Soulforged Dungeoneer

The second floor of the Armand Bayou Sky Biome, aside from its arguably incorrect view of a distant tower, had three new enemies and the addition of a gusty wind that picked up on occasion, which in theory would threaten to knock you off the platforms--though I had no idea if that was lethal or not. In what I found to be a disconcerting theme, one of those enemies was very much like an enemy from the last set: Hoppin' poppin' harpy hearts, which were (once again) literal disembodied hearts that bounced around the dungeon, except instead of being full of worms, these would leap at you and explode.

Louise really hated that, and I hated having to protect her from them. Somehow, if I batted them away with a riot shield, they wouldn't take the bait and explode; they would only do that if they either took too much damage or got a clean shot at you. In this case, when one snuck up behind Louise and exploded against the back of her knee, it both registered a bodily joint critical hit and just absolutely splattered us both with a disgusting amount of blood.

Louise was able to heal most of the damage she took, but the critical left her hobbling. It... didn't change much tactically since she wasn't really dodging most attacks anyway, but it made me feel really really bad on top of obvious also hurting her a lot.

There was also the Brilliant Biochemist Harp Harp Harpy, a variant of the Harpy that wore adorable little half moon glasses and a lab coat (open to expose her bouncing breasts, of course) with a lot of chemistry vials stowed in little pockets. Those vials seemed to fall out on occasion and exploded in midair, apropos of nothing, creating clouds of gas around the harpy; plus, about one in three attacks of hers would come with a random coloration that I assumed meant a debuff or status effect, though I managed to dodge all but one of the attacks, receiving a weak Poison sting for my failure. The biochemist harpy also seemed to be a lot smarter about her attacks, and was a lot less likely to get baited into attacking or do anything else obviously stupid--though I wouldn't actually call them brilliant. They did, however, often get hit by their own potions if you stabbed one through the lab coat, which made her a lot more of a glass cannon.

As with the previous floor, there was also a leader-subtype, the Beautiful Businesswoman Harpsichord Harpy, though in this case there was only one of those creatures on the floor. She was much larger, almost two stories tall, and was dressed in a snappy sport coat that did in fact conceal her bosom, with giant piano-like wings that I assume were the titular (that's not a boob joke, I swear) Harpsichords, although I wasn't familiar with the instrument. The business harpy hung out over an area with only one dead-end approach to her, and her haunting refrain had an enormous area to it, giving some kind of buffs to the other Harpies on the level. I resolved to find a way to get to her, if only to see what kind of loot she'd drop, as a floor miniboss, but the approach was from the other side, closer to the party of five than myself and Louise.

The last was a swarm enemy, a group of birds that I only realized were a hybrid after witnessing (once more) the truly terrible naming scheme of this dungeon and this floor in particular. The birds were (I gathered later) half rooster and half turkey, of average to small size for such birds, could fly freely, and appeared in groups of at least six. They would charge, berserk, at literally anything made of meat, including Harpies, and devour them one tiny, sharp-beaked bite at a time.

The administrator called them "Gobble-cock hungry horde."

I would like to say that I stood there in shock and gave the heavens a big ol' middle finger, but really, to my everlasting humiliation, I found myself very quickly surrounded by chickens that sounded like turkeys that kept biting and scratching me. I couldn't help thinking, as I desperately threw up a telekinetic shield, that I was entirely too close to death by hungry cock gobblers, the thought of which managed to break one of the last little bits of sanity I had left in me.

I slaughtered them, of course, but this time I definitely needed Louise's help. I might... might have survived the fight without her, but when it was done, I my chest was heaving, I had an involuntary insane laughter thing going on, and for some reason I couldn't stop saying the word, "Cocks" at intervals.

Louise healed me, and when that didn't get rid of the mental scarring, she gave me a hug, and that helped me calm down a lot.

"Are you okay?" Louise's voice was some combination of surprised and confused, as she pressed my head into her shoulder.

"She called them... she called them cock gobblers..."

"She?"

"The administrator. I met her... uh... on the last boss floor. She's... she's crazy. Gobble cocks... heh... hahaha..."

