Chapter 19

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Dungeon Factory, 1st floor.

"Alright. So, how do we do this, exactly?" Said Alexandra, as she looked at the resurrection orb. It was a bit odd, since she was so used to seeing the magic when using her normal body, and she couldn't in CQ's. Still, she could sense...something. Was that what Emilia felt as well when close to an enchanted item?

"First, we have to get the body. There's a fairly basic teleportation enchantment for that." Answered the vampire girl, as she started humming softly to herself, and put her hands on the orb, which began to hum in unison with her.

"Right. I remember the conversation we had about that. It can only transport inanimate objects, like an unpowered golem, or a corpse, right?"

"Yeah. It can't transport enchanted items either. Their enchantments interfere just enough to make it...hazardous." She said as she closed her eyes. "Now shush. Teleportation isn't that complicated, but it demands concentration."

"Sure."

Alexandra stepped back, and leaned against one of the walls, and watched intently as Emilia began swinging her head from side to side in time with the melody she was humming to herself. She'd gathered that it wasn't truly necessary to have a rythm for spells, but it made it easier to remember and avoid mistakes. Hence why a lot of incantations sounded like songs. In Emilia's case, she was powerful enough (and in deeper sync with the enchantments thanks to her link to Alexandra's core) that outright singing wasn't required, but she still hummed to avoid mistakes. After all, she was a sorceress/mage hybrid caster, relying as much on her grimoire as her own mind to cast spells, so she wouldn't be as proficient as mindcasting as more standard mages.

Then suddenly, the humming stopped, and Alexandra felt her skin prickle, before a brief, rather anemic flash of purple light appeared, and the corpse of the adventurer materialized besides the orb.

"Well, that was...rather uneventful."

Emilia huffed, and crossed her arms below her chest.

"What? Did you expect peals of thunder, the chanting of the souls of the great beyond, and a majestic pillar of light? It's a short range teleportation spell, not a gate invocation ritual! Now, if you could please absorb whatever you want before we get to resurrecting him?"

"Sure thing." Alexandra quickly jumped into dungeon mode, and looked critically at the body. His robes didn't seem to be enchanted, but he did carry a plethora of interesting items. The Earth-born hesitated for a second, then shrugged. It felt like grave robbing, but they were about to resurrect him anyway. Plus, it could be considered as their fee for bringing him back from the dead. She simply absorbed everything, with the notable exception of his clothes, since she already had cloth and leather.

"Alright, done."

"Excellent! Now give me a hand, you're far better at injecting mana into runes than I am. Activate the orb, I'll take care of the rest."

"Roger that. One hot orb, coming right up!"

Alexandra plunged into dungeon mode, and started pouring mana into the orb, carefully activating the runic sequences. Usually, she'd just order her interface to turn it on and be done with it, but she would rather avoid any mishaps if she could. True, they'd tested it out thoroughly beforehand, but never on an actual body.

"Alright. Looking good so far. 25% of the runes are active and climbing."

Emilia simply humed an aknowledgment, and started incanting once more. Alexandra watched her for a second with half of her attention, continuing to pour mana into the orb, before stopping as it came fully online. She stepped back fully into CQ's body, and looked at the now almost vibrating with power orb, whose runes were now literally glowing.

"Alright, it's fully charged! Whenever you're ready!"

Emilia nodded, then tilted her head up, and began outright chanting.

Alexandra froze as she heard her voice. She...hadn't known her friend and advisor could sing, let alone this well. She stared at her, hypnotized by her crystalline voice, before almost jumping back as the orb suddenly started pulsating in sync with Emilia's chant.

She looked at the corpse, and it began to...shift. The spearhead was slowly removed from his head, and gently deposited to the side. Another pulse, and the wound began to close. Alexandra watched in fascination as tissue knit itself back together, and the bone literally regrew. Then, after a few seconds of nothing happening -although she heavily suspected the orb was fixing internal damage- the pulsating stopped. Emilia's chant started building up, and the sphere start glowing brighter and brighter, until-

The flash was anything but anemic this time, and Alexandra closed her eyes by reflex...and heard a gasp. Not one from Emilia, or her own lips, but from the floor.

She opened her eyes, and looked down at the body...who was now staring back, panting.

"W-Wha-Ho-" The newly resurected adventurer stopped as he started violently coughing. He tried to sit up, and simply managed to lift himself a few centimeters off the floor, before collapsing.

"Wow, wow, relax. You got killed. I'm the dungeon core, and this is my advisor. We just resurrected you. You know, as per the insurance policy?" Said Alexandra as she kneeled by his side, and gently kept him down with a hand on his shoulder.

The adventurer looked into her eyes, and a spark of understanding filled his gaze as she said 'insurance policy'. He sighed, and settled back down.

