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Dream
by Cyberchao/X
Chapter 222
5 Aquarius 2307
7:30 AM
Labyrinth of Hoshimaru
The chamber they now entered was immense. Two figures stood before them: one bestial, one human-like. Shortly after they entered, another shift of the walls occurred.
“Uh, didn’t I bind you to the ground?” Collerius asked.
“Like that could hold me—Lord Hoshimaru.” Num Berdeux bowed before the humanoid.
“You’ve failed, Berdeux,” he said, “and you know the cost of failure.”
“Lord Hoshimaru, please, I beg of you!” Num was engulfed in acid that made him melt away. “No! Damn it…I was the best you had! None of these others could compare to my power!”
“A rough loss indeed, then…” He turned to our heroes. “I see you’ve managed to turn some of my captured ones against me. I suppose that you must think you can defeat me. You’re wrong. Berdeux was wrong, also, when he called himself my strongest underling, for that honor can only belong to the Man-otaur here…”
“But your pet does not follow you of his own volition. Watch and learn…Purifying Petals.” Nothing. “Right, going to have to wait until he’s out of this maze…” Rose dashed towards the Man-otaur. “Rose Dome.” Leave Hyunga to me. I know I can handle him, and I’ll be able to keep him safe from his current master and from your attacks, as well as you from his, she told Alania.
“You were saying, Hosh?” Alania taunted. You sure you want to do that? Rin’ku asked her, adding at the onslaught of the acid, “Purificos!” It turned into harmless water. “Thanks,” Alania said. “Now to counter. Silver Shot!” The barrage began.
Hoshimaru seemingly just stood there, and yet the arrows all missed. “An illusion?”
“The illusion is his stillness. His body’s not really that solid,” Tillli noted, “he’s flowing around your shots.”
“Can he flow around this?” Armi asked, and let out a rather depressing noise. It didn’t seem to have much effect on Hoshimaru, though it unnerved many of the heroes. “Yeah; might want to shelve the Mournful Cry of the Feline Banshee for now,” Pallo suggested.
A sonic attack isn’t such a bad idea, though, Balakar said, letting loose a sonic blast, which shook the slightly slippery scoundrel. “Not going to be that easy, though,” Spirit noted. “My LumosUmbra won’t be useful here because the dark energy would just make him stronger.”
“Time for Spirius?”
“No, Coll; I doubt that’ll be necessary. Ever.” (CCX: Go check out the Chaos Chronicles for more details, then forget all about it because this Spirit is closer in form to the Spirit that appears in “Decadence” et al., and the necessary methods have changed. They still involve the crystals, though.) Rin’ku assaulted Hoshimaru with a Kalcificorus, and the visible damage affirmed Spirit’s assertion.
CCX: But we’re running so smoothly! We’ve got the ideas!
CC: That’s just the problem. In trying to get the laptop along on the latest vacation, we need a good reason why this particular computer must come. Obviously, something as large as this works perfectly. However, it’s important to optimize space, which means cleaning out the laptop case.
CCX: …Are you getting to the point any time soon?
CC: The two most important pieces of paper are missing. The maps of Hakar and Mashishai, both vanished.
CCX: …You can’t be serious.
CC: Nowhere to be found. The Hakachicayokiyoki map, the unused first draft of the Hakachicayokiyoki map, and the Polaria Tower and Citadel of Pain maps are all safe and sound, as is the early concept paper on the tie-ins with the Chaos Chronicles, but the two big ones…
CCX: Completely gone.
CC: Pretty much. The notebook used had pages that tore away easily, pre-serrated, which is why the maps are on stand-alone sheets of paper in the first place. We still have that notebook, with all of the little left margins spiral-bound into place, so we have the northernmost part of Happisault, including the marker for Shoshana City. Other than that…we may have to consider reconstructing the maps. We mapped Hakar out fairly well, I think, and could probably do a fairly good job by looking back at our earlier chapters, but…
CCX: This sucks.
CC: You’re a robot.
CCX: I was speaking for the author, you dope. Anyway, I think we can manage somewhat. Like I said, those who pay attention could’ve probably made their own Hakar maps by now, and Mashishai is simple enough…
“Not bad…but not good enough. Raharato Kanakara!”
Tillli put up a barrier to stop the attack, and Kosuke countered with…a song. Sort of. The microphone he was using reacted to his voice and unleashed a lightning-based attack. The others looked at him. “It’s a DAR. You didn’t think I’d come into a place like this completely unprepared?”
“What’s a DAR?”
“Digital Attack Recorder. It records other beings’ special moves and stores them to be used at a later time. That one was the move Subberyl used to get all of us at once back in the mist.”
“Interesting. Now to see what’s in here.” While the threat of Hoshimaru’s acid attack kept them from opting to close in for melee combat, a few of their Mensari Castle acquisitions proved useful—namely, some wands. (CCX: Yeah, we’re trying to make what was a toss-away reference to the “constantly upgrade your weapons” characteristic of so many RPGs into something. Overall, the magical equipment acquired there won’t play a major part, though.) It turned out to be fire magic, which was of course not terribly helpful in this battle.
“My turn,” Izumo said. “JohtApj Ozyxz: Fieq qi ZAsArz!”
“You know, I’m still not used to you doing magic,” Alania said.
“It’s not magic, really. Probably closer to ki, really.”
“A valiant effort, but…”
“Impossible! Nothing?”
CC: Unfortunately, the points are meaningless. And we’re not the type to hand out digital “cookies”.
