“If you try to cut it, it’ll melt your sword, Kent,” I said.
“What?! Then what am I supposed to do?!” Kent demanded. Without his sword, he had no means of attack and few ways of tanking an opponent’s attacks.
Back in the game, I could have just powered through monsters like this, but dealing with King Lava in the real world had to come down to a hit-and-run strategy. “Kent, turn around and lead us back! Cocoa and Lulu, attack that thing with magic! We’re going to run and fight!”
“Run and fight?! I-I’ll try,” Cocoa said.
“Then I’ll stop it.” L’lyeh got with the program instantly, using her bats to stall King Lava.
Cocoa followed up with Ice magic and dealt some damage, but King Lava quickly melted the ice and healed itself.
Cocoa turned to me. “What just happened?!”
“The annoying part about King Lava is that it heals itself a lot,” I explained.
“It’s powerful and self-healing?!” Cocoa repeated.
This dungeon was the perfect environment to give a massive boost to that ball of lava’s passive healing. There was no point in attacking it little by little.
“How about we attack it all at once?” Tarte suggested.
“Yeah, let’s try that!” Cocoa chimed in.
They must have concluded that making one attack at a time would only put us at risk of getting flanked by additional monsters...and I agreed.
“I’ll distract it for a second so you can take your shots!” Kent shouted.
“I’ll throw a Molotov!” I announced.
“Me too!” Tarte said.
“Okay. Lulu strikes first, Cocoa freezes it, then we’ll finish it off with Molotovs,” I said, outlining our strategy.
“Got it!”
“Okay.”
“Yes, Meowster!”
We ran from King Lava while we decided our strategy and I cast Smiting Light on everyone. Unfortunately, a rat appeared in our path.
“I can—”
“No, I got it!” Kent cut Cocoa off and sliced the rat into particles of light with his sword. Another few rats jumped out, so Kent sliced those up and used the momentum to turn and leap in front of the King Lava. “Got Your Nose!”
L’lyeh landed an attack, and Cocoa immediately followed up by freezing the King Lava with Ice magic.
“We’re up, Tarte,” I said.
“Purrtion Throw!”
Even though I couldn’t use a Skill to throw a Molotov, I manually chucked five bottles at the King Lava at once. Skills took some time to recharge, but just throwing a bottle required no cooldown time. Kent followed my lead and threw seven Molotovs of his own. Bombs—never leave home without them. That still wasn’t enough to take out the King Lava, so I quickly cast Smiting Light on Cocoa. She didn’t miss a beat as she launched another attack, finally turning the King Lava into a burst of light.
“Yeah!” Kent shouted.
“Purray!”
Now that we’d taken out the King Lava, I felt like I could breathe again. The King Lava had left behind an item too—a Lava Rock. It was about the size of a basketball and too heavy to hold up with one hand.
Kent and Cocoa were staring at it curiously.
“It dropped a rock...that looks like it’s burning hot,” Kent said.
“Do you think we could touch it?” Cocoa asked.
“It’ll be really hot to the touch, but you could try holding it,” I suggested.
“Okay... Oh, it’s hotter than I thought! I can’t hold it longer than ten seconds.” Kent quickly let the Lava Rock drop.
Cocoa tried her hand at it but quickly let go. “That’s hot.”
“What do you use it for?” Tarte asked.
I chuckled. “It’s actually a pretty rare item. With this...we can grow Fire Shrooms!” I dramatically revealed.
Tarte began trilling in surprise, turning her wide eyes toward the Lava Rock.
“This scorching rock can support Fire Shrooms that only grow in hot climates,” I explained.
“Then you should hold on to it, Tarte. It’s awesome that you can get Fire Shrooms without having to go back to that dungeon,” said Kent.
“Right?” Cocoa agreed.
So, Tarte stashed the Lava Rock.
“Now that we’ve taken care of that King Lava, let’s head for the second level,” I said.
“Yeah!” Kent chimed in.
We continued through the dungeon, mowing down encounters, and made it to the second level.
“Oh, it’s not as hot as I expected,” Kent breathed.
Unlike the first level, there were no hot lava flows here, which mitigated the heat considerably. Down here, it was a rocky terrain of hardened lava. It was still uncomfortably hot, but enough of a temperature drop from the first level that it allowed us to breathe a sigh of relief.
“There aren’t any monsters around here. Do you want to take a break, Tarte?” Kent asked, clearly concerned that Tarte was running out of gas after piggybacking Ifrit all this way.
Sure enough, Tarte was sweating harder than the rest of us. Her back had to be burning up.
“I’m okay,” she huffed regardless.
We seemed about to move on, but L’lyeh perked up at the mention of a break. “Perfect time for this!” She whipped a bowl of shaved ice out of her Bag.
“When did you buy that?!” Tarte asked. “I didn’t even see a vendor selling those.”
L’lyeh puffed her chest out. “Bought it in Erenzi.”
“Makes sense,” Tarte said. Erenzi was cold enough to have an ample supply of ice—enough to support plenty of cheap shaved ice vendors. Best of all, our Bags allowed us to stock up on the treat without it melting.
“I have enough for everyone.”
Cocoa’s and Kent’s faces lit up as they took a bowl each from L’lyeh.
“Wow! Thank you, Lulu.”
“Mm. I feel human again.”
We were all so beaten down by the heat that our bodies were craving the sweet relief of a cold treat.
“Sharon.”
“Thanks, Lulu.” I took a bite of the shaved ice L’lyeh had handed me. While the ice melted instantly in my mouth, it sent a blast of coolness down my body. “That’s wonderful...” Am I in heaven? L’lyeh’s shaved ices were slathered with fruit and syrup. It was a simple recipe, but the fresh fruit and cold ice perfectly hit the spot.