The Wolfe brothers had gathered around me, abandoning the warmth of the campfire. Off in one corner of the cave Kuzu and Lisa talked, though it seemed Lisa was more interested in showing off her one-piece yellow dress. I was still on the ground, though thankfully Lance had wrapped my ankle up. He’d gotten a bit rough after Lisa appeared but it was a decent job.

“Where’d she come from?” Adam asked, his voice almost a whisper.

“Twenty-second floor, remember the canvas bag?”

“Ya had a little girl shoved in that bag this whole time?” Lance growled at me as he inched in a little closer.

All I could do was sigh as I rubbed my eyes. While it was cute that Lance seemed upset over how I’d had Lisa in a bag this whole time, the fact that he didn’t understand why was tedious. “Do you know anything about Architects?”

“Of course, there are a lot of architects back in Heron,” Adam answered.

“Probably not what I’m talking about,” I said, since Heron’s technology was nowhere close to what an Architect would bring, “how about this, she was asleep and I required the crystal to wake her up.”

Adam mused on that while his brother stomped angrily over near the entrance to the cave. “Why do I think you’re skipped important details?” Adam finally asked after a little bit of time.

“Because I am,” I replied honestly before I reached up with my hand, “mind helping me up? I’m going to need to find something to use as crutch.”

“Lance,” Adam called to his brother as he helped me up off the ground, “go see if you can find a branch for Fenix.”

“Yea, whatever,” Lance muttered as he walked out of the cave and into the thick rain outside.

“Are you sure bringing a little girl along is a good idea?”

“She can take care of herself, but we’re going to need to take a small break to wait for me to recover a little though. Any idea on safe areas on the next few floors?”

“I was thinking about that myself, we can probably stop in with some friends I know on floor twenty-seven.” Adam nodded his head. “They’re a nice family who have been friends of mine since I first started.”

“I see.” I leaned against the wall of the cave with one hand. It took a great deal of concentration to not use the injured ankle.

Kuzu and Lisa walked over to join us while they held hands. Lisa beamed with happiness as she almost skipped next to Kuzu. “She seems fine,” Kuzu told me, “she said some guy named Markov left instructions in her.”

“This is so neat!” Lisa exclaimed as she held up her free hand in front of her face and looked at it.

Kuzu’s left ear flicked in response to that, though she smiled openly. “Did you pick up another crystal? I figured you’re doing the ritual here.”

I shook my head in response, but then decided to expand on that, “We’re heading to the twenty-seventh floor. Adam says we can find shelter there and I can do it then.”

“Ritual?” Adam inquired, one eyebrow cocked up inquisitively.

I studied him, from the tips of his green hair all the way down to his simple looking boots. I wondered at the potential for magic that he could have, since he already had a lot of experience in using ranged attacks. What sort of psychological impact would the power of magic have on a man such as him?

Kuzu remained quiet while I stared at Adam, our years together had attuned her to my thought patterns. It was Lisa who broke the silence caused by Adam’s question as she stepped over and tugged at my hand. “I think we can trust him!”

It was hard to say no to her, and so with a sigh I merely gave a nod. “You’re probably right,” I said with a light pat on her head, “but now isn’t the right time for that discussion.”

“Adam!” called out a loud voice from outside of the cave before Lance burst in through the rain. He held a long stick in one hand, but in the other he had a dagger coated in blood.

“Lance! Are you alright?” Adam stepped over to his brother and looked him over for any injuries.

“Gnome hunters and warlocks are coming!” Lance half-shouted as he tossed the stick over to me.

It was easy enough to catch and without a moment to waste I began to rely on it as a crutch. “Kuzu, take my sword!”

Kuzu ran over and bent down to pick up the weapon before she dashed to the cave entrance. Her tail had begun to puff up while her ears flattened as she prepared for combat. “I’ll meet up with you at the portal then,” she told us all before she vanished into the rain.

