Chapter 13 - First Contact VI

Claire wandered around the dungeon with no particular destination in mind. She had tried sticking to right turns at first, but a brief period of exploration convinced her that it was impossible. The path was often blocked by monsters that she didn’t quite feel ready to tackle, the most terrifying of which had been a pair of hellhogs in the midst of a conflict. She had been tempted to wait and see if the duel’s winner came out crippled, at first, but shelved the idea upon realizing that the contest was more of a friendly squabble than a life-threatening duel. They had only charged at each other, bashing their heads together. Neither used any of the deadlier tools that were their arms, jaws, or spines.

Maybe it’s some sort of primitive ritual...

Every other monster she encountered was an eggeye. The ovular bats could be found hanging from the ceilings both in isolation and in groups of up to ten. Much to her surprise, most looked more like the tiny-winged one she’d found than the two that had fallen to the hellhog. She had no idea how threatening they would be in combat, but she erred on the side of caution and did her best to avoid them.

Wait… did I just go right or left?

All the twisting, turning, and backtracking made it difficult for Claire to recall exactly which paths she had taken and not even all the baseless confidence in the world could bolster her memory to the point of serviceability. That said, she wasn’t without a solution. Recalling that the moss wouldn’t regenerate, she began leaving a mark at every crossroads she passed, an arrow pointing in the direction of her origin. Returning to her safe zone was made as easy as following the markings carved into the floor.

The seemingly extraneous amount of effort that the halfbreed spent tiptoeing about wasn’t without benefit. Sneaking reached level 5 by the time the environment around her began to change. At its base, it was still just a system of caves, but the further from her bedchamber she got, the brighter and greener her surroundings became. Grasses covered the floors and vines ran along the walls. She even spotted the occasional root hanging from the ceiling, each of which was covered in a layer of soil whose origins went unexplained.

Why are there so many plants? And where is all this light coming from?

Claire was unable to make any meaningful deductions. The only thing she knew for certain was that the glowing rocks had nothing to do with the shift in the environment.

They’re not any brighter than the ones in my safe zone. I think they might even be dimmer.

Accompanying the change in the landscape was an equally drastic change in the soundscape. While both the dripping of water and the odd cave-sound were still present, they were no longer her main focus, overpowered by the skittering of critters and the grinding of teeth against stone. She could tell, even without the use of her eyes, that there were caveveabers lurking within the walls. Seeing no reason not to proceed, the halfbreed followed her ears, tracking the rodents to their source.

A few twists and turns later, she found herself gazing at a large, spiralling corridor, much like the one that had led her to the horse-faced knight. This time, the passage led upwards, its distant peak too far away for her to see with the naked eye. Another stark difference was that it was more open, its shape much closer to that of a hollow cylinder than an upside down cone. The ascending pathway hugged the walls circling the room’s exterior, leaving the center wide open, empty, save for a system of roots that seemed to extend all the way from the ceiling.

Claire paused for a moment to consider her options. She had no idea how many veabers there were in the corridor, but the amount of skittering gave the impression that the precise headcount was somewhere between a lot and too many. Either way, there was likely to be a wave of bodies that she would find impossible to stand against. But there was also an escape route.

The mass of plants was only about ten meters out from the edge. She was confident she could leap off the path and stop herself from falling by grabbing one of the many woody tendrils that extended from the room’s centerpiece, even if the veabers threatened to overwhelm her. That, of course, was no reason to take an unnecessary risk, but her curiosity drove her forward. An itch in the back of her mind was bothering her to no end. She was dying to know what there was to be found at the top of the twisted slope. Not literally, of course. Or at least she hoped not.

I bet there’s a beautiful meadow up there. Or maybe even a forest. I wonder what monsters I’ll find.

With a shake of the head, she rid herself of her speculatory thoughts and began the ascent. Her gaze remained focused on her left side. She was convinced that the wall was more dangerous than the pit. Needless to say, she was just as wrong as usual.

An aggressive croak drew her attention to the right after an uneventful period of walking. What awaited her, as she turned her head, was a creature bizarre enough to make her freeze in place. It was somehow both a frog and not a frog at the same time. Its head looked exactly like that of an adult tadpole. It had large, bulging eyes on either side and a mouth that made up its entire face. Four limbs, each ending in a sucker-tipped foot, extended from its sides. Its colours were frog-like too. The top half of its body was a brownish green, while the bottom was a pale muddy white. But that was where the similarities ended. For some odd reason, it had antlers. The sharp jagged objects extending from its skull resembled the makeshift blades Claire had strapped to her bandolier. The only major difference was that the frogs’ blades were still covered in a layer of velvet. Decorating its opposite end was a pudgy tail as long as the rest of its body combined, curled up for storage like that of a chameleon. Though these two features were bizarre, they weren’t by any means its most unfrog-like. The oddest body parts it possessed were its wings, all three pairs of which appeared completely out of place. Two grew from its back legs, and one from its front, all attached to its joints. The white feathered appendages made up the vast majority of the frogs’ volume, nearly tripling its total size. Evidently, its wings were fully functional, as it was hovering in the air roughly five meters out from the helix’s edge.

