Mortimer, page 22
part #6 of Everybody Loves Large Chests Series
Level 17.15 Djinn
Level 44.32 Pyromancer
4112/4112 HP (+7.7/sec)
305/8355 MP (+7.7/sec)
[Attributes]
STR 257, DEX 257, AGI 257, END 771, INT 1671, WIS 771, MNT 1286, CHR 1157
[Succubus Skills]
Energy Drain – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Demonic Seduction – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Invisibility – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Versatile Tongue – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Devilish Cunning – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Aggressive Cuddling – Lvl 7.85
Malicious Torment – Lvl 5.63
Penetration Expertise – Lvl 3.94
Sins of the Flesh – Lvl 2.55
[Djinn Skills]
Amplify Magic – Lvl 5.63
Guiding Light – Lvl 3.94
Mist Form – Lvl 2.55
[Pyromancer Skills]
Devouring Flame – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Mana Burn – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Molten Guardian – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Volcanic Burst – Lvl 7.85
Tempered Flame – Lvl 5.63
Fiery Weapon – Lvl 3.94
Reignition – Lvl 2.55
[Other Skills]
Shapeshift – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Dreamweaver – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
Conjure Mirage – Lvl 3.29
Fire Affinity – Lvl 3.29
Pyroclasm Mastery – Lvl 13.86
Domination Mastery – Lvl 10.00 (MAX)
[Spells and Martial Arts]
Pyroclasm Spells – Fireball, Purge, Inferno, Magma Missile, Blast Wave, Flamethrower, Meteor, Backdraft, Scorching Ray
Domination Spells – Sleep, Delirium, Mass Panic
Part Two
Fizzy was standing so completely still that a fleeting glance would make her seem like a simple, albeit prohibitively expensive statue. Her good arm was raised above her head while gripping a rubber mallet, which had frozen mid-swing. Her face was one of intense focus, staring dead at a metal bolt sticking out of the side of a large, rectangular metal frame. Within those iron plates she was hammering into place was an automated silk-spinner mechanism, one designed to take Drea’s raw Demon Silk and weave it into easy to store spools of magical thread. Having only one arm made putting this contraption together a bit of a challenge and slowed her down considerably, but she still had a lot of fun building something she personally drew up the blueprints for.
She was building this room-sized machine in the workshop that Boxxy had set up within the Dryad’s Domain. She had her own official residence within Azurvale, but this hollowed-out hylt tree had more or less become her actual home over the past few months. Her personal project, her Hero, and the only creatures she might dare to call ‘friends’ were all here. Even Ambrosia had shown to be surprisingly welcoming and hospitable ever since Fizzy was given a Bracelet of Allegiance that made the dungeon see her as an ally rather than an intruder. It wasn’t a stretch to say the golem’s entire life now revolved around this box-owned dungeon.
At least, that’s how it was until approximately ten seconds ago.
The living statue began moving, her neck letting out uncharacteristically heavy groans of metal grinding against metal as her head turned to her left. Her focused expression slowly warped into a polite smile, one aimed at the dryad currently standing within her new line of sight.
“I’m sorry,” Fizzy spoke in an incredibly quiet voice. “What did you just say?”
Ambrosia’s green eyes looked into the golem’s glimmering ocular orbs, transmitting an array of pure sorrow straight into the former gnome’s soul.
“I’m afraid milord has passed.”
The dryad’s repeated words crashed into the golem’s thoughts like a battering ram against a castle gate.
“Now, when you say passed, do you mean that Boxxy has succeeded in some trial or test, or that it just dropped by the dungeon without me noticing?”
“Milord Morningwood is dead, milady Fizzy,” said Ambrosia.
“You mean just playing dead, right? You know Boxxy, so tricky and cunning and devious and-”
“No. Mine liege is definitely deceased. ‘Tis not playing, ‘tis passed on. Milord is no more. ‘Tis ceased to be. ‘Tis expired and gone to meet thy maker. It is a late creature. ‘Tis a stiff, bereft of life and rests in piece. If it was buried somewhere it would be pushing up daisies. Boxxy… is an ex-creature.”
