Chapter 21

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Dungeon Factory, 1st Floor.

CQ tilted her head as the tiny thing came at her, screaming. She knew he was an enemy, but still, he was small. Not that small didn't mean deadly of course. Mom was taller than mommy, her other parent, but mommy could throw much better spells. She had felt the mana when seeing them try some out, and while mom wasn't bad at all, mommy's spells were much more complex, and less...brute.

Still, there was it's own elegance in simplicity, she'd learned. All the flourish in the book mommy had offered her was nice, but a simple sword slash to the throat would do the work just as well. There was a certain....beauty to strict purpose and efficiency.

Her thoughts took less than a tenth of a second to pass through her mind, and she simply looked at the tiny-intruder thing as it charged at her. Once again, she wondered why she was able to think so fast. It was obvious when mom had possessed her body that she couldn't do so, but for a bit of strain (and some recovery before she could do it again), she could speed up her thoughts so much that everyone seemed so slow around her.

Oh well, mom would probably know the answer. Or would find it once she was able to explain it to her. Mom was very good at finding things, especially when she started walking back and forth. Of course, that meant she'd need to be able to make the mouth-noises her parents used to communicate. But that shouldn't be too hard. Every day she felt a bit closer. It was like her mind was slowly expanding. It had expanded even faster one time in the last few hours actually.

She calmly moved into a guard position, just like the book had taught her, as the screaming tiny-intruder came forward. It was time to stop them. Maybe this time she wouldn't have to sleep while mom rebuilt her body. That would be nice. Dreaming was nice, but it felt so strange not to be able to move.

She locked gaze with the tiny-intruder, and surged forward. There was no need to blink into the spell throwers behind. They could wait. He could not. Besides, mom always fought a bit before going in for the kill. It was like trying to find chinks in the armor of her guards in a way. Except with fighting styles rather than metal plates.

*****

Artok parried at the last second, and almost bounced back when his charge met the boss' own. His eyes widened slightly as the boss didn't even stumble backward from the hit. It was like she'd been rooted in the floor! He took a step back, and looked at her intently as she drew back her sword, and struck again, parrying once more.

He barely took notice of Elistria rushing past him and engaging the spear and shield golems, who looked like they were even more armored than those in the previous rooms! What he did take notice however, where the 3 suits of full plate armor, which he assumed had golems underneath, ponderously moving straight towards him.

"Sorior! The big ones please!" He yelled out as he parried another attack from the boss.

A hail of thrown daggers -and was that a lightning bolt?- passed over him, forcing him and the boss to duck briefly, before Artok moved to the side, to clear his ranged comrades' lines of fire, quickly followed by the boss. Not very smart of her, if lady Aubétoile was right about her shield, but maybe that had changed, given the way she was moving out of harm's way.

The boss' attacks themselves were fairly standard -you could find them in training manuals- but she was fast. Of course, speed wasn't everything.

As the boss readied her next attack, Artok dodged out of the way, and struck her with his axe...and swore viciously as a crimson shield flashed around her, and his axe bounced back, barely leaving a scratch on her face. A scratch from which...motes of light were escaping?

He didn't have the time to ponder the phenomenon further, as he jumped back, dodging two spears being thrust at him. He looked up, and saw two of the heavily armored golems standing by the boss' side. The third one was slumped against the side of the hallway, a variety of daggers stucking in various parts of his armor, with no less than 3 in it's visor, with smoke and sparks escaping from the opening.

Given the jerky movements of the one on his right, he had been the one hit by the lightning bolt, or at least took some damage from it. The one on his left appeared more or less intact, with a few daggers stuck in his armor.

Artok smiled.

"3 to 1? Good! An even fight at long last!"

The boss looked puzzled for a second, before Artok belowed a warcry, and charged straight towards her...and jumping to the side at the last second, swinging his axe at the golem on the right instead. His ploy worked, and the others didn't have the time to react as he cut the golem down at the knees, then slammed his axe full force into it's torso, leaving it a twitching, sparking mess as he withdrew his weapon.

That was a trick he couldn't have pulled off without the various potions he had gorged himself with. He'd never had been able to do it all quickly enough to parry his remaining enemies' counter attack, and even then it was a very near thing.

He took a few step backs as the remaining plate golem and the boss pressed him hard, fighting together in near perfect unison, driving him back.

Then, he saw an opening, and grabbed the golem's spear, tugging him forward...right to meet his armored boots, sending the golem sprawling backward. Then he shouted in pain as he felt a burning cut to his side.

He whirled around, looking at the boss, who was now holding a crimson stained sword, and he attacked.

The boss parried...And he hooked his axe around her sword, and twisted it out of her grasp.

