Hopping Celestial Fox

Just as we spied more undead – two of the same type of skeleton we had fought just a minute ago – Frank stopped us with an uneasy frown.

“So, uh… I was thinking… Why don’t we try using our mystical virus-healing thing on the skeletons too?” Frank suggested.

I stopped in my tracks as my eyes went wide.

“You… You think that they were also victims of a virus…?”

Had we… murdered someone back there?

“I dunno… That’s why I’m saying we should try it.”

I glanced at Casey who was gripping her staff with her lips pursed.

“Right…” she said. “But I’m going to have to switch the catalyst. And if it doesn’t do anything, you two will be left fighting without me while I switch it back.”

“Uh, that might be a problem… What if one slips by and attacks you?” Frank peered at the two skeletons, who still hadn’t noticed us yet.

“How about…” I began as I tried to figure out a plan. “I distract one of them and lead it away, while you–” I nodded to Frank “–guard Casey and you–” I looked at Casey “–use the crystal on the other skeleton. If the experiment fails and it doesn’t do anything, I’ll try to ditch the one I led away and come back to help take the other one down.”

“That… sounds really dangerous,” Casey said uneasily. “If things go south, we would be separated and you would be on your own against one of them…”

“Hmm… Well, we all have the amulets, right?” Frank reminded us. “And if they do get used, we can always teleport out!”

“Being brought back to life is very disorienting and uncomfortable…” I murmured.

“Not to mention, it takes a second to get the seed and teleport out,” Casey added. “It’s a safety net, but not a guarantee…”

“Okay…” Frank frowned in thought. “Actually, you know what? How about we do this?”

Frank pulled out his ruby seed and opened his  mouth. I blinked in surprise.

“What are you…”

“Shh, look… I had the idea after you did something similar before we met the big dragon man. It reminded me of the spy movies where they put a suicide pill in their mouth and could bite it at any point.”

I pursed my lips at the uncomfortable comparison.

“See, if you place it right here–” Frank put it to the back of his mouth behind his teeth. “–then you can talk and stuff and it will stay there! And if you need to bite it in an emergency, you can move it out like this…!” He did an exaggerated motion with his cheek and a moment later, showed us the seed with his tongue.

“I… guess that works, yeah,” I admitted as I fished out my own seed. “Just gotta make sure we don’t accidentally swallow these… Then we would be screwed.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem! As long as you do it right, it should stay put.”

Casey and I followed Frank’s suggestion and now our emergency teleport was just a quick motion of the mouth away.

“Alright, let’s do this then. I’ll go first and lure one of them,” I said with a nod as Casey replaced the staff’s catalyst.

Thinking about how to best go about this, I quietly snuck out and circled our targets, trying to get the best angle. Once I found one that felt good enough, I reached down into my pocket and brought out my trusty Infinity Shuriken.

For a brief moment, I also wondered why I knew how to handle these as well, considering I was supposed to be a katana user, but didn’t linger on that thought too long.

With a flick of my hand, the shuriken swished through the air and hit one of the skeletons’ hands that was holding the trident.

The skeleton startled and dropped his trident, while the other whipped his head around and immediately charged me. The first skeleton took a brief second to crouch down to retrieve his trident, making him lag behind and separating the two.

Perfect.

I quickly pocketed the shuriken and readied my katana even as I backed up, trying to lure the skeleton charging me away.

A blast of the familiar white wave washed over the skeleton I’d hit, but I couldn’t pay attention to the results as the other skeleton finally reached me and thrust his trident with speed that surprised even me.

I just barely dodged his lunge when he transitioned it into a swipe aiming for my head. On pure instinct, I used flash step to jump back, my eyes going wide. The skeleton wasted no time in charging me again.

This might have been a mistake. These skeletons were actually really fast. I couldn’t just turn my back on them and run away. That would be suicidal.

Another lunge came at me and I did my best to parry it with my katana. One of the tips still caught my shoulder, making me grit my teeth.

I was beginning to panic when the skeleton prepared his next lunge and I wasn’t in a good position to parry. I used Flash Step again despite my senses screaming at me not to do that.