The brothers watched her actions with confusion, and then they glanced at me with their unasked question written on their faces. “Where’d she go?” Lisa asked as she tugged at my clothing.

“She’s running interference, we need to get to the portal now,” I told everyone as I started to limp to the exit, “Lisa can you grab my pistol and bag?”

“Sure thing, daddy!”

While Lisa instantly responded to what I’d wanted, Lance stepped over to me and started to yell, “Are you insane! She’s going to die if she goes up against all those patrols!”

“Don’t worry about Kuzu, she’s probably the second deadliest person in our party,” I told the fuming Lance. As I stepped out into the rain it was quick to soak me to the bone, and I could only marvel at the miserable state of the weather.

“Makes you the strongest then?” Adam asked as he followed after me as we left his brother to pick up the rest of the gear in the cave.

I could only scoff at that as I motioned to my injured ankle. “Not with this injury, plus I used up a lot of my magic for now. I’m probably the fourth deadliest right now.”

It was a comment that brought a smile to Adam’s face, though he didn’t say another word. From nearby I could hear the grumbling of Lance as he caught up to us with all of the gear on his back.

“Father, Kuzu is fighting now,” Lisa said from beside me.

“You’re still linked to the watches and glasses?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said with a big smile on her face, “I thought it’d be a good idea!”

“It was, nice work,” I told Lisa before I turned my attention to my own watch. The embedded compass was our only way to find the portal out of this floor.

We pushed our way across that wasteland, the weather not once offering a respite for us. Instead our way forward lay through mud and partially flooded rocklands, with only a handful of flora even noticeable. Similar to how the goblins had laid waste to their own floor it seemed that the warlocks had sought to devour everything living or usable on their own floor.

Hours later we managed to crest a small hill, and in front of us a white orb glowed amongst a gathering of ruins. Lightning criss-crossed the sky momentarily and pointedly illuminated what had to have once been a beautiful small city, but had since been destroyed by the warlocks.

We gathered around the portal, and the Wolfe brothers even reached out to touch the warm sphere. “Now Kuzu needs to get here,” I commented, hoping they’d get the hint that I didn’t want to leave her behind.

The wait was not long for her to arrive, as only an hour passed before Lisa giggled, “She’s coming!”

When Kuzu came into view over the crest of a hill she was in a dead run, and the reason for that became obvious when the army of gnomes behind her appeared. “Go go go!” she yelled out from afar, waving at us while arrows flew up from behind her.

“Get going!” I barked at the Wolfe brothers, as I prepared to call on the last reserves of my magic if needed.

“Don’t let her die,” Lisa asked of me before she stood up on her tiptoes and touched the portal. A flicker came from the sphere, almost as though it had responded to her, and then she was gone.

The Wolfe brothers hesitated, especially Lance, but in the end I think it was because Lisa had already gone through that they followed suit. After they were gone I turned my attention back to the distant kitsune. “Kuzu! Bubble!” I cried out as loudly as I could, hoping she’d hear me over the rain and thunder.

Still yards away from the portal Kuzu came to a halt, but as she slid to a stop her hands touched down against the muddy ground. The change in what she’d done caused a cry of excitement from the gnomes behind her as they thought she’d tripped, and with renewed eagerness they increased their pace.

Behind Kuzu a wall of ice erupted as though it drew upon the rain to form itself. The wall lifted upward far higher than it probably needed to, and then it arced in the direction of the portal. The left and right sides of the wall curled inward, and soon enough a dome of ice had been created that covered where Kuzu and I were.

I limped over to Kuzu as quickly as I could and offered her my free hand. She took it, but as she stood up the exhaustion was obvious. Her face was covered in fatigue and her color was pale, while every step was slow. Blood had splattered on her here and there, though from what I could tell it wasn’t her own.

“Here we go Kuzu, time for the next floor,” I told her in a gentle tone as I helped her over to the portal, and then I even lifted her hand up to touch it against the sphere, “focus on the next floor alright?”

