In the space between sleep and wake, I thrash. My body jolts awake faster than my mind can follow, my limbs fight against invisible constraints. A weight on my chest, and an incessant slimy texture against my face brings my mind up from the depths. My eyes open to Nevasca licking my face. I wrench my head back and forth, with my face scrunched up, trying to escape the licking. It’s gross!

“Stop it! Stop it! I’m awake! Let me up!” I protest.

The weight leaves my chest, allowing me to sit up. Nevasca stands beside me, a lopsided grin on her wolven face, her long, feathered tail wags away. I reach my arms around my tormentor, pulling her close so I can bury my face in her soft fur and feathers.

“You’re getting so big, I’d better order a saddle or something soon,” I mutter under my breath. A reproachful huff informs me that Nevasca’s hearing is better than I thought. A smile breaches the surface of my face, she is so fun to tease. My hands run through her pelt, helping to calm me.

I’m alive, my body is healed, and by the looks of it, we are somewhere new and safe. Nevasca’s presence brings ease to my heart. When Ra’hel caught me, I felt so alone and helpless. But here I am, the survivor. My beloved familiar found me, despite getting separated. My furry little guardian angel has returned to me. Well… She isn’t so little anymore.

She isn’t huge like the Great Bear we fought, but she isn’t small either. If I had to guess, I’d say she weights somewhere in the range of 350-400 pounds. A body full of muscle, but fluffy nonetheless. Previously, she had been the size of a jaguar, but now I’d say she looks more like a tiger. About 4ft tall at the shoulder and roughly 7ft in length not including her tail, she is a big puppy. Kitten? Chick? I don’t know. What I do know, is that she is half the weight or less than the tigers we had fought on the 7th floor, making her a lightweight for her size. To be fair, she hasn’t quite grown into her paws yet, so there should be some growing in the future.

My hands, run their way through her fur, coming away with a loose feather. Long, glossy, and black, this feather is the perfect weapon. I lean back for better access to my victim. With practiced precision, I use the tip of the feather to tickle the sensitive hairs inside of my familiar’s ear. She shakes her head to get rid of the tickling sensation. Big puppy dog eyes stare at me, one red and one blue, but I don’t relent. I chuckle when she rolls on to her back to escape me, raising her paws in protest.

There is a moment of respite in our play, which I use to look around the room. We’re in the far corner of a decently sized dirt cave. Honey and Mordai are watching me play with Nevasca, a slight smile hangs on Honey’s face while Mordai just looks relieved. I was probably in pretty bad shape when they found me. They probably want to know what happened, but I’m not ready to talk about it. I give them a wave and return to playing with my familiar. We seem to safe for the moment, so I’m going to relax a little. I think I deserve it.

“Nevasca?” I ask, matching projected images and emotions with my words. “You evolve when I do, right? So why haven’t you changed more? Your growth looks pretty natural.”

Tongue lolling out of her mouth, Nevasca sends me images of a wall holding a large body of water. The wall looks like it has been built by sentient hands, forming a smooth rock cliff. Without warning, the wall crumbles, allowing the lake to pour into the valley it overlooked. Torrents of water reshape the landscape with a raging current of white water, gathering boulders and trees in its rampage.

“You are… saving up the power for a bigger change?” Nevasca nods in answer to my question. “What do you have in mind?”

My answer is a picture of an unopened box, with a strong sending of the emotions ‘excitement’ and ‘anticipation.’ She is trying to tell me it’s a surprise. I copy the reproachful look she is always shooting me, and return fire. A feather duster of a tail tickling my face is the response I receive. With a playful roar, I tackle my wayward familiar, and we roll around play fighting. Thankfully, she takes it easy on me.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a shimmering patch of air approach me. I barely have time to register that such air isn’t normal before strong arms encase me. The shimmering fades into Quinn, embracing me, her arms as well as her wings wrap around my body. She squeezes me tightly, pressing her body against mine.

Pain clenches at my chest. My heart beats a mile a minute. My breath comes harder and faster. Sweat drips from my pores. Fear grips me in its embrace. Panic swells beneath my skin, threatening to consume me. My whole body goes stiff, unable to move. Visions of Ra’hel’s grinning, blood smeared maw flash through my mind. My thoughts can’t differentiate between my lover’s arms and my attacker’s coils. Everything blurs. I can’t concentrate. My stomach hurts. I’m shaking. I’m rocking back and forth and I’m quivering.

