.hack//REDEMPTION

[with_you_always]

" I got Zero for that" This came as no surprise to shoushi, as he had been to similar high level areas many times in the past few months all of which had ended in him gaining literally no experience." But it's of no matter, nice kill." He turned quickly, hoisting his sword over his back. The dungeon was in site now, only another 100 feet and they would be in." Somethings not right here... It shouldn't be this easy to get inside"

Shoushi slowed to a walk quickly, watching his footing. He could feel heavy vibrations in the sand already, something massive was nearby. Quickly he activated a targeting scroll, spotting out all possible targets in the nearby vicinity. There was one. it's health and status were unknown, along with any image of what it may look like. He could feel the vibrations as it began to draw closer.

"Shiro... I think we might have a problem on our hands"

From around the corner slid the shadow of a large fiend. Shoushi prepped his weapons for battle, he had a bad feeling about this. He glanced back at shiro, making sure he was prepped as well before taking his stance. A large foot slammed into the ground below it, dirt and dust flying everywhere. Shoushi leapt back as not to be affected by the impact and the rubble. Whatever it was, it was coming around the corner, it had found it's prey.

It seemed that within seconds the full monster could be seen now. It was an array of colors, constantly changing. Obviously it was a hacker buffed monster. There was going to be a problem with fighting this monster. As shoushi lept towards the monster, kicking off the wall of the dungeon and throwing hsi sword down at it, he was reflected back, blasted off of the monsters back, barely able to catch his balance as he was tossed through the air. A message popped up on the screen:

Immune to Physical Damage
Immune to Magical Damage

" Dammit!! It would have been nice to know that before hand. " All he could think to do was get shiro out of there, this wasn't a monster from the game, it was something dark now, something warped by the mind of high level Hackers. Shoushi glanced at it's health bar reading it off out loud" Health: ???? Magic: ??? Shiro we need to get out of here, run inside the dungeon, we can make it if we go now!!"

Shoushi jumped towards the entrance, waiting at the top of them for Shiro to go down inside first, that way he knew he was safe for sure.

[Inferi]

Though Shiro wondered why the creators of The World would make such an unstoppable fortress of a monster, he didn't have time to consider this. All that mattered at this particular point in time was that he needed to get through the doorway of the dungeon, and do it fast, before the gigantic wad of elastic color decided he looked like a new ball to play with.

As Shiro darted towards the door he cast a few speed charms to heighten Shoushis and his speed and a few more to slow down the gigantic rainbow. It was all he could think to do to help seeing as the spells didn't actually cause magical damage.

The doorway seemed miles away, yet the blob of attacking fruit cake seemed inches away from him. He leapt through the doorway and motioned for Shoushi to come inside.

"SHOUSHI!! GET IN THE DUNGEON!!"

[with_you_always]

Shoushi caught one last glimpse of the monster before he too headed inside. He brought up a tiny map which gave him directions to go in the dungeon. He stopped a few rooms inside of the dungeon, catching his breath, knowing he was safe for the moment. That monster had looked very familiar, almost like the version he had created all those years ago. But everyone who knew about that had been banned. So it had to just be a coincidence.

"Shiro, are you ok?" Shoushi asked quickly, knowing that the ruckus outside might have alerted the hackers on the inside of there progress. He knew it wouldn't be the last monster like that the encountered. The room was quite dark, and he knew it wouldn't be far to the treasure, it appeared they would be the first there after all. No one else was getting by that monster with such ease. His directions told him that the stairs to the level with the treasure on it were two floors down. Meaning they would have to make it through two floors before finally being able to gain the treasure they sought.

Shoushi started walking, knowing that shiro would be fine" Come on, we don't have far to go now until we get to the floor with the treasure on it. It's only 2 floors down. Not too far. If we could make it passed that thing, we could make it passed anything." Shoushi was so confident, even though shiro was probably scared to shit. He was going to get down to the bottom floor and take out those hackers.

It was a wonder they were still alive after the encounter they had just had. In his previous days of The World, He had seen those monsters rip people apart in one swift attack. Whoever had made them had a serious problem with the adjusting the move speed hacks.

