Chapter 15: Amulet of WHERE THE HELL IS IT!?

Khelavaster: LISTEN TO ME, YOU FOOLS! *is hanging suspended over a bucket of ice-cold water with an acid pit underneath it* *cough* NONE OF THIS WILL HELP! YOU NEED TO FIND... an... *cough* ... amulet of LIFE ESSENCE!

Travis: Oooooh! Why didn't you say so?

Khelavaster: I TRIED TO GODDAMMIT, *cough* BUT YOU WERE TOO BUSY USING YOUR SO CALLED "REMEDIES" TO HELP!!

Travis: Hey, they had a CHANCE of working...

Khelavaster: Yeah, and I have a chance to stumble on 26 separate door traps in five... minutes! *hack*

Travis: Been there, done that.

Khelavaster: ... ge... buh.... LOOK, JUST GET THE FREAKING AMULET BEFORE I EXPIRE!

Dayn: *wakes up* Is he dead yet?

Travis: No, go back to sleep...

Khelavaster: If you don't get it in time... *c... cough* ... I'll haunt you two until the day... *cough, wheeze* ... you die...

Travis: ... DAYN, WE MUST FIND THAT AMULET!

Dayn: I thought we were gonna let him die.

Khelavaster: WHAT?!!

Travis: I don't wanna be haunted for all of eternity! Besides, we weren't planning to end his misery soon, were we Dayn? *nudges Dayn*

Dayn: What the hell are you talking about, you said it you-*is hit over the head by Travis with a large ration, knocking him out*

Travis: Wow... these do work... anyway, off to find that amulet! What was it called again?

Khelavaster: Amulet of life essence, *cough* possibly saving!

Travis: Righty-ho. *walks out*

Khelavaster: HEY, AREN'T YOU GONNA GET ME DOWN FROM THIS THING?!! COME BAAAAAAAACK!

*later*

Dayn: So how are we gonna get this amulet of saving life or whatever it is? *is nursing large bump on head*

Travis: Life saving, or essence. Hm, I got this catalogue here... it has pretty much everything known to man, but none of it in stock...

Dayn: How is it a catalogue if it doesn't sell anything?

Travis: I dunno... anyway, ah, here we are. Amulet of Life Saving. *reading from catalogue* "Exceptionally rare item. Only about 50 have ever been found in the entire history of Ancardia. BUY YOURS TODAY AND GET A FREE TOASTER! After all, you'd have better luck trying to take on a demigod hand-to-hand with gauntlets of peace than trying to find one of these things."

Dayn: What's a toaster?

Travis: Dunno...

Dayn: Well, anyway, as for the rest... that's encouraging, no?

Travis: About as encouraging as finding out that the blessed eternium superplatemail of protection you just saw was actually a mimic.

Dayn: Yeah, that's what I was implying.

Dutchess: !eikraB

Dayn: O_o

Travis: That's normal... she's being corrupted after all...

Dutchess: bArKIe! ^^.^v>

Dayn: Er, we were only in a corrupting zone for like... four or five days. That's not enough to generate the voice defect... is it?

Travis: Well, according to the game manual... no but this is a parody...

Dayn: Huh?

Travis: Err... nevermind...

Dayn: So where do you think we should try to get this amulet of life saving?

Travis: We could explore until we die of starvation...

Dayn: Any OTHER ways?

Travis: Wish for one...

Dayn: How would we get a wish?

Travis: Drink from a pool.

Dayn: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! ><

Travis: A NON-WHITE pool.

Dayn: Oh.

Travis: Of course, the stories I've heard of getting a wish from that are approximately one in a thousand, probably more... you're more likely to get other effects, like being resistant to certain elements or becoming cursed or lucky, or possibly a bowl of cheerios.

Dayn: Regular or honey-nut?

Travis: Not sure.

Dayn: I like cheerios! ^.^

Travis: Well, anyway. That method is out because I'd rather not want to get any more cursedoomed than I already am. So no pool-drinking.

Dayn: Okay, anything else?

