Today's Earth date: December 7, 1991

Rathain survived an assassination attempt last night. Someone got the key to his room and tried to slit his throat. Whether it was luck or his Diary-enhanced ranger senses, he heard them before they could get a clean cut in.

He survived, but he's pretty shaken up by the experience. Killing the assassin was purely self-defense. Rathain is still taking it hard, though.

Meanwhile, Wilmond and I are feeling a lot more jumpy, like someone could come out of a shadow at any moment to do us in. And we don't have a way to warn Horcus.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

"Does this mean anything to you?" The Governess of Vientuls asked. She was a small, frail elderly woman with a cane. She used that cane to point to a rectangular slot at the bottom of a square hole.

That hole was at the edge of what used to be the Vientuls bridge and was fashioned in the same style with the same materials.

To Wayne, it looked like a socket of some sort, but he didn't have a clue what sort of plug was as large as a bucket. That's how big an object would have to be to fit snugly into the square hole. He didn't need to point out that something could fit here, though, that much was obvious to everyone who inspected the strange construction.

On a lark, Wayne tried to identify it with his Resource Values skill. It didn't work.

"I wish I had something to tell you," Wayne said. Fergus shrugged as well.

"Would have been too convenient, I suppose," the Governess said.

"Is there any other way down to the Cuts?" Wayne asked.

The Governess looked at Wayne like he had just been hit with the Dum Dum spell. "Could climb down, but otherwise, got to double back and go up the coast to go around."

"Well, that sucks," Wayne said more to himself than anything.

"It'll be fine," Fergus insisted. "We can explore Vientuls for as long as we please and then get back on the road. Just adds a little more adventure to our adventure."

Fergus was right. They weren't on any real schedule, and traveling wasn't bad with Sammy and Vanilli pitching in.

"Do you plan to stay long?" the Governess asked.

Wayne and Fergus looked to one another but neither had a concrete answer to offer.

"Well, you tipped your hand with that snail. I know you've got experience hunting monsters, and we've got a problem I'd like your help with. Would pay you for the trouble."

Fergus smiled. "Do you know of a talented mage or enchanter? We are fine on funds but do have some bracelets we need analyzed."

The problem the Zeroes were tasked with resolving was a new monster infestation down one of the mountain side roads. There were dozens of these small cart paths used by locals who didn't live directly in town but still needed to go back and forth with regularity. Ever since the snail attack, people had been going missing and hunters had reported multiple sightings of "zombie shark people."

According to the Governess, the zombie shark people were only ever seen at night. During the day, the monsters were plain old zombies and skeletons. Not hard to kill, necessarily, but they had power in numbers, and the source of their appearance was yet unknown.

So the Zeroes were off to investigate.

Wayne hit Random to add some music to their long walk:

Song: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626

Artist: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Album: [Single]

Genre: Classical

When the strings of a symphony began to play, Wayne excitedly told Fergus and Vanilli that this song was from one of Earth's most famous and influential composers.

While they listened, Wayne reread his new abilities, hoping to test them as soon as he could.

Unlocking Buck Rogers with Christmas List gave him:

Jury Rig – Is the very valuable skill to patch together damaged equipment. This skill can be a real lifesaver during space combat.

That sounded like it could be a versatile skill, but Wayne wasn't sure how to go about testing its potential.

The ability he got from Golden Axe, however, would definitely help in combat:

Tyris-Flare Fire Magic (3 Pots) – Reach up to six levels of power depending on how many magic pots she is carrying when she casts a destroy spell.

Tyris-Flare was the Amazonian warrior character in the series. She fought in a bikini, which young Wayne found quite captivating. Pixel art was somehow very real to him back then, so much so that seeing the bikini ending in Super Metroid became something of a spiritual experience…

At any rate, in Golden Axe, the strength of a character's magic was determined by how many magic pots a player collected. Wayne couldn't immediately recall what her fire spell did at three pots, but he at least knew he got one of the upgraded versions.

Once Wayne picked up red dots from his Probe, the party did their best to approximate what direction had the most zombies. Their reasoning: If the zombies had a fixed source, their numbers would be densest the nearer to the source they went.

The skeletons they fought were as unremarkable as every other skeleton Wayne had seen in this world, but the zombies were odd. They all had the physique and stature of body builders. Like Instagram gym rats from Earth, the sheer bulk of the zombies' bodies looked cartoonishly exaggerated, and they walked like macho lifters. Their arms were always held out as if their delts and biceps were so big that they couldn't fully fall to their sides.

Wayne's Camera ability called them "unusual zombies."

They were tougher than "usual" zombies, but their scattered numbers and slow movements made them relatively easy to cull. Margo could put an arrow through their brains and Fergus could set them on fire long before the party was in any danger.

