[Waves of enemies will pour out from the doors! Annihilate all of them!]
Ah.
Well at least I know where the danger is from.
Everyone in my group focus on the doors, all pretty fucking impressed, maybe terrfied, maybe awed, I don't care.
It provoked a reaction. That's what you need to remember
What's sure is that everyone is seeing this gigantic door.
Gigantic door who's more like slab of marble deciding to get a gender affirming care into an arch.
Well at least it allowed everyone to see it. Hard to ignore it when it's sliding up like a gate so fucking hard that sand come flying everywhere.
At least it's not close enough to reach my face.
Youhou for the small victories!
Tightening my hold on my spear, I focus on the sight even more.
My lips move to bark out some orders, but before I can really notice it, balrow is already in front of me.
Our natural formation taking it's place.
Balrow up tank, malfoy and I on left and right as main damage dealers, annie behind to sneak up any attack or support when necessary, and lego-fucking-las, ready to commit an arrow genocide.
I drilled them well.
My smile come up slightly. The small seed of pride in me make me feel more reassured, even with the whole caveman shit.
This whole thing make me remember yesterday.
Between annie doing her goblin shit while I tried to deal with her procrastination, and like balrow sitting here and being like 'hmmmm, I am an old man and think about my past'
And then all the others urghhhhh, jenna was fine, actually, jenna was awesome, she fucking helped me control this fucking mess.
And malfoy got me when I was fucking dying, he was right though. It did take way too long.
Thinking about it.
Even if on the moment it pissed me off
It still manage to bring out a smile on my face, my hold on my spear looser.
Looking at my formation more thoughts. Older. Help me deal with this caveman bullshit.
It was a fucking hell to drill them this to be honest.
Between Annie going crazy goblin, balrow just basically wanting to stay forward, forward, and only forward.
Jenna who's...nah, Jenna was fine she came in clutch and helped me contain the chaos.
But I'm not even talking about malfoy right now. He was the worse. He tried to rile me up to compete in who could change formation the fastest.
Like, really? We don't even have a lot's of formations!?
And I don't even know if there are really good, just used logic to make them.
Even with all the negatives and quirks of my team. Those thoughts help me feel calmer than before as I face a litteral fucking sandstorm.
Well, not sandstorm.
Just lots of flying sand.
I like exaggerating.
The door opening is super scary though. Like, nauseating in the sense that I remember that there are way bigger things than me in life.
Taking a deep breathe, I ready myself.
I prepared hard for this.
I did my best, I can deal with this shit, everything will go well.
"Stay here" my voice sound calmer than my mental state, probably because I'm feeling pretty good. Actually, my mental state is getting better.
Everyone stay in the basic formation as I say those words.
MUAHQHAHQHAHAH I COULD GET USED TO THAT POWER!
More seriously though, we'll hold on and wait for the enemies here, observe everything.
Well, observe...
We'll observe when the sand let us see everything more clearly.
....the word 'observe' rouse something in my mind.
Something I practiced, and I'm getting more and more used to use.
It's....not that useful, apart in items like my necklace, at least from what I've seen yet.
But that's information. It could still help me figure something out.
[the swordman challenge: Annhilate the ennemies coming from the doors]
Maybe? Or maybe not.
Hey system, I reaaaaaaallly wanna know more about that.
As I subvocalize those words, my focus is on the details of the system words. This red windows, the challenge and how I'm ready for it.
[The swordman challenge: you do not satisfy the condition to start the side mission]
Huh.
It worked?
And...
Why does inspect give me more questions than answers?
It's kinda unfair.
Stopping my own little tantrum, my focus climb back to what I just saw.
There are conditions for side missions? Good to know. Probabaly mean we missed the guardian one then.
Annoying. But it's not that much of a problem, a reward. Especially a refiller. Would have been useful but it would have been more dangerous. Probably?
The badass grandpa going one on one against the boar doesn't deserve side mission reward? Not even one? Or liiiiike more information about how side missions are gained?
The conditions or whatever?
He never answer when I ask question. This system is evil.
The sand fly in front of us. Some grains get in my hair.
And I spit some out. Really annoying.
This system is really evil. That's annoying.
Well, annoying but expected.
My mind come back to the strange patterns on the door.
And the inspect interogattion marks.
That was odd too, inspect is strange as fuck.
Maybe I can improve my skill of it? Like with the inventory?
Remember when I pushed the inventory? Just after the archer challenge? Stocked too much inside of it and it felt like shit, even then the system did talk about increasing my inventory size first.
The refiller description also say something about 'mules' who have more inventory place.
So maybe inspect is improvable too?
Whatever.
My hand tighten, feet reading themselves, digging into the sand.
The door is almost fully open.
Yeah it's long right? I know I know. That's why my mind is running fast right now. I'm trying to distract myself because damn, it was scary at first, and it's still is.
Really badass and shit.
Looks like the start of a boss battle but man.
It's been a while already can't the boss come out already?
The second this thought appear, a loud clacking sound resonate in the arena. Clacking like a gigantic marble door finishing it's opening.
Finally, silence. Getting annoyed by the door opening was the skip button?
Because if it is I'll skip those a lot, it wouldn't be hard since even my ears started hurting.
The silence feel weird now, and even mid joking, I can feel the rising dread in my body. The anticipation. It makes me remember that I'll probably fight to the death again today.
No other sounds comes out.
No growling. No footsteps. Just sand, pure sand that slowly drift down to reveal the open archway.
Exactly the same as the one we come from.
I can feel and hear my companions shift behind me as they look inside.
A fight is bound to happen. We must ready ourselves to avoid the worse.
And they all do it, readying themselves in their own way.
My way of readying myself?
Complete and utter focus. My eyes don't even shift for a second, it's just pure intensity as I look inside.
I don't even blink once, staring in the darkness.
Something happen again. Footsteps.
Small footsteps, the hairs on my arm rise up.
I preferred the silence.
Now the silence is accentuented by those small footsteps. They sound pretty heavy. The monster coming forward is heavy.
Big or dense.
But even then, I wouldn't be able to hear those footsteps if my breathing was slightly too loud.
But it's not.
And I do.
Squinting my eyes I focus inside the door as hard as I can, trying to see what's inside.
No such luck.
It's too dark.
This suspense is genuinely killing me. My hand tighten against my spear. It's making me nervous.
Doing my best to keep my composure, I take a deep breath to calm down before finally seeing what's coming outside the door.
Here it is.
It's figure approaching. Leaving the dark to land in the light of the arena.
It's there.
A monster, of nightmarish propor-! A cube.
....a cube? Cubes? With legs?
Wait what's this shit?
As if it was messing with my overreaction of the situation, a small system message, red and floating in my periphery appear.
[side challenge: destroy the magical automatons with as less people as possible.
Only swordman: full reward to the end.
One helper: limited reward locked.
Two helper: moderate reward.
Full team: refiller 101]