“It’s certainly not what I would picture when I think of a library…” Daisy agreed.
The room had a series of terminals around the outer wall of the chamber. Each had small partitions between the screens to give each its own little cubicle of space. There were several comfy-looking sofas. What stood out about the room, though, was the huge screen in the middle of the room. Easily ten metres across and five high. The most interesting thing about it was how either side of it had enough seats that ten people could sit. Both sides of the screen had a little blue box bouncing around on it with the words ‘no signal detected’ in white text.
“This would be a pretty sweet setup for gaming tournaments…” George commented as we looked at it.
We tried the computers, but there was an error about no server connection available.
Our final destination on this floor was the store. From the looks of it, it had been split over the last two quarters of the building. Shutters were fully blocking the entrances, but on the side with the lounge on it, one of the shutters looked like something had smashed its way through, tearing the metal panels wide open in the process.
Inside, the flickering lights gave an eerie feel to the empty aisles. On one side, there were three self-service checkouts and a single checkout which could be staffed. Six aisles of shelves spread across the space. From the wreckage, it looked like something large had smashed through from the back doors, crashed into the aisles, knocking them over and then slammed into the shutters.
“Look at the size of these claw marks!” Sam called out. “This thing must have been huge.” He had squatted down to look at the gouges something had made into the ground as it charged towards the shutters. Its span was easily three of his hands. The largest of the gouges was easily big enough for me to put multiple fingers into it.
I looked over at the broken open shutters, then back at the double doors. Looking at the shutter again, the gap was smaller than that of those doors… we had seen no evidence of anything having gotten outside the store… I equipped my Storm staff.
“It’s still in here,” I declared.
On edge, we moved carefully towards the doors at the back. From the closer vantage, it became clear they had been broken open. They creaked loudly as we opened them up to reveal the backrooms of the store.
The store's stockroom wasn’t the largest of spaces. A couple of racks dominated the far wall. A propped-open door led into a small office. But opposite that, moving towards the store on the other side was a ramp going down.
We followed the ramp down to a slightly lower level. A door immediately to our left had the universal symbols for the toilet. Opposite that, the room opened up into a large warehouse of racks. There was a slight rumble in the air as a large bear-like creature snored deep in its sleep.
Voice and I shared a look, and then, with a shift of his head, indicated we should pull back.
We started to silently move back the way we came when I became distinctly aware that the snoring had gone. My head snapped to the creature to see its head looking in our direction and its tails… no tentacles were writhing in the air.
One second, it was gone. Then it appeared halfway to us on its feet, charging in our direction. I fired a
Voice moved to intercept as the others also released their spells in its direction. It flickered once more, avoiding our spells and then slammed into Voice’s shield. It screeched in pain as Voice bashed it and swung his blade at the creature’s slithering tentacles, as they tried to get around his shield. Sam’s blade sliced one off, which caused it to pull back slightly while they visibly regrew before our eyes. I fired another
George's maul slammed into its side, it let out a painful screech.
I tried one more spell to confirm my hypothesis, the
Voice was keeping its attention on him, while Sam and George devastated the creature with their weapons. Now in a flanking position, I joined in on the physical assault and slammed the end of my now [Ice Blade] enhanced staff into its hind quarters.
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I saw an opportunity, switched to scythe mode and with a spin, sliced my blade through one of its tentacles. It flopped a few times before growing still a few metres from us.
With a growl, it spun to attack me. I shifted myself the moment I saw it tensing to spin. Shifted the blade back to spear mode and raised it up to impale the creature as it tried to pounce on me. Its regrown tentacles lashed out at the melee DPS. Sam parried his away and George brought his maul down, smashing his into the ground. Voice shield bashed the back of the creature, but it seemed very focused on me at that moment.
With no choice, I dodged back away from it and started to kite it. I stopped my attacks, hoping there was some kind of agro system and I had somehow just topped it. If so, Voice’s attacks should put him back on the receiving end.
I mostly got lucky with my dodging. The creature wasn’t the fastest, but sometimes I misjudged the dodge and took a hit. Daisy did an excellent job of keeping my health up as I continued to circle the room. Not attacking didn’t seem to be having any impact, so I switched back to the scythe and started removing those spiky tentacles every time one came at me. It seemed very weary of me every time I swung that curving blade.
At some point, it started to drag one of its hind legs. That gave me a bit of breathing room between dodges. When it lost the use of its other hind leg, it finally lost interest in attacking me and tried to go after George, whose heavy weapon had done the damage. The man is surprisingly nimble considering his size.
The fight devolved into whoever was being targeted, kiting the beast, while everyone else wailed on it as much as we could. The first sign of our approaching victory came when its tentacles stopped regenerating.
It made a final leap at Voice, its mouth spreading wide to try and swallow him whole. Our tank simply took a step to the side and slammed his shield into the creature’s snout. It let out an almighty screech and then collapsed.
The screech echoed down the other ramp. There was the pounding of feet and two smaller creatures came charging down the ramp. Daisy had shifted herself into the room. Voice moved to intercept the furthest one forward.
I sent out a
The enhanced spells took their toll on the beasts. The one not focused on Voice kept charging at me. It ignored George right up to the point he sent it back to the wall. It was after the third such punt that it stopped getting back up, and our attention went to finishing off the last one.
It fell quickly to our combined blows.
I saw Sam start to skin the bigger monster, so I turned my attention to the smaller ones.
“Mind if I try skinning this one?” I asked him.
“Go for it.”
I pulled out my skinning knife and thinking back to the lessons Sam had given me the day before, started to split the hide from the body.
“We’re going to check the other store,” Voice told us as he and George headed for the ramp. Daisy had found a box to sit on and was in the process of restoring her mana with a flask of something.
By the time I had finished skinning the smallest of the three creatures, Sam had gotten the other two done.
“According to my inventory, these were called Phase Beasts,” Sam informed me as we finished butchering the last of the meat.
Voice walked over to join us. “Found out what was causing the breaker to flip. Those creatures have turned the other shop into a nest by ripping out everything they can from the walls. Wires hanging everywhere, probably a miracle nothing got set alight. I left George up there playing demolition. He is making sure it is as safe as it can be under the circumstances.” I could hear the occasional bang and crash coming down the ramp. “I think we have done what we can on this floor…going to need someone with actual sparky know-how to come in and fix this mess…”
“Fair enough,” I acknowledged as we started walking towards the ramps.
Floors seven to nine blurred together into a steady rhythm of clearing apartments, managing swarms and getting plant rooms somewhat balanced. The difficulty clearly ramped up as we went along, but between the breaks to refresh our food buffs and the four of us respecting our healer’s mana bar, it was nothing we couldn’t handle.
The next floor was the tenth, and while both George and Voice insisted that didn’t mean it was going to be a boss floor, we were all pretty sure it was going to be a boss fight.
The elevator doors opened up and we stepped out into a large open-plan office. Immediately in front of us was a large ornate receptionist desk. Glass panelling behind it revealed the large cubicle farm which ran the full length and width of the building. Around the elevator shaft was a small kitchenette with a kettle, a sink and a fridge. On the other side were toilets.
We carefully began exploring the floor, and one thing that became quickly apparent, we couldn’t find the floor’s boss anywhere.
“This is definitely a boss floor?” I asked.
I saw movement on the edge of my vision and turned only to see a small, half-metre diameter disk, moving back and forth on the carpet.
“Is that a Roomba?” Sam asked.
“If that is the floor boss, I propose we never speak of it, ever,” I said, staring at it as a second one came into view.