A set of stairs lay in front of Shoushi, he began stepping down them " come on, not far now"

[Inferi]

Shiro laid on the cold hard ground, watching as dirt drifted away from where his body had come crashing down. He was still stunned by the whole situation that had just occurred. How was a gay blubber bin that powerful? Shiro didn't know if he wanted the answer to that question or not.

"Shiro, are you ok?" came the sound of Shoushis voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just dazed is all," he replied quickly as he stood up and brushed the dust off his robes. Another amazing aspect of The World. The fact that it would take him days to get out the stains caused by the residue on his robe.

"You say only two more levels. Well I think we can do it, and besides, even if we couldn't, when was the last time we gave up on a challenge? From what I can remember, the answer to that question would be never. So bring on the behemoths, and giant happy blobs of indestructible toothpaste. We can handle anything thrown at us!!"

[with_you_always]

Shoushi continued walking, they only had one more level to go down now. Something was strange about this place. There were no creatures inside. The two had encountered virtually nothing since they entered the dungeon. It was odd, but somehow, Shoushi knew the hackers were still watching him." stay on your toes, we could be attacked at any time." He continued to walk cautiously, making sure to not make too much noise.

soon the pair entered a large room with a stone in the middle of it. This room looked oddly familiar to Shoushi. It was bad enough that they were here alone, it was even worse if he actually recognized some things in the place. The very same statue had stood at the square in Palimos Slums in server381 before it had been closed down. It was the most recognized symbol by hackers that told them it was a safe hacking zone. However, if it was safe for hackers, it was most likely not safe for Shoushi and Shiro.

A low roar was heard, the walls began to flash with binary coding, and out walked two behemoth type monsters, hybrids enhanced once again by the hackers of the dungeon. They appeared from the shadows as if spawned by the devil himself. They glowed was well, binary coding running across their bodies with a glowing teal skin color. Once again the physical and magic immunities flashed up on the screen, notifying Shoushi and shiro of the obvious. The health bar once again displayed no numbers, only question marks.

The gates to both entrances locked, slamming shut as they slid down the chains and into place. It looked as if they were trapped this time. There was no exit this time.

[Inferi]

Shiro watched as the walls turned to systematic 1's and 0's. Binary code was definitely not a good sign, and neither was the fact that 2 over sized binary behemoths walked out of the shadows to greet their newest visitors. It wouldn't have been to bad if the behemoths weren't sporting the same question marks next to their health and mana bars.

Shiro would have just tried to escape paste them like he and Shoushi did the last creature but the doors had locked up when the walls went haywire. The behemoths were inching closer and closer. Shiro attempted to use the same speed spells as before but this time they were negated. In return, Shiro was hit in the face with a blind spell cast from one of the behemoths. He could see nothing.

"They must be trying to test us. The creators of the dungeon. Looks like we have to prove ourselves worthy of the book, but how?"

[with_you_always]

Shoushi saw his opportunity to destroy the creatures without shiro knowing what happened. Quickly his visual keyboard came on screen, just as one of the behemoths pounced on his location. Shoushi evaded, typing in his shorthands commands quickly

<Data transfer 006 > {Imu. Down 8918} Behemoth <Health integer = 1>

With that Shoushi closed his keyboard, throwing his sword down on top of the first one, then quickly cutting through the other one. It wasn't hard to kill something that had only 1 health left.

Soon after, the beasts fell... dead on the floor.

Shoushi then activated his cure blind scroll, curing Shiro of the blind which had been cast on him before. " Sorry i didn't get to you sooner, they were all over me so i had to act fast. Are you ok shiro?" Shoushi made sure everything was how it had been before the fight, and quickly pointed towards the stairs behind the now open gate, not stopping to explain what had just happened.

At the bottom of the stairs was yet another long hallway. They had finally arrived. The treasure was on this floor somewhere. Now they just had to find it, and most likely, the hackers had either stole it, or moved it somewhere else just to create more chaos. It was gonna be a pain to find, especially since the hackers now knew that Shoushi was no normal player.