"It's okay, it's okay," she shushed me, and somehow, there was something motherly to the gesture, and my heart rate came down and my eyes started focusing on the world again, and things... well, they never really made more sense, but it stopped physically hurting me.

"She's crazy."

"Yup," said Louise, gently. "She's trying to kill you, and she's going to keep trying. You just have to be strong." She pulled my head away and gave me a smile. "Okay?"

That perspective, again, helped. Having met the Administrator made me feel, for one stupid moment, almost special. Certainly, yes, people died in dungeons, but... but...

...no buts. I really could die to feral chickens that were named to sound like a sex act. I could also, on some other floor, die to literal penis monsters with teeth if that's what the Administrator decided to create. She--none of them--they weren't good people, they weren't on our side, and they were here to kill us.

"Yeah." I sat back, my hysteria having faded to just a sharp headache that was slowly dulling. "Yeah, okay. Sorry about that."

"It's fine." She stepped back until she was a little bit beyond arm's reach and smiled at me. "I understand, you know. Cocks are truly dangerous things.  Why, one bad cock can ruin your entire life."

I... stopped in my tracks and turned to look at her. I was pretty sure she was joking, but I'd never heard Louise tell a joke before.

She nodded, knowingly, and closed her eyes, looking happily smug. "I know if I had that many cocks on me at one time, well, that just wouldn't be any fun at all. I don't know if I'd ever get over it. The way you handled all those cocks, well, you must be a master cock wrangler, Jerry. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to deal with--"

So much blood was rushing to my face that I thought my head was going to explode like a hoppin' poppin' harpy heart. I stepped up to Louise, who still had her eyes closed, and wrapped her up in a big hug, finally unable to stop the cackling laughter that bubbled up inside of me. She yelped, shocked by the move, but after a moment returned the hug until I was able to stop laughing.

It did take a minute, but when I'd laughed all I could laugh, I was able to take a step back, and with an enormous grin on my face, I said, "Thanks."

It took a substantial amount of willpower--right or wrong--to avoid pulling her in for a kiss in that moment. In a way, the timing seemed right, but... also... I don't know. Maybe I was just scared. She'd never... or had she? I dunno. It seemed... wrong, and right.

Anyway, lost in that sudden derailed train of thought, I didn't notice that my traumatic cock-induced headache had completely vanished, and a few minutes later, we were able to continue our progress on the floor.

Before we managed to meet back up with Melinda's party, their group decided that they would also make a play on the optional boss of the level, the Beautiful Businesswoman Harpsichord Harpy. We got to watch with a mixture of wonder and confusion as the fight played out across a large floorless gap from us. We were only briefly interrupted by a group of hoppin' hearts, but as they were not led by another mob, I was able to get rid of them pretty easily.

I mean, you know by now that I won't be easily impressed by a teamfight against a boss like that, and I wasn't. It struck my nerves like a hammer blow every time the Harpsichord Harpy gave an obvious tell forewarning an attack, and nobody twitched the way I would have twitched. They did twitch, and I could tell by about a third of the way through the fight that they'd fought a Business Harpy before, but each of them was busy running their own script in order to keep functioning as a team, and none of them was thinking independently.

Granted, if they'd thought independently, they would probably have gotten in each other's way, and all that. My nerves didn't care that my instincts were wrong for a teamfight; they only cared that the group's instincts were wrong for a solo fight.

The Business Harpy had three main types of attacks, all of which had variations. She was, of course, a variant of the Harp Harpy, and so she had music attacks; however, her sonic attacks were now thematically styled as paper for some reason, whether it was sheet music or "business paper" in some sense I couldn't tell from this distance. As a miniboss, she also could summon adds, which could be anything else on this level--that was dangerous enough on its own, but she could command them and make them work as a team, which was not fun.

And then she had a charm attack.

My heart fell as I watched the team quickly turn on Will, who they could tell had gotten charmed by the attack, and they hit him with a de-charm potion of some kind in time to free him from the effect. As a music enemy, it was unavoidable; I had no potions or auras to resist it. If I'd tried a solo fight against that boss, she would have gotten at least one free hit, and if I'd gone together with Louise, I might have turned on her. As a minor charm, it would wear off, but... as a midboss, she could very well have killed me, and me attacking Louise would have been all kinds of bad for all kinds of reasons.