"So this-" He coughed "This is what it feels like to be resurrected?"

Alexandra shrugged. She'd never been the target of a resurrection spell, and doubted she'd ever be able to experience it. Could she even be resurrected as a dungeon core? Something else to investigate.

QUESTIONS-TO-ASK LIST UPDATED

"I guess?"

"Well it fucking sucks."

Alexandra laughed, before looking to the side, as Emilia's heeled boots clicked on the floor.

"Well, he looks pretty good, all things considered." Said the vampire girl as she kneeled by the adventurer's side. "He's very much alive, no wounds apparent, and he's capable of speech and coherent thought. I'd call that an unmitigated success!"

Alexandra blinked, and raised an eyebrow.

"Wait, there was a chance he wouldn't have been able to speak or think?"

Emilia positively squirmed under Alexandra's inquisitive gaze, and the Earth-born's eyebrow rose higher.

"Well....Yes? Sometimes, resurrections don't go very well, and it takes a while for the people brought back to recover."

"I...see." Simply said Alexandra, before looking back down, at the adventurer, who looked definitely a bit green now. "Relax, you're back in one piece, and it's what counts. Besides, you get to take it easy while your party does all the heavy lifting! We'll get you back to them once they've finished the floor. Unless you'd like to go back to the entrance now?"

It was the adventurer's turn to blink in surprise, before he narrowed his eyes in speculation. Alexandra could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"W-Wait, do you-" He coughed. "Do you mean I can stay here until the other finish? D-Do I get to cultivate while I wait?"

Alexandra tilted her head for a second, and thought about, before shrugging. She couldn't use the ambient mana in her own dungeon, at least not yet, and she'd just taken around 20% of this guy's essence, that the resurrection spell hadn't managed to keep. So letting him cultivate a bit wouldn't hurt anyone. Besides, she'd literally just stolen everything but the clothes off his back, so sweetening the pill a bit might prove useful.

"Sure, I don't see why not. Just don't go into the hallway, it's packed with traps." She turned around, and gestured for Jared to come forward. "Stay here, and keep an eye on him." She looked back at the adventurer. "If you need anything, talk to him." She smiled as she saw the fear in the adventurer's eyes at Jared's heavily armored form. "Don't worry, he won't harm you as long as you don't attack him....or me or my advisor. I'll leave you with some water and biscuits to let you recover until your team finishes up. Now, if you'll excuse me?"

The adventurer nodded, and watched in obvious wonder as Jared took a glass and a pitcher of water, and quickly served him a drink, before giving him a small pile of biscuits. They were the same travel biscuits Alexandra and Emilia had eaten on Christmas, and to her surprise they were relatively easy to eat. Of course, she had the jaws of an android and could probably literally chew concrete, and Emilia was a vampire, so she was vastly more hardy than most humans. Still, it was perfectly eadible and -probably- not tooth destroying hard for humans.

Alexandra nodded in satisfaction, and promptly left the room, Emilia in tow, letting the door close behind her.

"Alright." She said as she turned towards her advisor. "You should probably go back to the command center. I'll send CQ to the boss room. Just a quick question though, why did you do all the chanting and stuff back there? Isn't the orb supposed to work on it's own?"

Emilia nodded.

"It is, but the teleportation requires someone to manually use the targeting spell to work, and I wanted to make sure the resurrection spell worked flawlessly, which it did."

Alexandra nodded. She'd done the same thing in her own fashion while charging the orb after all.

"Fair enough. Alright, see you in a minute!"

"See you!"

With that, Alexandra jumped back into dungeon mode, ordering CQ back to the throne room, before giving a quick look at the adventurers' progress.

*****

"You know, at least the traps aren't hidden this time."

Artok looked to the side at his party's mage, Elahyl, and shook his head, sighing. The high elf mage was nice, but she also had a somewhat annoying tendency to always look on the bright side of things. It could get...slightly irritating sometimes. But at least she always kept positive, even in the worst situations.

Still, this time she had a point, he had to admit. The two previous rooms, the ones just after the challenge room, had been packed with golems and traps. While the traps had been rather easily detected, avoiding them in the middle of combat was another matter. The last steel ranked adventurer had accidentally stepped on the pressure plate that triggered those massive drop axes in the ceiling, and had been lucky to get away with just a fractured arm and a damaged shield. On the last room, Artok himself had barely avoided falling into a spike trap as one of those fiendishly fast golems had tried to tackle him through it. He doubted the spikes would have been able to pierce his armor, but he was sure it would have been annoying as hell to get back out of the pit, especially with his...stature.

