Chapter Twenty Eight

Sam, Camille, and John stood outside the dungeon and finished up their preparations for their raid. They had heard about the recent changes to the dungeon from the rest of camp so instead of their normal light gear each of them had a fairly large backpack. Inside was everything they would need to attempt their first overnight stay.

They rushed inside and started to work their way back towards the valley. They avoided touching the stone pillars and checked for spike traps everywhere they went. At first they thought that maybe the changes to the dungeon weren’t as bad as they had heard and wouldn’t even need to stay overnight. Then they hit the first out of many dead ends. The path to the valley was now a confusing mess of twisted hallways instead of a straight corridor it had been. It was hard to say how long it would take to get through the hallways but the one thing they could say for sure was that it would take longer than before.

By the time they reached the valley they only had a few hours of daylight left. Most of the flowers in the valley were worthless or dangerous now, so they went towards one of many trails leading deeper into the valley. Just as they were about to leave the clearing the monsters struck. Two drybolds and their wolves jumped out of the shrubs and all struck at Camille.

All three of them reacted quickly. John lowered his shoulder into one of the jumping wolves and then deflected one of the demi-humans spear thrusts with his sword after that. Sam stepped forward and pushed a spear to the side with her hand before leaving a knife in the demi-humans throat, and Camille stopped the last wolf’s lunge with her shield before drawing her dagger and getting in a fighting position. The demi-human that was still standing and the two wolves stood there for a second. There was a tense atmosphere as both groups just stood there trying to figure out what the others were going to do, and then the monster fled leaving the valley silent.

The trio stayed on the guard, but after a few minutes of waiting they decided it was time to move forward. Before they went Sam walked over to the drybold corpse and picked up its spear.

“It’s too much effort to carry all this stuff back but we can at least force them to make another spear. Plus it looks like it will be the perfect size walking stick for Camille.”

Sam handed the spear to Camille who nodded her thanks and then they continued walking into the forest. After half an hour of slow walking while constantly checking their surroundings they found what they were looking for. It wasn’t a big harvest, but there were a few blood river flowers growing in the middle of a small clearing. As they walked into the clearing John and Camille stood watch while Sam harvested the flowers. Unexpectedly though, nothing attacked them.

Since they finished harvesting the flowers they decided to hike back to the valley’s entrance. The clearing there was larger and they would be able to closer to the dungeons exit in case they needed to make a swift escape. Once there Sam set up one of the perimeter wards the new supply ship brought while John and Camille set up the tents while they still had sunlight. After that they started a fire and then made dinner in the soft glow of twilight.

Once they were done eating they all laid down in their tents and tried to rest. John tried lying on his back, his sides, even his stomach. No matter how he laid he felt like he had rocks digging into him. He got up in the darkness and blindly swept rocks away until he couldn’t find anymore of them under his sleeping pad. He got back on and was more comfortable despite the fact that he had definitely missed a few rocks. He managed to start drifting off to sleep a few times, but everytime he got close an unexpected noise from the wildlife would wake him up. Eventually he gave up and softly called out

“Sam? Camille? Either of you guys awake?”

He waited quietly and after a few moments Sam replied “I’m still up. What do you want?”

John replied “I swear this pad actually makes the rocks sharper. I’m pretty sure they’ll keep me up all night so I figured I might as well see if one of you wanted to make the time pass more quickly.”

Sam laughed “If that’s all then just stop being a baby and ignore them until you go to sleep. That’ll be faster than talking till you're exhausted enough to ignore them. I should know I’ve had to sleep through way worse than that.”

John didn’t want to be the only one labelled a baby so he responded

“You’re up to. If it's so easy why aren’t you already asleep?”

Unfortunately for John Sam had a reasonable response ready for him

“I am up because I haven’t used one of these perimeter ward things before. Being told they will work is all well and good but I am going to stay up for a while and make sure everything is working alright. Once I’m not worried about being stabbed awake by a demi-human I’ll go right to sleep.”

They were both silent for a few minutes until John started talking again after failing to go to sleep.

“Where did you have to sleep through way worse than this? I can’t imagine you camping much.”

There was another pause in the conversation before Sam started talking hesitantly.

“I… had a rough childhood. I was one of the many kids growing up on the streets of Yiiza. Every night I had to try and get a spot inside the church, and if they were full then I had to sleep outside.”

Sam paused before continuing

“That's why I learned to sleep anywhere and sleep lightly. It’s also where I learned not to trust untested defenses. If I had trusted some random method of keeping assholes away I’d probably have been robbed and starved before being buried in a ditch decades ago.”

John hated conversations like this. He knew that it was good and it meant she trusted him but he never knew what to say. It started to feel like he was taking too long to respond so he blurted out

“Err shit. Sorry to bring up bad memories. I thought having to work a farm everyday while I grew up was bad but it looks like I’ve got nothing on you.”

Sam must have been feeling awkward too because she quickly responded

“Ah no I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t alright sharing. Just because I don’t talk about it often doesn’t mean it kills me to talk about it. I already got over it a long time ago.”

John suppressed a yawn

“I guess I better try your “suck it up” method and get to sleep. If I keep this up there’s no point in carrying all this camping gear in.”

After that Sam and John both said “goodnight” and then only the sounds of the forest could be heard.

They woke up when the sun came shining through the leaves. The perimeter rune was untouched and they didn’t see anything dangerous in the surroundings so they started to pack up camp and get ready to delve into the forest again. Once they had eaten breakfast, done some stretches, and readied their weapons they marched off into the forest following a different path from yesterday.

