Market District Ruins, Meteo City

Limping over to join the rest of the group, I scoop up the loot. Between the gloves and the chunk of bone, the bone is the thing I'm most interested in, as I have honestly no idea what it's for. Logic dictates it'll be some kind of unique crafting material, but without a Schematic to pair it with, it's anyone's guess what it can be used for without being on the precipice of Master in a relevant trade and being able to make custom Schematics.

At that point, I find myself struggling to imagine something from a low-level event miniboss being worth including in one of your limited Custom Schematic slots. Only a Grandmaster can afford that kind of extravagance, and the ones I know to be active in this time period - those not basically chained to their workstations by their governments - are extremely protective of their privacy. If I showed up at their door, somehow without getting killed by their security measures, just to present them this, they'd do to me what the Shards of Terror did to the Vacantsoul Foreman's corpse if I'm lucky, never mind the Sagecrafters - half of the known ones don't even live on this plane of existence.

"You ok, Win?" Jade fusses over the tank, splayed out and groaning on the floor.

Windy grunts, "Suffering is me. Owwww..."

Angelus smiles apologetically, "Out of MP, sorry, you'll have to put up with it for a bit. You took a nasty hit yourself, Silver, how are you holding up?"

"Glad I decided to put ten points in Resilience earlier," I joke, rubbing my chest, "Not that it really made much of a difference at its current level."

"Looked painful," Miss Leovoldt sympathises, "Surprised you survived, honestly. I sure as shit wouldn't have, even if I used my defensive cooldown."

"Between my high-ish Strength increasing my health, decent armour and my own defence buff, I pulled through, fortunately," I lower myself to the floor, wincing, "Wouldn't have survived a second hit, though, you can bet on that."

"So, grreat and glorrrrious leader," Jupiter addresses me with faux-pompousness, "What spoils did we acquire for our trouble?"

"Silver-Tier gloves and an 'Unidentified Chunk of Bone'," I reveal, "So, nothing immediately useful, and the latter is probably just going to be sold for cash if we don't find an accompanying Schematic somewhere."

"On the one hand, I want to complain to the loot gods about getting unusable crap," Jupiter grumbles, "But on the other, Silver-Tier equipment is the highest rarity we've found so far and we worked our asses off to get ahold of it. Trade-offs I guess? Doesn't feel like we fought a Silver-Tier enemy though, either time. I mean, sure they weren't easy, but they're pretty close to The Beak on Normal."

I nod, "I'd have to agree. I would estimate them to be mid to high Iron-Tier enemies. Challenging, but not excessively difficult."

"If these are just the warm-up, I find myself dreading what this Geronil guy can do," Miss Leovoldt grimaces, as does Henna upon hearing it.

I take a deep breath, "Honestly? It's probably not as scary as you might be expecting. Geronil occupies the same niche your boss is going for - Magic Trapper. Specifically, a Demon Contractor. All this?"

Spreading my arms around to indicate the corpse of Desperate Embrace and the destruction of the market district, "This is already us fighting the best he has. He has little power of his own, so his minions fight his battles for him with his traps as support."

"So, we cut away his hands and feet," Henna narrows her eyes, "And leave the bastard defenceless. Correct?"

"Sounds like it," Jupiter nods along, "Classic pet-type spellcaster. Hiding behind bigger scarier monsters like fuckin' cowards."

"I don't see...how hiding behind me makes you any different..." Windy snarks, sitting up with assistance from Jade, "So, one left, huh?"

"The Birdcage, wasn't it?" Angelus muses, "How are we supposed to deal with it? Any ideas, Silver?"

I suck air through my teeth, "Honestly? Nothing besides having Jade and Jupiter shoot it from outside the range of the so-called 'instant death zone'. Fact is, the majority of people that were hanging around in the area were fresh Newborn, and the higher Level combatants are too scared to go anywhere near it because of that, so it's hard to say what exactly it's capable of."

"Going in blind again? Yay," Jade sighs, "At least the Cathedral is literally right there."

