#079 – Gravity is just an illusion anyway

#079 – Gravity is just an illusion anyway

Unfortunately, both the gun and my clothes only accepted one type of mana each. I’d tried testing it and they both basically worked like a battery. Or maybe a capacitor. They stored additional power and I could draw on them at any point to either restore my own reserves or to use them directly. It helped that both of them were essentially me, so it was kind of like holding something in one hand but being able to pass it to the other hand at any time.

With that said, it was actually a binary decision as to what would be attuned to what. Obviously, I didn’t want both the gun and the dress to be attuned to the same thing. I wanted to be versatile, after all. But unfortunately, I still had no idea how to manipulate Tempor directly, so the decision ended up being, which one should be Ether and which one Intra?

In the end, since the gun used so much Ether anyway, I ended up charging it with a bit of Ether to get it going and did the same with my clothes and Intra. I could still change it in the future if I decided to, I would just have to drain them of Ether and Intra completely and then start charging them with the other thing anew.

Jeofffff: smartdress

Jeofffff: better than smartphone

I snorted but then nodded in agreement.

“Anyway, chat. It’s finally time. I’m all geared up and ready. Let’s do this!”

Finally, I entered the crystal crater dungeon once more.

Since I knew from before that besides the boss, the monsters here could hardly do anything to me with their attacks, I wasn’t as afraid as I had been before. Obviously, I would still be on guard though.

I headed straight for the hole once more, and it didn’t take long until I ran into my first crab. A few quick smacks over the head with the pan took care of it and I kept going.

Jeofffff: they respawned

GeorgeDoshington: smacc

“Seems like it, yeah... I guess I failed that side objective,” I grumbled. “Do you think the boss respawned too? Probably, right?”

Regardless, I kept going, prepared to take on that dragon again.

As I got closer, I ran into many more crabs and lizards and easily dispatched them without taking any damage whatsoever. I even ran into one of those snakes and accidentally let it use its sapphirication hiss. Luckily, the fused helmet did its job and I barely felt the effects before I quickly broke out of it and whacked the snake over the head with my pan.

As I worked my way in, I began to get more and more nervous that the dragon hadn’t appeared yet. Part of me was already cheering that it hadn’t respawned yet, but the larger part of me – and most of chat – insisted on being vigilant.

I made it all the way to the hole, close enough to see inside, before I somewhat relaxed and decided that there probably wasn’t any dragon around.

“Okay, I guess the boss hasn’t respawned... yet? No idea how this works.” I mumbled as I stopped a meter outside of the hole and carefully peeked inside.

“Oh god...” I muttered.

The massive, building-sized hole wasn’t actually perfectly vertical. It was a bit slanted, which just made it worse in my opinion. Instead of floating down with my Featherfall, I would have to awkwardly slide down... if I was even going to go down at all.

Look, the Featherfall was really cool, but that didn’t help with my inherent fear of heights. Yes, sure, I had fallen from crazy heights back in the water park dungeon, but that didn’t mean I could now voluntarily throw myself into a dark pit with no visible bottom.

“How would I even get back up...?” I murmured.

Jeofffff: maybe there’s a path?

trelipideliberitation: shoot water back up and teleport to it

Jeofffff: send john to look

I shook my head.

“No, I’m pretty sure I can only teleport within the same body of water, actually. I can’t just teleport to any water anywhere,” I explained as I summoned John and had him fly into the hole.

There was a layer of crystals, just like the ground of the rest of the dungeon, but the hole punched straight through those and continued further underground. But... It wasn’t just random rock and dirt down there. It was even weirder to look at than the surface. There were lakes of shimmering lava and what looked like plasma all around the hole, hanging to the sides, casually defying gravity. There were also patches of cracked dry rocks in the dirt that seemed... blurry for some reason? No, they were constantly vibrating. I could hear it when John got closer to one of them.

“...What the heck had caused all of this?” I murmured, still stunned at the chaotic landscape down there.

It looked like someone had taken a whole bunch of different attacks, put them into a blender, and then punched a hole in the ground with the result.

It actually kind of reminded me of the Combination Breath of my gun. Just with a lot more random crap added to the mix.

Well, it wouldn’t be surprising if the really strong people in this world had access to the same skills I did. If all you had to do was fuse a few guns together and name them with Ultimate Fusion...

Did I really need to do this?

...Chat would never leave me alone if I didn’t at least try, would they?

“Okay! Let’s go!”

Not wanting to give myself time to come up with more excuses, I pushed myself off and mentally gripped the Featherfall skill, ready to pull the trigger.

Luckily, after a second of freefall, gravity abruptly shifted and I unceremoniously plopped on the ground – or rather, the wall.

I let out a sigh of relief and finally relaxed. Then I looked around myself and couldn’t help but think how weird it was that the sky was to the side now.

“...Yup, typical dungeon nonsense. Why am I even surprised?”

Still a bit hesitant, I slowly stood up, trying to see whether there was anything weird about the gravity, like random spots where it was weaker or aimed in a different direction – since some chatters thought it might be the case – but there wasn't. Not where I stood, at least.

I sighed again.

“You know, I’m going to be constantly paranoid of the gravity suddenly snapping back to normal now. This is gonna be stressful...”

With that, I went ahead to explore what I could only guess was this dungeon’s second ‘floor’.

First order of business, I decided to walk around the hole in a circle, just to check whether the gravity really changed every step of the way. Like a reverse globe.

GeorgeDoshington: a ratwheel lol

I snorted.

“That’s one big rat wheel. Like planet-sized.”

I soon came across one of the shimmering lava lakes and couldn’t help but observe it for a moment, even sending out John to inspect it from up close.

It was very strange. As if the whole lake of lava was enchanted to subtly sparkle in all the colors of a rainbow. What the heck even was that? Maybe one of the skills of the race that had those colorful feathers? To make everything rainbow and sparkly? Or maybe something else entirely.

As if to answer my question, as soon as I stepped closer, something suddenly emerged from the lava lake, causing me to jump back.

It was a small chicken-sized creature that almost seemed to be made out of that sparkly lava. It looked vaguely like the dragon boss I’d faced back on the surface, but obviously nowhere near as big and it lacked the sapphire armor.

It let out the funniest high-pitched ‘Waaah!’ cry I’d ever heard and I barely managed not to immediately burst out laughing. Instead, I materialized my gun self and shot the thing with a water bullet.

It exploded into steam and after the steam dispersed, there were no traces of that creature.

Then I finally let myself start laughing.

“What the heck was that?! Waaah!” I imitated in falsetto. “Oh my god. This dungeon is trying to kill me with laughter now.”

Chat was cracking up too and I had no doubt in my mind that that sound would soon become some kind of meme.

Now, I had no idea what the little lava lizards could do – besides make me laugh – but it seemed smart to stay out of their way. Touching them would obviously hurt and I wasn’t too sure whether my melee weapons could withstand hitting them. So, despite how easy it had been to deal with one, I still had to use Ether to shoot it and if I ran into too many of them, I would soon be out.

Compared to the monsters of the first floor, this was definitely harder... but still relatively manageable.

GeorgeDoshington: you forgot appraisal enemy

“...Right, I’ll do that next time. Well, let’s keep going, chat.”