At least the safe room had been nice. It had given them a bit of time to breathe, and grab a bite to eat. Still, they had a job to do, and Artok had opted against spending a longer time resting in the safe zone. They had a job to do, and so far the dungeon hadn't seemed to have recreated any of her monsters behind him, and he'd rather that stayed the case. If the dungeon was willing to extend the courtesy of not having to fight their way out again, he wasn't about to try her patience on it, especially since a longer rest would almost certainly involve some cultivation, which took time and concentration.

"I...guess so. Still, this might get a bit tricky. Any ideas anyone?" He said as he gestured towards the hall in front of them.

A hall currently packed with a dozen swinging blades, continuously swishing through the air, like deadly pendulums.

Sorior nodded.

"Of course. We throw you to the other end of the hallway."

Artok gave him a look that could have frozen a volcano solid, and the ranger laughed.

"I'm joking, I'm joking! Look, why don't I just take care of it? I'm fairly sure I can dodge my way out of danger if necessary, and I can see the button the assessment team mentioned at the end. I go through it, press it, stop the blades, and you all can just walk on through."

Artok looked at the hallway, and sighed.

"Sure, it's not like we-"

"Wait."

Artok stopped, and turned around to the last member of his party -and the assault guild contingent, now that he thought about it-, Elistria, the other fight of the group. Another female high elf, she'd originally been in a duo with Elahyl before they'd met Artok. She was a force to be reckoned with in close quarters, although she relied more on her agility to survive than heavy armor like he did. Still, she was a deadly combatant, and had an unusual talent for casting, although she couldn't for the life of her cast in combat while maintaining her concentration. She'd learned several healing spells, and become their de-facto healer as well as frontline damage dealer.

"What is it?" Asked the dwarf.

"The blades, they're on a rythm."

"Obviously, yes."

Elistria's face colored in embarassement at her party leader's obvious irony.

"No, I mean a song. But...it feels like there's a note missing. Either a blade is out of sync or..."

"Or there's something we can't see." Finished Artok, his gaze suddenly thoughtful. "Thank you Elis. Sor?"

The ranger nodded.

"Yeah. I'll try to be careful. Can you give me the tune Elis?"

"Sure!"

The elven healer started humming, and the ranger started humming with her, and his eyes noticeably narrowed after a while.

"You are right, it is synced to a tune...and there's something missing there. Alright, I'll try to make sure to avoid whatever it is that's governed by that note. Wish me luck!"

With that, he dashed forward, and straight into the hallway.

He easily dodged the first half dozen blades, but he abruptly stopped at the sixth one, and jumped through the air, before finishing his way through the hallway, with only having to dodge out of the way of a single blade towards the end. He stopped in front of the button, and pressed it, and the blades stopped, and receded into the wall.

Artok waited a second to make sure it wasn't a trap, and the blades weren't about to start again, before starting to walk towards.

"Hey, Art, watch out towards the middle! There's a pressure plate after the 6th one. Don't know if it's disarmed, but it pays to be cautious." Called out Sorior.

"Right."

Artok advanced cautiously, counting the blades, before stopping at the 6th one. There indeed was a pressure plate on the ground, and he jumped over it, and took a few steps forward, before looking back to make sure the rest of his team made it, and nodded in satisfaction as they did.

"Well, this wasn't in the assessment's team report." He said simply as he reached the ranger. "We got lucky thanks to Elis."

"Agreed. Now, do you want to take him on?"

Artok looked at the room, and the golem in the middle of it, that Sorior had just nodded towards.

"Sure, why not." He simply said, as he grabbed his war axe, and stepped forward.

As soon as he stepped through the threshold to the room, the golem stepped forward, and slammed it's fist on it's chest, before pointing at him, then unsheathing his sword, pointing at him again, this time with his weapon, and taking a guard position.

Artok frowned slightly, as he realized the golem also had his spear on his back, and made a mental note to watch out for a throw. Then, he slightly bowed, and cautiously stepped forward. The challenge was a bit crude, but it was unmistakable for what it was.

The golem let him approach, then, it changed it's posture...and charged.

The dwarf lifted his axe, and parried the sword blow, but failed to move his weapon in time to try and disarm his adversary. The golem stepped back, and lunged forward again.

This time, Artok simply stepped aside, and delivered a powerful blow at his enemy's legs. His axe struck the iron armor covering it, narrowly missing the joint, and drew a shower of sparks. The golem stepped back once again, this time noticeably farther away, and obviously favoring his leg. Artok smiled slightly in satisfaction, at least he had pierced the construct's armor, and restricted it's mobility.

The golem stopped, looked at it's own leg...then threw away his sword and drew his spear.

Artok's eyebrows rose as the golem discarded it's weapon, without throwing it at him, before shrugging. Maybe it was just more 'honorable' than the others. Whatever the case, it had obviously decided that it couldn't fight effectively with it's sword anymore, and had decided to resort to it's spear. That was an interesting detail. Maybe their fighting style with the sword relied too heavily on mobility to be effective when crippled. That could be a weakness to exploit in the future, especially since their knees and various joints were uncovered by their decently thick iron armor plating.