"Your optimism is noted," I observe dryly, "If you can come up with anything better, we're listening."

Feeling the group's stares, she shuts up pretty quickly, blushing from embarrassment. Clearing my throat, "Same to the rest of you, when it comes down to it. Any ideas?"

"It's completely stationary, correct?" Angelus looks for confirmation, "Does it create an 'arena' when it's engaged in combat?"

"I don't believe it does," I rest my chin in my hand, "Do you want to test the waters first, then retreat and try again?"

The healer nods, "If nothing else, we can get a sense for the fight from the first thirty seconds."

"Not a terrible idea," I admit, "Does anybody have anything else to add?"

"What kinda distance do we need to keep?" Miss Leovoldt asks.

"We should be safe past fifteen feet or so," Angelus answers in my stead, "From what I hear."

"Alright," she takes a moment to visualise it in her head, "Got it."

Putting away her helmet and shaking out her hair, Windy speaks up, "I've got a question I've been meaning to ask if that's alright."

Miss Leovoldt blinks, "Shoot."

"When I was fighting The Scavenger earlier," Windy licks her lips, "I felt myself go into 'the zone' so to speak. Like I could tell what it was thinking and how it was going to act next. It's the first time it's ever happened so...vividly. I was wondering if you or Silver knows what the deal with that was."

I share a glance with Miss Leovoldt, "That's what happens when your adrenaline spikes and you enter a state of hyper-focus."

Miss Leovoldt nods, "Same thing happens when you realise you're about to fall off a short wall or something and time just seems to slow down for you for a second while your brain runs every possibility it can at once trying to figure out how to save itself."

"The Scavenger must have pushed you much farther than you have been before," I guess, "Despite how it seems, it's not necessarily a good thing to have happen to you, since it can cause decision paralysis - or in other words, the deer-in-headlights effect where you just seize up. Plus, leaving your body to react on it's own without conscious oversight is often unreliable and can be tricked by highly-skilled combatants since that state-of-mind makes you far more susceptible to feints."

Miss Leovoldt considers my words then nods in agreement, "Basically, yeah. It's like your body is panicking and taking the reins away from you. I heard people sometimes try to train and weaponise it, but it doesn't really work out so well."

"How come?" Jade asks, interested.

"The sort of person to try is more often than not, delusionally superstitious about their experience with it," I sigh, recalling a significant number of idiots ranting about 'cultivation' and similar bullshit, "Like it's some super-secret mystical thing rather than a natural defence mechanism damn near every quasi-sapient organism possesses. There's nothing magical about it - you're always going to be better off learning to control yourself and fight better without it cropping up."

"So, in other words...That was my 'wall'? The limit of what I can do right now?" Windy sinks deep into thought for a few seconds, "Huh. Haven't had to try so hard to defend since that fight against Team Kurona. You remember that?"

Jade tilts her head back, then snaps her fingers, "Oh, fuck, yeah I remember. Our second promo match at the end of last season? Yeah, they messed us up but good."

"When we head off for the day, you should reflect on the experience," I recommend, "There's not much you can do about the attribute differences and lacking tools, but you can be better prepared to face a similar opponent in the future."

As I give out my advice, Henna has already checked out of the conversation to do just that.

---

 

Truth District, Meteo City

"All stop!" I order abruptly, narrowing my eyes at a suspiciously placed crate on the side of the road, my intuition sending off extreme warning signals.

The party complies, a little belatedly, turning towards me quizzically, "Trap up ahead, under that crate. Or it is the crate - either way."

"You sure?" Windy checks, on guard.

"Fairly certain," Lazy traps like this aren't going to easily slip by a veteran like myself. Geronil must have set this one in a hurry.

"Aight, I've got it," Jade sighs, nocking an arrow, "Could y'all like, take a few steps back in case this shit explodes. Eh...Who am I kidding, it's going to fuckin' explode. Scoot."

