As Zoey stared at the strange monster, she reached for her shield, only to pause as the monster seemed to focus not on her, but on the spot next to her. Curious, she watched it approach until it stopped directly beside her, turning to face the non-existent audience.

"Huh?"

Looking out into the empty theater, Zoey saw that the orange haze from outside began to fill the spots, taking vaguely humanoid forms.

Confused as she could be, Zoey looked back at the monster, which had bent over slightly so that the eyes within its pitcher plant head could stare back at her.

Is it… nodding at me?

As if things couldn't get stranger, the monster held its hand up, three fingers raised, then one finger, before tapping its forearm twice. Then, the monster tossed itself backward, landing on its back.

What in the world?

Staring in confusion, nearly a minute passed before the monster stood back up, shaking its weird head before Zoey felt a massive inhale from the monster, as in the exact moment she felt as if someone had sucker punched her.

And not sucker punched her as she was now, but as if she'd been sucker punched back on Earth, her durability doing nothing.

Looking at her interface, her eyes widened in surprise. She had instantly lost ten percent of her vital energy.

It was clear that the monster was responsible, but as she prepared to attack, the monster held its hands up as if trying to calm her. Finding the reaction odd and realizing that she hadn't bothered to examine the monster, something that might explain the strange action, Zoey finally did so, her eyes widening again.

This is a joke. This must be a joke.

Because standing in front of her was a tier nine monster.

Genius Loci- Attendant to a Theater God

Level: 93

A monster capable of existing only within the confines of a bound space, acting as an anchoring Genius Loci. This specific Genius Loci is bound to the abstract concepts of theatrics, capable of warping reality itself to abide by its domain of existence.

"Not a fucking chance," Zoey sputtered. A high-tier-seven monster could thrash her even with her durability. A tier eight? It would eat her alive. A tier nine? It could sneeze, and she would cease to exist.

The fact that she was even still alive meant that at the very least, this monster, a Genius Loci, wasn't looking to murderize her and munch on her bones.

Trying to make sense of what to do next, the monster took the initiative as it held up six fingers, then two fingers, before tapping its forearm once. After that, it bent over, acting as if it were petting something.

"Is... Are you playing charades?"

The monster didn't respond, didn't seem capable of speech on second thought, before it lowered its weird plant-head in affirmation.

I'm not sure this could get weirder.

Watching the monster continue miming as if it were petting something, Zoey took a stab at guessing.

"Dog?"

The monster shook its head, thankfully not sucking away her life force, perhaps a time limit or the like that she could guess in.

"Cat?"

The monster nodded vigorously before standing. Switching from a petting motion, it almost looked as if it were trying to pull something out of-

"Oh, I got it. 'The cat's out of the bag,' right?"

The monster clapped, looking delighted, or as delighted as a faceless monster could be.

Charades with a tier nine monster. And here I thought ghost apes and talking snakes were strange.

Having relaxed, the monster snapped its fingers, and the area they were in distorted. No longer was it the fusion of Japanese and Greco style theater; now it looked as if they were standing in a distorted version of Broadway. It wasn't over yet, as the stage they stood on warped, a massive tower appearing underneath the monster, spiraling overhead, until Zoey was forced to crane her neck to look upward. Doing so, she repressed a groan.

Oh, this is a joke.

The monster was no longer wearing a kabuki costume; instead, it was now dressed down in a gown, long golden locks spilling away from its pitcher plant-like head.

"Rapunzel," Zoey sighed. She'd been to enough stage plays with her father when she was young that she could recognize it in a heartbeat.

Why a random monster knows what Rapunzel is is beyond me.

Apparently, that wasn't the point of the exercise, though, as the monster leaned out from a window like a hopelessly infatuated princess.

Wait, does this make me the knight in shining armor?

Glancing down at herself, it was hard to see herself as anything but a knight in shining armor, given the heavy armor she wore.

The sound of shifting tiles made Zoey turn her attention back to the rest of the stage, where monsters that looked like a fusion between spider crabs and tortoises began pulling themselves out from holes in the stage that had suddenly appeared. Each was the size of a large dog, and a quick examination revealed the monsters as level seventy Karkinjapas. Their description didn't mention much of note, aside from an affinity for spewing steaming hot acidic liquid, which Zoey wasn't too worried about. Between her durability and her armor being tailored explicitly for volcanic and volcanic-adjacent elements, some geyser water was negligible.