My vision suddenly got blurry and my entire body began trembling as I Flash Stepped out of the skeleton’s range.

I began panicking for real when I saw the blurry shape charging at me again and dislodged the ruby seed, ready to bite down, when another wave of white magic washed over the skeleton mid-charge.

I stiffened and gripped my katana, but didn’t bite down just yet. A moment later, when the magic dissipated, it revealed a pile of bones and a trident on the ground, motionless.

“Renee! Are you okay?!” came Casey’s voice as the two of them approached me.

I was still blinking the blurriness out of my eyes and ended up half-collapsing into a sitting position on the ground.

“You’re bleeding! Here, a potion…” The familiar cold-hot sensation hit my shoulder for a second before the pain disappeared.

“What happened?”

It took me a moment to finally gather myself enough to reply.

“I… used Flash Step while it was on cooldown…”

“Oh… huh? You can do that?” Frank asked.

“Really shouldn’t…”

My vision finally somewhat returned and the trembling calmed down.

“I’m guessing this is another one of those interactions that the devs didn’t think about…” Casey murmured, throwing me a worried glance. “Using skills that are on cooldown is technically possible, just a really bad idea…”

I nodded.

“So… What happened to the skeletons?”

“They just fell over and stopped moving.” Frank shrugged. “I guess the crystal thing turned them back into… just skeletons? You know, just bones, rather than monsters that can move and attack us?”

“RIght…” I said with a sigh before putting the ruby seed into the back of my mouth again.

“Well, I guess my worry was for nothing then! They ain’t real people! They are just reanimated bones,” Frank declared with a self-assured smile. “And Casey can easily one-shot them from afar! It’s the perfect counter!”

“Yeah, this should be much easier if I can just snipe everything from a distance,” Casey said with a nod.

I let out a sigh and slowly stood up on my still somewhat shaking legs.

“Let’s continue, then?” I asked.

“Uh, are you sure? Should we take a little break?” Frank pointedly looked at my unsteady footing.

“I… Well, maybe. Give me a minute, then.”

I didn’t count it precisely, but it took me roughly five times the normal cooldown to recover from using Flash Step while still on cooldown. There didn’t seem to be any lasting side effects, either.

On one hand, doing it felt horrible, but on the other hand, it could come in handy in a pinch. In situations where the fight was pretty much over but I needed to get just a bit more distance…

I briefly wondered what would happen if I tried using Flash Step again while in that state, but decided that it wasn’t worth even testing.

After we set out again, we encountered several more groups of skeletons and Casey easily turned them all into harmless piles of bones. We cruised through the first floor of the dungeon and soon arrived at a stairwell going down with a clear difference in the surroundings once we descended.

“Guys…? Why do the walls have eyes?” Frank asked uneasily as he eyed the suspicious looking moss covering the cavern on the other side of the passageway. Like he said, the moss had eyes that were actively tracking us. The whole structure seemed to be wiggling in place as well.

It was incredibly unsettling.

“What the heck…”

“I’m having second thoughts about this…” Casey murmured before shaking her head, pointing her staff at the moss and blasting it with another wave of white.

When the magic dissipated, the eyes were gone and the wiggling stopped. It all turned back into regular moss.

“...Huh. That works,” Frank said. “That thing really is just a total cheat tool, isn’t it?”

Casey shrugged.

“It is an ancient artifact… and another artifact made from a rare mineral.”

“Riiight… So in gaming terms, it’s a super super rare endgame weapon,” Frank summarized with a sage nod before grinning. “And the crystal is like a total undead counter too! ‘Cause nobody’s true form is an undead, right?”

“Yeah, probably… Hold on.” I frowned as I had thought. “What if you used it against the octopus? Do you think it would do anything?”

Casey hummed.

“I don’t know? It’s not undead, is it? Or is it a person who’s been mutated or something? I guess it depends…”

“Let’s try it when we finally face it!” Frank suggested. “Heck, we might even avoid that dream altogether!”

“I’m not sure about that…” I muttered with a grimace. “Well, anyway. Let’s get going, then.”

Both of them nodded and we were off to the second floor of the dungeon.