He smiled in victory as the boss looked at her hands, puzzled. He might not be able to kill her, but he could disarm her, and make her harml-

His thoughts skiddled to a halt as the boss, shrugged, took a step forward, grabbing his armored collar...and then smashed her head into his.

He cried out in pain, his helmet partially caving in under the powerful impact, holding his face. His reflexes, honed by decades of adventuring, saved him from another blow as he instinctively dodged to the side. After a second, he lowered his hands, and looked straight at the boss. The little pest was smirking! Smirking!

He charged at her in a blind fury, and noted in a corner of his mind that she wasn't making a move for her sword to the side...

Then, as he swung, she simply jumped over him, and dived for her sword. Artok turned around, ready to slam her into the wall if that was what it took to keep her still, when she looked at him straight in the eyes, her hand on her sword...and simply vanished.

Artok whirled around as he heard a cry of surprise and pain. Elahyl was clutching her now bleeding left arm, stepping back as Sorior pounced on the boss that had suddenly appeared in front of the mage, trying to tie her down.

The fight was over in an eyeblink. Clearly Sorior saw Artok's fight with the boss, as he didn't try to harm her, beyond a few thrown daggers to get her attention and hamper her movements, instead he quickly disarmed her, and stepped on the hilt of her sword.

The boss once again paused, then she...hugged him?

Artok blinked in surprise, stunned. Why would she-

Then the boss forcibly turned Sorior around, who was probably as surprised as Artok was, presenting his back to the rest of the room...and the last plate golem. Who was raising his spear to point at the ranger, an iron bracelet on its arm glowing with power.

Artok activated the ability in his war axe, windstep, and suddenly he was next to the golem, immediately swinging at the construct. His axe struck straight into the automata's back, biting deep...but the armor absorbed much of the hit, and the golem released it's ability.

A massive beam of pure energy energy shot out of the golem's spear, and struck Sorior in the back.

Sorior screamed, then slumped, his body suddenly limp, and Artok felt the unmistakable rush of essence. Artok bared his teeth, extracting his axe from the golem's back, and then struck it again. And again. And again. Until the golem was flat the floor, and he could see the ground through the gaping wound in the construct's torso.

He lifted his head up to see the boss stagger back, clearly singed by the hit. Either much of it had gone through Sorior, or her shield didn't stop friendly fire, because she looked like she took a beating. Artok tried to activate windstep again, but swore as the enchantment refused to activate, as it was still recharging. Instead, he simply charged forward, this time not caring to bellow a warcry. He didn't need words to announce himself this time, steel would do just fine.

He reached the boss, and swung at her. She parried of course, and this time she placed her sword to avoid having it taken again, but Artok wasn't interested in that. She had a shield to protect her from damage? Wonderful, that meant he'd get to use her as a punching bag that much longer.

He attacked her again, and again, and again, swinging endlessly, not caring about the hits she managed to sneak in, not even bothering to parry. Despite the crimson shield flaring every time he hit the boss, she was accumulating damage. It didn't matter if she could deflect most of the power of his hits, eventually she would just be worn down by sheer attrition. Then, he heard a massive thunderclap.

And the boss' crimson shield flared again...and dissolved into a flurry of red petals.

Artok smiled, and threw all of his strength behind his next strike, activating the strength enhancements from the elixirs he had drunk. The boss literally flew backward, hitting the wall like a meteor, leaving a spiderweb of cracks, before falling back down onto the ground. She stayed there for a second, then went to one knee, before shakily standing up.

Artok looked at her. She was now almost surrounded in wisps and motes of light, flowing from all the cuts and wounds all over her body. It almost look like she was on the verge of dissolving. Then, she raised her sword, and pointed it at him.

He barely had the time to realize what was happening, before a golden shield appeared in front of him, and his world dissolved into light and pain.

*****

"What the hell?!?" Yelled out Alexandra as she jumped to her feet. "How- I didn't teach her how to do that!" She turned towards Emilia. "Did you?"

The vampire girl shook her head, stunned.

"N-No! I didn't even try to teach her spells! That's-" She closed her mouth, and Alexandra could almost feel the 'impossible' that would have followed.

However, it obviously wasn't impossible. Because CQ had definitely used a power beam spell. And even if Alexandra had thought she'd hallucinated, a single look at the dwarf would have dispelled her doubts. The poor bastard looked like been caught in the blast of a plasma bomb. She couldn't fathom how he was still breathing, she'd seen unaugmented people much less wounded than that die before the medics could get to them. Then again, they didn't have the benefit of essence. It was also very strange, since it seemed like the beam was dispersed by something, as he had been burned all over instead of having a single, clean hole punched through him.

Maybe it was that weird flash of golden light that appeared in front of him a split second before CQ casted power beam...

