Chapter 23: Chapter 23

As time passed, Clare felt less shaken from the terrible battle she had instigated. But her crushing sensation of guilt only grew worse. Her ignorance and rage had nearly killed the most compassionate person she had ever met.

It would have been easier if Sara had hated her for what she had done. That would at least be the beginnings of an appropriate punishment. But clearly it was Sara’s way to only hate suffering itself—not those who caused it.

Still, she was a monster with a purpose. She would protect the gentle healer at any cost.

Sara finally broke the long silence in the cavernous room. The two women were still sitting a short distance apart from each other. “Clare, I was wondering...why did you ask if I was an anarchist? I didn’t think you suspected that.”

“I didn’t until last night. It was that ridiculous woman, Unique. She approached me after I left the bar. She told me you were an anarchist...and followed that up with a number of horrible lies. And I believed that if you were an anarchist, all of it had to be true. ...I’m such a pathetic fool.”

“That isn’t true. Anyone can suffer from emotional bias due to their experiences. It doesn’t reflect on your intelligence—it just means you weren’t ready to understand some things. Please don’t blame yourself for what happened. You’ve been hurt enough for one lifetime.”

Clare tried to hold back tears at this undeserved kindness. But then she was belatedly struck by a realization. “Maybe there is more blame beyond my own to go around. The company must have been hoping for an outcome like this. Remember what you said, about Fantasy not having puzzles? And this instance feeling slapped together?”

Sara’s surprise was obvious as she also put the pieces together. “Of course! There must be company employees monitoring us for our show. They saw your conversation with Unique and took it as an opportunity to create some drama.

“We were all originally intended to go on the Rogue Demon quest. But if instead, you and I were trapped somewhere together... This instance literally was slapped together in a night. Or more accurately, everything but this room must be drawn from previous quests.”

“All of this was a stunt orchestrated to get more views,” Clare said bitterly. “And I played right into their hands.”

“As cruel as their trick was, it looks like it may work out for us as well as them. We’re both still alive, and our fight probably will increase our show’s ratings. That means more bonus gold.”

“That’s a very small comfort.”

“True. But small comforts amid the danger are all we can hope for in this life.” Sara stood and materialized her spear. “Are you ready to move on?”

Clare also rose and drew her armaments from her inventory. The usual purple energy played along the length of her blade. She gave the weapon a few casual swings to loosen up. “Yes. Let’s disappoint everyone hoping for our deaths.”

“That’s the spirit,” Sara said with a slight laugh. “Picking up where we left off...you take tile twenty-three, and I’ll take nineteen. Let’s try to press them simultaneously. I’ll count three, two, one, go.”

Clare nodded. They both moved into position. Sara gave her count, and both women stepped on their tiles at the same time. Both doors opened. But the ceiling also began coming down with alarming speed.

“Run!” Sara dropped her weapon and ran deeper into the instance. Clare copied her. The healer was initially further from the exit, but given her lighter armor and superior speed gem she soon pulled ahead.

Sara passed through the doorway with some time to spare. “Careful, there’s a narrow ledge here!”

Clare decelerated just before passing into the next room. She was glad she did so—after a couple meters the floor dropped off. A few seconds after she reached safety, the ceiling in the last room reached bottom with a crash and stayed there. Apparently, there was no going back.

The tank took in her new surroundings. This room was better lit, but a cluttered mess. There were metal pipes in two sizes, running here and there in a haphazard way. Each began and ended at a different point along the walls, but usually crossed most of the room. Many ran horizontally, but some were partially vertical or at an angle. There were some large, circular holes in the walls covered by metal grates.

This area was at least as large as the last room, but this time the entrance was half way up toward the ceiling. Beyond the ledge was a long drop to shallow water. Broken pieces of pipe jutted up from the stagnant swamp.

Besides the ledge they now stood on, there was one platform of relatively solid ground. In the very center of the room, level with the height of the entrance, was a stone plane suspended from the ceiling by extremely heavy cold iron chains. Standing on it, according to the nameplate that soon appeared, was the Treacherous Vampire.

