บท 175: The Light of the Forest
As soon as the light spirit started falling to the ground, Tom gave the order to attack. Hera and Alex rushed towards the center of the room to be ready to attack the monster. Bonnie flung an ice fist towards it, but before it reached the target, the ice started to melt because of the spirit's light. Yet, its body wasn't scorching like the giant sprite. What caused the change in temperature was the light coming from it that refracted inside the ice and created a beam of concentrated heat that even burned the floor. Runir pulled Bonnie to the side, making her avoid the heat ray.
"Don't use ice again," he stared at Bonnie for a moment.
"Yeah, ice is a bad idea."
The monster didn't get to hit the floor. When its metallic wing was about to touch the ground, it started hovering once more. Hera and Alex were the only ones fast enough to reach the light spirit before it started moving. A dagger and a handaxe slashed at the creature as it shifted back to its standing position. The attacks connected, Hera was sure of it, but there was no reaction or signs of it being hurt.
"Fall back. The beast shall use its…" Tom started speaking.
"English, Tom!" Hera yelled.
"The monster is going to start its spells. Get away and don't stop moving!"
Hera and Alex moved away, getting out of the stone circle, as a wave of light covered the area near the spirit. The soft yellow glow turned reddish, and several large beams of light covered the room. They were all coming from the tips of the monster's wings.
"The spells won't get close to each other, but they can track us," Tom warned as he moved to the side.
Hera dodged the first beam, but the following one was aimed at her new position as if it was chasing her. She wanted to throw her chakram at the monster, but with her movement, the string would end up being entangled in the columns. Not wanting to get in a situation where the pillars were an issue once more, Hera jumped back inside the stone circle and tossed her chakram at the monster, using the wire trap style to give the attack a stronger impact. At the same time, Bonnie flung a mud fist at the spirit while Blue tried to get closer to attack it. Alex was having some issues to stay away from the beams. Normally, she ran around her target to catch it off guard, but her speed became a problem. Moving too quickly would make her reach the range of a second beam. Now, she focused on understanding how fast she could move without putting herself in a bad position.
Tom was doing something similar to Alex, but instead of running around the stone circle, he was looping a single pillar. He got closer to the boss and stabbed it with a flurry before running back, leading the beam away from the monster before doing the same thing again.
Blue wasn't having the best time. If she stayed too close to the monster, it was easy to get in the range from another of its light rays. But staying far away would make her useless. She had yet to find something to help her have some ranged capabilities. At most, she could dash to punch the light spirit a single time before running away. Runir and Bonnie were using the stone pillars to hide and block the attacks as they darted back into positions to help with the fight.
As Hera moved around the arena, she noticed that the pillars receiving the light rays were starting to melt, "Guys, the pillars can melt, watch out," she called before preparing a paralyze spell using about a quarter of her mana. She launched the spell when it was ready, and a projectile the size of a soda can flew through the air hitting the light spirit on its apparent head. The electricity was deployed. The green streaks covered the monster's body just as the yellow spiked fist hit the creature. That seemed to amplify Hera's spell, generating more lightning streaks covering the spirit.
The Light of the Forest started to shake. The electricity seemed to be hurting it the more it tried to move. Even the wings got stuck as they tried to flap. Unsure what that meant, Hera activated her [Observe]
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Light of the forest (Light affinity) – Level 7 – Shocked
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"What the hell does shocked mean?" Hera gasped.
"What?" Bonnie shouted from the other side.
"We'll talk later," Hera moved closer to the monster and threw her chakram once more. Following it up with a poison needle using her mana stone.
Tom stood in front of the light spirit, preparing his charged attack. At the same time, Alex tossed one of her daggers to the other side of the creature and held out her hand. When the blade went over the monster, it stopped, and as if it was being pulled by a powerful magnet, the weapon went back to Alex's hand, passing through the middle of the spirit. The moment the dagger returned to its owner, the monster broke free from the electricity coursing through its body, still showing no signs of the attacks on its form.
The beams stopped being fired while the monster was hindered. Now that the light spirit had recovered, the group moved away, waiting for the return of the attack, but it didn't come. Instead, six stars appeared around the creature and started to orbit it. Hera got a bad feeling about that and moved even farther away. The orbs began to trickle down a liquid light that sizzled and burned as it hit the ground. To make things worse, they began following the group. Each had their own personal star.
Blue tried to evade the attack with small movements, but it didn't take long for her to step into a puddle made of the liquid light. Her foot burned with the contact, but her quick movement was enough to avoid losing her shoes. Yet, the surprise of the wet patch was enough to allow the star to drip the light on her shoulder. It wasn't enough to break through her shoulder guards, but some liquid spilled over her face, burning like she had spilled a hot bowl of soup. Oddly enough, the light had the smell of a freshly cleaned pool. Runir healed the small damage that Blue received as he moved around to evade the dripping liquid.
"How can we stop this, Tom?" Hera asked.