While she vanished the noise of weapons on ice was easy enough for me to hear. The gnomes worked hard at breaking what Kuzu had created, and I knew that soon enough they’d break through. If I’d had all of my gear I could’ve left a mine behind to dissuade them, but with my current gear all I could do was touch the portal as well.

Floor 26

The Goat Riders

Where we appeared was a flat plateau that was high enough for clouds to be within a couple of arms reach. It was a place so barren of plants that it looked impossible for anything to survive, but I knew that wasn’t the case. Lisa stood near Kuzu with a worried expression, while Lance had moved over to help support her.

I gave a nod of approval at Lance, though if I hadn’t had a broken ankle I would’ve supported Kuzu myself. “We’re going to want to move, that army is probably going to chase after us,” I told them, “I know we planned to bunker down on the next floor but is there anywhere we can take a quick break at? I don’t think Kuzu can reach the portal.”

“There’s one spot, it has a creek near it too,” Adam told me before he walked to the edge of the plateau. Without another word he slipped over the side of the plateau and began a descent down the rocky terrain.

For me the climb down was far more difficult than I could recall, though it made sense given my current situation. With one good foot I had to pick my way even more carefully than normal, though since Lance had opted to carry Kuzu on his back I wasn’t the only person moving slowly. Lisa on the other hand had fun as she simply jumped from one small rock to the next, her tiny feet and small body finding plenty of footholds that could support her.

When we reached the bottom Kuzu got down from Lance’s back, though neither he nor I let her walk completely alone. Lisa walked in front of us, though behind Adam, and every so often she would twirl or let out a small little tune. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at how much fun she seemed to be having now that she had an actual body.

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

We’d reached a small area nestled between some hills a bit of a distance from the portal. When we’d finally stopped walking Kuzu had collapsed, and so I’d set her down on a blanket. Near us a small stream ran with fresh water, and Lisa had helped me to clean most of the blood off of Kuzu while she slept.

Exhausted I sat down on a rock and looked up at the sky. This floor was similar to the previous in that it had a lot of cloud coverage, but there was no rain or lightning. Instead a sun sat on the other side of the clouds and teased at us with a hint of warmth.

Adam walked over to where I sat and offered me some type of hard cracker. “So is she going to be alright?” he whispered to me, as though afraid to wake up Kuzu.

I took the offered cracker and tried to eat some of it, only to find that it was almost as hard as the rock I sat on. “You probably think that magic has no limits, right? Just like anything else magic requires energy, run out of energy and you end up like that.”

“Will she recover?”

“A single nights rest is all she needs to get back on her feet,” I told him, though I lifted up one finger, “however she won’t be at full capacity. Recovering all the way takes time, but she should at least be able to throw around a few icicles.”

I glanced over at the unconscious Kuzu, and at my daughter who had nestled up next to her and started to take a nap. “One to go,” I murmured to myself as I stared at Lisa.

There was a clatter of rocks from the top of a nearby hill, and when I looked I saw a small figure on top of a horned creature. Recognition flashed through my mind, and in one fluid movement I pulled out one of my last throwing knives and threw it straight into the gnome’s head.

My reflexes were fast enough to land the hit, but the gnome rider had already pulled out a curved horn and started to blow into it when he was struck. The rider fell from his steed even as what he’d managed to sound on his horn reverberated off of the hillsides. Before the corpse had even finished rolling down into the gully Adam had called to the others in alarm.

Off in the distance the noise of more horns could be heard as the gnomes tried to figure out where the first call had come from, it was a sound meant that we had limited time before the riders would bring the rest of the gnomes on us.

By the time I had picked up my sword and pistol from nearby Lisa, the first of the gnomes had arrived. Each of them rode a goat that was far from what lived on the first floor. Rather than hooves they had claws, and their horns and overall bodies were hardier than the regular goat. I’d once seen one fall from the top of a plateau and get back up without a scratch.