Taking our distance, Jade shoots the corner of the box, the momentum carrying through and spinning it off its placement. Beneath, painted onto the cobblestones in dried blood, is a roughly made magic circle. Jade clicks her tongue, "Proximity-based, looks like. Hey, Tour Guide, you think we can mess with it from here if we chuck some water at it or something?"

"Unlikely. If it were still fresh, maybe," I inform her, "Since it's dried and active, we'd need a magical dissolvent or a relevant Spell."

"And since we probably can't get close enough to scuff it out with our shoe," Jupiter posits, "I suggest we back up and take a different route."

"No point," I deny immediately, "The entire district is covered in them, specifically to stop people like us from getting near the Pioneers' Alliance building. We need to come up with a way of dealing with them as we go, and it'll only get denser from here."

"Fantastic," Jade grumps, "Any bright ideas, Tour Guide?"

"Magic," I shrug, "Jupiter, if you'd be so kind as to toss a Minor Ignite at it?"

Magical problems generally require magical solutions, in my experience.

"Sure," Jupiter complies, casually tossing the small flame at the trap. Sparks fly when it reaches the proximity, then the circle detonates, obliterating the stonework within 10 feet of it and making my ears ring, though Jade's sensitive ears still aren't doing her any favours and Miss Leovoldt isn't any better off either.

"FUCK THAT'S LOUD!" The fox girl squeals, clutching her head.

"Owww..." Miss Leovoldt whines.

Windy whistles low, "Yikes. Glad we didn't get caught by that. It'd probably one-shot -me-."

"Almost certainly," I agree, rubbing my temple, "As I said, the district is covered in similar traps, so keep a weather eye out for suspiciously placed miscellany."

Grim-faced, the team agrees, staring at the aftermath of the singular explosive trap.

---

 

Cathedral of The Starlight Truth Faith Exterior, Truth District, Meteo City

Jupiter

Fuck me that was a trial. Must've gone through, like, a hundred fuckin' explosion traps. And they all have more oomph behind them than my Minor Conflagration by a factor of five at the very least, like a cherry bomb next to a twelve-pound block of C4. Got me feeling all woozy again, especially that last batch. More than twenty glyph traps around the Pioneers' Alliance alone. I pity the poor soul that gets caught in the middle of all of them because alien scientists will be finding their ashes falling on their planet like rain in the next galaxy.

And now we have to walk all the way up this hill, where, praise the gods, there are no additional traps, only a few smouldering craters from where other people have done us the favour of 'disarming' them for us. Which is exceptionally considerate of them, if I do say so myself. And I do. Thank you for your sacrifice, poor unfortunate souls.

"Can't help but feel sorry for these guys. Managed to get past The Birdcage somehow, only to get vaporised by traps," Ingrid grimaces, stepping gingerly over a burnt, severed leg, "Went all downhill."

Me and Windy snicker, "That sucked. Bravo."

"Thank you, I'm here all day," she grins. I like her. Can we keep her, Silver?

"You doing ok there, Henna?" Silver dips back in the procession to nudge his NPC friend. Not very talkative, that one, but she feels a helluva lot more real than most of them, so she's cool in my book. Assume I have a book of 'cool people I'd like to continue interacting with professionally/socially'. 

"A little winded, is all," Henna mutters, "Not used to moving around so much for so long. 'til now all I've needed were a sturdy pair of arms and a strong grip."

"When we get to the top, you can sit this one out and take a break. Not much either of us will be able to do to The Birdcage, if our information is to be believed," he pats her shoulder encouragingly, "Don't push yourself too hard. You've accomplished a lot already, in a short amount of time at that. Be proud, not reckless."

Henna smiles softly, "Don't worry about me, I'll be alright."

Finally, at long last, we crest the top of the hill into the courtyard area, and immediately get hit by an unpleasant stench, like a musty crypt being opened after centuries spent sealed mixed with the smell of the bottom of my cousin's parakeet's cage. Hoo boy, that's a noseful even at this distance. Not nearly as offputting as the strange atmosphere though - everything seems just a little faded out. Not darkened, just that light, shadow and colour are being drained out of the area, ever so subtly.

