Chapter 157 - Farenlight’s Den VII

Claire fought back the urge to yawn as she lazily trekked her way through the dungeon’s fifth floor. Compared to the previous day, its halls were practically free of spelunkers. And because the monster hunters were less common, their prey was left to roam and repopulate the halls undisturbed. Lizards of all shapes and sizes crawled out of the walls and assaulted them at every turn.

One such reptile had found itself particularly unfortunate. Unlike the subjects it led, the unique variant had a body made of a dense steel. The blade of ice Claire smashed into its face had failed to penetrate its skin and none of the other methods she tried had left any lasting damage. Making the obvious choice, she paralyzed it with her eyes, picked it up by its stiffened tail, and turned it into a weapon. The club was so effective that she took it with her from encounter to encounter. When not in use, it was strapped to her back, taking the spot of her long lost bone mace.

Given its peculiarities, the weapon earned her a number of confused looks, both from her companions and the groups they passed by. The few monster hunters that remained were still suspicious, as they had been the previous day, but they were at least friendly enough to approach and warn the newcomers against venturing too deep. Of the seven they encountered, six were in the midst of returning, citing a disastrous encounter as the reason for their departure.

“Holy crap! Look over there!” Sylvia stuck out her paw and pointed at a pile of bones as they rounded a corner. Some were still covered with bits of flesh and sinew, but most were picked clean, their meat fully consumed.

Lia briefly looked over the corpse before examining a nearby wall. “These are fresh. The blood hasn’t dried.” Her finger was traced upon a crimson stain, somewhat flaky, but still moist enough to rub onto her skin.

“Doesn’t matter.” Claire approached one of the larger corpses and rummaged through it. The landshark’s gear was ruined, and his sword was bent out of shape, but the cartilage that made up his front fin was still intact.

“I know.” The catgirl momentarily pressed her fist to her chest before turning back to her lyrkrian companion. “Wait… errr… Claire?”

“What?” The scavenger tested the fin-blade as she spoke, lightly swinging it to and fro.

“N-nothing, nevermind.” Lia took a breath, shook her head, and stepped over the other two corpses in the hall. “Let’s keep going. We need to reach floor 15 by nightfall.”

“Okay.” Claire strapped the pectoral fin to her back, right next to the still-paralyzed lizard, and continued on her way.

The next few legs of their journey were smooth. They reached the tenth floor with no issues and passed right through the barrier. The hole Claire left was still present, but they opted instead to use the device as it was meant, parting it with a swipe of Lia’s card before continuing their rapid descent.

The area immediately beyond the partition may as well have been empty. Rare exploders aside, they failed to encounter any monsters until they descended another two flights of stairs. Floor thirteen’s freakish, headless chameleons were nowhere near as docile as their explosive counterparts. Like all the monsters on floors one through ten, they were hostile and aggressive, willing to attack whatever they saw at a moment’s notice. Their approach, however, was more subtle. The sly assassins crept about in the darkness, hiding in the cave’s many shadows, but never were their ambushes successful. Lia would always dispatch them, right as they lashed with their tongues.

She remained in the spotlight even on the floor that followed. The colour-agnostic lizards went from sparse to overflowing, with the once-solo hunters attacking in groups of five to ten. The change was drastic, but the blademaster was completely unfazed—everything that came within reach of her blade was immediately dispatched. Claire only had two of the hundred-odd kills to her name. Both, she had clubbed to death with her reptilian mace, which had shifted from being paralyzed to desperately but unconvincingly playing dead.

Floor fourteen came with a change in the dungeon’s aesthetic. The bland-looking cave gave way to a series of carefully carved stone tunnels. All its floors, walls, and ceilings were tiled with regular patterns, rectangles folded in on themselves, over and over and over again. A soft red light radiated from within the gaps, the glow of an underground vein.

“It’s untapped. Strange.”

Claire pressed a hand against the arcane torrent and stole a tiny bit of its mana.

“A little, but it makes sense.” Lia spoke as she cut down another almost invisible threat. “They can’t just have workers coming in and out of these floors. The exploders could be incredibly dangerous, if they ever got into town.”

Magical veins were to ether what springs were to water. They were considered precious resources, and it made little sense to ignore one in an environment as controlled as a small dungeon. She couldn’t help but think that the local authorities were either stupid, insane, or both.

“Maybe this one’s new! Who knows, we could be the first people to ever find it,” chirped the resident fox.

The outlandish proposal put Lia at a loss. She raised her free hand to her face, pushed up her glasses, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“U-Uhmm… Lia? Are you okay?” The source of the catgirl’s stress tilted her head and innocently wagged her tail.

“Was I really the only one listening last night?”

“Sorry.” Sylvia stuck out her tongue and scratched the back of her head. “Seeing Claire sleepy made me sleepy. So uhmmm… I miiiiight’ve stopped paying attention.”

Lia pressed her face deeper into her hands and massaged her brow. “How have the two of you made it this far?”

“Easily,” said one halfbreed.

“Ummmm… I dunno. We just kinda did,” said the other. “And just for the record, Claire’s the only one of us that’s reckless!”

“Liar.” The walking chair looked up at her hat and narrowed her eyes. “You tried to dethrone a celestial. In his domain. With a shoddily constructed plan that he dismantled without your knowledge.”

“Hey, no fair! You can’t just nitpick like that!” The fox drummed her mount’s head in protest. “That was a one time thing, and I’m pretty sure I only did it because you started rubbing off on me! Besides, you’re the one that tried to trick him into giving you a bunch of levels for free!”