Eventually, the zombie spawn led the party to a cliffside. A stone archway about the size of a city gatehouse opened into a structure built deep into the mountain. The party encountered a dozen unusual zombies lingering near or just inside the shadowy entrance.

"Seems like the place," Fergus said. "No one mentioned ruins out here, though."

Wayne pointed to several shattered rocks strewn about around the entrance. "Want to bet this entrance used to be covered up until recently?"

"And now it's opened, at the same time as the snail attack."

Wayne nodded. "I'm calling it now: Whatever piece fits into that socket by the bridge is in here."

"Is this based on Earth logic?" Fergus asked.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Yep. That's what would happen if this were a video game."

Hector grumbled. "What do zombies and snails have to do with each other?"

The party agreed the theming of the quests felt inconsistent, but the connection between this dungeon appearing and the snail attacking was too obvious to ignore.

Clearing the entrance was a chore, but soon the party entered the dungeon, making them the first people ever to set foot in this eerie underground castle. Statues lined the entry hall, depicting women with the bodies of snakes from their hips down. They held spears with complex, barbed heads, and their faces were frozen in snarling expressions.

"Naga," Fergus observed.

"Snails, slimes, zombies, and now naga?" Hector asked.

"There are also zombie shark men, or supposed to be," Fergus added.

"Right. Not seen one of those yet."

"What are naga?" Margo asked.

"Pretty much what you see," Fergus answered. "Evil snake women with a predilection for the occult and for demon worship. I'm glad these statues aren't coming to life."

"These are some big bitches," Hector mused.

Armond laughed.

Margo shrugged. "He's not wrong."

While the party bantered, Wayne studied the details of the architecture. He was suitably impressed by the classic dungeon masonry of arches and columns and vaulted ceilings, but what caught his attention was the shark motif. Carved into walls and inlaid with mosaic tiles were depictions of sharks. Strong. Angry. Big, ferocious teeth.

Wayne couldn't think of any Earth stories where naga lore intersected with any mention of sharks. He wasn't an expert on mythology or ancient histories. The combination of the two was jarringly awkward, nevertheless.

As they stepped into the next chamber, too vast and too dark for them to see what purpose it served, a stone door fell behind them, sealing the party inside.

Red dots spewed out of the walls.

With his Light spell, Wayne found that the walls on either side of the room had three large pipes, akin to a New York sewer in a 90s cartoon. Emerging from the pipes in a surprisingly orderly fashion were what the system labeled "zombie weresharks." These zombies had the same muscular bodies as the unusual zombies outside, but they had shark heads instead of human heads.

Armond called for the party to take up formation. They didn't expect these zombies to be much different than what they had already faced, but he wanted disciplined combat regardless.

When the first zombie wereshark was a dozen yards or so away, it lunged, leading with its rows and rows of jagged teeth.

So they were different after all. None of the unusual zombies pounced or leapt.

Armond dropped buffs on the party while Hector enhanced himself with Zap, tripling the effectiveness of his weapons and armor. Margo conserved her laser shots but fired arrows with steady swiftness. Fergus, meanwhile, delayed one group with Freeze Please and sent an Earth Elemental to plug up one of the pipes.

Wayne Blitzed up the wall, sticking to the brick and then the ceiling with his Super Soft Tires ability. His HUD map was covered in reds–at least twenty to thirty–but he wanted a better look at the rest of the room. With their way out sealed, he preferred to know his options should they have to move.

With his more complete view, he saw that the room was a long rectangle with three pipes on either side. Every pipe emptied onto a dais with a spiraling ramp down to the floor. A wrought iron gate was shut and locked at the far end. He suspected that gate would open when the monsters were defeated.

Wayne cut into the weresharks from behind, scoring so many easy kills that his Morale ability–boosted by his Charisma ability–triggered, enhancing his own strength and speed as well as his party's. As long as he kept his kill streak going, Morale would benefit everyone in his group.

Inspired by Fergus' Earth Elemental, Wayne plugged two pipes with Nee, filling them with bushes, which were set on fire by Flame Bracelet.

The zombie weresharks poured out of the pipes at a greater and greater rate. Where one hopped out of a pipe every five seconds or so before, they now fell out of the pipes, propelled from behind by the surge of more zombies. The ones who pushed through his bushes entered the room on fire, dying shortly after, but the speed of the new adds worried Wayne.

Three open pipes could still produce far too many zombies, and this variety was too strong to risk letting them overrun the Zeroes.

Knowing it was a bit reckless, Wayne used Dynamite. A reticule appeared in his vision showing the arc the dynamite would follow when he threw it. And there was a countdown in the corner, starting at three.

Wayne didn't see any actual stick of dynamite to throw. His hand still held a sword and nothing floated over his head.