“No… No, it can’t be!” wailed Fizzy, refusing to accept reality. “It was just heading out to stalk some stupid Wizard or something, how could some idiotic human actually kill it! It’s impossible, I say! There’s no way Boxxy just died and left me here!”
The increasingly irrational golem fell to the ground and curled up in a fetal position, her metallic body shivering despite the fact she no longer had the capacity to feel cold.
“This isn’t happening,” she muttered. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”
She always believed Boxxy would outlive her. Never once did she doubt that, when the time finally came, she would be the first of the two to bite the big one. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. After all, that absurd creature possessed wickedness, malice, and resourcefulness beyond anything Fizzy thought possible. It survived a literal Goddess’s assault, for crying out loud. How could a puny mortal meatbag ever best such a thing?
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happen-“
In a moment of something resembling clarity, Fizzy silenced her frantic muttering. She had an impulse to call Ambrosia a liar, but she knew better than that. The brainwashed botanical bimbo would never say her ‘liege’ was gone unless she was absolutely sure. She might’ve seemed suspiciously calm, but that was simply her ancient bearing keeping her from freaking out and rolling around on the ground like a pathetic crybaby. She was merely handling the news significantly better than Fizzy was. The golem understood all of that, yet she couldn’t help but attempt to reject this new reality where Boxxy – the only thing truly important to her – was no more. Fizzy’s thrice-shattered mind grasped for something – anything – to ground herself and give meaning to her lonesome existence.
“You know, there is a bright side to all this.”
A voice identical to her own echoed in the golem’s head.
“What?!” she snapped back. “What bright side could there possibly be to this!? Without Boxxy, I’m nothing!”
“That’s not true,” insisted the Parallel called Plus. “You still got a kick-ass bod, a brain sharper than a porcupine made of razors, and an arm swing like a catapult. And with that thing gone, you can finally do what you want! You’re free now!”
“I’m… free… ?”
“Well yeah, it’s just that… Look, to be honest, Hero or not, I never really liked that thing.”
While Plus shared the same body and, by extension, memories as Fizzy, she was still her own person, so to speak. While the two of them had a lot of character traits in common, they still held divergent opinions on a number of topics. For instance, Plus did not share the same twisted attachment that Fizzy had to Boxxy, which allowed her to view the creature with a more critical eye.
“Now, I know I wasn’t there,” she continued, “but looking at your past I can’t help but think that Boxxy was the one that royally fucked your former life in the first place. Way I see it, if that thing had never entered your workshop, you’d still be living peacefully in Erosa!”
“… That wasn’t living, Plus,” stated the golem after a moment of silence. “After I learned that my father and brother were gone, I was devastated. Food had no taste, the world had no color, and I had to work myself to the bone from dawn ‘till dusk just so I wouldn’t cry myself to sleep at night. If I didn’t have a promising disciple to keep me distracted, I would have ended myself. That’s the sort of cowardly, pathetic meatbag I was back then. Boxxy saved me from that.”
“Right, okay, I can understand that, not to mention the whole ‘unjustly imprisoned’ part. It also seemed to have accidentally avenged your family, which I’m not going to complain about, but what about the beatings? The torture? The sleep deprivation? You had to live for almost a month without being allowed a single proper meal or even a change of clothes, for Horatio’s sake!”
“B-b-b-but- I’m stronger because of it!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit! That monster put you through way worse than Edward ever did! It even violated you in passing! As if you were just an afterthought! Those are not the actions of a benefactor, Fizzy, and you owe it to yourself to realize that!”
Plus’s uncharacteristically spirited speech caused Fizzy’s rock-solid faith in her Hero to quiver and quake.
“You… may have a point there,” she admitted out loud. “But on the flip side, if it wasn’t for Boxxy, neither of us would be where and who we are right now. I mean, you wouldn’t even exist if Boxxy hadn’t come along when it did.”
“Oh. Yeah, there is that too, I suppose.”
“Heh, in a way, that chest is sort of like your father.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah, forget I said that,” instant regret washed over her. “My point is that none of us have full control over our lives, no matter how much we like to think otherwise. It’s actually frightening how little of it we have if you stop and think about it. The fact we’re even having this conversation here and now is the byproduct of a countless number of miracles, both large and small.”