Travis: Well, to the south there's a monument that was apparently built by the forces of Law to the power of infinity, and chaos has twisted it into a strange state where every level you leave or enter is different. They call it the infinite dungeon.

Dayn: And how will it help us?

Travis: If you go deep enough, it gets insanely hard but also incredibly more likely for stuff like amulets of life saving and wishes to be generated... and possible honey nut cheerios. We also don't even have to go down that deep - we can just keep entering and leaving a level that's close to the surface for a while until by luck one's dropped in our lap.

Dayn: I like cheerios! ^.^

Travis: I know... I'll take it you favor that plan of attack, then. Anyway, the other possibility is... basically trying to find a spellbook of Wish or a wand of wishing. Both are insanely rare.

Dayn: Spellbook of wish? What does it do?

Travis: The wish spell is the hardest spell to cast in the entire school of magery. You'd die of exhaustion unless you were either practically pure mana yourself or really, REALLY buff. Like eternium-type buff.

Dayn: Like me?

Travis: I said buff, not fluff...

Dayn: Okay, so first of all you accuse me of being a mindless basher, THEN you accuse me of being a WORTHLESS mindless basher?!

Travis: Yeah...

Dayn: Just checkin...

Travis: Anyway. Wish is extraordinarily expensive to cast and will probably kill someone who's not made of eternium by just trying it. Learning the spell in the first place takes almost two days of non-stop study, give or take two more days. If you take breaks it'll take MONTHS, maybe even years.

Dayn: Okay, so that's out as by the time we fulfil those requirements Khelvaster will be a bunch of bleached bones on the dungeon floor.

Travis: Well, it looks like our best bet is the Infinity Dungeon...

Dayn: You mean Infinite Dungeon?

Travis: What did I say?

Dayn: Infinity Dungeon.

Travis: Oh, damn... your stupidity must be contagious...

Dayn: *sigh* Let's just go to the damn dungeon already.

*later that day*

Dutchess: Barkify?

Dayn: Whoa, weird. This cave almost looks... distorted.

Travis: These caverns almost seem to be endless...

Dayn: Yeah... I agree. Interesting insight... you can almost see the infiniteness of it just by looking at it.

Travis: Oh, I was just reading that sign...

Sign: Welcome to the Infinite Dungeon, the Infinitiest place you'll ever visit! Proudly since the powers of Law erected it as a shrine to infinity, "a tiny, strangely distorted cave entry. These caverns almost seem to be endless..." Home of a ley line between the finite and the infinite, a scepter of Chaos itself, a chaos knight who would kill to protect said scepter, a certain quickling bard, and a variety of infinite-generated monsters who would gladly flay off your skin and feed it to their young before they dissolve into the ashes of infinite.

Travis: Woah, deja vu.

Dayn: Bless you.

Travis: No, deja vu means... nevermind v_v

Dayn: So anyway, here we go!

Travis: WE RIDE! *claps coconuts together*

*one hour later*

Dayn: ... Travis...? *is standing in the middle of a big room, surrounded by monsters, having accidentally gone down the staircase without Travis, leaving them separated in different parts of infinity* ... well, this is just great. EN GARDE! *is disarmed* ... crap.

*meanwhile*

Travis: Oooh. A spellbook. I'll just reach down here and... *spellbook turns into a mimic, which bites Travis' finger off*

Mimic: ^.^ *runs off with Travis' finger*

Travis: OW! Thanks :) You just bit off one of my cursed doomed rings of... *looks down to see that the finger flew out of the Mimic's mouth, then sewed itself back onto the hand* ... crap. Oh well, that moment of elation was nice while it lasted.

Dutchess: Barkeh?

Travis: Oooh, a spellbook. I'll just reach down here and...

*CHOMP*


How will Dayn and Travis regroup after being separated by the bowels of Infinity itself? What will Travis find? What will Dayn do to get out of this mess? Will they ever find the amulet of life saving? If these things keep you up at night, then find out in Chapter XVI: Infinity Sucks!

© 2006 Travis Prue and Daniel Muir