Chapter 49.2

It had taken Jason a few minute’s worth of [Arcane Reconstruction] to put the punts back together while the others gathered up the loot and assessed injuries. That had put a significant enough drain on his mana that he was going to need a few least potions, and he wasn’t the only one in need of a top-up, either. Ravs had actually broken her arm when the punt had been smashed, Kera had taken some fairly extensive wounds from the bogri, and Lumi had drained much of her own mana in trying to prevent the same from both happening to her and her vessel.

Once potions had been distributed and everyone was back in their respective punts -or treading water in her aqua-kitsune form, in Kera’s case- Lumi called a strategy session while the potions got to work.

“First off…holy shit Jason, you’ve been holding out on us,” Lumi exclaimed. “I mean seriously, what the fuck was all that?”

Jason coughed nervously. “I, uh… may have been playing it more than a little too safe in the past weeks, after the whole arrow debacle. There’s… a lot of nasty things I could be doing that I’m hesitant to make use of, because, well… it’s not like this is some kind of game with options to turn of friendly fire, you know?”

He gave Lumi a wry grin and shrugged with embarrassment. “But at least with Shard… well um, I enchant him to be a really good shot so that hopefully that wasn’t going to be a problem, and…”

Lumi held up a hand, interrupting him. “Alright, I get it. Moving on. Ravs, Aldin? Those bogri were far and above anything we’ve seen so far, and I don’t remember hearing about anything like that from the scouts. Any thoughts on why there are suddenly patrols where there weren’t before, nor did the scouts report any such thing? Were we just unlucky, or is there some other reason?”

“There is a reason,” Ravs said calmly. “By now, most everyone will have entered the Claim, and the Dungeon is reacting to the presence of so many people. Remember, it thinks of us as food. When there is a single small group headed directly in, there is no reason for the dungeon to act…but when food is plentiful, and traveling in many different directions, it will work hard to get every last scrap.”

“That… makes a terrifying kind of sense,” Jason said. “Please tell me it doesn’t know exactly where we are at all times?”

“It does not,” Ravs replied. “It is not.. truly aware enough unless we come into its Core Room.”

Lumi blew out a sigh of relief. “Well that’s a load off my mind, too, thanks for that terrifying thought, Jason.”

She continued with a look towards Jason. “Next up, loot. What’d we get?”

“Some good stuff, but not much of immediate use, unless you want me to spend time experimenting,” he replied. “More [Aquatic Sweetbreads], several jars’ worth of [Bogri Slime]… quite a few random plants I haven't had a chance to identify yet, either; apparently one of the baskets had stuff in it. And then of course, there’s this….”

Jason hefted the trident that one of the murklings he’d killed had left behind after despawning. He gestured to the simple rune script that twined its way up the haft.

“This here’s a [Trident of Swift Swimming], and I actually learned two runes off of, both of which I really wish I’d had before we started.”

“What runes?” Sylvia asked with curiosity.

“Swim and Velocity,” Jason replied.

Lumi’s eyes went wide. “Velocity, seriously? Is it open-ended, or specific to movement speeds or…?”

Jason gave her a wide grin. “Oh its very open ended, like most runes. For that matter, so is Swim. Both of them make me want to rub my hands together and laugh forebodingly.”

“No mad science!” Kera said firmly, swimming in a sudden circle with agitation. “You’ve already almost killed yourself several times now.”

Jason wanted to blow a raspberry at her, just to lighten the mood, but decided would be kinda gross with the helmet on, so he refrained.

“Fiiiine,” he said in mock resignation, instead.

“Back on topic, we’re on the clock here,” Lumi insisted. “Jason, go ahead and store our loot; we’ll check things out as we go but unless something is immediately relevant to someone’s skill-set, we’ll wait until we’re back safe and sound to divvy up.”

“Next order of business: we clearly need to start scouting ahead. Kera, anything you have for us on that front?”

“I can!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I’ve been practicing this in my free time in case there was ever a time I didn’t want to risk Ceri. It’s hard, and I’ll need to sit in a boat to do it probably because I need a lot of concentration to pilot two at once, but I’ve got those two summon spells, [Murderous Crow] and [Spider Spy]. The spider works a lot like when I’m controlling Ceri, but its slow. So I thought.. why not give it something ride? It’s tiny after all.”

“The crow I can give orders to mentally, but I can’t actually see what it’s seeing so normally I can only direct it places in light of sight. But together? Then I can watch through the spider’s eyes and give commands to the crow way outside my own visual range, up to a few miles. More than enough for here.”

Lumi cursed quietly. “You really should tell me about stuff like that, Kera. We definitely should’ve been using something like that, at least every so often to have a better look around, rather than you sending Ceri out. We could've had Jason bring a spare boat.”

“Sorry,” Kera replied, hunching her shoulders slightly. “Its a bit mana intensive, so I hadn’t thought it was really… ready, I guess?”

Lumi waved a hand. “Look its fine, just tell me next time when you’re working in stuff like that.”

She rested her chin on the back of her hand while she glanced around the swamp briefly. After a moment of thinking, she spoke again.

“Alright. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Kera, you’re in the boat with Jason and I for now. I want you scouting ahead to check for patrols while we move on, we’ve already wasted more time than I’d like. Jason, you’ll be putting Shard away whenever Kera’s with us, since there’s no room. Once we get to the next island room, we’ll start having Kera scout for patrols between us and our destination first, just a quick aerial recon, before deciding how to proceed.”

“Everyone topped up by now?” she asked.

Jason checked his status briefly and then nodded alongside everyone else.

“Alright, lets move out!”