[I hate this,] she thought, nearly crying. [I hate this so much.]

A few platforms ago, she'd come to one simple conclusion.

Whoever designed this dungeon has to have been harboring a deep loathing for mages. One that showed itself in the layout of this section.

How else could one explain this? Neve figured that if this was some rogue-type player, with a few dozen points in both speed and precision, they could get through this with the ease of a child skipping across a field of dandelions. If this was a warrior-type player, then they could probably use their great strength to clear multiple platforms at once!

Mages like Neve, however? No. She had to make her way to the black castle in the distance one block, and one potential heart attack, at a time.

"Seriously," Neve muttered to herself, "even when I was at my no-life, gaming peak, I was never a fan of single-player games specifically because they always had one or two bullshit sections like this. Fuck, fuck!"

Looking down at the lava before her next attempt, Neve felt dejected.

"Maybe I should just cut this whole revenge plan short and just jump."

Despite those words, Neve had no real option but to press on.

So, slowly, she made her way from one platform to another. One block at a time, as she went from one near-death experience to another, she eventually made it to her castle-like destination.

With one final hop, her feet touched the cold stone and Neve fell to her knees.

[... Please,] she thought, [please, let this be where the boss is.]

Black wooden doors stood between her and the path forward. Neve had never been particularly religious but she was praying hard right now, begging whatever powers that brought the Unity Trials to humanity to spare her any more suffering and present her with the enemy she needed to defeat to escape this terrible, awful place.

Instead, when she pushed the doors open, what she found was a courtyard of some sort.

There were two sets of stone stairs at the sides leading up to a second floor where two mannequins were looking down at the courtyard. Just ahead of Neve, there was one mannequin that was far larger than any of the others she'd seen up until this point, holding a giant ax.

Level 52

MP: 50/50

Level 50

MP: 50/50

Level 53

MP: 50/50

All three enemies' heads tilted up as she opened the door and, although they had no eyes, Neve felt their gazes land on her.

[Crap.]

Immediately, the archer mannequins began pulling arrows back and letting them loose in her direction. Neve took cover behind the doors she'd just opened, narrowly avoiding a pair of arrows that went flying through the spot Neve had just been standing in, and then closed them.

A massive rumbling sound reached her ears and Neve could tell, without having to look, that the giant mannequin was rolling toward her.

[Multiple enemies,] Neve thought. [But... there aren't that many of them, right? If I had come here with an actual party, a tank, two damage-dealing players, and myself, wouldn't getting through all of this be pretty easy?]

Kindness was not something she believed the Forces That Be were capable of giving out, but, perhaps there was some truth to the idea Neve had just thought of. That, maybe, they had scaled down the number of enemies in this place to fit the fact that she was tackling it alone, even if their levels remained at 50.

[... Should I be grateful? Fuck no, ] Neve thought, biting the insides of her cheeks. [Doing this favor for me doesn't make up for taking away my family.]

The anger she felt as that thought popped up in her mind was converted into determination, and as the giant mannequin appeared at the door, Neve prepared herself.

Wordlessly and robotically, as Neve backed away when the rumbling became too loud, the mannequin pulled up its ax and brought it down where the doors were, breaking down most of that wall entirely.

Doing so had a few effects. The first, of course, was that the giant mannequin could now move outside and follow Neve, but the second was that the archers were now free to keep firing. Neve had less cover to work with.

That didn't mean there was no cover at all, however, as pieces of the wall remained. Quickly, Neve positioned herself at the left side of this bridge, where a small portion of the wall still stood.

[I don't have the quickness to dodge this thing's attacks and the arrows at the same time. The only way I survive this is if I can focus entirely on this mannequin alone,] Neve reasoned. [It's cramped. I don't have much space, and it's going to take a metric fuck-ton of spells to kill this guy, but thankfully, these enemies are slow. I can do this!]

The mannequin raised its ax and moved to slam it on top of Neve. The healer sidestepped the attack, pulling her staff out of her inventory and moving backward.

She had her back to the wall that had just been partially broken.

[If I move to the left, I'll get shot in the back with arrows. I can only move vertically or to the right. But if I move to the side, I might corner myself.]

Keeping that in mind, as the mannequin repositioned, this time, it went for a horizontal swing. If this was anyone else, they may have had to jump over the attack. Being as short as she was, though, Neve opted to roll behind it.

She managed to do it, with the ax just narrowly passing over her head,

Neve ended up behind the creature.

Pulling up her staff, she gritted her teeth.

[I should use {Iceball} to slow it down first.]

Thus, she shot out a couple of beginner-level projectiles, watching as blocks of ice flew through the air and crashed into the enemy. A blue mist wrapped itself around the enemy, beginning to shroud the mannequin.