“Alright, alright, enough with the existential crap! You’ve made your point already!”
“And you have made yours. You’re right, Plus. Boxxy definitely treated me like shit.”
Thanks to Plus’s interference, Fizzy was able to get a handle on her emotions and calm herself down significantly. Her gnomish wit and abnormal thought patterns helped her process her grief while, at the same time, reassessing the brief-yet-turbulent relationship she had with Boxxy, all in record time.
“Did I enjoy being treated like a battle slave and mobile punching bag? Obviously not. It fucked me up bad, I know that. If I was physically capable of dreaming, I’d probably have nightmares about it.”
She concluded it hadn’t been anywhere near as ‘rosy’ as she had deluded herself into thinking. But at the same time, it was hard to deny how much she gained from it.
“Am I stronger for it? Definitely. The way I am right now I no longer need to fear getting mugged, or ambushed by wolves. Not only that, but my abilities as an Artificer are incomparable.”
There was more to it that she hesitated to admit out loud. While her indentured service to Boxxy had been accompanied by much pain and suffering, she had eventually learned to find joy and purpose in it. The memories of those long nights where the shapeshifter carefully and gently polished her frame head-to-toe for hours on end would bring a blush to her cheeks if she still had blood. Or veins. Or a heart, for that matter.
“What are you trying to say, boss?” Plus wasn’t quite grasping Fizzy’s point.
“I guess… I have no strong feelings one way or the other,” declared the conflicted golem. “I wouldn’t dare curse Boxxy’s name, nor do I particularly want to mourn for it. In fact, the only thing I feel I should do, is offer a brief prayer for the deceased. I owe at least that much to the Hero of Chaos I had sworn allegiance to.”
“Though if memory serves, you weren’t exactly in your right frame of mind when you did that.”
“Said the sentient voice in my head.”
“I’ll just… let you do your thing then.”
Fizzy picked herself off the ground, went down to one knee, lowered her head, and closed her eyes in silent prayer. When she finished, she stood up with a different sort of air around her. Somewhere within the mithril orbs on her face was a certain glint. It wasn’t the spark of madness exhibited by a murderous psychopath desperately trying to please her shallow monster of an owner, but the fire of an individual determined to forge her future through her own strength without clinging to the past. She was surprised to find this newfound resolve made her strangely light-headed, full of energy, and filled with quiet relief. It was as if an invisible chain that used to be wrapped tight around her neck was no longer there.
A chain named Boxxy T. Morningwood.
“Are you really okay with just this much?” asked Plus. “I mean you kind of stood up for your own torturer of a greedy murderbox back there…”
“It’s fine,” replied Fizzy. “You can bet your metaphysical ass that Oliver certainly isn’t paying Boxxy much heed anymore, right?”
“No, he wouldn’t do something like that. Doesn’t seem to be his style.”
“Exactly! So why should I waste my own time and energy obsessing over it when I could be seizing life by the balls and making it my bitch?! That’s what I said I wanted when I cast off my fleshy shell in the first place, didn’t I?!”
“Yeah!”
“So look out, world! Fizzy and her ‘plus one’ are coming for you!”
“Alriiiight! You tell ‘em sister! Where do we start?!”
“… That’s, uh, a very good question, actually.”
The golem let out a tired sigh as her sudden burst of hype deflated into nothingness. Now that she could do anything, she drew a blank on what path to actually take. Actually, forget the path – she didn’t even have a destination.
“May I be of any assistance, milady Fizzy?”
“Ack!”
The pint-sized Paladin jumped a bit in surprise. She had completely forgotten Ambrosia was still there. The soft, pitying look in her eyes made it abundantly clear she had witnessed both Fizzy’s tantrum and her self-dialogue. Yet, the former gnome wasn’t embarrassed or distressed. If anything, she was relieved to learn she had an audience. This was partly due to the exhibitionistic tendencies that came with her species, but mostly because it made her feel less… alone.
“You seem troubled,” the dryad continued. “Perhaps I may be of some assistance?”