Silver grunts, clutching at his chest, "...Shit. This might be a problem."

His gaze is locked on a three-legged gothic-styled black iron birdcage over near the closed Cathedral doors. It has a heavy 'bird' theme, with talons for feet and a small sculpted bird atop with glowing blue eyes. Inside the cage itself is an inky black..heart? Pulsing and shaking.

"What's wrong?" Windy speaks up, concerned.

He chews his lip, reluctant to answer, "That...thing...inside the cage is a minuscule fragment of Arevas' Authority. Heavily weakened and diminished from the real thing, granted, but a higher 'grade' than Desperate Embrace and The Scavenger. No wonder this was put outside the Cathedral - it's here to prevent interference from any nosy gods."

Huh?

"How do you know that?" I tilt my head at this prescient knowledge.

"It's giving off the exact same vibe as The Pool of Desire from Miner's Nightmare," Silver exhales a little shakily, "Which is also a small vestige of it."

Angelus breathes in, concentrating on the feeling of the aura The Birdcage is giving off with closed eyes, "...Now that you mention it, it does feel similar. The Beak did too, after a fashion."

Silver nods, "Arevas must favour Geronil a lot if he's willing to entrust him with something this valuable. To the right person, that thing could be worth tens of thousands in Stone Platinum. Almost pity that it's got to be destroyed, but the consequences of keeping it would far outstrip the sale price."

Jade's mouth hangs open, "HOW MUCH?!"

The group, myself included, are shocked.

"It's almost a Divine Artifact unto itself. If it wasn't being used to keep the priests from calling for help from the heavens, just standing here for a few minutes would likely kill us, which goes a ways to explaining why getting too close is instant death by Soulbane damage," Silver explains, thoughtful, "In other words, we can destroy it while it's...preoccupied for lack of a better way of phrasing it. It's ultimately just a tool, so it's not very dangerous on its own."

"So, if I'm understanding this, that creepy birdcage thing is just a really powerful magical jamming device?" I guess.

"Essentially, yes," Silver nods after a moment's consideration, "If a skilled enough Magic Artificer got their hands on it in it's inert state, they could convert it into a power source for a 2 Star City Core instead, I imagine, though it wouldn't be the cleanest power source and it would eventually turn said City into a Cursed Battlefield - which is a sub-type of Ancient Battlefield, before you ask, I'm not about to get into the details right now."

I guess that I should be impressed or intimidated by that, but I have no idea what he's talking about. Or, to be precise, I have no frame of reference for the concepts he's rattling off. Hm, weird to be on the other end of this conversational rope for a change. I guess this is what Abby feels like when I try to explain AP Virtual Tech to her.

"In any case, daylight's burning, so before I try something that's probably fairly...stupid, Jupiter, Jade, you're up," The boss man concludes, taking a few steps off to the side and folding his arms. Is he posing? It looks like he's posing. I mean, it works, kinda. The monocle still clashes with the rest of the look.

I look to the snippy archer, "How'd you wanna do this thing?"

"I'll hang around the edge of it's attack range and dodge around until it uses an ability then back off, you shoot at it with those magic missile looking things," Jade proposes.

"Minor Arcshot, and sure, works for me," I brandish my short staff, "Whenever you're ready, I'll start chanting."

Nodding, she checks the fullness of her quiver, nocks an arrow and gets ready to run, "Watch my ass, birdman, I don't wanna be stuck on the other side of this thing. On my mark. 3. 2. 1. GO!"

The exact same moment her legs propel her forward, a completed Minor Arcshot is already sailing with almost perfect accuracy towards the stationary target, hitting a glancing blow at it's stand rather than the weird black heart. It's kinda of a chore to aim this thing, but I'm pretty fantastic at distance calculations for projectiles, if I do say so myself. For my next one, I just need to raise the angle slightly and pretty much just make like a statue from there. Unless it decides to get up and start walking, which looking at the shape of it, it very well might.