When some of the goat riders hurtled down from the top of the hill at us Lance responded, his long daggers aimed at whatever came into range. From behind him his brother used his pistol to lay down support fire, and together they worked hard at butchering the small wave of gnome riders. After the first couple that died they fell into a rhythm of Adam killing the gnome, and then Lance would finish off the riderless goats.

I cursed myself for how useless I was, not to mention how I’d forgotten the fact that the goat riders could track our smell. With a sword in my left hand I held my Flagra in the right, and anytime a gnome rider came in from a different direction than the front I was forced to deal with them. My ankle screamed in protest as I stood directly on it, the stick forgotten as I tried to rely on adrenaline to push through the pain.

As the fight continued and more gnomes started to appear it became obvious we were in a bad situation. The army we’d evaded on the previous floor had started to trickle in, and at the far back a single warlock hovered and patiently waited. “Adam!” I called out to the brother, but I soon realized how pointless it was to try and get him to snipe the warlock.

The Wolfe brothers had been swarmed over by the gnomes and were far too busy to do anything but defend themselves. A couple of the gnomes had gotten lucky and landed cuts on Lance, though his brother had somehow evaded injury so far. Gone was their strategy of support as they had instead fallen into a back-to-back stratagem.

I gritted my teeth as I looked down near me at the unconscious Kuzu and my daughter. Lisa had put herself into a place as though to be a shield for the kitsune. When I looked at her, though, I realized that there was only one choice left given the situation.

“Lisa! Did Markov give you the Heredity Gift?” I asked my daughter as I sliced the head off of a gnome. It was a question that I already knew the answer to.

Lisa’s eyes glazed over as I could only assume she searched the information Markov had left her, and then she smiled and nodded her head. “Yes! Are you asking me to use it?”

“If you don’t at least one of us is going to die!”

When she stood she was still smaller than any gnome, and yet when Lisa rose up from her place next to Kuzu all of the gnomes backed away. Inside their minds they could probably feel that internal alarm of fear as it told them to run, a sensation that I knew since I could feel it as well. The air itself seemed to ripple around Lisa with every step, while a halo began to form over her head.

A single pair of silver wings emerged out from the back of Lisa’s dress, and the halo glowed a brilliant gold that illuminated the entire battlefield. There was a moment of silence as every single participant of the fight paused to look at my daughter, and from afar the screech of the warlock was one filled with terror. Lisa lifted up her right hand toward the heavens as though to beseech aid from whatever lay above.

“Luticia system activated,” she murmured in such a quiet voice that I was certain only I heard her.

It was not magic that came from her hand but rather raw energy, and that energy was coalesced into a sword that shone much like her halo. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, and almost as though the summoning of the sword itself did it she started to float upward off of the ground. Though she didn’t need to walk my daughter took one step forward while she swung the sword down.

When the tip of the sword touched the ground she was on the other side of the warlock, at least fifty feet away from where she’d been. With the sound of shattered glass the sword she held broke apart and disintegrated into nothing, and slowly Lisa turned to look back at all of us. The silence of the battlefield continued as everyone tried to figure out where she’d gone, and it was perhaps only I who even understood what she’d done.

Luticia had created the labyrinth for a reason, and one of the side effects of going through it was that you either grew stronger or you died. So it was that everyone learned the chain of strength, that a regular human would lose to a regular orc, that a regular orc would be destroyed by a shifter, that shifters would always lose to avians. That was how it went all the way up to the Architects, with only Luticia herself above them in strength.

Markov had been a genius of an Architect and our time together had changed how he perceived the beings of the lower floors. While most of the Architects felt that they were all that mattered, Markov had believed cooperation and coexistence was the best approach. Perhaps his last and greatest creation had been the body that stood in front of us

The gathered gnome army fell down one by one, their bodies sliced into numerous chunks that were so precise that I expected even the blood had been severed at the cellular level. The warlock itself split right down the middle. While Adam and Lance could only gape at the defeat of what had almost killed them, I walked over to Lisa, worried that what she’d done might have caused damage to her.

“Did I do alright, daddy?”