This time there was not anything guarding the entrance to the path. In fact, there weren’t any guardians for the entirety of the path. They got to the end of it and found that instead of finding a clearing with flowers or demi-humans to fight there was a ladder carved into a tree leading upwards. They discussed briefly before deciding that it was worth going up and having a look.

Once at the top they looked around to find that they were surrounded by branches. The ladder had led them all the way to the forest’s canopy. As they continued examining their surroundings they tried to figure out why there was a ladder leading up there. Then they saw the vine paths. From below they hadn’t looked any different from normal vines, but now that they were above them they were very clearly pathways across the treetops.

While deciding if they should go across them or not John turned to Camille and asked

“If we jump off are you good enough with the air rune to keep us from breaking all our legs.”

Camille peered over the side looking at the long drop down and said

“Maybe.”

John bit back the urge to reply sarcastically and asked

“Is maybe good enough for you two? I’m interested in where this leads. Maybe we can get another big payday.”

Sam didn’t think before replying

“I’ll leave this one up to Camille. She’d be the one stopping us from plummeting to the ground after all.”

They both turned towards Camille and she wavered for a bit before saying

“Um. Well. I guess let's give it a try. It would be a shame to have camped for nothing. Plus those pathways are pretty wide so we shouldn’t fall off”

With that said they started to move deeper into the forest while traveling among the canopy. The platforms were wide just like Camille said, but the vines they were made of did not make for great footing. John felt like he had to stare at the ground to make sure he didn’t roll an ankle and slip to his doom.

When they were three quarters of the way to the next tree the creatures defending the pathway struck. Ten or so birds flew out of the nearby trees and tried to swipe them with their talons. On the ground they wouldn’t have been much of a threat. In fact, on the ground John didn’t think they would get anything more than a scrape. Up in the canopy was a different story though. They couldn’t just ignore them without getting their eyes clawed out and they couldn’t fight them without risking falling off the platform.

John liked his eyes so he did his best to make sure his feet were steady and then bashed whatever birds flew by with his shield. It was fine most of the time, but once he missed a swing and found himself overextended on the side of the vines. He was windmilling his arms to regain his balance when he felt a grip on the back of the collar pull him back to the center of the platform.

He looked back and saw that it was Camille grabbing him. He nodded at her and then went back to bashing birds with his shield. After a few tense minutes of fighting the three of them were covered in scratches. They weren’t the only ones that were showing signs of the fight though. Many of the birds were flying erratically and some of them had plummeted to the ground leaving the fight entirely. They kept fighting for one more minute before they reached the platform they had been going towards.

Once there they took advantage of the wider area to get away from the edge and make more aggressive attacks. That was enough to scare the rest of the birds off. They sat down and rested before harvesting the flowers on the platform. The harvest wasn’t as big as their first time in the valley, but it was still substantial. Once they had everything in their bags and were well rested they made the journey back across the vine pathways and climbed the ladder back down to the ground.

Once down they found a small group of demi-humans waiting in ambush. They were on the path back to the exit. Sam spotted them from far enough away that they didn’t even have to really fight them. Sam took out her bow and started to fire from a distance and that was enough to make the demi-humans flee. After that encounter they made it the rest of the way out of the dungeon without running into any trouble.

Once they were completely safe John turned to Sam and Camille

“I know we got a pretty good harvest this time, but I think I’ll vote against the upper path until I get something to slow my fall. What about you guys?”

Sam agreed as well.

“Sounds good. One wrong step up there and you could be done for. Plus there’s no way to retrieve any arrows that I shoot up there.”

They both looked at Camille so she responded

“I’m actually fine up there but I guess I’m out voted. Next time we can stay on the ground.”

With that agreement in place they made plans to celebrate their successful raid as they headed back to the settlement.

Gem

The most recent group of invaders had given the gem a few things to think about. The first of which was the environment it was creating in the canopy of its trees. The only defenders it had that could be used that high were its birds, bees, and insects. None of which were hard hitting. That meant relying on the invaders to make a mistake and fall to the ground.

The gems first reaction to that was it needed to have stronger defenders up there. If the defenders there were all weak how was it going to ensure that there were fatalities? It started to try and think of what powerful defenders it could move up there, but the longer it thought about it the more incorrect the idea seemed. There was no critical resource it needed to grow among the trees. Everything that grew there was mainly placed to lure in invaders. The canopy also did not lead even close to its main body. Even if the invaders explored every inch of the canopy they would not be any closer to hurting it. The last reason it could think of that explained why adding stronger defenders seemed wrong was that weak defenders were better at luring people into a false sense of security. The invaders were likely to travel the vine paths carelessly since they wouldn’t be worried about the defenders. All of those reasons were enough to justify delaying changes for now.

That left the gem with a problem. It didn’t have anything that it really wanted to do. It still needed to kill more invaders before it could expand its territory. It didn’t have any ideas for improving its territory without the use of mana, and almost all of its creatures were already strengthened as much as they could be. The gem wasn’t happy about it, but that meant its best course of action was to upgrade its second tusked defender. It had been putting it off since the unconsciousness lasted so long last time, but with nothing else to do it couldn’t justify just waiting around when its defenses could be strengthened. Once that decision was made the gem gathered its mana and shoved it into the defender to form its core before slipping into the darkness once again.