Chapter Ninety - Cleanup

The girls were busy staring off into empty air with vacant expressions. I wondered if I looked as dumb while looking at Mister Menu. I would ask, but Amaryllis would just tell me that I looked dumb regardless, and Awen was too sweet to tell the truth if it might hurt my feelings. “I’m gonna look for my stuff,” I said.

I had to find my backpack, what was left of my spade, and my knife. The latter had disappeared at some point during the fight with the wyvern but I couldn’t remember when.

Walking around the pillars was a little strange when there wasn’t a big dragon-like monster waiting to chow on me. It gave me more time to stare at all the pretty ways the light bounced off of the glass and sent little rainbows all over.

I found my knife first. There was a chip in the blade, but it was probably still serviceable. Then I found my spade.

Sighing, I picked up the bent metal head by the half-dozen centimeters of handle still stuck to it. It was rather finished. I rubbed a thumb over the J embossed on its surface. It had served me well. Maybe I could get someone to repair it?

Then I wandered over to the entrance and found my backpack unceremoniously dumped to the side. Orange was guarding it. Or maybe she was using it as a pillow. It was hard to tell when the spirit cat was slumped on her side over the sack, her sides moving up and down with gentle breathing.

I stared at her for a moment. Had she gotten bigger?

“Heya Orange,” I said as I wrapped my hands around her waist and lifted her up. Her body slinked down like the liquid it was. “You are getting bigger!” I declared.

Orange stared at me, her little legs sticking out ahead of her like someone who had just watched Thriller and was doing the zombie dance. Or maybe someone that wanted a hug?

I pressed her against my chest until she started clawing and squirming.

Setting the kitty down with a giggle, I picked up my backpack, tossed my spade into it, then shrugged it on. “Let’s go see the others,” I said.

I skipped back in time to find Amaryllis staring at her talons which were sparking with magic. She had a strange look on her face, a cross between curiosity and smugness. “Ah, you’re back,” she said.

Awen smiled wide at me. “I have a new class!” she said. “T-two of them.”

“Two of them?” I wondered.

She nodded. “I reached level ten. Um. I decided to take the Glass Cannon class as my second. It seems nice!”

“Oh,” I said. “I can have that one too, right?” I asked.

Amaryllis nodded. “It should be available for you once you hit your tenth level, yes. I’m going to wait until we reach the Palace of Strings. Glass Cannon doesn’t seem like a class that will mesh well with my current, evolved class.”

“Oh, so what are your new classes?” I asked. It was really easy to get swept up in the excitement. It was like learning that your friends had gotten cool new toys.

“Awa, I’m a Wyrmgineer now,” Awen said with obvious pride. “I, I never heard of the class, but it’s an offshoot of Mechanic. I... the description for it is not very precise, but it sounds strong.”

“Anything with something draconic in its title will probably be formidable,” Amaryllis said. “Did it change any of your skills?”

I blinked. “Skills change when your class evolves?”

Amaryllis nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Awa, my Book Smart skill changed to Bookwyrm. Ah, the description used to be about it helping me read and remember things I read, but now it, ah, lets me sniff out the value of books? And... If I sleep on a pile of books I absorb some of the knowledge?”

Amaryllis tilted her head to the side. “I’ll admit, I’m not sure if that’s an improvement or not.”

Awen shrugged.

“I have some books you can, ah, sleep on,” I said. That was a bit strange, but maybe it would come in handy? “What about you, Amaryllis?”

Amaryllis’ chest puffed out and she placed her hands on her hips. “I’ve unlocked the exceptionally rare Thundere class.”

My teeth clacked as I shut my mouth, tightened my jaw, and tried hard not to laugh.

I suspect my eyes betrayed me because Amaryllis glared right back at me. “What are you smiling about, you idiot?”

A snort escaped and I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep it in. “Nothing!” I lied.

“You moron. You have no idea how rare that class is. It lets me branch out into more offensive spells. My Thunder Clap skill, which was mostly a sound based distraction and stun, has turned to Thunder Slap, and Electro Stimulus has turned to Electro-Couragement.”

I giggled.

Amaryllis snapped her talons together and a tiny spark zapped me in the forehead.

“Oww!” I complained as I rubbed the spot in the middle of my head she had buzzed. It didn’t hurt much more than licking a battery did, but it was still very rude.

“Serves you right for being such a fool,” Amaryllis said. She brushed her wings off and nodded to herself. “If we’re all done looking at our numbers going up, I think we should get going.”

I pouted, but she was essentially right. “Yeah. Did the Wyvern drop any loot?”

“Awa, I didn’t look,” Awen said.

We started heading towards the middle of the room, taking our time as we went to scour the ground for anything valuable. Personally I was looking for a replacement to my spade.

Instead, we found a pair of goggles.

Awen held them up by their leather straps and looked into the mirrored glass eyepieces.

Enchanted Prismatic Goggles of Magic Seeing, of rare quality, new.

“Now those are nice,” Amaryllis said as she gestured for the goggles. Awen handed them over without protest.

The harpy slid them on and looked around, then she frowned a bit before a grin crossed her features. “Ah, you need to push mana into them. It’s not a passive enchantment.”

“What’s it do?” I asked.

She took them off and handed them over instead of answering.

Holding the goggles to my face, I stared at... a completely normal world. There wasn’t any difference from looking around normally. Then I pushed a bit of mana into the goggles. Amaryllis and Awen both started glowing, most of all, some of their equipment started to glow. Amaryllis’ ring and dagger especially, each with a swirl of different colours I couldn’t guess at.