Jade, on the other hand, manages to nail a shot on the main body even if the arrow just shatters on contact with one of the metal bars. Slipping an arrow through the gaps is probably a pretty tall order. Especially when on the move, to boot.

Either way, I get the sense that The Birdcage doesn't particularly appreciate being shot at because a filmy aura gathers around it, and a shockwave of purple flames of increasing height emanates outward in a cone from beyond the 'instant death zone' aimed at Jade, followed immediately by a swift-moving blast of magic aimed at my head, which I duck beneath, an unnatural chill passing over my scalp and setting off goosebumps. Felt like all heat was being sucked out of where the attack passed by.

"You ok there Jupiter?" Windy runs over to stand between me and The Birdcage, shield raised.

"Yeah, think it must've aggroed on me first," I grunt, readying another Minor Arcshot.

Unphased by it's inability to hit either of us, multiple waves of flame continue to erupt around it, not necessarily trying to target Jade as first expected, instead moving in a mostly set pattern, but after shooting off a few more arrows while I was distracted, it continuously fires off bolts of grey magic at her in 2-second intervals.

"Backing off!" Jade decides, turning tail and running back to the main group.

Retreating a fair distance away, the miniboss eventually calms down and returns to a passive state.

"So yeah, that was....stressful," Jade sighs, taking a swig of water, "Looks like there's a pattern to the waves, but I was too busy dodging to figure out what it was."

"And it fires at whoever has aggro with magic projectiles that would probably one-shot us," I add, rubbing my scalp, "In fact, this whole fight just feels like an exercise in not being hit by anything ever crossed with a rhythm game. Except instead of just dropping the multiplier after putting a foot wrong we get our faces blasted off by a demonic birdcage."

"What he said," Jade shrugs, "My aim wasn't the greatest, but I was still doing close to half damage even when I hit the bars. It's not a complete tank like the last two bosses were."

"And I was actually doing a lot less damage than I expected, barely 10%," I conclude, "So, physical damage seems like the way to go."

"Well, in that case," Silver unfolds his arms and rolls his shoulders, "I think I'm going to channel my namesake for a moment and cut the proverbial Gordian Knot."

"You're going to fight it with us?" I frown, not really understanding.

"Testing a hypothesis," He murmurs, drawing his bigass sword, "Angelus, don't bother trying to heal me. If I'm right, then it's going to be just like The Pool of Desire...If not, I'll just revive in five minutes a smidgeon weaker."

Understanding flashes across the healer's face, though I'm still pretty in the dark as to what the hell Silver is talking about, "You're referring to when you were standing in it..?"

"Yes," Silver nods simply, "Here's hoping this works like I'm expecting."

Breathing slowly, Silver approaches to thirty feet of The Birdcage, then breaks into an explosively fast charge directly at it. Curiously, it seems to have picked up on his presence at a greater distance than either me or Jade, and before an attack is even landed upon it, the gouts of flame erupting forth as the boss man approaches, but he doesn't appear to particularly care, leaping over the second wave with hops that'd make my highschool's b-ball team collectively give up on the spot and never set foot on the court again, into the so-called instant death zone unscathed. Without missing a beat, he crosses the remaining distance and slams his sword into The Birdcage, knocking it over with a huge dent left in it.

A huge pulse of grey energy comes slicing outward, attacking even us at our current distance for precisely half of our health, but Silver doesn't seem to give a flying fuck, raining overhead blow after overhead blow like he's splitting logs at his private ranch in Oregon. Even the regular bolts of magic aren't slowing him down, especially with Angelus ignoring his order to not heal Silver providing assistance.

In the end, the brutalised remains of the ornate cage are left splayed on the ground, as Silver collapses backwards, still alive, but only barely.

Congratulations, your party has defeated The Birdcage!

Awarding 20000 experience and 1000 Siege Contribution Points (Temporary-Limited).