"I don't know. It's the first time I've seen this!" he dashed towards the monster and stabbed it a few times before the dripping light reached his position. Tom jumped to the side and back towards the arena's outer ring, the trail of liquid light following each of his steps. It had barely been a minute since the stars appeared, and about 20% of the floor was already covered in small puddles of the silvered gold liquid. To make matters worse, the trickles were increasing, just as they did in the jade pillars. If it followed the same pattern soon, they would be drowned in the light.
Tom wasn't the only one who noticed that. Bonnie looked around, trying to find a solution for the situation, but there was nothing. She saw Hera and Alex on the other side of the arena moving on a collision course, "Alex! Hera! Spread out. You are going towards each other."
Hera looked back, but she was zigzagging to avoid spreading the liquid around. She couldn't turn back. Alex approached, moving back to the arena's inner circle, but even so, the liquid cut off Hera's path. The puddles weren't massive, but it still could be dangerous to try to jump over them. What if she slipped and fell face first in the light? Not having much else of an option, she jumped over the golden trail left by Alex's pursuer.
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[All In] effects deactivated, the cooldown will now start
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"Crap!" Hera gasped. Her jump was much more powerful than she expected. She slammed against the side of one of the stone pillars and fell to the ground. Blue was running from her star and passed right by the explorer. Hera had to squeeze herself by the column so she wouldn't get hit by the liquid coming from Blue's star. Hera dashed away from the pillar as soon as she could, trying to flee from her own pursuer. The Light of the Forest was standing still during this entire time. The whole group was doing its best to attack it while running away from the stars, but they were faster than the beams. It gave them very few opportunities to attack.
Hera prepared another paralyze. The first one was enough to stop the monster's spells for a moment. Maybe it could work again. Still running around, she threw the spell at the light spirit, but the projectile bounced off its body. She tried once more, but the effect was the same.
"Hera! Look at the pillar you just passed," Bonnie shouted.
The liquid light seemed to be sucked by the pillar, pulling even some nearby puddles.
"I see," Tom gasped, "Lure the stars towards the pillars. Let the light fuel the waterfall once more."
"What?" Blue asked.
"The beast was trying to return from where it came. We must open the passage once more," Tom said as he ran towards the closest column.
"Aren't we supposed to kill that thing?" Alex asked.
"Some dungeons have more than one way to deal with a boss. That might work!" Runir said as he rushed towards the closest pillar.
"Fine," Blue turned to the side, moving towards another of the columns. In total, there were 8 stones. Alex and Hera were the most mobile and took advantage of it to move between two of the targets, bathing them in the light coming from the stars chasing them. The Light of the Forest started to move, doing its weird dance once more.
As the stones absorbed the golden liquid, they turned to a bright jade color once more, the light seeping into the cracks and moving up. Four of the pillars filled up quickly, and the stream of light started to flow towards the ceiling. Hera and Alex's ones took longer to get to that point, and the monster's dance started to become more erratic. Much like when the combat started.
Tom rushed towards one of the pillars, trying to assist with the pillars before it was too late. The light spirit danced faster and faster. Just as the streams from all the stones became waterfalls, it jumped towards the lake of light disappearing in the fog under it.
For a few moments, the light kept flowing up, but nothing happened.
"So… did we get it?" Blue asked.
"I think so, but we should have a notification, right?" Alex looked around.
"Yeah, my quest is still marked as ongoing. Maybe we missed some…" before Bonnie could end her train of thought, the entire cave started to rumble. A bright light came from the entrance of the boss' room.
"I think we should head to the other side," Hera moved away from the door.
They all followed her as the rumbling became louder. Suddenly, thousands of pure white sprites came flooding into the chamber. Before anyone could react, the stampede moved up toward the lake of light, and all the shining globules entered the fog cloud. It took two minutes for all the sprites to enter the portal, but all the lights in the underground forest vanished when the last one crossed. In front of them, just a notification appeared.
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You have completed the hidden Dungeon Quest inside the Underground Forest.
By helping to placate the Light of the Forest and reopening its portal, you allowed the spirit to take all the light of the forest back to where it belongs.
Rewards: Access to Underground Forest hard mode,
Mushroom Sunglasses
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"Did everyone get this?" Hera asked.
They all nodded in confirmation.
"Oh man, these glasses are awesome. Too bad they just work here," Blue said as she put on the glasses with mushroom-shaped lenses.
Hera retrieved it from the rewards screen on her tablet and inspected the pair with green-colored lenses.
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Mushroom Sunglasses – Uncommon
These sunglasses can protect the wearer from the harmful lights inside the Underground Forest. Outside the specified dungeon, they can block a small amount of ultraviolet radiation.
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"Does anyone want to trade? Pink is not my color," Runir said, staring at his pair.
"Sure, I don't think green works well with my gear," Hera gave him the sunglasses.
"So, did the boss drop something, or we just have the hard mode, and that's it?" Blue asked.
Tom was in the middle of the room, right below where the Light of the Forest had vanished from, "Worry not, my brave companion. The mighty foe has left us the spoils," he picked something up from the ground and turned to the group holding two gold coins, "For our efforts we shall receive 500 gold, to be split among us," Tom sighed.
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