The boss monster appeared as a tall, gaunt man dressed in black, including a long cloak. It was armed with a pole-ax.

“You were right about this fight being more complicated,” Sara said. She materialized her bow, while Clare once more brought forth her sword and shield. “Based on the quest description, we should expect adds in the form of the peasants the vampire has been enslaving.

“Before we start the battle, we should test these pipes. The smaller ones don’t look like they’ll hold our weight. And if we landed on one of those spikes down below... I’d suggest saving your guard spell in case you do fall.”

“What about you?” Clare asked, concerned. “I can only cast that on myself.”

“I don’t know if my barrier will be enough—but there’s nothing for it. Anyway, I won’t be distracted by melee combat with the boss, so I’m much less likely to slip.”

The tank nodded. “Since I can guard, let me test the pipes first.”

The thin pipes turned out to be mere obstacles—they made creaking noises and threatened to give way with Clare only putting half her weight on them. In contrast, the larger metal tubes easily supported both women. They walked along one of these pipes to just outside the typical monster sight radius.

“Ready when you are,” Sara told Clare. The tank nodded in response.

Clare made her way onto the boss platform. The monster spoke the instant she stepped onto it. “Have you come to join me in undeath, or are you mere lackeys of the Queen?”

“Lackeys,” Clare said with disinterest. She hoped there would be no more role-playing—it reminded her of the trip to see the Queen. She had spent that entire time internally working herself into conniptions over whether Sara was an anarchist.

As it turned out, she need not have worried—the monster quickly came at her and attacked. Sara remained on her own nearby perch on one of the large pipes. She cast her barrier spell on Clare as a precaution, and then started attacking with her bow. Clare conducted her own offense as she usually did with monsters.

Within the first ten seconds of the fight, the tank knew something was wrong. The vampire’s attacks were too clever, as were the evasions and blocking of her own strikes. She was forced to use her void burst on the enemy to keep up sufficient damage and maintain threat.

“This monster is being controlled by someone on Chronomil!” Clare called out to Sara.

“Are you sure?! That doesn’t even happen in raids!”

“I’m certain.”

“You figured that out fast,” the vampire—or rather, the man controlling it—said in amusement. “You’re too talented for your own good, so the company decided to try something unusual.” His next strike scratched Clare’s arm. The word immediately appeared next to Clare’s status bars on her HUD. Her health and stamina plummeted.

Sara’s cure spell came a second later and ended the effect. She then cast a lasting heal to restore the damage. It was immediately apparent that Clare would have to fight more defensively than usual. Too many of those little scratches would dangerously tax Sara’s mana, and cause her to draw threat from excess casting.

The fight continued for a time with no change in the status quo. Clare used her burst as her mana allowed. She only took a few more hits, with the same outcome as the first time. The boss’s health dropped slowly. Though he repeatedly tried to force Clare off the edge of the platform, she nimbly avoided these attempts. She tried to return the favor, but had no luck in doing so.

Finally, two of the large grates in the walls opened. The expected adds poured out. These weren’t like the normal vampires in the game, who were able to pass as human—they were emaciated, ghoulish creatures in peasant clothing. Both groups had twenty members. They ran along the large pipes in the direction of the central platform.

Sara turned her magical bow on the interlopers. With all the practice she had gotten in the dungeons, she had become surprisingly good. Not every shot hit, but those that did sent one of the adds falling.

One of the groups was mostly intact as it came within Clare’s range. She fired a void burst at them, killing most of the creatures. Only two of the adds survived long enough to reach the central platform. Clare dispatched them with quick crits.

“Nicely done,” Clare’s adversary said, not ceasing his attacks for a moment. “But I don’t suppose the real danger’s occurred to you yet?”

“What would that be?”

“Only programmed monsters have to follow threat.” As he finished saying this, he ran off the platform and jumped onto one of the pipes, making directly for Sara.

