Incremental Torture - Chapter 84

~ Evelyn POV ~

She knew that her actions weren’t making much real progress towards defeating Zork’Karu, but there was no way that her devastating hammer blows weren’t causing the creature some measure of pain. And that was as satisfying a reward as any.

It was enough to keep her swinging well beyond the point a saner person would have stopped. It was only when Kayla grabbed her arm that she realised she needed to use her brain a little more and figure out a strategy to bring the hyper boss down that didn’t just revolve around brute force. Though that was certainly going to be needed.

Evelyn smashed Spinebreaker into the beetle’s flesh a few more times to squeeze the last dregs of vengeant fury from her system, then stowed her war hammer away for the time being.

“So, how do we end this?” she asked Kayla. The woman had a strange smile on her lips, one that spoke of mischief and worried Evelyn about what came next.

Right as she was about to reply, the closest of the glowing runes on the hyper boss’ carapace lit up with shimmering brilliance and the fearsome wounds Evelyn had dealt the beetle started to heal in the soft glow.

“Well, that’s not ideal,” said Kayla.

Her reward for the remark was a withering glare from Evelyn. “You don’t say, dear? I had a sneaking suspicion all along, but this is definitive proof. The runes are the key to defeating Zork’Karu. It’s just like the strange puzzle I had to solve on the 16th Floor,” she said.

“What are you saying, darlin’? We need to solve a puzzle on this thing’s back while fighting it? That’s quite the tall order.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” she said. Evelyn looked around at the small bouts taking place on the huge shell of the beetle and beneath its colossal bulk.

The telltale shimmer of healing wounds lit up the battlefield amidst the carnage and chaos of guildmates slaughtering each other and suffering under the ongoing mental onslaught. There had to be a pattern, or some hidden secret to the runes.

During the puzzle, she had the tablet to copy the runes down. It was that which linked together the whole mechanism. Perhaps there was something similar here?

Their futile attempts to damage the beetle with their strength had utterly failed, so Evelyn felt it was fine to spend some time thinking the problem through. She looked around the carapace to see if there was a break in the runes, or a familiar pattern.

Using her brain was difficult. It still throbbed with the pain of being consumed by the terrible mind control spell. Even now she felt Zork’Karu knocking at the doors. However, she had developed a minor resistance to its attacks after being under its thrall.

Never again would she allow another to use her body as their vehicle. Their weapon.

Here and there she did spot runes identical to those in the puzzle. Even that wasn’t much help. She had never translated their exact meaning, only guessed at the correct configuration to get her through the trial.

And Evelyn didn’t think that blindly piecing the runes together would help her this time. Maybe…? An idea sparked to life. It was worth a try, even if it was a long shot. They had little else to go on.

“I think we should try to connect the runes. That was how I solved the last puzzle. Who knows, perhaps the beetle will just die of its own accord if we find the hidden pattern,” she mused.

“If you truly believe that then you’re a fool, Evelyn. You’d have to have been clearing the tower blindly to not have gained some measure of its intentions by now. There’s no power to be won without sacrifice or struggle here,” said Kayla.

The others had remained on the ground to assault the beast from afar while they battled up close, but Evelyn waved them over to help with the new plan. Five minds was better than two, after all. In most instances.

“Are you sure it’s safe to be up here?” asked Anthea. A chittering clack accompanied her question, as her delightfully vicious pet echoed her worries.

I guess it’s six minds now. Though I’m not sure how sentient Antoinette is. Her father was stoic as ever, having thawed out on his own time and not struggled through it the way she had. Her mother was the very picture of serenity and grace.

“I think the key to this battle is the runes. We tried to smash through the beetle’s defences with our raw strength, but every time we wound it, the surrounding runes light up and heal the damage,” said Evelyn.

“That is quite the conundrum. Then again, this beetle looks like a trilobite. The fact it’s still alive and so large suggests it might just be immortal, or close enough. Maybe the runes are the secret. You mentioned they’re related to the history of the tower? It seems we need to not just defeat this beast, but figure something out along the way,” said her mother.

“They are pretty,” muttered Anthea while stroking Antoinette’s antennae with gentle care. They were thick as thieves, just a few hours after she had tamed the ant.

Time Remaining: 16:58:23
Death Toll: 9,406

“There’s something I want to try. I think it will be a huge help here. To be honest Evelyn, I think your idea is… misguided. This is no puzzle. The runes might have meaning, but I think we need to beat the crap out of this big-ass beetle regardless of what you figure out,” said Kayla.

“You might both be right,” said Anthony. “It’s entirely possible that we need to defeat the hyper boss by discovering a hidden secret in the runes. We can work both angles.”

In the heat of the battle, they hadn’t considered the middle ground. Her father was right of course - he often was, much to her annoyance. The major problem was she needed distance from the creature to figure out if there was an overall pattern, or any similarities to the puzzle.

She knew how to get that distance, but the problem was whether she would be able to handle getting back down. Despite her reservations, she pumped the energy of the reality node into her back and launched herself into the sky, letting out a yell of joy as she flew.

The tower was terrible, frustrating, and deadly. It was also really, really fun. Sometimes.

Evelyn reached the apex of her leap. The once lush hills around the city were ravaged. The soil upturned, rubble scattered everywhere. The monsters had devastated the landscape.

And that wasn’t all. The damage within the city centre was worse. Zork’Karu had decimated the plaza with his arrival and more of the lesser monsters were spewing out from the tunnel he had bored. The arrival of the guilds had done little to stem the oncoming tide.

If anything, now that a large portion of them were under the mind control of the beetle, they were making the situation worse. That wasn’t her problem though. She turned her focus wholly to the runes that decorated the beetle’s carapace. She knew she was onto something, no matter what Kayla said.

At first it just seemed like random nonsense, the same way the puzzle had been to her in the beginning. Then she started to see familiar symbols.

Wind rushed past her ears and made her dress flutter as she fell from the sky. She watched as a few of the symbols started to shimmer and heal a wound dealt by T. They lit up sequentially, but it was different runes each time.

There! Hidden amongst the sheer quantity of inscriptions, Evelyn saw a line of the runes that she recognised. It had been written on the walls of the puzzle room. A familiar sentence.

As she continued to study, more familiar patterns emerged. There was something hidden in the design of Zork’Karu’s shell. The next problem was a more difficult one. How could she use this information to either defeat the hyper boss or discover the secrets it was hiding?

A grin crept up the corners of her lips. The chitin trembled and small fragments blew off when she smashed into it, her feet spread wide to absorb the impact. Kayla smiled at her.

“Did you figure something out, darlin’?”

“I did. And I think you’ll approve of the next step,” she replied. “Did you ever play whack-a-mole?”

The woman’s smile grew even wider. She was so cute when she smiled. Evelyn grinned back and pulled Spinebreaker from her inventory. It was time to get violent once more, but this time she had a clear head and a definitive goal.

“Before you start smashing away darlin’, there’s something I want to try. It should help you out, but if anything feels off…” said Kayla. She looked up and to the left, trying to puzzle something out in her mind. “Well, it didn’t actually explain that far. Just do your best.”

After that, she touched her hand to Evelyn’s back for a few seconds. Nothing felt different, but Kayla had a really satisfied smirk on her face. She had done something, but what exactly? From the way she spoke, it seemed even she didn’t fully understand. No use worrying about it.

She had runes to smack.