She sighed.

"Well, I suppose an inquiry is in order then." She winced as she saw the mage throw a lightning bolt at CQ, who fell to the ground, dissolving into motes of light. "They won anyway."

"Yeah..."

Alexandra looked at the boss room, slowly shaking her head at the carnage. They hadn't pulled any punches this time. The ranger had launched so many daggers she'd lost count of how many he'd used, and the mage had thrown lighting bolts, and even massive storm of electricity, as fast as she could incant. The healer/fighter had also managed to focus the attention of the Palatial Guards Mk2s, keeping them on her, and nicely clumped up for her comrades. She hadn't gotten out unscathed of course, the storm of electric arcs had hit her as well, and she was definitely looking singed, and had a number of cuts, but she was walking and healing her teammates. The ranger was just flat out dead however, since the beam had more or less obliterated his torso, incinerated his lungs, and probably burned his heart as well, not even mentioning his spinal cord. He'd probably died out of sheer shock given his injuries.

Alexandra frowned.

"Wait, can we resurrect someone that has been hit by a power beam?"

Emilia looked up at her.

"Yes, of course. As long as most of the body is left of course."

Alexandra frowned.

"Wasn't there something about being unable to resurrect people badly burned or something?"

The vampire girl nodded.

"Yes, but that's different."

Alexandra raised an eyebrow, and gestured at the dwarf.

"How so?"

"Well, ignoring the fact that the mage's ward spell dispersed the beam, usually a power beam is heavily concentrated." Alexandra nodded, making a note to ask about said ward spell, although it probably was the golden flash of light she'd seen.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"And resurrection spells only become truly impossible when the target's core or soul is gone or sealed. Burns just make it harder and harder to resurrect people. In fact, it is possible to resurrect someone whose body has been completely destroyed, although that usually means building them a new one and transferring the core in it." Emilia shrugged. "So technically, no, but burns do make it 'impossible' for a certain level of skill to resurrect. People that are incinerated or close to it by powerful fire spells are considered impossible to resurrect because the spells needed to bring them back would be very complicated, require massive amounts of mana, and most would also need a ritual for regular priests or healers to even dream about attempting. So it's more a case of being impossible for most people to do or afford it, or even be able to put it in place in time to do any good."

The Earth-born nodded slowly. Emilia had explained to her how a core decayed and in the end vanished in a dead body, which meant that there was a hard time limit on how long you could take to resurrect someone. There were ways to slow down the process of course, that was one of the reasons necromancers were welcomed with opened arms in temples of healing, as weird as it sounded to someone from Earth whose understanding of fantasy was necromancy = unholy. But that only delayed the inevitable unless you were willing to use...alternative solutions. More powerful people also took longer for their cores to decay as well, which rather explained why powerful people tended to be very powerful on this world. It just became harder and harder to die for good once you passed a certain treshold of power. At that point you probably had enough friends, contacts and money to have someone bring you back. Sort of like a powerful industrialist on Earth getting almost killed in a grav-car accident, and having one of the friends in the military or government pull strings to have them saved with military-grade nanotech.

"So...what about ours?"

Emilia winced.

"We should be able to handle that. But we sure as hell won't be able to resurrect someone that got incinerated. I'll still guide the resurrection, just to make sure."

"Right. Well, to the resurrection room then? Oh, and should we evacuate the mage beforehand?"

"No, not really. There isn't a point, there are parties that will get wiped out and see the whole process eventually anyway."

"Fair enough." Alexandra gestured at the command center's exit. "After you."

Emilia frowned.

"You should sit this one out. You don't have CQ to possess this time. And we really don't need them to see your avatar."

Alexandra winced. They'd discovered the hard way when CQ was first killed by the wannabe core thief that she couldn't be resurrected immediately. It took some time before she could be brought back. She had no idea why, and neither did Emilia. Probably one of those weird arbitrary phenomenons, like the loose and minable ore mana price difference.

"Right, sorry. Well, I'll stay here. Speak up if you need something."

"Sure. Keep an eye on the surviving adventurers. Maybe talk with them a bit. They'll want to know what happened to their comrades."

Alexandra nodded.

"Sure."

*****

Elahyl sighed in relief as Sorior's body, which she had moved to the farthest side of the room, vanished. It looked like the dungeon was going to resurrect him.

She looked at Artok, and winced as she saw her party leader's hideous wounds. He'd live, at least according to Elistria, but her fellow high elf was good at her job, so she was confident their party leader would make it. But he was going to be bedridden for a while. And probably grumpy during all of it. That was fine with her, she'd almost thought they'd lost him. She hadn't expected her protection ward to disperse the beam. Absorb part of it, sure, but this? It had almost certainly saved her party's leader life, but if he'd died from those burns...she didn't know if the dungeon could have brought him back. Him or the poor bastards hit by the fireball earlier.