“Your fight’s with me!” Clare yelled angrily as she ran after him. The boss was surprisingly swift. Sara disappeared her bow and drew her spear from her inventory. Soon she blocked a powerful swing from the ax. A followup forced her to jump backwards. She very nearly lost her footing, causing Clare’s heart to leap in her chest.

The tank decided on a reckless strategy to safeguard her charge. Instead of attacking the monster with her sword when she finally caught up with him, she slammed into him bodily at a full sprint and tried to knock him from his perch.

Clare was successful, and the enemy fell. She nearly lost her footing and followed him, but Sara grabbed her to steady her.

“Thanks,” the healer said. They both watched the monster strike bottom, becoming impaled on one of the broken pipes. It took a large amount of damage compared to what had been inflicted so far. “Try to make him fall again, if you can—we need to speed this up, or we’ll come up against the rage timer.”

Clare had of course read about this. If a battle with an NPC went more than half an hour, it suddenly gained the ability to do much more damage. Given that this boss already did high damage with glancing blows, such an increase would be fatal.

Meanwhile, the enemy pulled himself off of the spike that he had been impaled on. He began running and climbing up the larger pipes. It was clear that he was heading back to the central platform, so Clare ran to meet him there.

She soon found herself exchanging attacks with monster once more. “That didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped,” he complained.

“You’ll face me fairly then?” Clare asked angrily.

“That wouldn’t really be in-character for a ‘treacherous vampire,’ now would it?” He suddenly stopped striking at her and raised his ax high over his head. Clare recognized a special attack and backed off.

With a roar, the boss swung his ax at the ground before him...and nothing happened beyond the weapon bouncing off the stone. Had just moving out of the way been enough? But then suddenly, the vampire jumped at one of the nearby chains holding up the platform and grabbed onto it with one hand.

Clare dropped her shield and tried to copy him at one of the other chains, but she was too slow. With no warning beyond the initial ax strike, the platform split in half. Each side collapsed to hang downward. The tank was in a free fall.

“Clare!” Sara cried out. She cast barrier, while Clare cast guard.

Ultimately, Clare’s fall did not bring her all the way to the ground. Her virtual body painfully smashed through several small pipes before smacking up against a large one. Her sword escaped her grasp. Between the two protective spells she did not lose much health—but without guard in particular, she would now be awaiting her execution. Sara cast a heal on her.

As Clare regained her feet and summoned her armaments, the broken platform above swung together and became whole again. To her horror, she saw the boss once more pursuing Sara. The tank ran for the nearest pipe leading upward.

A second wave of adds, identical to the first, emerged from the wall grates and also headed in the healer’s direction. The supposed vampires clashed first. Sara evaded one strike of the monster’s ax before another scraped her. She cured the poison effect and cast her usual heal.

Sara blocked a third attack before making a risky jump to one of the other pipes. When the boss tried to follow her, she tripped him up with the shaft of her spear as he landed. For the second time the enemy was sent into a tumble to the waters below. Unfortunately, he missed the spikes and took much less damage this time.

In her current situation, the best Clare could do to help was to deal with one of the groups of adds. She fired a void burst at one of the packs of interloping NPCs. This time her aim was perfect, and they were all killed.

The boss seemed to be climbing for the central platform once more. Clare was too far from the other group of monsters, so she resolved to meet him there and hope Sara could handle herself.

The healer picked off a number of the freakish creatures with her bow before switching back to her spear. The remainder were dispatched with efficient trusts of the weapon. As these were normal NPCs, she easily evaded their clumsy attacks as they lined up single file, waiting to be defeated.

The fighting returned to its original rhythm for a time. Clare and the boss fought on the platform, and Sara kicked in her heals and extra bow damage. The tank fought somewhat more aggressively, risking additional hits to up her damage output.

Clare was briefly confused when the word appeared next to names of the two absent party members. She soon realized that they had successfully finished their own quest. The XP difference from the quest reward meant that the party could not function together until Clare and Sara also won.

As the battle continued, a third wave of adds was defeated easily. Clare was ready for the next collapse of the platform. As soon as the vampire roared and prepared to swing his ax, she easily reached one of the chains and grabbed on to it until her stone plane restored itself.

