The worst thing about being frozen?

Being useless.

Completely and utterly unable to help, do anything, save anyone.

All I could do was wait and plan, and read the chat. I was since sick and tired of waiting, and the chat had grown silent. There were a few occasional quick messages, suggesting that my party was in combat. I knew better than to distract them while they were doing that.

And so I could do nothing but plan.

There were three things here. The altar, the pillar and the bonfires. The bonfires were smouldering weakly, and the pillar was gradually losing health from the heat. The altar was still burning brightly.

I studied the pile of junk I was on in-depth, and already double-checked my conclusion that it was worthless junk. This stuff wasn’t going to help me. The gnawed bones got the same conclusion. If I wanted to do something about this situation, I had to do it with things I already collected. Or maybe something I was supposed to find outside of this area of light.

But that was the benefit of time. I could check all the stuff in my inventory, finding things I completely forgot I had. I already found one thing that might work, and maybe I had one or two other things tucked away that could work too.

Nothing that worked while I was frozen, though.

There was a sound in the distance. A strange scream.

My eyes moved over to the source of that sound. I saw the light of a torch. Too bright and white to be a ghoul, not bright enough to be a torch spell.

It was getting closer, and the echoes of soft footsteps soon followed.

A dark figure soon emerged from the darkness, pocketing her torch as she ran into the light of the inferno. The creature was best described as a swan-person. A very long neck ending in head that looked almost xenomorph-like, though with a swan beak instead of fangs and a second mouth. Her torso was fluffed and with bodacious curves, but a little too short to pass as human and with a swan’s tail. Her legs were a long transition of feathers to scaly bird legs with flipper toes.

She didn’t look very normal. A creature that seemed like a computer’s modelling of what a human swan hybrid should look like after setting certain requirements, rather than the human’s vision of it.

Her black feathers were beautiful though, and her arms a graceful work of art. Instead of going for something that could fly but also had thumbs, she had normal arms with a wave of long shining feathers following her every movement like wide sleeves. The movement of those sleeves was mesmerising.

Crawler # 6,292,532. “Tatiana Volkov”

Level 13.

Race: Shadow Cygnues.

Class: Arcane Archer.

She took out an overly decorated bow and some arrows, and began to shoot into the darkness. Her wings looked like animated art as she did it, the movement of long feathers making the continuous loading, drawing and release of arrows look like one continuous movement.

“Damn it, this is a really bad match-up for me.” The swan muttered. Her words were translated to English for me, but the AI apparently thought it was funny to give her a Russian accent.

She jumped backwards elegantly, clearly less heavy than she looked, and kept shooting arrows as she did so. The Grasping Vine slowly followed, the ranks squirming and coiling to chase the bird as fast as it could. Correction, Grasping Vines. I saw several pop-ups, even if the mass of vines looked like one being.

Tatiana could outpace it, clearly, but defeating it was a lot harder for her. Arrows weren’t exactly made for harming plants, for one. She couldn’t hold a torch and shoot arrows either, and this was not the kind of target you could fire at blindly with only a general idea of their location. And of course, she was slowly dying as the poisonous fog did its work.

She might turn things around now, though. The inferno provided her with plenty of light, and a searing pillar for her to circle around. I couldn’t exactly help her in my frozen state, but the light alone might already suffice. And I could always use some Healing Scrolls on her without moving.

But right now I couldn’t do anything else. I tried moving my arms just to confirm that, but as expected I just-

Tatiana startled and looked at the new threat, as my sudden movement caused a miniature avalanche of junk loot. Hm, that’s odd.

I got up, stretching my fingers and finding no resistance. I took a step, and then another one, and then two more. No problem. No ten minutes passing. I didn’t know why, but I was moving normally again.

But why? It wasn’t the light; I already tried moving before after the ghouls left and the altar was giving off much more light than her torch. It wasn’t the fog; it was still as thick as ever. Almost nothing changed.

Questions for later. Bigger problems now.

I ran towards Tatiana and the vines, taking out my Tiny Giant Hammer. Maybe not the best weapon for the job, but better than the other ones I had. Plant or not, nothing alive liked getting squished between a floor and a hard place. Shame I had none of those flammable moonshine jars, those were all in Elise’s inventory.

There was a loud crash as I brought it down, shaving a quarter off one of the vines’ health. The others tried to grasp me, no longer ignoring me now that I was moving and standing in between them and their prey.

I brought my hammer down three more times before a vine managed to grab me, and once it did the others could use it as a tether to find their way to me as well. Tatiana took out a shortsword and tried cutting through the vines that curled around me, but more vines were grasping me than she could cut loose. I didn’t feel any pain, just a heavy pressure, but my health started dropping ever faster as more vines wound themselves around my limbs.

I quickly ran back to the pillar before they could wind themselves around both legs and hamper my movement, and Tatiana quickly ran along to not end up tangled as well.

“What should we do!? There are too many of them!” She asked. “Should I cut faster, risk hurting you to free you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. Try throwing some of the flammable stuff on the pile if it won’t burn by itself.” I said.

I jumped onto one of the dying bonfires, and started to roll through the soot and cinders. Tatiana picked up some of the nearest trash and started throwing it on the pile, the bonfire’s health bar increasing a bit as she did so. The vines were definitely the better fuel, however, and started to burn as the bonfire rejuvenated.

I used a Health Potion to recover the health I lost from the tangling and being on fire, and crawled out of the bonfire once I no longer felt anything clinging on to me.

“Thanks.” Tatiana panted. “Not sure if I would’ve survived if it weren’t for you. Actually, I still doubt we’ll survive.”