The assault guild leader adjusted his position slightly, and narrowed his eyes as the construct began approaching him once more. This time, it moved much more sedately, obviously waiting for him to make the first move.

He observed the construct for a few seconds, then leapt into action. He swung his axe with all his might, and sundered his enemy's shield...And grabbed the spear thrust straight at his face, just like the one in the challenge room had done.

The golem never had the time to retrieve it's weapon from the dwarf's grip, as his axe rose from the construct's ruined shield, which fell apart, and dropped again, straight through the golem's desperately raised arm and into it's head.

Artok stepped back, and looked at the spear, frowning.

"A singlie for your thoughts?" Said Sorior as he joined him, looking over the golem's body.

"The golems. Their moves. The one in the challenge room did the exact same thing to me. They're fast, vicious, but..."

"They're predictable. Pre-made moves and reactions. Like those frog things in the Eternia Crystallis dungeon. They're absolute bastards to deal with, but once you understand their tactics and moves....." He shrugged.

"Yeah. They're manageable. Well, that's something at least." Artok smiled, and chuckled. "It means we aren't going to keep loosing people to surprises. Well, at least not people that have experience with this dungeon. That's good, I never really liked the ones where they add a bunch of random stuff just to catch regulars off guard."

Not that the dungeons that did that kept it up for long, given the huge dip in visits after a while of this kind of nonsense. Kind of like a bar, a dungeon thrived on regular customers, and driving them away was a catastrophe. Or, at least, that's what he'd been told, and nothing he'd seen so far had contradicted that.

He looked at the two hallway entrances, each on either side of the room.

"It splits up, just like lady Aubétoile said."

"Yep. Left or right? I have a coin to flip if you want."

Artok looked at his taller, elven companion, and shook his head. Sorior was as renowned for his love for pointy instruments of death as his luck at games of chance. The assault guild leader had stopped counting the number of gaming establishments the ranger had been kicked out of (or had to be rescued from for that matter). Although to be fair to the elf, it wasn't so much a matter of cheating as to have a near magical sense of when someone was bluffing, and a good assessment of risks.

For about the billionth time, Artok asked himself how a good dwarf from the Loris Empire had ended up in a party with three elves...While simultaneously praying that he never had to switch teammates. He had met many parties over his years as a member of the assault guild, but he'd rarely had the synergy he had with these three...and besides, Sorior cut him in on 30% of his winnings as long as he got him out of the odd tough spot. There was no way he was going to help Elahyl with her alchemical experiments however -he liked to live old and unexploded, thank you very much- and Elistria....

Well, let's just say that he had nothing against necromancy, but he was of the firm opinion that people's souls and bodies should be left alone (or given proper burial or incineration) unless you intended to resurrect them. And he'd made it very clear that fellow assault guild members were off limits, no matter if they consented or the contracts they'd signed. The rest, the less he knew, the better.

"No need to flip anything. First principle of mazes: hug the right wall. And if you made that pun I will throw you against said wall."

The ranger grinned.

"You know me too well Art! Very well, right it is." His face suddenly became sober and serious again. "This is getting difficult though. Are you sure we should continue to the boss room?"

Artok almost automatically answered 'yes', then paused and thought about it. Sorior didn't ask those questions unless he had serious concerns. He looked up at the ranger's face, and Sorior nodded towards the steel ranked adventurer left in their party, and Artok winced. She was currently busy helping Elisitria shove the golem's body into one of their spatial bags, but even with healing spells and potions it was obvious she had taken a beating, if only by the state of her armor. Still, she'd remained unbroken in will, even after seeing a friend die, although with the knowledge he'd be resurrected in the end. That said something about her resilience, and she hadn't even complained once.

"Fair enough. Well. Let's at least try one more room, and see how she fares. If she makes it without too many issues, We'll do the second-to-last room with her, then send her back. I know she won't make it in the last one before the boss."

The look they exchanged was grim, very grim. They had read the assessment's team report...and 12 of every golem type encountered so far, the soldier ones, the fast ones and the dumb ones, would be one hell of a tough fight.

Well, that's why we get paid the big bucks, thought Artok. Alongside other perks of course.

He squared his shoulder, and took a deep breath.

"Alright everybody!" Everyone left turned towards him, and then towards the hallway on the right as he gestured at it's entrance. "If no one has something to do before we head out?" Everyone shook their heads, and he nodded in satisfaction. "Then let's move out! Sorior, you take point, I'll follow. Let's move!"

And with that, they departed, heading deeper into the dungeon.