My arms grip my knees to my chest. I rock, my back rhythmically hitting against the cave wall. My heart beat calms over time, and the fear fades. I can still sense it though, lurking there. Right beneath the surface. Nevasca stands between me and an anxious looking Quinn and Mordai. Honey is kneeling next to me; my eyes focus on her. She must’ve seen the light come back to my eyes, because she reaches for me, then wavers.

“Are you okay?” She asks in soft tones. “You’ve been sitting here shaking for more than twenty minutes. We’re really worried about you.”

“I-I’m okay, now. I think.” I mumble, not sure what to say. “I just… I don’t… Please don’t hold me too tightly. Ra’hel she- she tried to eat me. I couldn’t get away, she was crushing me and… and… I don’t know what happened. It was like it was happening all over again.”

“Shhh, you’re safe now,” Honey comforts me with a gentle hand on my arm. “Can you ask Nevasca to let Quinn and Mordai through? They’re worried about you and they don’t have the rapport with Nev that I do.”

With a simple sending, I summon Nevasca into my waiting arms. She nuzzles into my chest, making me feel safe. Safer, would be more accurate I suppose. I am so afraid, I don’t like it. It isn’t me.

With Nevasca no longer blocking the way, Quinn rushes over, her face pale like a ghost. She slides to her knees next to me, concern emanating from her face and body language. I can see that she is doing her very best to stop from reaching out to hold me, probably deterred by my previous reaction and Nevasca’s harsh glare. That makes me smile a little. It’s nice that she still wants me, despite how I reacted to a hug.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Quinn. “You just surprised me is all.”

“No. No. No. Darling, it’s my fault,” Quinn is quick to keep me from blaming myself. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you. I was just so happy to see you awake when I got back… I missed you when you were sleeping! You were there, but it’s just not the same… But, I should’ve known better. We pieced together what happened when we found you but… I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

Quinn stammers out the words, faster than I’ve ever seen her talk. It is like she is trying to say her piece as fast as she can. Maybe she is worried I won’t listen to her or that I’ll interrupt her? Poor Quinn. I would never do something like that to her.

“Of course, I forgive you, Gorgeous. Now come give me a kiss,” I do my best to give her a smile, then pull her face towards mine with a hand on her chin. My other hand holds Nevasca’s upper body in my lap, letting my worried familiar know I’m okay. I focus on Quinn’s kiss, doing my best to not think of the bloody kiss Ra’hel stole from me. Part way through the kiss, I realize that Honey and Mordai are still there, just watching awkwardly. I can sense a pervy or criticizing comment brewing in the air. Neither of them are good at holding in their opinions. Almost relieved at a reason to stop the kiss and the memories it brings, I make a preemptive strike.

“Mordai, what is the situation?” I ask, disengaging myself from Quinn’s delicious lips. Mordai’s mouth is part way open, as if he was just about to say something before I asked my question. His red skinned, demonic face is crestfallen as he answers, but Honey beats him to it.

“We’ve stumbled our way into some sub-dungeon with giant insect creatures,” she says, a grin of sharp and very white teeth peek through her black skin. “Right now, we are in a safe-zone, but once you’re ready, we’ll explore this place. Even if we don’t find any treasure, the Warrior’s carapaces will make decent armor material for the Guild. And the best part?”

The rhetorical question sends shivers down my spine. I know that smile. That smile is the ‘let’s beat up Snowflake and call it training’ smile. I’m getting a terrible feeling about this.

“Insects like this usually have a Queen. Which means she’ll keep producing enemies to fight us indefinitely,” the grin grows wider. “You’ll be able to fight these enemies for as long as it takes for you to get up to par!”

“What about the Floor Masters chasing us! Don’t we have to leave?!” I fight back against this idea with the first stage of grief, denial.

“They aren’t willing to enter the hole we came in,” Mordai finally gets a word in edgewise. I have to stifle a chuckle at the lame joke. I know from experience that a solid punch to the shoulder awaits me if I dare laugh at his off-color humor.

“Quinn, did you find out why that is?” The black-skinned Beastkin flips her long white hair as she addresses the Angel.

“No,” Quinn replies, staring thoughtfully at the darkness beyond the cave entrance. “I looked around as much as I could while maintaining Light Refraction, but it isn’t true invisibility. I can only get so close to the enemy without them finding me. The only thing I can think of, is that there is something down here that scares the creatures from the maze.”

