Novel Full Chapter 1948 Announcements
Chapter 1948: Chapter 1948 Announcements
— Lily —
Lily collapsed at the top of the tower. This had been a terrible idea. The water had something else mixed into it and was sort of sticky. She’d barely managed to make it up before Hedera but suppressing the desire to clean herself off was hard.
A loud splat echoed next to her as Hedera collapsed, similarly soaked and looking frustrated. The climb hadn’t been hard necessarily, but the oddly sticky water had been determined to just get everywhere. It was thoroughly unpleasant and meant the tower had been more of a test of grit then one of agility. Lily wanted to transform and sprawl out on her back… but she also didn’t want to be soaked in both forms.
So instead, Lily grabbed the key and made a shadow slide down for Hedera to take. The elf in question was happy to be off the contraption and slid down with Lily following behind her to make sure the slide was stable the entire way. It was actually quite a lot of shadow and the end of it… might have been more flash then substance until she got closer to it. Still, nobody noticed so it was probably fine.
When Lily got to the ground she transformed and started stretching. “Blegh, why did we even want to do that,” Lily shivered. “I still feel like I need to get clean even though I’m dry in this form…”
“Yeah I have no idea what that was. I almost want to say it was sugar water but obviously it didn’t taste sweet… or much like anything,” admitted Hedera.
“Wait you drank it?” asked Lily, glancing back at the tower. It… didn’t exactly look unclean. In fact it probably was safe but it really didn’t seem like a good idea.
“Not intentionally,” countered Hedera. “But I was soaking wet and I do need to breath occasionally. I wasn’t game enough to just stick with my nose considering the fact the water was going everywhere and clogging it half the time,”
“Ah… yeah fair point,” conceded Lily with a sigh as she transformed and placed the key into Hedera’s hands. Mentally sighing, again, Lily hopped up onto Hedera and tried to ignore the squelch of sticky wet clothes.
Heading through the door that opened as they approached it with the key revealed that the next room was an underwater treasure hunt. Perhaps it was a coincidence… but Lily was willing to be the real designer realised that they needed a place to wash off. Both Hedera and Lily were happy to dive into the water and just… float around for a bit.
Of course, that was as nice idea but first Lily wanted to get clean. She created a shadow arm with a big shadow sponge and tried to use it to wash herself off… and it had particularly mixed results. It wasn’t good at getting the stickiness off. The initial dunk in the water had done most of that, but the remnants were really clinging on. Worse though, was that the sponge kept getting caught on her horns. Despite knowing a real sponge was much less prone to do that.
It was while Lily was trying to get clean that they were interrupted. “Hello! Hello! More announcements from your friendly dryad host!” announced Thyme, their voice echoing around the space. *Isn’t this the first time we’ve got an announcement though?*
[I think so? Pretty sure that it is. Perhaps it’s really the second? There was no reason for Thyme to tell us what the rule change scroll did consider we changed the rules.]
*I guess. I just had expected something to have come up before now.*
[You’ve got a point… but I don’t really know what else to say. It’s possible that I missed it because it counted as an illusion but that wouldn’t be the case for you and Hedera.]
“We’ve actually got quite a few things to announce today! Firstly, Timmy’s can now fight with you! They may be limited to Rank 1 in power but surely you can think of something right? This applies to fights against monsters, and against other contestants but still not orb challenges so do keep that in mind.
“Secondly, the centre has been locked down! What a shock! It will now open… eventually… at some time. It won’t be more than a month!” Lily shared an annoyed look with Hedera who shrugged, not knowing what to say to Thyme’s announcement. “That’s the power of this rule change. You won’t know when the middle will open so… good luck!
“The final announcement, is that weather has gotten more extreme across the island!” *You don’t say.* “It won’t always be worse, sometimes it will be better but the swings will get more extreme. Make sure you’re well prepared for whatever is going to be thrown at you!” finished Thyme.
*Is it really that late in the day?*
[I guess so. We really lost track of time here didn’t we.]
*Yeah. I mean, we’ve been making decent progress on these traps… but it’s getting to the point where I’m wondering if we’ve made a mistake or that this whole thing is a real trap. If we’d come in with less orbs we’d be in major trouble.*
[Yup. The fact that we let Hedera top up this morning was a good thing, and I’ve still got some left over even after that… but if we’re here for a full day? Or perhaps even longer? And they STILL haven’t given us a proper reward.]
*Yeah… there’s a big worry over if whatever is at the end is going to be worth it. I don’t know that we can even really turn back either.*
[It also doesn’t feel like we’re getting any closer. Which isn’t the worst thing ever, we aren’t getting further apart either.]
*Not when we’re clearing rooms at the same time.* Lily sent Kat the mental image of her smirking.
[Yeah, yeah. I get it, I spent way too long in that first room but you two didn’t exactly rush through yours either.]
*Except ours was a big elaborate puzzle…*
[And do you know how to lockpick?]
*Hedera does.*
[I hadn’t forgotten… but I think even she would have struggled. The box wasn’t small, and reaching around would’ve been awkward. I also don’t think the metal bits and bobs were proper lockpicks so much as they were thin bits of metal you could twist and bend into something that would do the job.]
*Hmm… yeah not sure if she’d have been able to do that part.*
[Look, it doesn’t really matter. What’s done is done. Besides, I need to do the room I’m on. Unlike you guys who just get to clean off, I have an actual challenge in my current room.]
*You didn’t get covered in gunk!*
[Yup… and normally I’d brag about how useful my skin is for preventing that, but just today I was reminded about the fact there are downsides to everything. Though… for some reason that reminds me. The time. Thyme’s announcement is fairly late in the evenings, or it was meant to be… at what point do we rest?]
*You of all people are getting tired?*
[Not at all… but we already established that we’re running out of orbs in this place. Do we want to keep going overnight? I’ll be fine… but does it really do me any good to keep going without you two? If things go bad I’m… I want to say four ish rooms away from you horizontally. If I started to do more rooms that distance would start to grow…]
*Hmm… that’s a good point. I was going to say that you should find out what’s at the end for us… but I suppose it doesn’t really matter does it? If we don’t get out of this together it’s going to be a massive pain in the ass. Sticking together is for the best… hmm. Are you thinking that perhaps we should all work through the night? I’m not too tired I don’t think…*
[I’m not sure. It’s something you should go over with Hedera I suppose. If I should charge ahead, if we should make sure to go somewhat together. Maybe if you want to take a longer break and maybe a bit of a nap I could justify getting a room or two ahead of you but not that much further… or something.]
*Yeah I’ll talk with her about that soon. First I really want to clean this gunk off me though. The water didn’t quite get it all and I just feel icky and my instincts are screaming at me… but I probably shouldn’t just lick myself clean right?*
[I mean… maybe? At Rank 4 it’s unlikely it’ll hurt you in any way and Hedera seems fine… so maybe it’s worth it?]
*Still feels kinda gross to me with my human mind.*
Kat sent over a mental shrug. [Just a suggestions really. Good luck getting clean, but I really DO need to concentrate on this room now. It’s a puzzle one and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost track of what I’m doing.]
*Feel free to ask me for help, and good luck.*