//------------------------------//
// 84 - May Be Closer Than They Appear 
// Story: Bind on Pickup 
// by David Silver 
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"We could do it." Sandra rocked on her feet, her hands clasped behind her back. "This could be time. It might not be… We may find a recall every floor, and need to use it a lot." She laughed nervously, glancing aside at Tammy. "But it could be it. We may not come back."

"Of course you'll come back." Tammy pulled a heavy chain that caused her furnace to roar with renewed life. "You just might be different. Oh, I guess dead's possible, but you won't do that." She leaned in over the edge, peering into the crucible of creation. "I did want to say something though."

"Yeah?" She swiveled more towards the great smithing engine. "Thanks, for being our smith."

"You stop that." She began pumping her left foot up and down on a bellow, causing air and fire to mix, encouraging both. "You've transformed my life, in a good way. Even if you go off and do something else, right now, I'll never be the same. I'll never go back. You… Your team, I went with you. It doesn't feel that way, you know, with me not doing the fighting and stuff…"

"I get it," Sandra weakly agreed, barely a whisper.

"Not sure you do." Tammy left her instruments alone to grab Sandra suddenly, hugging her. "Thank you. Whatever happens, I am glad our lives got all tangled up. I'm glad we're friends. I'm just… glad, alright?"

Sandra returned the hug, if a bit awkwardly. "That goes for me too." But fear prevented her from saying much more. "I should meet with the others. We have to finish this."

"You'll be back." But Sandra did not agree with Tammy's confidence, leaving without another word.





The next boss was, on some levels, very basic. They had modes and times where sufficient damage had to be done, quickly, or they would unleash hell upon the party. They never felt it. They were cautious enough to recall when it began flashing, which was clue enough. They didn't even know how long they had. A moment? A minute? They didn't hang around to find out.

Properly pummeled, the flashing wouldn't come. But the prompts came faster and faster, and the needed intensity of their motions climbed with it.

Smolder leaned up against a wall. "I really hate this one, and all the 'one boss' floors, really. They mess with my thing!" She threw up a hand. "And I get the impression the tower knows that. This isn't a coincidence. It's messing with me!"

There were no chances to gather food from weaker enemies before the fight, since the fight was the entirety of the floor, meaning-- "You're good with your knives." Spike pointed at the two dangling from Smolder's hips. "Even your tail. Um… How does that… feel?"

Smolder hiked a scaled brow. "Feel? Oh… Well, I'd rather have the original." She shrugged softly. "But what I have works, and if I'm angry enough, I can take it out on the next monster with it, and that makes it a bit more even." she wagged her tail, the deadly tip-ornament flashing in the light.

Tabitha clapped her gloved hands sharply. "Alright, enough of a break. Let's try again. The pattern seems to be seconds, one less second per rotation. I think we're past it, or at least to the part where it has to start a different cycle."

They groaned as one, but headed towards the lift heading up to the boss. They weren't giving up.





Garble threw himself at the boss, his unleash blasting it with a crack of thunder, releasing his ultimate strike.

The boss stopped glowing once more, their floating chimes sagging from it, and they rose their hands, one golden blast from them hitting Garble, which Spike did his best to absorb with his martyr pain share.

And then it immediately started glowing and flashing again.

“Last rotation my ass,” Smolder said as she moved forward.

Sandra was out of summons, each burnt successively to clear the rapid rage emanating from the boss. Smolder was doing her best, but without buffs she mostly just sliced. Tabitha wasn’t enough of an assaulter.

So this run was a bust too, then. “Time to g--” Tabitha was interrupted.

“One more!” Spike called, and darted forward with all his might. His staff collided with the figure’s unarmored abdomen, unleashing the entire fight’s worth of stored up martyr energy into their figure, shocking them.

They convulsed and shook, ultimately falling down, disappearing and the loot popping out.

The team let out a collective sigh.





"Quite a battle." The old man of the tower sat on a rock, watching them as they entered the next room. "You deserve a reprieve." As if he summoned it, which perhaps he had, a recall point twinkled into being. "This is the last chapter of many things."

"We don't need any favors," scoffed Smolder, her arms crossed. "You're just enjoying watching us struggle."

"If you'd rather." The recall point shrank and fizzled, fading away. "Then you can do without. I was honest. We simply hasten things, in the end. There is no recall, there are no points."

Garble elbowed his sister. "The guy's a jerk, but I kinda wanted that recall."

Spike and Twilight both sagged, Spike speaking up, "Really? You know we're on edge, for good reason. Don't be mean about it."

"Mean?" He stood up, dusting himself off. "You're coming with visions of my death, but you call me cruel? That is exactly the sort of attitude I should expect from a dragon, I suppose."

“Don’t give me that! You wanted us to come! You wouldn’t want us to not come!”

The man shrugged. “I don’t want any ill for you, not really. I have something I want, you have something you want, and we can all work it out. I’ve heard whiffs of your conversations, don’t you love friendship over there? I just want to be friends. Really.”