“There is,” Honey beams. “Me.”

Nevasca and I roll our eyes at that, while Mordai goes so far as to verbally say ‘Lame.’ Quinn just awkwardly looks away, choosing to pretend she didn’t hear anything. Honey’s grin doesn’t fade. She is just confident in who she is, I guess. Good for her.

“Snowflake, I’ll give you a day to rest, then its non-stop training time!” Honey declares, informing me of my impending doom.

“Alright,” I reluctantly agree. “I’m gonna practice some magic stuff first though, if you guys could give me a little space?”

The girls agree and head off to spar, but Mordai hangs back for a second to talk to me about something. His giant, plate armor encased frame does a surprisingly decent job of conveying emotion through body language. Mordai is worried. He kneels next to me, trying to get down to my eye level, but it is difficult given his stature.

“Look, Snowflake. I’m a healer and I’ve gone through my fair share of rough patches, so I have an idea of what you’re going through.” Mordai speaks with a cadence, which gives me the impression he practiced this speech. “Injuries of the mind are much harder to heal than those of the body. I have two pieces of advice I wish someone would have given me, back in the day.”

He pauses here. If I had to guess, I would say he is trying to organize his words. I wait, silently, for him to continue.

“The first is that your greatest weaknesses and misfortunes can be turned into your greatest strengths,” he says slowly, measuring each word. “The second would be that fear isn’t always a terrible thing. It keeps you alive. Live to fight another day, and all that.”

I recognize the value of the advice, and nod my affirmation. I’m surprised by the long speech from Mordai. No so much that he talked a lot, but he said all that without making a sex joke. Impressive. Without further ado, he leaves me to my own devices.

First thing first, I need to check all the notifications I missed when I passed out.

Achievement Unlocked: Not Just Another Red Shirt- Survive a fatal encounter. Adaptability +1

You’ve defeated a fellow Awakened in one-on-one combat. Level up!

Your Champion has conquered Floor Level 3! Level up!

Your Champion has conquered Floor Level 4! Level up!

Former Floor Master Titled ‘Slime Queen’ has been brought under your influence.

Your Champion has conquered Floor Level 5! Level up!

Your Champion is attacking Floor Level 6.

I summon my status screen to where I’m at now.

Name: Snowflake von Vordaray *(Bodyrk)

Race: Monster Variant

Title: *Snowflake

Class: Spellspear

Subclass: None

Job: Floor Master (Pending)

Level: 18 (+4)

Health: 352.5/352.5

Energy: 187.5/187.5

Strength: 35 (+8)

Stamina: 37 (+8)

Dexterity: 45.5 (+10)

Intelligence: 44.5 (+10)

Wisdom: 30.5 (+6)

*Adaptability: 8 (+1)

Even with my stats, I was helpless against Ra’hel. Her raw strength overshadowed mine. The armor Henry gave me is helpful against stabbing, slashing, and magic attacks. However, its flexibility does nothing against crushing attacks such as Ra’hel’s. As a Geomancer, she should’ve been Wisdom and Intelligence heavy. I wonder if different body types have a different strength value? Like, if Mordai and I have the same strength, will he still be stronger than me given his size and weight? An interesting train of thought, but survivability is my main focus right now.

Thinking of Ra’hel sends my heart racing, and not in the way it once did. My eyes lose focus and it becomes hard to concentrate, but I soldier on. I can’t live like this. I need to make this fear my strength. Feeding the fear to fire seems like a definite possibility, given my past attempts at getting rid of emotion. I don’t need more fire though. I need protection. Maybe emotion can be used to fuel all magic, not just fire?

That deduction gives birth to an idea that I consider genius. I snap back into focus. I have a plan! With a sending I ask Nevasca to give me some space, just in case.

I use a single claw to slice open my forearm, willing a fist sized portion of blood to come out and hover in the air between my hands. I close my eyes, sensing the energies swirling in my blood. My greater stats help with my attunement towards Source, and I intend to put it to full use. In the blood, I can sense Blood Energy, mixed with a lot of different, smaller energies. Using my Blood Energy as a catalyst and completely ignoring my Core, I force the smaller energies out into the air.

Henry had told me that purity is power, or something like that. So, I focus on removing the impurities in the blood. The blob of blood shrinks, a red mist boiling off its surface. The more it shrinks, the more I force Blood Energy into it. I stop once I sense my Blood Energy has only one third of its power remaining. Unlike my Monster Core, it doesn’t passively refill itself on ambient Source. I don’t want to risk using it all until I figure out how to recharge myself.