Hmmm, maybe we should include that in our report. A warning about restricting the use of fire magic, just in case, she thought to herself.

She looked at Elistria again, who somehow felt her gaze, and simply gestured at the altar in the centre of the room, before going back to treating Artok.

Elahyl nodded, and walked towards the altar. According to lady Aubétoile and the assessment team's report, the dungeon core should have been right there. Obviously, it wasn't, which meant that it had probably been moved to a more secure location. That was good, since it meant the core had enough resources to spend some on it's own defence, it meant the dungeon was growing well.

"Hello?" She called out. "I am Elahyl Silverstreak, of the assault guild. Can you hear me, lady Crystal?"

For a second, nothing happened. Then the door opposite of her, with the warning written on top of it, started shifting as letters were carved into it.

'Greetings, Elahyl Silverstreak! Yes, I can hear you. How may I assist you?'

Elahyl almost stepped around the altar, then realized that if she got too close to the door, the dungeon probably wouldn't be able to write on it anymore.

"I wanted to ask about our teammates. Has their resurrection been successful?"

Once again, a pause, lengthier than the last one however.

'The mage's resurrection has been fully completed. The rogue is still in the process of being brought back to life however.'

Elhayl frowned.

"He's no rogue!" She snapped, before freezing. "Wait, I didn't mean to-"

'Relax. I'm not going to get angry over you snapping at me. So, what is he? Ranger?'

"Yes."

'Ah. Good to know. Well, he should be up in a bit. Anything else you wished to know?'

"Actually, I know the guild leader wanted to have a word with you, but..." She gestured at Artok's immobile form.

'I see...well, your teammates will be returned to you in a few minutes. You'll just have to wait for them to come back.'

"Of course." She nodded, then turned back towards Elistria. She wasn't well versed in healing, magical or otherwise, but she had to do something.

*****

"Hello."

The adventurer jumped, whirling around with his hand on the pommel of his sword, before stopping.

"What the fuck? Dude! You scared the crap out of me!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Said the other adventurer as he chuckled, and held his hands up. "Bad habits die hard. I have a tendency to make my step light wherever I go. Didn't mean to spook you."

The first adventurer, an iron ranked one, relaxed at the other's friendly demeanor.

"That's alright. You're not the first one to sneak up on people on accident." He looked around, his face suddenly serious. "We're still in a wasteland. The ambient mana helps a lot, but the mesas, the sand...It keeps reminding us of where we are. We're all a bit on our guard because of that."

The other adventurer, steel ranked, nodded. They were, after all, in a place all adventurers were told to fear, and with good reason.

"Yeah, me too. It gives me the creeps sometimes."

The iron ranked nodded empathetically.

"Yeah. Kind of like lady Aubétoile. Fuck me, most of the time she's just normal, but I've seen her alone once, looking over one of her maps. I'll never forget those eyes. She looked colder than a frost dragon. I don't know what she was thinking about, and I don't wanna know."

The steel ranked's eyes lit up.

"You met the lady?"

The iron ranked shifted from one foot to another.

"Well, not exactly..."

The steel ranked adventurer laughed, and clapped his new friend on the shoulder.

"I see how it is! Come on, let's not stay here in the middle of the sand." He gestured at the nearby tent, where the iron ranked was moving towards before he scared him. "Let's go wet our whistles. You can tell me all about your encounter with our dashing lady there. I'll buy you your first drink, as an apology for sneaking up on you."

The iron ranked adventurer's face lit up.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me twice, come on, uh...Fuck, I'm so rude, I didn't ask your name!"

The steel ranked laughed.

"My friends call me Neptunite."

"What, like the precious stone?"

The steel ranked adventurer smiled.

"Yeah, exactly! Don't ask where it came from, it's a looong story!"

"Well, we'll have time, won't we? We're not moving from here for a while!"

Neptunite nodded.

"Of course we aren't. Now come on! We have drinks to buy, stories to tell, and I seriously need to get off my legs."

No need to mention that the reason why he needed some rest was because he'd spent the night trekking through the desert with his unit. It wouldn't do to announce himself as a Republic operative.

Besides, if his new 'friend' had as much of a loose tongue as he suspected, his comrades would have plenty of targets to make their presence known. That noble sounded like a good start. A scramble for power always did nicely to destabilize a place, and it was so much more effective in the Asarian Kingdom. Their nobles would be too busy to stab each other in the back to defend the expeditionary camp, or the dungeon, and it's oh-so-precious core if it came down to it. By the time they realized what had happened, he and his teammates would be looong gone.