But the second floor is about survival. About resources. It’s a test if you’ve got a party that can cover for each other. Find the scarce few ingredients that exist, and make food from them. Track and escape the storm. Be ready for whatever comes from the fog.
And you should be ready for what comes from the fog. Cuz the tower isn’t kind. If you start hallucinating, just starve yourself to death. Trust me, it’s easier./
-Jill êras - Bloom, level 143 Grovekeeper, Avatar of the Green Tide.
- - -
By the third day without food, we’re desperate. We’ve tried to use our requests at the tower, but they’ve been declined. No renewing food from it. Jess harvests some grass from the meadows, and Richard throws them into a pot of soup. By now, the hiy’ht has acquired the job of
I try to stop it from pulling apart my body as much as possible, but it’s not quite that easy. The skill only supplements itself with mana, needing calories. Since I don’t have those, its effects are limited. My stomach growls again, and I double down on [Suppressing] my own hunger. Just a little further, and we’ll be there.
Another day passes, and when night comes, I hear the voices for the first time. It’s around the same time I consider carving off pieces of myself to cook in a pan and eat, then restore with the healing skill. Maybe that’d be enough to keep us filled?
Melodic, quiet singing rings from the fog. It’s my turn on the watch, so I look up, and into the distance, straining my eyes, and testing the area with my mana. At first, nothing, but I change my approach, bit by bit, until I find something.
[Observation 2 > 3]
Something walks from the fog. It’s ethereal, shrouded in glittering mist, and beautiful. Long hair, woven from dense droplets that sparkle in the darkness of the night. A wide brimmed hat and a veil that hides their face, and a body that is entirely diffuse, a tangle of limbs hovering in the air.
The ethereal song ringing from it reaches out to me, and I feel it stir something in my heart. I haven’t heard music in so long, and we’ve already broken three pairs of headphones trying to charge them…
My thoughts are dragged back to the figure in the fog. It’s beckoning for me to follow. That… doesn’t seem like a good idea. It bares needle sharp teeth on the palm of its dozen hands. Oh, it has food. How kind.
Slowly, I rise to my feet. The others look haggard by now. Four days of starvation are heavy, after all. Maybe I could bring back some food…
Another figure steps from the fog. It wraps around the first one, and the maws on its arms bite into the spirit-flesh of the singer. The notes warp into beautiful screeches, tearing into my mind, beckoning me to come and indulge. I take a step forward, and I watch.
In a display of horrifying beauty, the second figure devours the first. Needle teeth tear into pale blue mist, splattering water to the ground. It instantly forms puddles. Water… we’d been able to make do with Jess’ [Freeze], but it took a lot out of her. This was good, yes.
I take another step. The horrid song of crunching, slurping, and discordant, harmonious, wonderful screeching continues. The two creatures of mist dissolve, tearing into one another in a flurry of motion that is violently entrancing. I take another step.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Then, I stop.
There is a hand closed around my ankles. Sylves’. She looks at me, eyes wide. I tilt my head, confused, why she would look afraid. They should not have to fear while I was around. Was she scared of me leaving?
I look at the creatures in the fog. They continue tearing one another apart. I close my eyes, and breathe, knowing Sylves is looking at me. She’s asking me to stay.
She’s my friend. If she’s asking, then I will.
Slowly, all those desires fall into the vast hole within my chest. [Selection] finds the desire to leave, [Suppression] weakens it, [Deconstruction] tears it apart, and my epitaph, Abiding Apathy, swallows the pieces whole.
The screeches turn horrid to my ears, terrible wails that grate against my heart. They try to grab hold of my feelings, to pull me in, a siren song telling me it was safe to look, to come closer, that there was food. When, really, I was the food. Maybe I shouldn’t think of cannibalism.
Softly, I sigh. Then, I smile at Sylves. “I got it now,” I tell her.
She stares at me, then slowly, faintly, nods. Something in her fairy magic must be resonating with this. I turn to the creatures, and brush my mana sense forward.
[Fogfae lv. 43]
Ah, that’d do it.
I smile, gently. The second one finishes up devouring the first, and the screams finally quiet. It’s a little larger, now, a little more solid looking. Its white flesh a little less ephemeral, its floating limbs seemingly connected by tendrils of ice and sleet.
And it, too, sings.
The hymn of loss and desire and hunger rings out in a ghostly tune. It’s pretty, still, and it resonates with the essence of moonlight I hold. That I stole from Sylves, really. I do my best to put on a dopey, lazy smile, and walk a shambling gait towards it. The fogfae grows sharper as I draw near, blurry edges clearing up, and I can see a wide smile of needle-teeth behind the veil.
I play with my skills in my mind. I’m hungry, but the hunger is suppressed. Right now, the target of [Selection] is the fairy. There are a few things I am itching to test in this fight, so it’s time to put them to the test.
When I step into range, the creature reaches out with an arm. It’s ghostly and ethereal, but still feels powerful enough to rip into me, fingertips full of claws. Another dozen hands sneak my way, almost like little worms, listening to the thudding of my heart and the rushing of my blood.
Slowly, I reach out, staring into that veil. As my fingers brush up against its hand, I cast [Solidification]. Not on myself, but on it.
The spell takes hold, and suddenly, the ethereal fog coalesces into pale, white flesh. I instantly craft a dagger from mana, and cut off the fogfae’s arm. Freezing drops of milky white spill from the cut, freezing into blocks of ice as the limb falls to the floor.
Instantly, the eerie song fades to discordant screeches. A dozen hands descend onto me, and attempt to solidify, but I throw a [Deconstruct] at them, and they can’t manifest. An icy chill spreads through my veins as the limbs pass through me, but they can’t touch me.
A grin spreads on my face. This thing can usually materialize and grow ephemeral at will, but between [Solidification] and [Deconstruction], it’s dancing to my tune.
Still, that terrible cold in my chest buds. First, it was just a sense of cold, but a moment later, it’s like my blood is ice in my veins. My limbs grow stiff and tired, and my eyelids heavy. Frost gathers on my hair.
I [Observe] the changes, at the same time as I solidify yet another arm of the thing, carving through it with my dagger made of mana. The movement is sluggish, but the faerie is, too. Not used to someone else controlling its shifts, another arm of milky flesh splatters to the ground.
It howls in pain, but that’s okay. I let go of the dagger. My arm is numb from frost, so it’s easier to puppeteer the weapon with my mind, even as [Deconstruction] chips away at the freezing cold. When the fae tries to hack at me again, I have to turn it ephemeral once more, even as further chills wrack my body.
Bits of it fall into my Abiding Apathy, that void eating up the ghostly parts of the creature, and returning more than just mana to me. I can feel the heat of my heartbeat rising just faintly. The thing howls.
Let’s see who outlasts who, bastard.
- - -
[Level Up! 30 > 31]
For the first time in a while, I place a point in heart, enjoying the warmth it brings to my pale skin before two more go to vessel. My lips are a faint blue, and my hair is caked with tiny flakes of ice as I walk back to the party. I tap Jess with my foot, gently, and she stirs.
Then, I point to the corpse of the fogfae, kept solid by my skills. It’s a tangle of limbs around a strangely twisted, half-crystalline torso. A half dozen arms are laid out next to it. “Butcher it,” I tell her. “I’ll wake Richard. We’re eating tonight.”
[Solidification 8 > 9]
Fae flesh is on the menu.
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