The Artificer's True Colors pt2

What kind of world is this? I'm at a loss and unable to do anything now. Locked in place. I can't believe what I just witnessed. For our good luck, Ambrosia takes the initiative again and grabs Elektra and me by the wrist and forces us to follow her. The place is once again a perfect pandemonium of death, with the remaining adventurers trying to fight off the advancing undead, and our former leader gone mad.

Behind the bone throne there's a door, but smaller in size. Ambrosia quickly opens it and throws me and Elektra across the other side. As she follows, she shuts the door behind her.

"That was close!" She exhales with her eyes closed.

I must admit, it's one of these few times I've seen Ambrosia actually worrying.

Tears stream down Elektra's eyes as she tries to get a grasp on what happened. I'm in a state of dismay as well. My heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest and my hands are shaking. I feel nauseated, sick to my stomach. I can't get the image of Zoe out of my head. Ripped apart, her arms stretched outwards towards us, guts displayed across a threshold of blood.

"Get ahold of yourselves!" Ambrosia says pointing out about a dozen undead, mainly zombies charging right at us. "You'll have time to grieve later if we get out of here alive."

Now I'm able to see that several new notifications have appeared on my NCI, but I haven't paid any attention so far.

Optional Quest: Raid the Underground Dungeons of Tlos Failed, the first notification tells me.

I dismiss it and another, painful one appears. Optional Quest: Defeat more undead than Alexander's Party Failed. Unmet requirements: Alexander didn't survive.

I take a couple of deep breaths and I see that Elektra is doing the same. Now that I'm a bit more composed, we follow Ambrosia in her bloody trail to our way out of this mess. This is a game after all and things like that happen all the time. I'll try and respawn Zoe if I can. Something tells me that our paths will cross again.

After we quickly dispose a dozen of undead inside these forgotten walkways and labyrinth maze tunnels, we finally reach another iron gate like the one we stumbled across before finding the powerful lich.

"Don't tell me that ..." I begin to say, but Elektra interrupts me.

"I don't think so," she tells me. "We should probably expect hard resistance, but this isn't the kind of threat we experienced earlier.

"Some kind of mini-boss fight?" I wonder and I see both of my girls frowned at what I just said, unable to understand the meaning of my words. Well, I should expect it from Non-Player Characters. "Well, can we defeat it? Any clue of what we might encounter?" I ask troubled.

Elektra shrugs, then rubs her chin puzzled. "Well, we have no other choice. The only other way we know is back to the lich's den and we know for sure that certain death awaits us there," she responds after giving some thought to it.

"On the way forth then," I say loudly with a grin on my face.

"How can you do that?" Elektra asks me, confused.

"What do you mean 'how I can do that'?" I want to know, my eyebrows frowned and my lips pursed.

"I mean how can you have that kind of carefree attitude after what happened?" Her question now makes more sense.

Well, you can't paint it black no matter how realistic a game is, yet I must admit that the intensity and the feelings that surged my body earlier were feelings I've never encountered before. This is a first for me. I guess for the NPCs here things are different as this is all they've known. They've never been in another game world.

"Life's a game," I tell her with a carefree look.

"I wish I could be like you" the sexy wizard replies.

"Heh," Ambrosia scoffs, trails of jealousy in her voice as she approaches and touches the handles of the iron gate. "I hate to break the romance here, but we need to make a decision."

I can't deny my seductive vampire ally is more right than wrong. We have yet to escape.

"Ladies first," I reply with a soft grin.

Before entering the new chamber, I check our health status to be sure we are ready for this. My HP bar is 70%, Elektra's 75%, and Ambrosia's 80%. I guess I should be the one being more careful this time. Having Primal Savagery still active, I nod at Ambrosia as she opens a new gateway to hell.

To my surprise, no undead or monster attacks us. Instead, we find ourselves inside a treasury of some kind. The shimmering gold and silver piles of coins, gems, weapons, and armors of all kinds loom before me. The gold that has been amassed here is so tremendous, supposedly making it comparable to the royal treasuries of the entire continent, maybe even bigger. My guess is probably correct, as Elektra and Ambrosia seem even more astonished than me.

I hope this place isn't guarded by some kind of dragon. It wouldn't seem strange if we weren't underground and enclosed in narrow corridors. For all I know, we won't be encountering these types of beasts down here, although you can never be sure. Maybe some kind of giant slithery lizard that is dragon-kin seems most likely.

Elektra immediately climbs over a pile of gold coins and rare gems and looks at them with glittering eyes.

Ambrosia picks up a tiara ornamented with several precious gems such as pearls and sapphires. "Damn, it's too bad we can't take it with us."

"What do we do?" I wonder staring over at my sexy girls adorning themselves with fancy jewels.

"I have something to confess," beautiful Elektra tells us, having descended the gigantic pile of gold. Both of us look at her with a wary look. "Relax," she adds as she takes out from her shimmering blue cloak a pouch of some kind. It's nothing special, an ordinary pouch you can find in any merchant store.

Ambrosia pushes me on the side to look at the item Elektra offers. "Is it a magical legendary item?" She arches an eyebrow looking more interested than ever.

"It's an Interdimensional Bag," Electra explains in a brief note.

Although I understand the words, it doesn't make it any clearer what this item actually is.

Ambrosia has the same so what look like me.

"Can you elaborate a bit more," I ask her.

"Oh... well sure," Elektra begins, her eyes sparkling. "An interdimensional bag is a legendary item that allows the bearer to carry an unlimited number of items in this pouch."

"Are you serious?" I tell her, wondering if what my ears heard are actually true. "Then I suppose you can make everything here disappear inside this tiny bag of yours?"

Elektra winks and nods. "In an instant," she replies.

"I wonder who would trust such a legendary item to a wizard apprentice girl," Ambrosia makes a point-blank comment.

"I didn't steal it!" Elektra replies, taking the pouch closer to her chest.

I can say she isn't convincing anyone here.

Ambrosia turns her gaze toward me. "And now that I remembered, care to explain why those two Emissaries earlier, the Black Knight and the warlock said they knew who you were and that you are responsible for them being here," she says.

"Well," I exclaim briefly, "I'm not sure if they know me or they confused me with someone else. It must be my best friend Smeme and Leda. They are good guys, but they tend to play a bit aggressively."

"And you don't know if they are your best friends? How much time has it been since you last saw them?" Elektra asks me as she places her pouch back in her belt behind her back, hiding it inside the blue cloak.

"Not much time, however, Smeme is a slime and has the ability to take several kinds of forms, so it's hard even for me to distinguish him," I tell them and I see that I barely convince them.

"What kind of best friend would do something like that? I get the feeling you're not telling the complete truth," Elektra makes a point, her glimmering lips pursing, making me want to kiss them. "Well?"

I wake up from my daydreaming as my wild imagination ceases.

"Well, I messed up and probably I'm the reason he's also in this game world," I tell her with a serious face.

"This game world?" Both Ambrosia and Elektra exclaim in unison.

They are about to protest, but once more fate comes calling and we hear the growling sound of a creature. The hair on my neck stands up and I sense that I've been a bit more optimistic than I should be. There's no way a place like this to be without some kind of guardian.