Neve took a few steps back.

[Good, good. If I slow it down enough, I can eventually get it to the point where I'll be able to fire spells at it without having to worry too much about being hit in return. And, if I can do that, then I can just whittle away at it until it dies. I still have to keep the archers in mind, tho- AGH!?]

Neve had gone one step too far and her foot landed on the edge of the bridge.

She nearly fell back, almost ending the fight by way of an environmental hazard.

On MeTube, there were a few clips of players dying like this. One guy in particular that Neve could remember had gone into a dungeon drunk and ended up walking on a thinly-veiled trap of leaves that gave way to a pit of spikes.

And yet, people found it hilarious, even though it was happening in real life to a real person. Neve could imagine that if someone managed to record this moment and post a video of her having such an embarrassing end, she might just be immortalized on the internet.

Not that she'd care, of course, because she'd be dead. But, still, though, it was interesting to think about.

Regaining her bearings, though, Neve watched as the mannequin began rolling toward her.

[Crap,] she thought. [This is bad. This is really bad. I have no room to dodge back. If I step to my right, I'll get shot. All I can do is...]

Neve's eyes widened.

[Wait.]

Looking down at the sphere the mannequin was rolling on, she found that it was picking up speed.

[Maybe...]

In this moment, with her back against the metaphorical wall, which was ironic because there was no wall behind her at all and that was kind of the problem, Neve chose to put all of her faith in the simple concept of gravity.

Over the course of many years of gaming, bosses had been beaten this way, achievements had been unlocked like this, and unlockables had been found through this method. Neve hoped that, maybe, she could survive a fight against one random grunt like this too.

She waited.

The mannequin hustled toward her. It carried no expression but in Neve's mind, she imagined it was quite angry.

As it reached the place where she stood, it reared back, rolling even faster. The mannequin gathered as much momentum as it could, deciding here and now that it would reduce Neve into a pile of body parts, scattered and broken as a result of a single swing that would make her pitiful, mage body explode into bits.

And so it was that the mannequin swung vertically.

And Neve dodged toward it, rolling behind it as she'd done before.

The mannequin missed.

Its momentum pushed it forward.

Neve turned, watching as the mannequin's gigantic body worked in her favor and...

The mannequin slipped and fell.

Neve heard a subtle "plop" as the mannequin fell into the lava and, just a couple of seconds later, a message popped up.

EXP Gained: 200

EXP: 220/240

WS Tokens Gained: 100

WS Tokens: 3850

[YES!]

She fell to her knees, raising her fists into the air victoriously.

[YEEEEEES BITCH, YES!]

Before the Unity Trials, all this would have been was just a funny clip that would get her a few likes on the internet. Now, it had saved her life.

Amazing.

An arrow landed on the ground to Neve's left, reminding her that the giant mannequin's friends were still standing.

Taking a deep breath, Neve got up and went back to where the mannequin had burst through.

[... Okay, they're just as slow as that other archer was. I can do the same thing here.]

Letting go of the euphoria she felt from that last moment, she prepared herself for the boring 15 minutes or so of trading spells with these archers that would come.

But, she couldn't quite get that smile off her face.

---

Some ungodly amount of time later, both archers were dispatched.

Neve leveled up twice and her status looked like this:

Level 26

MP: 330/330 (+50)

EXP: 130/260

Activity Points: 150

WS Tokens: 4050

---

Endurance: 20

Speed: 10

Precision: 15

Strength: 5

Arcane: 33

Having 20 Endurance was reassuring. 20 was a nice, round number. A pretty number to look at, too. And it even sounded nice! Twenty! A sweet, comforting word that Neve now associated with her Endurance.

But, she wasn't about to put her newfound durability to the test. Dodging any and all attacks was still going to be her main way of handling fights.

Moving past the courtyard, the only path she could take was those stairs that led up to the second floor.

Here, she found that this castle, despite its appearance, was... unfortunately small. There was just one room at the back that Neve could investigate, and, knowing how elaborate dungeons like these could be, that meant one simple thing;

"This probably isn't the way to the boss."

Still, she went to check it out. Behind the black door, Neve found a chest.

[Please, be something useful. Please.]

Was it?

... Maybe.

That depended on how one chose to look at the item inside.

"A key."

Neve held it up, putting it in her inventory.

[I'm guessing this is for that door back where I started... Could be for something else, though.]

Sighing, she walked back down to the courtyard.

[... The boss might be through that door from earlier, but... I should probably just check these other buildings first, shouldn't I? The key might be for something else too, something that I might find somewhere else.

Deciding that this was the best course of action, Neve prepared herself mentally for more jumping.

Hopefully, she wouldn't end up like that mannequin did.