Mounted on a stone brick wall were two wooden weapon racks. The first contained the Valediction, the second the Ghoulish Gouger. In between them was a mannequin displaying a set of Bloodflare Armour. In front of it was a long slab of stone, below which the rest of her items were contained. At the head of the slab, the tombstone had been relocated, and a more profound inscription was written upon it.
Here lies Renee.
Last surviving member of the Statigel Clan.
Loyal and unwavering to her cause.
Fell in battle, sacrificing herself to bring the Devourer of Gods down to a critical amount of health.
May she rest in peace.
Robyn still couldn't believe it.
She could only think back to the very beginning, when William had been theorising what would happen after death. The deaths of several citizens, with those citizens never coming back, basically proved to them that their lives were still valuable and should not be toyed with carelessly.
Then in Secondworld, they'd learnt of the many lives that had been ended at the hands of Lord Yharim or his forces. An unthinkable amount. Their own mortality had never been more clear.
And now... one of their own had fallen in a boss fight. Renee. Robyn still felt like she'd barely known her, as most of the time she'd been nothing more than a faceless rogue, and even after Renee had joined her and Sid, she'd found it hard to trust the rogue. It had only been recently that she'd started respecting her as an ally.
And she'd been a true ally. Unlike Meg, who'd been just putting on an act the whole time. Or William, who had betrayed their relationship by siding with Yharim.
Why did she have to be gone so soon... She knelt down, resting a hand in front of her grave. Renee... if you're listening... know that we won't stop. We're going to go all the way, and put Yharim where he needs to be.
She stood back up and cast glances across Sid and the citizens. Whitney, Amber, Faye, Bart, Cirrus, Roxanne, even Amidias. Renee had been buried in Slimetown. Robyn remembered how her clan had been connected through the Slime God, and how this village had once been their home. It seemed fitting for her to rest here.
Once the funeral had ended, she walked off into the surrounding forest with James the Clothier. After evacuating the citizens, he had actually returned to witness Renee's final sacrificial blow. How she had brought her weapons all the way down the Devourer's length, rending most of the rest of its health away in that one move.
But in doing so, the Devourer had been able to trap her, and there, she had lost hers.
"She died landing the blow that would allow the one who had devoured her master to go down," James said. "And to ensure you and Sid could continue on."
Robyn breathed, wiping another stream of tears from her eyes.
"I don't know if we will be able to continue on. We still have no idea how to open a portal to Firstworld. Sid said we need to find Auric Ore to craft the final piece for the Codebreaker, but there just doesn't seem to be any around. And even if we find some... if the Devourer was that powerful, Yharim's going to be even stronger. And he's got Meg – Calamitas on his side."
And William... she thought, though she dared not say it.
Despite his betrayal, she didn't want to fight him. She remembered when she'd been cursed, when William had had to fight her. Would she have to go through what he'd had to?
Would he be able to go through with that? Maybe not... but even if she didn't have to worry about William...
"It will be unthinkably difficult," the old Clothier said, almost in response to her unspoken thoughts. "But you and Sid have come so far."
"But I... I can't," Robyn murmured. "I feel... broken."
She felt warm arms wrapping around her, a hand patting her back.
"Broken people truly understand the importance of putting pieces back together," James said. "Of healing."
How can I heal when all that's ahead is going to be something even worse than the Devourer?
"Nissa's condition still confounds me," James said. "I can only imagine that there must be some way of reviving her, but it may need the powers of another Dryad. Zop'a couldn't even discern anything, rest his soul."
Zop'a... Just another reminder of all the lives that had been lost. Those lives lost to the Plaguebringer Goliath largely being what had pushed William over the edge.
They stood there, in a quiet embrace. Robyn wished they didn't have to fight anymore. That they could just live peacefully like this. That she could have the opportunity to... heal, as James put it. Not in her health count, but... mentally. Spiritually.
William had joined Yharim so that he wouldn't have to fight anymore.
But... even though Robyn was feeling like she didn't have to fight anymore either, she would never stoop to the point of joining their worst enemy or letting everything fall to ruin due to an incapability to stand up, accept reality, and do what needed to be done.
That made her realise...
I'm better than him, she thought. Any self-confidence problems I had... they're now all null. I'm better than him, and Meg, and Yharim.
