What Was Missing

Down the hatch, John thought as he drank the regenerative potion Kimberly had brought. Suddenly, a popup appeared in front of him.

You have consumed too many potions within too short a time! You have been afflicted with Potion Fatigue

You no longer have a concussion.

The intense nausea from the concussion dissipated just as the slight headache from the new status effect set in. He tapped it, focus returning to him.

Potion Fatigue, Status Effect
The adverse effect of consuming too many potions in a short period of time. More purified potions further the condition more. Side effects include (but are not limited to) headaches, excessive sweating, and ****. (23:59:50 remaining)

“Alright, lad, we’re going to follow Jenny and Neve, you up for it?” Keith patted John’s shoulder, and the return of his stats, while slightly disorienting, was reassuring.

“Let’s do it!” John replied with renewed vigor. He decided to keep the potion fatigue to himself for now; he didn’t want Keith to be **** to give him potions if he needed them.

I’m coming, David, John thought as he followed Kimberly and Keith through a series of slowly closing portals. By the time they made it to the portal that led to Jenny and Neve, the opening behind them could hardly fit Keith, and by the time they were through it, it could hardly fit Kimberly.

The first thing John did upon exiting the last portal was trying to dismiss David again, but he received another error message.

David is currently trapped! To dismiss him, free him!

That’s exactly what I’m going to do, John thought as he walked toward Jenny, who hugged him immediately in an attempt to make him feel better. With her bass so close, she was no longer sad; her intense resolve had seen to that.

“It’s in there,” Neve said, pointing to the weathered brown door that the Hoarder had escaped through.

“I tried to use an explosion from my pick to bust it open, but it hardly left a scratch.” Jenny said, looking down dejectedly although she had decided to keep charging it. She was deep in thought when they arrived, but it felt like she got nowhere. While Neve was examining the door, she tried to call her bass several times, but it never worked. Maybe it was just a fluke.

“That’s because it’s soundproof,” Neve replied with a frustrated sigh, but Keith was quick to correct her.

“That’s not how music magic works,” he said, rapping on the door with his knuckles.

“That’s what I said!” Jenny exclaimed excitedly, finally returning to the moment. She stuck her tongue out at Neve, who rolled her eyes in response.

“If that didn’t work, we’re in trouble,” Keith replied, crouching in front of the giant chocolate colored door. Upon closer inspection, it seemed like there were once protrusions lining the door, but they had been cut off long ago.

John joined Keith and blew some dust away from the arch surrounding the door, uncovering the text that Neve had dismissed. Sadly, most of the words had faded away. It read:

“A song from a genuine bande”

“What do you make of this?” John asked as Keith moved his hand along the arch.

“Well, if that thing wanted to hear a song, it shouldn’t have taken my bass,” Jenny pouted, punching the door off-handedly. It didn’t budge, and she pulled her hand back, shaking it and wincing.

“It probably has to do with how the door unlocks, considering there’s no keyhole, and it’s obviously enchanted,” Keith replied, sliding his hand along the door.

“How can you tell it’s enchanted?” John asked curiously, looking at the door intensely. He tried to Spy it, but nothing came up.

Keith turned to Jenny and asked incredulously, “He can’t see magic? Even as powerful as this?” Jenny shrugged in response, and Keith backed away from the door. “I’ll have to teach you that, though I don’t know if I can.”

Satisfied with his inspection, Keith held out an arm to warn John back, “I’m going to try to bust the door down.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Neve interjected, turning the tablet to Keith; “It’s incredibly dense; and seems rooted in place. Since there’s no lock, you’d have to break the door itself, and I put the chances of that happening in your steel form at slim to none.”

“I was hoping you’d not say that,” Keith grumbled, downing the transformative potion nonetheless. On cue, his body regained the metallic qualities. His skin became sleek, shiny, and rigid. “Alright, stand back everyone.”

Getting low to the ground, Keith punched the door as hard as he could… and held back a wince when all the knuckles in his right hand instantly shattered, silvery blood flowing from the wound. He collapsed to his knees, and his steel form faded.

Kimberly went to work stifling the flow of blood and healing his hand as Neve resisted the urge to say “I told you so.” John and Jenny, meanwhile, watched on, feeling useless.

“Why don’t you try using Move on it to open it?” Jenny asked, still mentally trying to summon her bass. No matter what she did, the trance feeling refused to return, and she was on the brink of giving up.

“It’s way too heavy for that, Move wouldn’t even budge it,” John replied, though he opened up his stat sheet to see if there was anything else he could use. “Maybe I could slip a construct inside of it…”

“What would that do?” Jenny asked, but John’s answer was interrupted by the sound of crystal scraping crystal.