Pushing some mana into my hand made it glow too, not that it didn’t already glow a bit.

“Neat,” I said. “I guess this one is for Amaryllis, she’s our caster.”

“I wouldn’t say no to it,” Amaryllis said.

“Awa, I got a crossbow and a knife. I think Amaryllis should have it too.”

My harpy friend slid the goggles on, then let them fall to rest around her neck. “Well, let’s get out of this place.”

I nodded, then remembered why we were here in the first place.

Pruning the Evil

You have heard of the location of a corrupted dungeon. Explore it, find any signs of great Evil. Eradicate them!

We hadn’t seen any signs of evil, great or otherwise. But, if this dungeon was anything like the Wonderland dungeon in Threewells, then there was a good chance that the trouble would be centred around the dungeon’s core. “We need to find the access thing to the dungeon core,” I said.

Amaryllis stopped and eyed me. “Broccoli, it’s... kind of a faux-pas to enter a dungeon’s core room.”

I shrugged. “It’s for my quest? And besides, dungeons are made by the world, right?”

“That’s the prevailing theory, yes.”

“And the world gave me a quest to check out this dungeon, yeah?”

She nodded. “That’s fair, I suppose.”

Grinning, I skipped ahead of her and made for the middle of the boss room. Just as in the Wonderland dungeon, there was a circle of pillars here, each one equidistant with an open space in the centre. Two of the pillars had portals floating within them. One showed a hazy image of the outside world. I could see Moon Moon sprawled out on a rock, fast asleep with one leg twitching as if he was chasing something in his dreams. The moon’s light bathed the glassy valley in soft blues and pale whites.

The other portal...

My heart sank.

There was the familiar egg-shaped core, all shiny and glowy atop a glassy plinth. The core room was brightly lit, and quite pretty, with mirrored walls and lacy bits of glass running across the ground. But there were cracks in those walls, the ceiling was warped, and worst of all, a long, tentacle-like root was sticking out of the wall and wrapped around the core.

“Oh no,” I said.

Quest Update!

Pruning the Evil

You have found an Evil Root. Destroy it to Cleanse the Land!

“That’s strange,” Amaryllis said.

I swallowed. “It’s an Evil Root. My quest updated. It wants me to destroy it.”

Amaryllis stared at me. “Seriously? It’s right next to the core.”

“I know,” I said. “Cleaning magic might work on it?”

She frowned. “As long as you don’t so much as scratch the core, I don’t suppose it’s that bad,” she said.

I nodded. “I guess we can try.” I took off my backpack and handed it to Awen who hugged it close. “Watch over my stuff, please?” I asked before stepping up to the portal.

As with the last one, walking through it was as easy as... well, walking through a normal doorway. If it was some sort of teleportation, then it was really smooth.

The core room was suffused with magic. I could feel it in the air, taste it, almost. My affinity for magic had definitely improved since the last time I’d been in a room like that.

The core itself was bright and shiny and it felt... nice? No, not nice. I had the impression that it was pushing off this sense of calm serenity, almost a physical emotion that tinged the air like a perfume. It was a bit strange, but not unpleasant.

The root, on the other hand, looked wrong. There was an indescribable sense that it didn’t belong, that it was in a place it shouldn’t be. The dimensions of it were also... off. One moment it seemed like the sort of thin root that occasionally poked out of the ground, the next it looked as if there was so much weight to it, that it should have been taking up more room than was available in the room. It made my tummy queasy.

I reached out to the root and carefully placed a hand against it.

I had a lot more ranks to my cleaning magic now, and I was stronger besides.

I fired a small burst of cleaning magic into the root. Nothing happened. That was to be expected. My next hit was stronger still. Nothing again.

Frowning, I looked at my stats in a hurry.

Mana 272/115

I focused on my cleaning skill and tried to imagine a sort of... blade of cleaning magic, something that could cut through the root’s defences.

More and more mana poured into a powerful cleaning spell until I was almost running out.

I fired.

A burst of brilliant light shot out of my hand and rammed into the root hard enough to make the room tremble.

Nothing.

“Dang it!”

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Cleaning skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank A Costs 3 Class Skill Points!

“Oh,” I said.

Well, Cleaning had been pretty close to ranking up for a while. And I had been saving up my skill points for just that occasion.

Cleaning

Rank A -00%

The ability to Clean. You are exceptionally good at tidying up and washing off. Effectiveness of cleaning is marginally increased. You may now use mana to clean things you see. You are so clean that the world around you shifts to match your cleanliness.

I paused for a moment, wondering what that last bit meant. Did I have an aura of clean now? That was neat. Pun marginally intended.

“How is it going?” Amaryllis asked as she stepped into the room. Her voice was pitched low and almost... reverent. It was very much unlike her self-assured, snobby drawl. Awen followed after her, still hugging my pack close to her chest. She stared around with open-mouth-wonder.

“It’s... going,” I said. “I want to try Clean again. Then maybe we can try cutting at this thing with a knife or something.”

Amaryllis eyed the root with lips that curled up. “That won’t work. The knife idea. That thing, whatever it is, is a mana construct of some sort. It’s going to be fairly resistant to physical blows. More so than magic.”

I hummed. “Well, we can try anyway.”

Raising my hand up, I prepared to give it my all.

***