So... probably not on this run. In fact, I realized with some regret, any boss for the rest of my diving career could have an unavoidable trick like that. If nothing else, I needed to do research, and that was something I just didn't normally want to do. Hell, the Devil had a Death aura my first time through, though the Skull fights I'd done on my last run had been an entirely different beast.

I'd thought I was clever for having an item nobody else had. I was just lucky.

Louise managed to tear her eyes away from the fight long enough to notice that I was kind of freaked out, and she put a hand on my shoulder, which made me feel a little better, but didn't really relieve my anxiety. The Administrator had said it, and I was seeing it in front of my eyes, but... some part of me still wanted to believe I was different, that I could be alone against the world and survive.

But then, I knew that was a lie. That's why I got tricked in the first place, wasn't it? I knew I'd need help.

Anyway, their fight was interesting in a way, although it wasn't much use to me as a solo diver to study their tactics. Normally, you might expect a front line fighter like Mel with her halberd to be useless against a flying enemy, but no; Mel was apparently a form of knight or perhaps more likely Valkyrie who could, for short bursts, fly; from what I could tell, she lacked general telekinesis that I had as a psion-derivative class, but she gained a lot of movement abilities, most of which had easily-understood damage zones. She just had to set herself up correctly and she would know where she would end up, what got hit, and whether or not she was in any danger along the way.

That was also a thing that itched at my nerves. I didn't like the idea of not being in control of that. I could remember a number of times where I dodged in the middle of an action and it saved my ass, but... it also left me completely confused and rattled until I developed more spatial awareness and perception. Honestly, it was still a thing I should work on.. but... it rarely comes to mind except immediately after I just barely dodge or just barely get hit, and I was already a lot better than I used to be.

The other two front-line fighters were quite frankly boring to me, in that one was an obvious shield tank who spent the majority of each fight thinking about other people and not, you know, doing things, and the other was a... critical bladework guy with a pair of short swords, but limited mobility. He was quiet in camp, didn't give me the heebie jeebies like a lot of the skeeves I taught outside, and had a damn fine sneak skill when he decided to use it, which was (as far as I could tell) only during battle. For this fight, he switched to long ranged weapons, but he was off his game without a back to stab, and it was obvious.

The archer, William, was of course in his element, though he had to play around Melinda's charges and stay within range of the shield tank. I couldn't keep track of his shots, not at range, but the Business Harpy showed signs of getting hit in the joints and maybe half-blinded, eventually forcing her to perch on the edge of the platform as her wings didn't want to quite keep her aloft. The mage, mostly, was playing support rather than attacking, probably mostly concerned with making sure nobody fell. I... still didn't know if that was supposed to be lethal or not, but I had to hope that it wasn't a one-shot kill. From what I read, that was a thing that higher level dungeons did a lot, but... thirty-to-eighty? No way, right?

There was a shout when they hit the Business Harpy's phase change. A thundercloud gathered overhead, and the harpy let out a screech, her harpsichord "wings" now playing a fast, almost death-metal-esque boss theme, if death metal could be played on something that sounded like an odd combination of piano and harp. This gave her two new attacks: first, random lightning strikes, and second, an attack where she sat and charged a beam attack from her beak.

We didn't get to see it complete, of course. It was the last thing the boss attempted, which meant it was a do-or-die attack. Mel got in a glorious uppercut to the chin, stunning it, and the mage threw the assassin into position. A pair of short swords to the eyes finished the creature off, which made me smile.

The boss music faded along with the Harpy, and there was a ragged cheer from the party of five. Louise and I applauded, and she gave a spirited shout of congratulations, and I'm pretty sure they noticed and waved at us, and then we all moved on.

As these things went, things were kind of smooth once we got into a rhythm, and eventually, we made it to the exit.

"Louise! Jerry! You have to see the loot we got!" Melinda waved us over. "It's... legendary."