“I was hoping I’d have more time to test this,” Keith announced, but his voice was several octaves lower. John looked over and noticed that some sort of crystalline transformation was overcoming Keith. The dull sheen of his metal form paled to the lustrous glow that emanated from his skin. It went further than that, the crystal seemed to glow with raw energy. Despite its powerful appearance, his new form moved slower than any other.

That drawback disappeared from their minds when a solid hit from him caused the door to shake. “Why haven’t you used that before?” Neve asked, looking at him in wonder; “You look like a-”

“Tetra-lapillus? I know. Their shed skin is one of the potion’s ingredients. Kimberly called me crazy for buying it,” Keith smirked at his wife, and the smug, unheard communication between them went over the heads of everyone else.
“Took a sliver out of my fortune, extremely painful to use, and I will certainly have Potion Fatigue after this…” Keith rolled his shoulders and punched the door again. This time, dust from the arch showered atop his head, and John finally noticed that his hair had turned into rigid whiskers. He also laughed to himself quietly, thinking of all the times he had read the phrase “my dick is diamonds”. “But for a situation like this, it was definitely worth it.”

“Can I… examine you?” Neve asked; the kind of transformation Keith had gone through was above and beyond any of his others. Closer to his rock form than his metal form, instead of his skin and muscles being transformed, it seemed his being was changed by the crystalline form. “Your very magic has changed; this is amazing!”

“It probably won’t last that long,” Keith responded, getting good momentum and raining blows on the door. With each one, it caved a little bit more. “I’d give it another minute before it dissipates fully… so we have to hurry this up!"

The Hoarder released David from its mouth the second the door shut behind it, and David attacked it viciously. Despite this, it didn’t retaliate. In fact, it seemed to be enjoying David’s attacks and waved its long limbs around, which David promptly dodged.

David screeched angrily at the Hoarder, and in that moment, he was as powerful as a fully grown hawk. The feeling quickly faded away as one of the Hoarder’s limbs blindsided him and shoved him into a nest made of random tchotchkes and valuables. Anyone who stumbled upon the Hoarder’s nest would think it to be some sort of landfill, dominated by dirty dolls, clothes, jewelry, and scraps of cloth.

The last of its race, only it knew the value sentimental items truly held. Carefully, it deposited Jenny’s bass, Neve’s arm, and the pouch it had stolen from Keith. Its long, jaundiced fingers shook as it unzipped the pouch comically carefully and pulled out… a lock of male hair. Regardless, it snarled before inhaling the scent of the items deeply.

Meanwhile, David flew around the cavernous room, hardly taking notice of the items below. The ceiling was tall but sturdy, and he had no way of escaping. The Hoarder hissed and reached for him with its limbs, but they were just short. It looked sadly at him and tried to open up a portal, but all it could do was hack a cough, drained of its reality-bending powers.

When David heard the door shaking, he flew over to it and perched on a support beam near it. The Hoarder heard the shaking, but opted to keep feasting on the sentimentality of the items it had just robbed. It decided that if it was going to be captured, it was going to do so full and happy.

“One more…” Keith wheezed out before smashing the door down. His crystalline form faded, and he nearly fainted.

The Hoarder rushed out of the door the second it was down, and they thought to give chase… but upon seeing that it had none of their possessions, decided to go inside.

When it was in sight, a wave of warmth washed over Jenny, and filled with anticipation, she yelled, “Return to me!”

The cherry and white colored instrument flew toward her, and she caught it by the neck. She kissed it with more passion than she had any human and stroked it while promising never to lose it again.

David flew to John’s shoulder and cuddled up to him immediately, thoroughly rattled but physically unharmed. He cooed happily as he was dismissed, and John promised to help him grow stronger.

Neve’s arm crawled toward her and, with a mechanical hiss, resealed itself to her shoulder. She plugged the tablet into her arm and exclaimed, “I knew it! That thing was a cross-dimensional emotion leech. The last of its kind!” Her eyes shone with greed for a moment as she thought to hunt it, but… no. She recovered her arm. The mission was over.

Keith neither heard nor cared for her revelation and instead ran into the pile of trash that used to be the Hoarder’s nest. He kneeled at the base and searched through it ravenously for his pouch. Upon recovering it and the hair, he stood up, satisfied. Kimberly walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek before taking his arm and dragging him back to the entrance.

“Alright, let’s go home,” Neve proclaimed without a hint of worry, though a pit had developed in John’s stomach.

“Right…