In my hands lays a crystal, cold to the touch. Surprise, surprise. It is blood red. Not accounting for the energy already used, or the energy wasted in the transformation, roughly two thirds of my Blood Energy is in this crystal, which about the size of my thumb. I take a deep breath, hoping this will work. It is my power, so it should do what I say, right?

I impose a mental image of the crystal twisting into a necklace on to the power source in my hands. The crystal does nothing. I push on, trying to bend it to my will. After what seems like an eternity, it shudders. The shuddering grows in intensity until it turns into a cool liquid in my hands. The liquid flows into the shape of interlocking chains. A necklace!

I put the necklace on, tucking it under my shirt so it lays cool against my skin. On to the next step! I give the necklace a standing command, much like I did with the Wisps. I tell it to use 80% of my fear, a strong emotion I have far too much of, to create an additional layer of rigid armor over the armor I’m wearing. The necklace sends tremors into my skin, in response. I wait a few minutes, but nothing happens. Maybe the instructions were too vague?

Okay. Okay. I can handle that. What kind of armor would I make out of Source? Ice probably. Ice and fire are the only two elements I’m any decent with, so far. How would I make armor out of ice? I’d draw energy out of the moisture in the air, making it form into ice around me. I command the crystal to do that, and this time it actual does what I ask.

Sheets of ice condense around my body, enclosing me. The crystal absorbs a little of the energy it uses to make the ice, but the rest is let off as steam, into the air. Hmmm… That’s seems like a waste. What if I force that energy into my blood to refuel my almost empty Blood Energy? The crystal does as I ask, and I can feel my Blood Energy recharging. Bingo. The recharge is annoyingly slow, but every little bit counts.

Alright, for my next test I’ll ask Nevasca to see how strong my new armor is! A single swipe of her tail shatters my armor, causing it to crumble around me. That’ will notwork.

The necklace formed of blood crystal, recreates my armor, out of thin air, the product of a standing command. I take second to cast my senses into the armor through my body. In the armor, I can still feel latent energy and different impurities. Maybe if I can completely remove that energy and purge the flaws, the armor will be stronger? If I can get the amount of energy down to zero, will it be unbreakable?

I turn my sense inwards. In my body, I can still feel my fears, creeping. The necklace uses some of the emotion for creating the armor, but not enough. I also need to incorporate it somehow. Damn. Um… maybe if I remove the energies and impurities, it will create a sort of vacuum that I can put fear into?

The necklace shudders against my skin. I can only equate the way it shudders when I ask it to do something to it grumbling. It draws the emotion from my body to use its energy to do as I ask, despite the complaints. My fear, turned into energy, rushes into the armor, pushing out the impurities into the air and drawing as much of the remaining energy into my body as it can. A smaller amount of energy remains in the ice. Someday I’ll have enough power to take out all the energy, to create stronger ice.

My body heat melts the inner layer of ice, but the melted ice is frozen by the outer layer of ice, creating a cycle. Ice continues to form, purify, and condense. Thin layers of armor are added on top of each other, over and over. The impurities mix with the ambient cold, creating a thick fog around my body. I limit the size of the armor. If I didn’t, I’m sure the ice would grow forever, turning me into a glacier.

At my request, Nevasca attacks my armor again, but this time it holds. A long cut is engraved on the chest plate, but the ice quickly repairs itself. Self-repairing armor. Sweet.

In the end, the ice is formed by using my fear as an energy source. The excess energy, taken from the condensation of the ice, is forced into my Blood, to recharge it. Part of that energy goes toward keeping me from freezing to death. The ambient temperature of my body and the surrounding air causes part of the armor to evaporate constantly, but the necklace keeps the armor reforming at the same rate.

I stare at my armored form in a mirror I created. Overlapping plates of light blue ice, with swirling patterns of gaseous purple swimming underneath the surface of the ice, covers my body. When I move, the plates shift, allowing me freedom of movement. The way they shift and interlock leaves me fully armored no matter how I move. Spikes adorn all non-overlapping surfaces, a silent guarantee that I will never be crushed in the grasp of a creature stronger than me, without doing any damage, again. My eyes glow red from underneath a slit in the full helm covering my head. My Wisps dance above the helm in the shape of a crown of flame. Mist rises around me, partially obscuring my form.

I am safe now, encased in my shell.