They had my interest, of course, and everyone gathered in a circle around Mel, although the rest of their party were grinning, so I guess they already knew what it was.

"I'm willing to bet that this is something you've never seen in your life," said Mel with a smugness that I simply couldn't understand nor bear for very long. "It's often spoken of, and many people claim to have one, but it's actually incredibly rare."

Many people claim to have it? I smelled bullshit, and more closely examined her shit-eating grin.

"I present to you..." Mel appeared from her inventory a small, obviously male version of a Harpsichord Harpy, one perhaps a foot tall. He was well dressed, bright eyed and polite, and gave a small little bow, with something like a warbling gobble exiting his mouth as he straightened up again.

"... the legendary Twelve Inch Pianist."

I could hear people struggling to contain their laughter as I felt my own face forward, eyes involuntarily closing as I had to deal with the surge of disappointment from the depths of my soul, the deep recesses of mankind from which all disappointment springs, as an unbroken chain of ancestors realized that this is what they had spent their lives struggling to eventually create.

An awful thought occurred to me, and my head whipped around to Louise, whose face was bright and shining with an inner radiance as she began to open her mouth. "Don't--" I barely managed to start, but it was too late.

"You should give that to Jerry! He's an expert in dealing with cocks, you know." Two members of the opposing party couldn't hold their laughter as she continued. "Why I bet he's had more cocks on him today than your whole group put together! More cocks than I can handle by far. Why, he was practically buried in cocks, but he handled them all!"

"Louise..."

"Well sure," replied Mel, with a voice that managed to remain halfway deadpan given the circumstances. "He can handle average, run-of-the-mill cocks, but can he handle a Twelve-inch Pianist?"

I was betrayed. I should have known it would happen.

"I don't know," said Louise, putting fake concern into her voice. "I know I couldn't handle a Twelve-inch Pianist. That just sounds like too much. You'd need to be an expert in cocks to handle a Twelve-inch Pianist."

"Stop..." I begged as I sank to my knees, my chest twinging with some combination of wanting desperately to laugh but also being on the verge of crying. "Please, don't."

"See? He definitely can't handle a Twelve-inch Pianist." Louise stepped closer and patted me on the head in a highly condescending but also somehow comforting way. "It's truly amazing. Perhaps the most formidable cock I've ever seen."

To its credit, the small bird-man seemed to take this as a compliment, and puffed out its chest proudly, gobbling cheerfully at the two women who were preening over it.

The archer, who had almost collapsed onto Mel's shoulder with laughter, managed to find space in his lungs to say, "If you think it looks formidable, haha, you should see it in action!"

"Oh!" Mel covered her mouth in faux surprise. "I wouldn't do that, Will. This Pianist is only for private performances."

The tiny rooster made a sound that I could swear was disappointment and sadness, and I finally broke down into laughter with the rest of them.

Even though we had only just started, we took a break to have a quick meal. Fortunately the Hungry Horde dropped real edible meat that didn't look in any way people-ish, because the Harpy bodies were entirely too... not that. The mage was able to put together a cook fire in no time flat, and we had a quick chicken brunch in which the words "twelve", "cock", "pianist", and "inch" all were repeated entirely too much, along with "handsome", "big", "warm", "juicy", "delicious", and other adjectives that I wish I had been spared from.

But, no. Mel and Louise got along like a house on fire, at least when it came to talking about chicken meat and small musicians.

Although my Item Sage was a lot higher than Mel's, of course she wouldn't let me take the Pianist to check its stats myself--though she, and pretty much everyone but the assassin tormented me mercilessly for asking--but she did admit that it was basically a pet-type accessory that would provide musical buffs to the party, one song at a time from a limited collection. She wasn't sure exactly what it could do, but seemed convinced that it was a talented little bugger.

I couldn't help wondering what would happen if I absorbed one, but I knew better than to ask. It was clear that Mel was very shy about anyone touching her Pianist. I suppose you could say she was sensitive? I didn't make that joke, but I did think about it. I honestly wanted it all to be over.

Alas that this was only stage two of four for this biome.