Which was all well and good, as the moment they skittered into range, they began blasting steaming hot liquid from the cracks in their shells, the acrid-smelling fake water spewing acidic smoke wherever it landed. Yet when that same liquid landed on Zoey's armor, it seemed to drink it in, the magic, or perhaps it was a skill, Zoey wasn't sure, having essentially no effect.

Not bothering with anything aside from her shield, Zoey got to work, using her shield as a blunt instrument that she repeatedly slammed into the karkinjapas. While their spewing geyser attack didn't do anything, she still made it a point of avoiding their claws and snapping jaws. It was better not to get into the habit of tanking every attack if she could help it.

Plus, while her durability was immense, it wasn't invincible; damage would slowly accrue even if it didn't physically show, like a poison running through her body. It was one of those things that made no sense if approached from a scientific understanding of the old universe, but it just did.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

In the past, it would have been a far more fatiguing encounter, forcing her to switch between inverting her attributes as the extra speed was needed to handle so many monsters at once. With the aid of float gem empowered armor?

Not so much.

Again and again and again, she danced around the monster crab, turtle, things, slamming her shield into their faces and just giving them an overall bad time. Eventually, the damage they took was so significant that a second phase of sorts was triggered, molting their shells and sprinting like spiders hopped up on crack.

With their shells mottled, they were now faster than she was, even with the use of float gems; her armor was just that heavy. Instead of attempting to keep pace, Zoey deactivated the float gems and instead activated the second set of three gems each piece of armor held.

Waiting for her precise timing, as soon as the first turtle crab attempted to snap at her, her hand struck out, catching the monster and redirecting it, before throwing it over her shoulder with a titanic force.

It was a one-two punch, the synergized effect of her counter skill, and the second set of gems in her armor, Spin gems.

"So here is the thing. I'm going to give you a few sets of gems. Float Gems are probably my go-to gems, as increasing your speed is the best way to contend with powerful or numerous monsters. These gems are barrier gems; they'll enhance your defensive capabilities. Honestly, should you, of all people, need to use these, it's likely a bad sign. In that case, you're probably in a situation where running away is the smarter option, but having options is still better than not."

Zoey watched as the Architect held up a third set of gems, showing them off before tossing them into a bag for her.

"Those are Conversion gems; they can help bleed off magical effects into pure energy, which, given the upgrades to your armor, can potentially make more magically oriented foes easier to handle. And lastly, these-"

Another set of gems was held up as Rory continued his lecture, one that Zoey made a point of actually paying attention to.

"- are called Spin Gems. I only came up with them recently, and they're typically used to affect rotational forces. That said, I had an idea that when used in tandem with your counter skill, they might allow you to redirect an oncoming attack with extra oomph."

Swapping the gems in and out of her armor was easy enough to do. With three sets of sockets per piece of armor, she had room for three of the four sets at any given time, the gems she'd decided to leave undocketed being barrier gems for the exact reasoning her fellow founder had given her when explaining the gems.

Back in the present, Zoey was having a ball as she began tossing the turtle-crabs around like a farmer tossing bundles of hay. Her counter skill grew stronger the more effective she was in defending herself. For the first half of the battle, the karkinjapas had been unable to hurt her even once, leading to her building quite the 'counter charge' that she was now expending in combined effect with the spin gems.

Without their shells, the karkinjapas suffered critical damage with each counter strike, until minutes later, at last, the small pack of turtle-crabs had been reduced to nothing more than a scene out of Red Lobster.

Wiping some of their monster goo off her armor, Zoey finally turned her attention back to the tier nine monster watching her from its tower. Standing just below, Zoey inwardly cringed before raising her voice.

"Oh, fair maiden," Zoey played out the theatrics, wanting nothing more than to walk away from the ridiculous situation. "Thy, uh, monsters have been slain. Let down your hair so we may be together."

The monster mimed as if swooning, placing the back of its hand against its pitcher-head. An applause broke out, and looking around, Zoey saw that the orange haze crowd had reappeared, clapping in unison. The oddest part was that the sound of the clapping was clearly not linked to their actual clapping; the cacophony of noise was out of synch with the actual movements displayed.

Once the clapping had finally subsided, the tower began to melt back into the stage, until the tier nine monster was once more standing level with her. The ridiculous dress it had been wearing had vanished; now it was dressed in a surprisingly sharp-looking suit.

As stupid as it was, a glance down at herself showed that it wasn't alone; her armor was gone, replaced with her own suit. The stage and scenery warped, now standing as a pair in front of what appeared to be a comedy club, with a microphone of all things before them, the orange haze crowd silent.

"Is this supposed to be some stand-up routine?" Zoey questioned the tier nine monster, raising her eyebrows.

