Chapter 31 - It had to happen this way

Silk strode along the halls, striding confidently. She only stopped to occasionally slice some floating metal spheres that attempted to ram themselves into her, all of which fell with ease. The rest of the gang also followed suit until they found what they were looking for.

A massive door with strange symbols on it stood before them. Engraved on each side were obsidian lines that occasionally bent at forty five degree angles twice until they were going parallel with the door once more.

Pushing open the doors, Silk flung them wide open with surprising force, seeing a collection of strange objects, each inside their own glass display case.

“Anomalous artifact storage? This looks promising.”, she said confidently before taking an elegant shortsword from one of the cases. Instead of having a hilt like any normal sword, if simply was a leather-wrapped piece of what appeared to be black glass that turned into a sharp blade roughly one fifth of the way to the tip. Silk then grabbed the accompanying scabbard and strapped it to her belt, marking it as a sidearm to the two Thief’s blades on her back.

Just then, she noticed something out of place wriggling out of the vents - a red, vaguely humanoid figure. The very things that had been on this tumor of an island - and from the looks of it, it was hostile.

Shrugging and deciding to test her new sword, she slashed right at it, only for the black glass blade to somehow splatter part of itself to the side of it like some sort of liquid. Nonetheless, a large amount of the “liquid” blade managed to splash the creature, which proceeded to turn into the same material as the blade in some sort of grotesque statue. Said statue then shattered into a small mound of glittering powder, with Silk’s new weapon reforming back into it’s former sword-like self.

Victor noticed the weapon and scrabbled over. “Damn, that looks strong. Did it just-”

Another creature lept out, only for it to turn into meet the same fate as the last one.

Silk winced, and looked at her right boot.

A small dusting of cerulean sparkles stood where the tip of her big toe should have been, most likely due to a careless mistake.

Flipping the sword end over end and resheathing it, she sighed. “I don’t think I’ll be able to use this for a while and be safe. Anybody else got anything shiny or cool they want to talk about?”

Bundo waved and showed them a mysterious glove covered in various wires and circuitry.

“Bundo found a trans-frequency device! Extraplanar contact will be easier now!”

Victor shrugged and flipped one of his bronze knives end over end. “I found some cool diagrams, but other than that my blades are the same as they always have been. I do have an idea involving those floaty antigrav things though.”

He then started a coughing fit after touching his chest tenderly.

“I’m not exactly in fighting condition. Do you mind if we just leave?”

As they all turned to do so, they noticed that the hallway where they had previously been was now infested with red veins and more of the fleshy landscape they had seen before. Worse, it was growing at a visible pace, with the same abominable workers destroying the remaining guardian constructs with ease.

Rushing back to the room with the five beings, the crew all gasped. The same red monsters that had been roaming the landscape were now chipping away at the middle tube of glass with their pickaxes. The rest were already shattered, with cracks quickly forming in the center. As Levi tried to leap towards the lone central figure, the walls of the container shattered and everything exploded into a cloud of dark whisps.

Everyone opened their eyes and looked in wonder. What was previously naught but a collection of imprisoned figures was now transformed. No longer was the area an austere laboratory with sterile white walls, but now a stone room filled with bricks and torches.

There were no exits anymore, merely a portcullis leading the way to the five formerly-imprisoned Abyss Lords.

What previously were mere ghosts of themselves imprinted inside the glass cells were now complete in their horrifying splendour.

The golden statue dressed in finery smiled at them, as if content and tranquil with his place in life. He tipped the hat he was now wearing at them, his body now encrusted in the finest gems and wrapped in luxurious fabric.

“I thank you for freeing us, oh lady of blades. Were it not without your help our deliverance would be naught but a fool’s dream.”.

Silk reached for her rightmost Thief’s blade and lunged at the man, enraged at the implication that she was somehow manipulated into freeing these abominations.

As she lept through the air and anticipated the familiar sensation of slicing through another obstacle, everything halted.

An armoured figure had caught the blade between the fingers of his right hand.

The sword shook as the entity wordlessly stared at her with an empty helmet, the eyes filled with a gloomy darkness.

“Foolishness. Stand down.” said the suit of armor.

The blade shattered in the grip of the creature, broken in half as if it were made of a material no stronger than glass.

Silk tried to stab at it with the jagged part of the blade that remained, only for a metal fist to lodge itself inside her stomach and stab through to the other side. Instead of faltering, she dug the blade further into the joint between the shoulder pauldron and the cuirass. An inky darkness leaked from the inside of the armor out as the sword snapped even further and the shoulder piece shattered in twain.

The rightmost part of it clanged onto the ground.

“NO!”, screamed Victor.

Silk’s body slumped to the ground, unmoving as a pool of blood slowly formed on the stone ground.