“That sounds even more like you’re making fun of us,” Smolder said flatly.

The man chuckled, gesturing his hand. The recall point appeared again, and he was gone.

Garble immediately made a beeline for it, plunging his guildchain into it.





They entered into the next floor, only to feel the whipping of wind and the sunlight on their faces.

Above them the tower looked like it was torn apart, bits of it were floating on the way up. And what appeared to be a myriad of traps, flamethrowers, magic baubles, spikes and arrows and spears all dotted the areas way up.

And the first other place to land was at least twenty feet up.

Smolder raised an eyebrow. “So what, like an aerial acrobatic stage?” She stretched out her arms and wings. “I think we can handle that.” The three dragons took to the skies, only to be stopped by a clearing of throats.

Sandra and Tabitha stood still down on the landing, neither with wings at all.

“... Oh.”

Sandra made a come hither gesture with her finger as a rune formed in the air, Twilight stepping free. "I have a workaround, but we can't just forget Tabby like that, c'mon!"

Even as Sandra became part horse, the two larger dragons swooped in to grab their non-flying partner. "This is gonna be a problem." Garble squinted. "We have to go fast, and we could be attacked while carrying you around."

Spike rubbed behind his head. "Kinda annoying, but are you saying you aren't up for it, Garble? I thought you were a good flyer."

"Shove off!" He took off, only to not get very far and almost falling back where he came from.

"Warn a sister." Smolder rolled her eyes and lifted, allowing Garble movement. "We have to work together, or we're all gonna pay the price."

Spike flew up, pulling out his shield. “If you need some extra space, I can set up shields to make sure you have it.”

Tabitha made a sour face. “I’m better at that stuff than you.”

Spike flew to her. “But you don’t have your hands free.”

“I can still put my shield up if I need to.”

“Sure you can,” Spike said, flying languidly around the group. “Probably pretty awkward there.”

Tabitha groaned. “Let’s just go.”

And go they did, but it was slow. Short frantic moments of flying were punctuated by time watching traps and testing.

But they did make it forward.

The group collapsed onto a shallow place to stand in the middle, Garble and Smolder both gasping for breath.

“You two alright?” Sandra’s union said. She was still filled with energy.

“I got it… I just gotta… wait for these stars to disappear,” Garble said.

Smolder fished into her pack, pulling out little balls of congealed sugar. “Here, we need this.”

“I thought you didn’t have any left?”

“All these do is make you less tired, and I got some on the outside, and uh… we need it.”

A new voice boomed from just above, "I once flew this very course, with nothing but my own wit." A human slammed down onto the platform beside them, rising up from their three point landing with sword already in hand. "And now you imitate it, as a group, winded. Pathetic. You don't deserve what I suffered for."

Tabitha's eyes widened. "By the stars above, you're--"

"Sir Turro. Saint, now, as I hear it. That is no matter." He leveled the sword at Tabitha. "At least meet me and die with some scrap of honor."

"That's the divine lord," squealed Tabitha, shaking like a leaf. "I learned everything of your teachings. I live it!"

“And now you will di--”

“What is he doing here?” Spike said. “I never heard of him.”

The man scoffed. “The gall, I was--”

“He disappeared into the tower, never to be heard from again,” Tabitha explained, stars in her eyes. “Everyone thought you failed.. but…”

“I ascended the tower and paid the price at the top!” 

Tabitha squealed again. “A secret success that the world never heard of! Of course! Almost nobody probably knows that you have to sacrifice something when at the top. I should have guessed!”

"Shouldn't he have like a mace or something?" Spike raised a brow at the archetypal Divine Lord that was brandishing a very sharp sword instead of what he'd learned fit the model. "What's up with that?"

“Oh, well,” Tabitha turned away for a moment. “Saint Turro used a sword when he invented the art, but most people use maces because the value of knocking your enemies around is usually better crowd control than the sword uses. So most serious Divine Lords shifted to that.”

“Wh-what? My art has been adulterated? During my time it was my duty to defend with sword and shield!” Turro grit his teeth. “The only weapon that can defend against an enemy’s sword is another sword!”

“Oh yeah!” Tabitha turned back. “It was great, it’s just that, usually, the utility of the mace is better. I’m not going to do as much damage as Garble will, no matter how good I am with the sword, but if I clobber someone on his head Garble might just hit him more easily.”

“And the small one is also a Divine Lord, is he not?” Turro furrowed his brow. “Why would he choose to use a staff over a melee weapon of any sort?”

“Oh, he uses the martyr build.” Tabitha waved a hand dismissively. “It absorbs the damage you and your party takes and reflects it back upon the enemy. Basically more of a magic build than a melee build, good for healing and stopping damage in general.” She shrugged. “Not my choice, but we do need a healer, and he does good.”

"I… see…" His fury, fizzled with confusion and a touch of their overwhelming response. "I did that, set it all aside... It's how it ended, placed it all down, so others may live, know peace…" His sword fell from numb fingers. "And someone remembers."