The monster folded its arms, as if that much should have been obvious.

"Right, of course," Zoey said with a sigh before forcing a smile. She wasn't the funniest person around, but she at least felt confident she had a better sense of humor than Rory, who seemed to believe himself far more amusing than he honestly was; the man had a penchant for dropping corny one-liners, looking around as if waiting for applause, before muttering about critics.

Still, it's not like I've actually ever performed stand-up. Much less with a partner. Or a monster. Or a monster partner.

"So, volcanoes and mountains, right? Constantly belching sulfur, smoke, and hot air. You know, I had to be careful the other day when I was around a rather dangerous one. What was its name again…. Oh, right, Aelia."

She looked around, the orange haze unmoving. The same couldn't be said for her monster partner, which had bent over as if doubled over with laughter.

"Right, right, I need to watch what I say lest she toss me into one of those volcanoes. Hey, on the plus side, I've heard that when in doubt, cremation is one way to get a hot body."

Again, the crowd formed of orange gas was silent; her partner, though, was on the ground, pounding its fist as if unable to contain itself.

Rightttttt.

"Too many Aelia jokes? I get it, it's just when I was young, someone once told me something important, something I think applies to our good old World Spirit. It was my fifth-grade science teacher who told me to remember that, at the end of the day, geology rocks. I'm not sure if Aelia would get that one, though; you could say she's a bit dense. Anyway, if you ask me, I think geology is overrated. Personally? I think geography is where it's at."

Zoey paused, as finally the crowd made of orange gas seemed to shift, the only sign that they had reacted.

"You know it makes sense that we're on floating islands up in the sky. Close as we are to space, I can understand why the atmosphere here sucks."

Heh. The vacuum of space sucks, there's a lack of atmosphere, and a tough crowd. Even I've got to give myself credit for that one.

"Standing up here on this stage, I almost feel like I'm part of a theater troupe. Except all my material is puns. You might even call it a play on words."

The crowd was visibly excited, clapping out of sync as Zoey felt the atmosphere improving.

I think one or two more.

"You know, back to the topic of these floating islands. I was honestly unsure how that even worked, so I asked the Architect if he had any books on the subject. It turns out he had one on the topic of anti-gravity. And you know what? I just couldn't put it down."

The clapping increased, and while truthfully Zoey didn't believe anything she had said was that funny, the monster to her side was currently dying, and as the one controlling everything, what mattered was what it thought.

Alright, last one.

"My time as a comedian might be ending," Zoey began, her smile drooping as if saddened. "But I've heard being a chemist is a good backup plan for any failed comedians. You see, it takes a chemist to recognize that all the best puns argon after all!"

Considering their universe didn't play by the old rules of physics or chemistry, it was a bit of a deep cut, but it didn't seem to matter as the 'crowd' went wild, hazy figures standing and waving their arms overhead and stamping their incorporeal feet on the ground.

The non-verbal cheering went on for several minutes until, at last, their surroundings began to shift and warp one final time, as Zoey found herself standing on a simple, barren stage, like one you'd find in any high school.

The tier nine monster was standing across from her, arms folded as it bent over so that its cat eyes inside its pitcher plant head could watch her.

"Good enough for you?" Zoey questioned.

The monster nodded slowly, now wearing a simple white robe. Reaching into the folds of the robe, it handed something over to Zoey, whose eyebrows rose as she examined the item. It was a small, miniaturized stage, like a portable version of the one they were currently standing on.

"What in the world is…. This?" As Zoey looked up from the item, she discovered the monster had vanished.

What an odd fellow.

With the tier nine monster disappearing, the world around her shifted, until she found herself back in the real world, standing exactly where she had been before stepping into the orange portal which had disappeared, a plain looking shrine in its place, the doll version of the monster seated within as the only sign of the delve that had been there before.

Taking time to examine her reward properly, Zoey found her uncertainty unchanging.

A Stage in the Palm of a Hand

Rarity: Aberrant

To those with a love for theatrics, the entire world is their stage. For those who aren't of the same theatrical cloth, a proper stage may still be needed. Once a day, a scene may be portrayed and projected, allowing for limited interaction and disregarding physical boundaries and limits.

Staring at it, Zoey could only sigh.

"A strange reward for a strange delve."

She wasn't mad, far from it, a reward was a reward after all. It was just… odd.

"Not that I should be surprised."

After all, what could she expect as a reward from a monster that seemed to revel in appreciation for anything stage-related?

Nothing like a theater kid to leave you questioning the last hour of your life.

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