How are its wings so quiet? It’s like an owl.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, after which the frog determined that, as the larger of the two entities, it had nothing to fear. It leisurely opened its mouth and fired its 10 meter long tongue like a harpoon. As if to compensate for the muscular organ’s sudden extension, the frog’s curled tail retracted, sucked into its body and completely hidden from view. It was a powerful strike, containing enough force to drill straight through the stone wall.

Though Claire had evaded the anuran’s first attack, she had no idea how she was supposed to take it down. It was keeping itself level with the ground, but it was too far out for her to reach without jumping off the stone helix. Many would have argued that, in Claire’s situation, the wisest choice would have been to turn around and sprint away at top speed, but the halfbreed saw no sense in such an evasive solution. She instead followed through on the sensible decision and leapt at the monster with all the force her legs could muster.

I can reach it. It’s not that far.

Evidently, the frog was in accord with those that would have advocated retreat, as it was caught completely off guard by the sudden rush. It wound up with a club in its face and its skull caved into its freshly destroyed brain before it could even finish reeling its tongue back into its tail.

Is it dead?

Claire shot a glance at her log as she grabbed onto the nearest root. Surely, there was an entry confirming her kill. Her suspended position made it so she had to squint to focus on the pale blue box, but she went ahead and read through the latest entries anyway.

Log Entry 520

You have slain a level 19 feathered frogpole.

This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:

- 1 point of strength

- 1 point of wisdom

That was easy. Must be because of Club Mastery.

Log Entry 521

You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your racial class, Halfbreed, has reached level 13.

You have gained 6 ability points.

Log Entry 522

You have unlocked a new spawnable food item.

Better not be frog legs.

Claire grimaced as she recalled the springy texture of boiled frog meat. She could never stand the hard, chewy skin. The way it tugged on her fangs and got stuck between her teeth always made her shudder in revulsion. Even just thinking about it made her flinch and nearly lose her grip.

I should get back to solid ground.

Reminded of her less-than-ideal position, Claire kicked off the sturdy, wooden tendril and launched herself back towards the path. She landed perfectly, a display of dexterity that surprised even the halfbreed herself. She had expected to suffer a few points of damage, given the distance that she fell, but her legs remained perfectly intact. One full rotation’s worth of height was all she lost. It would take her a few minutes to recoup the time spent.

It was worth it. That was an easy level. Looking over the side of the path, Claire frowned. It’s too bad I didn’t grab it in time.

The corpse had wound up a bloody broken mess as it hit the ground. She had wanted to retrieve its antlers to bolster her arsenal.

They’re probably broken, and I’m not going to make a round trip just to check.

Once back to her previous elevation, Claire took a moment to examine the hole left behind by the monster’s tongue. The hole was much wider than it was tall, with the latter dimension being roughly equal to that of one of her thighs. As there weren’t any glowing rocks within the walls, she couldn’t see too far in, but she was at least capable of noting an unreasonable number of veaber-sized holes leading in what seemed to be completely random directions. She wanted to learn more, but one of the cave dwellers decided to grace her with its presence before she could. The rodent didn’t seem interested in anything beyond just passing by at first, but for reasons far beyond her understanding, the fuzzy critter stopped before it fully cleared the fresh opening. Its rump was placed against the hole, completely blocking off her line of sight.

Maybe it’ll leave if I just wait.

It didn’t. The oversized rat refused to budge, even after a count of sixty. That was why she made another sensible decision. She pulled her foot back, aimed, and kicked the poor veaber’s butt, just as any reasonable person would.

A string of angry, confused squeaks came from the now dislodged beast. It spun around and stuck its head out the hole to peek at its assailant, only to find itself meeting the same fate as the frog—a flattened skull. The rodent’s trademark incisors found themselves embedded into the stone, forever stuck lest someone chose to remove them. And it went without saying that Claire had absolutely no intention of being that special someone.

Log Entry 523

You have slain a level 14 caveveaber.

Serves you right, jerk.

Log Entry 524

You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your primary class, Llystletein Rogue, has reached level 12.