“I’m just… figuring out what I want to do with my new lease on life. I don’t have a reason to stick around here anymore, but I don’t have anywhere to go, either.”
“That’s not quite true,” Plus interjected. “You remember Jess, right? She said she and the rest of her gnomish posse are shipping back to Horkensaft any day now. We might want to get in on that.”
“Right! I still need to get my arm fixed up. Also, reconnecting with my fellow inventors would be good for my craft. Peer review is vital to ensuring a new design gets spread around, after all. Alright, I’ve decided! I’ll accompany that puny meatbag to the Kingdom’s capital, get my arm fixed up, then see about getting myself tenure at the Ritz!”
The Royal Institute of Technology, unofficially known as ‘the Ritz,’ was the most prestigious Artificer-centric guild in the world. Well, it was the only such organization in existence, but it was still a highly exclusive institution that accepted nothing less than the best. Fizzy was certain her unique constitution and advanced skillset would grab their leadership’s attention, after which she could use the guild as a stepping stone to further her old, nearly forgotten ambition.
Becoming the greatest tinkerer that ever lived.
“My word!” exclaimed Ambrosia, clapping her hands together. “So, milady Fizzy will finally be leaving mine trunk and branches?!”
“Uh, yeah, seems that way,” replied the golem with a curious look. “You seem… awfully excited by this prospect.”
“To be honest, I never cared for thy presence within mine and milord’s sanctum,” the dryad bluntly admitted. “Both thou and thy creations art heavy, noisy, and unnatural. None such things belong within mine bark. Not to mention all the smoke they make – it hasn’t been exactly pleasant,” she added with a sharp glare.
Fizzy was very much aware that, even though dungeon core was influencing Ambrosia’s perception of Boxxy and its minions to the extent she basically revered them, the golem herself was different. She was still an ‘outsider,’ despite the Bracelet of Allegiance on her wrist.
“Oh. Sorry. I was inconsiderate of your needs and took advantage of your hospitality,” the golem bowed her head. “Please forgive me, I meant no offense.”
She wasn’t regretful in the slightest, but knew firsthand that even a fake apology was better than none.
“Well, since thou apologized so sincerely, then I shall forgive thy transgressions,” declared Ambrosia with a slight sneer.
“Good one,” commented Plus. “Not antagonizing the gigantic god-tree was definitely the right move.”
“I appreciate your understanding,” continued Fizzy, “however, there is one last thing I need to do before I go out.”
The corners of Ambrosia’s eyes twitched a bit, but she maintained her overall amicable demeanor.
“Hey! What in Brunhilda’s frying pans are you doing?!” asked Plus in a panic.
“I’m going to need money if I am to afford my repairs. A lot of it, actually. As such, I would like to take a certain amount of Boxxy’s treasure with me.”
“Oh, right. Mithril is expensive as crap, isn’t it?”
“Denied,” came the immediate, ice-cold rejection. “Milord’s collection is all that I have left, and I shall enshrine it within my body for as long as I am able.”
“I’m not going to take all of it,” the golem pressed. “Just a bag or two. Three tops.”
“My word is final.”
Whatever favor Fizzy’s respectful apology might have earned was already spent, and the dryad was becoming increasingly annoyed with her ‘guest.’ She had already made it abundantly clear that she never appreciated the golem’s presence and likely only tolerated it because of Boxxy. But Boxxy wasn’t here to keep her placated anymore, so the mithril construct was left to fend for herself. And for all she knew, that was exactly how things would be from now on. It wasn’t a pleasant realization. While it was true that the shapeshifter may have kept her chained, in a manner of speaking, it also took care of her. It gave her a one-of-a-kind private workshop where she could work day and night without disturbance and provided any and all materials she requested without uttering a single complaint. Plus, if she had to be completely honest, Boxxy’s reaction to Fizzy losing an arm made her profoundly happy. Even if its motivations were entirely self-serving – it only got mad because its shiny thing got banged up – she couldn’t help but smile when she thought back to the scene of Keira thoroughly humiliating and dismantling that self-righteous heathen of a Hero. It served that bastard right for daring to permanently scar her glorious body.