When she and James separated from their embrace, she felt a renewed sense of determination.
She was aiming for Yharim next.
***
The next week was a period of uninterrupted peace. Feelings of grief remained overhead like a dark storm, but Robyn tried not to let Renee's death or any of her other thoughts hang too heavily over her head. She worked as hard as she could with Sid trying to find a way to get access to the final Codebreaker component.
The only thing in the description of the Auric Quantum Cooling Cell, according to its schematic, was that placing it on the Codebreaker would 'complete it.' Sid presumed this meant then the technology for travelling to other worlds (specifically, the Nexus) would get unlocked.
But, as previously discussed, the item needed Auric Bars to craft, and Auric ore was nowhere to be found in Secondworld. Robyn and Sid had drunk dozens of spelunker potions to scour several biomes at different altitudes, but with no success. So it seemed like they were going to need to face off against another boss in order for the ore to spawn in the world. Like with Cryogen and Cryonic ore, Plantera with Perennial, and Providence with Uelibloom.
And Sid had some idea as to who that boss was.
"Auric Bars are kind of strange, because they don't just require Auric ore to craft," he said.
"They don't?" Robyn asked.
"For every 60 Auric ore, you also need 1 Yharon Soul Fragment. And the Recipe Browsing Tablet says it is dropped from a boss of that name. A dragon. Yharon."
The similarity to the name Yharim was not lost on Robyn. "Who do you think this dragon is?"
"Maybe Renee would have known, but I asked the Bandit. She said that calling the Devourer of Gods Yharim's personal attack-dog was stupid, because it was actually the dragon Yharon who was that. D-O-G was more like a trash can that you put dead bugs in."
"So you're saying, after almost getting eaten several times by the Devourer of Gods, the most powerful boss we've faced and direct underling to Yharim, that we should intentionally find a way to lure Yharon, who sounds like he'd be even more powerful, into Secondworld so we can kill him for his soul fragments?"
"It seems like that. And maybe he's the boss that spawns Auric ore into the world, too."
Robyn wiped her hands on her helmet, gripping it tightly. It was a hard truth, though. The closer they got to Yharim, the tougher the battles would become.
Late one night, Robyn found herself browsing the Recipe Browsing Tablet, searching for something, anything, that could help them progress. She flicked through dozens of ingredients and hundreds of weapons and numerous armour pieces. She hadn't yet made God Slayer Armour, the set made from the material that the Devourer of Gods had dropped, mostly because it required an additional material known as Ascendant Spirit Essence. This was another item they had yet to discover how to get. It could be crafted by combining four different materials, but they only knew how to get one of them, namely Phantoplasm. The other materials were named Nightmare Fuel, Endothermic Energy, and Darksun Fragments.
She flicked away from it and back to God Slayer Armour, looking at its stats. Many armour sets had several different types of helmets that could be crafted, each corresponding to a different class of weapon. Most had five – melee, ranged, summon, magic and rogue damage. But this armour only had helmets for melee, ranged and rogue classes.
She scrolled down to the next set of armour in the list. Silva Armour. It shared the name of the Dryad that had saved Renee and fought alongside Nissa against Cthulhu. It too was crafted with Ascendant Spirit Essence and only had magic and summon-oriented helmets, making her think Silva Armour was designed to be a counterpart to God Slayer.
She looked to the other main material for Silva Armour, the Effulgent Feathers. Which looked to be dropped from some other boss they hadn't fought named the Dragonfolly. She casually scrolled through the list of items that could be crafted from the feathers. The Mad Alchemist's Cocktail Glove. The Light God's Brilliance. A pretty wicked-looking bow named the Drataliornus, but which also required Auric Bars and Yharon Soul Fragments to craft, so it wouldn't be of use to Robyn until after they defeated Yharon.
If we defeat him. If we can even figure out how to summon him, and if we can even manage to defeat him.
Then she scrolled to a round item covered with brown, green and orange spots. The Jungle Dragon Egg. An imitation of the egg that bore the loyal guardian of the tyrant king.
She sat up.
What if... we don't need to get Yharon to come here?
What if... we can create our own?
What if... you don't need to vote?
What if... nah, vote anyway. It's good for the algorithm probably. Comments, too. Ask me which fossil I took in Mt. Moon or something.