You have gained 2 ability points.

I almost forgot I wasn’t just a Rogue anymore.

Claire started to proceed with extra caution after the veaber’s death, glancing back at the hole every few seconds until it was finally out of sight. She was worried that more of them would stream from the walls to avenge their fallen comrade, as they had done during her first encounter.

She did run into the occasional buck-toothed rock eater as she climbed, but most of the enemies she encountered and subsequently defeated were feathered frogpoles. The anuran predators avoided hunting in groups and were unable to put up any meaningful resistance so long as she lunged at them right after they fired their tongues. At first, she focused on using her club, which she knew was capable of killing them with one good hit to the head, but she started using her other weapons on rotation once Club Mastery reached its fifth level. Specializing didn’t seem wise, given that her equipment could break at any moment; she didn’t have any way of replacing it. Surprisingly, they continued to go down just as easily regardless of her weapon of choice. The frogs were nowhere near as durable as the mimic. A stab to the heart or a deep slash to the torso was always enough to constitute a fatal blow. She also discovered, through sheer happenstance, that removing more than two or more of their wings at once would cause them to fall to their deaths. Claire thought of the discovery as a happy accident—a sentiment her amphibian adversaries didn’t quite share.

The only fight that had given her even the slightest bit of trouble was one where she had to take on two flying amphibians at once, and even that was easily resolved with a minor bit of leapfrog. It took a few hours for Claire to reach the top floor, during which she defeated roughly two dozen monsters. She didn’t keep track of the precise kill count, nor did she bother adding them up while she was done. The only notifications she had paid any attention to were the level ups. Llystletein Rogue had finally overtaken her racial class; the two sat at 18 and 15 respectively.

The annihilation of frogkind had generated a decent bit of experience at first, but the returns diminished rapidly as she leveled up. The worst part of all was that not a single one of the encounters beyond the first provided any feat-based bonuses.

I’m probably going to have to start hunting stronger prey if I want more levels and stats.

Another more agreeable surprise was that the long trek hadn’t left the halfbreed short on stamina. If anything, she was feeling energetic and ready for more. She wasn’t even hungry, no doubt in part because the urge to sit down and eat something had been kept at bay by all the blood and guts she’d been exposed to. It didn’t help that she had never really liked frog meat, which according to her mother, meant her taste was abnormal. The long-tailed aristocrat would often demand that the slimy amphibians be added to her meals, regardless of where she was or who she inconvenienced.

After recalling her mother’s toothy grin—and unintentionally copying it—Claire stepped through the large doorway she had arrived at. She’d already seen bits and pieces of the distinctly green biome during her climb, but placing herself within it made for an incomparable experience.

The first change she noticed was that the environment opened up immediately. No longer was she within a cavern with stone walls visible on all sides. In fact, the towering cliff behind her aside, the only piece of rock visible was the tiny platform beneath her feet.

What… is this place?

The canvas she was presented with was mind boggling. It was somehow a meadow, a wetland, and a forest all at once. The vegetation reminded her of a beautiful untamed meadow. The grasses that filled it were as high up as her waist. Their flowers, featuring crowns of all different shapes and sizes, were in full bloom, open wide to entice her approach. Strangely enough, the grasses and flowers both gently swayed in the wind as it blew by. Even though they were almost entirely submerged.

A dark murky liquid covered nearly all of the greenery. There were reeds spread throughout, clearly distinct from the floral meadow plants due to their darker, browner hues. They were accompanied by lotuses, whose dark green leaves and pink blossoms kept much of the muddy water out of sight.

It was an odd scene. Never before had Claire heard of an environment that was half-meadow, half-marsh, let alone one where the two contrasting concepts were integrated so seamlessly. But even that odd fusion paled in comparison to the nonsensical expanse that was the forest. The upside down forest.

The trees grew not from the ground, but rather a second layer of soil and foliage several dozen meters in the air. The tallest individuals had their canopies reach so far that they nearly touched the marshy meadow. She was sure that she could touch them if she stretched. Somehow, when the wind blew, the leaves and fruits growing from their branches fell not towards the ground, but rather the dirt from which the trees extended. It was like gravity was reversed for the space’s third biome. There were birds perched amongst the branches, squirrels bounding up the trees, and even the occasional deer dashing across the forest floor. And like the forest, they were all upside down. When she looked off into the distance, she realized that there was even a sky, one that seemed entirely fictitious and non-present while also simultaneously persistent in all three overlaid realms.

I should keep moving… but I might as well enjoy the scenery while I’m here.

With the backdrop set, the halfbreed decided that it was time for lunch.