When the countdown hit one, he triggered Dynamite again. A red stick of lit dynamite spun through the air and bounced into one of the bush-packed pipes. Zombie fish guts sprayed out at the same time an explosion shook the room, trickling dust and small fragments of stonework from the ceiling.

"How do I throw it?!" Fergus yelled, panicked.

Wayne saw Elyon's Staff glowing in the wizard's hands. That item enabled Fergus to "borrow" a spell from a party member once a day, and he must have used it just now to–

"Activate it again!"

A stick of dynamite materialized out of Fergus and spun into one of the pipes formerly plugged with Nee shrubbery. The room quaked, leaving two open pipes.

The horde around the Zeroes grew denser, even with just two pipes left. Wayne moved to assist, first casting Defense spells on each of his party members when he saw Armond's Deban barrier spell expire. Then he summoned Linebacker bot to draw aggro from as many monsters as he could.

With fireballs orbiting his waist, he dropped into the chaos and Blitzed through the crowd to cut down weresharks with efficient swiftness. Along the way, pouncing sharks bounced headfirst off of his Defensive Screens, which Wayne took as a crucial insight: the weresharks were faster and stronger than he anticipated. His automated protection ability likely saved him from a very untimely and incredibly embarrassing death.

Seeing the shields he cast for Fergus and Margo already fading from the onslaught, Wayne used Castle from Chessmaster 2100. A small brick fortification–like a plastic clubhouse from a toystore–wrapped around the rogue and the mage, giving them additional protection as they sniped wereshark after wereshark.

For the first time, Wayne saw Hector activate his Aegis Shield, an ability that worked like a healing spell. Then he used the enchantment on his Perris-bought shield to release the energy it had stored from blocking attacks. An open pocket formed around Hector in the fray as an invisible force from the shield drove enemies away. When they surged forward again, Hector's sword turned bright red, and it cleaved through sharks like they were nothing but smoke.

Wayne recognized the ability from a description read when he reviewed the unlocks his party earned back at the bridge:

Zapathingum – Enchants any weapon to three times its ordinary effectiveness. Effect lasts one to six hours.

With the party safe for now, Wayne returned his focus on closing the last two pipes. He Blitzed up to one of the daises and hacked away at the crowd of zombies attempting to swarm him. When he had the barest of reprieves between enemies, he hopped up and Fired a Broadside enhanced with Flame Bracelet, sending a burning ball of lead down the pipe.

The delay of zombies having to climb over their dead comrades gave him the time he needed. He cast Urg and pressed up from under the pipe, using the super strength from the spell to crumple the metal. The passage wasn't perfectly sealed, but the damage was enough to keep more zombies from coming out.

Fergus activated his new Fly Me spell from Tunnels & Trolls, floating himself up above the horde. He cast Freeze Please again, temporarily plugging the last remaining pipes with frozen undead. At the same time, the last pipe packed with burning bushes went dark. The bodies of zombies had snuffed the flames entirely.

Unsure of what to expect, Wayne risked casting Tyris-Flare Fire Magic. Two flaming spectres with wide, shrieking mouths sprouted from Wayne's body, trailing black smoke but making no noise beyond the crackling of fire. They were each slightly larger than a person, and they zipped around like angry wasps.

Mentally, Wayne thought about sending them into the pipe that used to be blocked by burning bushes. Both of the spectres shot into the opening a second later. He couldn't see what damage they wrought, but he could see red dots blinking out and that no more zombies emerged from that pipe.

At the far end of the room, torches on either side of the wrought iron gate flicked to life with blue flames, sending a wave of sapphire light across the room. Whenever the light touched a zombie wereshark, the monster dissolved into ash.

In a blink, the room was completely quiet. The only sound to break the silence was the labored breathing of Wayne and the Zeroes followed by the creaking of the heavy gate swinging open.

When Wayne checked in with his party, he found them dirty but healthy. Armond turned his back to Wayne and shook his head. Hector and Margo covered their mouths, but they couldn't fully disguise their big dopey grins or the glee in their eyes. Fergus, meanwhile, stared at Wayne as if he couldn't wait to tell him good news.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Your new fire spell, the one with the burning ghosts," Fergus said. "Do you like it?"

Suppressed giggles went through the rest of the party.

"Yes…" Wayne said, suspicious. "It seemed to be effective."

"Did you notice anything strange? A draft, perhaps?"

More giggles.

"Just tell me," Wayne said, sighing.

"I can't explain the physics, but when you cast that spell, your armor disappears, and all you're wearing is a white and red bikini."

"Huh? No way."

The giggles were full on laughs now.

"It's very true, and I'm sorry to say, you don't have the right figure."

Wayne tried to decide which of the Zeroes he trusted the most to tell him the truth. "Armond, is he bullshitting me?"

Armond, who still had not turned around, shook his head. "It's… provocative."

When the party recovered–mostly–they ventured deeper into the dungeon.

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