“No problem.” I said, picking up a large piece of burning rubble from the bonfire and throwing it at one of the approaching Grasping Vines. “Now, we should probably find a way out of here.”

“The tower is closed off.” Tatiana said. “Energy field. Can’t leave.”

“Eventually we can, and right now there’s nothing better to do than to look for an exit.” I shrugged.

“How about that thing?” Tatiana asked, pointing at the shrine.

Darryl: Thomas, how are things going?

Thomas: We’re doing well. Taken down three Neighbourhood Bosses, the regular ones. Elites are going to be trouble.

Darryl: Azriel vs Shalander, who’s winning?

Thomas: Neither, pretty balanced for now.

“Knowing this place, breaking a god’s shrine seems like a very bad idea.” I said. “It might be what we need to do to win this quest or make it easier, all quests apparently have such hints and side objectives. But the AI may try to screw us over at the same time. Or with false leads.”

“We shouldn’t destroy the shrine, just to be safe.” I said. I didn’t mention that we didn’t want to weaken Shalander if that meant Azriel winning faster, it would take too long to explain. But giving the Elite some easy levels or a sudden turnaround of the odds was a bad thing for us.

“Fine.” Tatiana said, a hint of question in her response. She didn’t seem to disagree or intending to destroy it despite my opinion, though. While she wasn’t indifferent, she just didn’t know enough about this situation to argue or question my judgement. “So, let’s just see where we can leave?”

“Yeah, that’s about all we can do right now.” I said.

Thomas: Darryl, are you there?

Darryl: Yeah.

Thomas: Good. The others just teleported out to Maestro’s show.

Darryl: The one you and I weren’t invited to? Didn’t know that could happen mid-combat.

Darryl: Oh fuck. You’re all alone with three Elites up there.

Thomas: Luckily the worg Elite left a while ago, and the other two are fighting each other. So I’m safe for now. But the ghouls are coming. Climbing the tower now, not sure if I’ll make it.

Thomas: I’ll trade everything I won’t need for the upcoming fight to you while I can.

Darryl: Wait! You’ve still got your parachute, right? Get ready to use it.

Thomas: Can’t leave the tower.

Darryl: You’re not trapped in the tower if there is no tower.

“Talking to your friends? What did they say?” Tatiana asked, tone polite to indicate I didn’t need to answer if it was personal information.

“We need to destroy the shrine after all. The Borough Boss is too strong, and he’s now attacking them.” I said.

“Alright, I hope that this is not bad thing for us.” Tatiana said. “And lvl15 is good experience.”

As she stepped back as far away from the shrine as she could without plunging herself in the darkness where she couldn’t see the Grasping Vines approach, I accepted Thomas’s trade and started looking through my junk tab for heavy stuff to throw.

Tatiana fired an arrow at the shrine, and it burrowed deep breaking the thing more than it should. I threw a file cabinet at it, crushing several skulls and leaving a large crack in the stone slab. Tatiana fired two more shots, oddly enough dealing more damage than me, as I threw a heavy rocking chair. Not sure where I picked that one up, but in the inferno it went.

The fire faltered and grew dim, and as the altar’s health turned red it died out entirely. I stepped in, ignoring the now manageable fire damage that the red-hot pillar was still radiating, and brought down the hammer.

“Good. Not boss so no reward, but still good experience. And the tower is no longer on fire, will not collapse now.” Tatiana said.

“Well, actually…” I said. “That’s step two.”

“What do you mean?” Tatiana asked.

“We have to leave the tower.” I said. “Quests are usually worded tricky, a little riddle that turns into a mean surprise if you don’t see it in time. This quest says we have to leave the tower, reach the top, or wait until the bosses leave.”

“So? You think I will die of poison before that happens?” Tatiana asked.

“Just because the quest says it’s one of the ways to win, doesn’t mean the bosses will leave at all. Or not search the basement before leaving.” I said. “And this show is meant to be entertainment at our expense, so I can only assume that the option to hide, cower and wait things out will be punished more often than not.”

“Well, fuck.” Tatiana eloquently said.

“And that’s why we’re leaving the tower instead. Or rather, make the tower leave us.” I said, taking out a bottle of some chemical I never bothered to look at closely. It seemed to be some kind of cleaning agent you could buy in convenience stores, but the words on the label were in an Asian language. “Here, I’ll spray the other bottle first, you splash the contents of this one over my stains.”

I took out the other bottle I gotten from the AI, who had described them as two ‘2 gallon jugs of completely innocent and legal household chemicals that surely won’t combine into a reaction that can dissolve a body. (Wink wink)’ when I got them from a silver box. If the reaction was that strong, it could probably also erode through metal.

I began splashing my bottle, avoiding eye contact with Tatiana. She seemed nice, and helpful. I felt like a dick, risking her life for Thomas’s and not even having the decency to tell her that. Instead I was lying to her to make sure this plan happened swiftly and without debate.

“Alright, we should have some time before the tower will collapse.” I said when I emptied my bottle. “We should start looking for a way out immediately.”

The support pillar’s health was now rapidly decreasing, despite the red hot metal vaporizing a non-negligible amount of the chemicals, and I turned to the area with the least amount of Grasping Vines while Tatiana emptied her bottle of the last remnants of its contents.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Tatiana said, taking out a torch. “We’re both dead if this fails.”

I knew what I was doing, but that didn’t exactly comfort me. I just gave Azriel his turning of the tides against Shalander by weakening the latter, and thus ensuring that my chemicals would suffice to break down the pillar and take down the whole tower. The AI would make it happen, just to screw Azriel out of his victory. But I also knew that the AI didn’t care whether we live or die in such a situation, and I was banking it all on us finding an escape route quickly.

I hope there’s one at all.