Clare’s many attempts to drive the enemy into another fall were unsuccessful. She feigned being unbalanced near the ledge, but her opponent was not fooled. She tried jumping over to one of the pipes, but the vampire refused to follow.

Sara shouted. “Let me get threat!” Clare did not know if that would convince the monster to leave the platform, but it was worth a shot. Sara spammed her party heal a few times, while Clare let up on her offense briefly.

Sara took threat from Clare, but this failure of tanking did not have the desired effect. “I’m not taking any chances when I’m winning,” the boss said with a cruel smile, continuing his attack on Clare.

“It’s unseemly not to go after her when she’s calling you out,” the tank challenged, but she received no reply.

A fourth wave of adds also proved insignificant, except that it briefly distracted from the magical girls’ offense when they could ill afford it. Unfortunately, their foe was still at five percent health when the rage timer appeared on the boss’s nameplate. It began counting down from one minute.

At ten seconds left, the enemy used his special platform-breaking attack again. Clare conceived of a reckless plan.

Just before the stone plane came apart, Clare abandoned her armaments and jumped at the same chain the vampire chose. She wrestled with him until they both fell. Sara gave a startled cry.

Once more, with the guard and barrier spells protecting her, Clare plunged. Both her and her adversary were impaled through the torso by one of the spikes at the bottom of the room. With difficultly, the tank stood. By the time she extricated herself from the broken pipe, her health was at twenty percent. Sara cast both her heals on Clare.

Meanwhile, the boss was at zero health—but he was still able to speak. “Good fight. Maybe I’ll come after you both some time on my hunter account.”

“You’re certainly welcome to try,” she said. He was a skilled fighter, but she was confident that she would have his measure on a level playing field.

The enemy finally fell still, and Clare’s HUD informed her of the victory. She received her XP and gold, with Sara getting the same plus another gem and the radio. The labels disappeared.

“We did it!” Sara shouted excitedly. The grates in the walls all opened—presumably, entering any of the passages beyond them would lead out of the instance.

Clare made the climb to join Sara. “That was a reckless plan...but it was a good call.” Sara smiled. “You were absolutely amazing.”

This praise only increased Clare’s feelings of inadequacy. The very first battle after she had promised to protect the healer, Sara had been placed in grave danger several times.

The other woman saw Clare’s self-recrimination in her expression. “I wasn’t saying that just to make you feel better. The only reason I’m alive right now is because you fought with more bravery and skill than I’ll ever have.” She placed a reassuring hand on Clare’s arm. “You really were incredible—like a shield-maiden from some ancient legend come to life.”

Clare simply nodded. She was overcome with a mixture of joy and guilt at the undeserved compliments.

“Oh, sorry. I keep breaking that promise not to touch you,” Sara said, completely misreading Clare’s discomfort. She withdrew her hand.

“It’s okay... Thank you, Sara.”

The healer beamed. “I’ve been upgraded to a first name basis. Does this mean we’re friends now?”

Clare nodded again—she did not trust herself to speak without bursting into tears.

The pair started walking together toward the nearest opening, with Sara leading the way. “I figured the power of friendship had to win out sooner or later—we are magical girls,” she said teasingly, with a glance over her shoulder. Clare forced a slight laugh. “It looks like May and Pari finished their quest too. ...If it’s okay with you, I can explain to them what happened between us?”

“They have no reason to trust anything I say,” Clare said miserably.

The women came to a halt when Sara turned to address Clare. “I know this is going to be painful for you. Especially since what happened to your parents is necessary context. If you want, I can talk to them alone before you see them?”

“No, I should be there. ...I’ll be fine, really.”

Sara gave a reassuring smile. They then continued onward. As Clare thought of that beautiful smile, she was struck by a very belated and horrible realization. She was completely in love with Sara. She had been for some time—she had just been too dense to see it.

If only she had understood her own feelings, she might not have rendered herself forever unworthy of seeing that love returned.