“I didn’t try to trick him,” said Claire. “I did trick him.”

“Whatever, same difference!” said Sylvia, with a huff.

“Succeeding is more impressive.”

“You two come up with the funniest stories sometimes.” Lia giggled as she rounded the corner.

The fox opened her mouth, but Claire cut the furball with a finger to her lips and signaled for silence with her eyes.

Sylvia flashed a clear pout, but spoke in her usual tone. “I know, right! I bet we could totally start our own troupe, if Claire could actually sing.”

“I can sing. I just don’t have the skill.”

“Really?” asked Lia, with a curious flick of the tail. “I thought everyone had it, since you just have to well… sing.”

“There are extenuating circumstances.” Claire used the lizard mace’s arm to grab the catgirl’s hood before she could walk too far down the hall. “Wait. I hear something.” The whole motion was awkward and she struggled to get the animal to obey her commands, but anything was better than suffering through another one of her Alfred-induced fits.

His influence was strong, but it wasn’t omnipresent or all powerful. Getting over the initial shock had come with the ability to suppress it. Whenever she focused, the meows would grow as quiet as they had been back in Llystletein. So long as they didn’t make contact. And even then, she could resist. It grew weaker each time she fought back; she was confident that remaining in the catgirl’s vicinity would eventually allow her to completely overcome it.

“If you were listening last night,” grumbled the cat, “you’d know why. There’s a boss room up ahead.” Lia exchanged glances with the nervous lizard holding her in place before carefully dislodging the monster’s arm. “Sorry, Boris,” she whispered, “but I can’t help you.”

“Boris?” asked Claire, with a twitch of the ear.

“H-huh?” Natalya reacted with a violent start. Nearly jumping out of her skin, she bashed her shoulder into a particularly tough metal object. “Ow!”

“Why did you name it?”

“I dunno, he just seems like a Boris,” said the cat, as she rubbed her shoulder. “And how did you hear that? I could’ve sworn I whispered it under my breath.”

“With my ears,” said Claire. “There’s no reason to name it. It’s just a weapon.”

“Weapons can have names too,” insisted the cat. “My swor—”

“Yes, I know.” Claire silenced the catgirl by prodding her face with the lizard’s snout. “But not person names.”

“Person names aren’t even that weird, I think!” chimed Sylvia. “Dad’s sword is supposed to be named Frederick’s Lament.”

“Stupid fox.” The lyrkress flicked the bottom of her hat’s nose. “That’s not a person’s name.”

“Yeah, but it has a person’s name in it.”

“Not the same.”

“Yes it is!”

“Can we have this conversation later?” asked Lia, as she poked her head around the corner. “I think it’s already noticed us.”

“Fine.” Claire slung Boris back over her shoulder and followed the cat down the hall.

The next turn led to a massive atrium, a wide-open room with a ceiling of at least fifty meters. Light almost seemed to stream in from above, even though they were deep underground. The solar crystals embedded in the ceiling served to illuminate it in much the same manner as a roofless home beneath the blazing afternoon sun. Giant stone pillars were placed at regular intervals, forming a hall that highlighted the lizard at its far end.

There was a door visible behind its massive frame, but its proximity to the monster’s peculiar form robbed it of the spotlight. Describing the strange creature as a reptile was difficult. Had all the other monsters not been lizards, it surely would have been assumed something else altogether. It had ten pairs of legs, a thick carapace made from only a few individual scales, and a giant eyeball planted in the rounded tip of its tail—the only part of it that could see.

Like the exploders, the behemoth of a lizard had no face, only an oversized mouth spanning the full width of its body. Its lack of a nose came with the need for its whole frame to open every time it had to take a breath, revealing lines upon lines upon lines of large, flattened molars. Jagged canines aside, its teeth almost made it look like an herbivore. But the blood dripping from its lips did not. The frame of many a chameleon could be seen within its gaping maw, bloodied, broken, and dead.

“Finally. Something that isn’t weak.” Claire tightened her grip, both on Boris, and on the fin in her other hand. “Let me kill it. By myself.”

“It’s supposed to be level 300, and we still haven’t had any chances to iron out our teamwork. This is the perfect opportunity.”

The catgirl’s response was met with a roll of the eyes. “This isn’t the army. Teamwork is secondary. We can work it out later, on the fly.”

“In that case, how about we kill it more than once? We’re still well ahead of schedule, and it’s supposed to come back to life once every few minutes.”

“Fine,” said Claire. “But I get to go first. Alone. Then you. Then we try working together.”

Lia sighed. “Are you sure? Doesn’t it have over fifty levels on you?”

“I’ll be fine. Just watch.”

“See?” Sylvia leapt off Claire’s head and landed beside the cat. “I told you she was reckless.”

“I know, but this… this just goes a little beyond my expectations. It looks like it could be a unique.”

The designation of unique was a ranking assigned by the system, granted automatically to every monster with an ascension whose power level was in excess of the norm. It was a notable appointment; unique monsters were thought of as dangerous entities requiring immediate attention and subjugation. Uniques left to their own devices could continue to evolve. And unlikely as it was, some could even become legendary or mythic, if allowed to get too far out of hand.

“Yeah, but she should still be okay. I’m pretty sure she’s gotten more experience from higher level uniques than she has normal stuff.”

“No wonder she said something about just a few weeks,” said Lia. Keeping a hand on her weapon, the cat leaned on one of the dungeon’s walls and watched carefully as the lyrkress marched towards the overgrown klimgor.

“Mhm! She’s feeling really good about this one too.”

“She is? How can you tell? Her face doesn’t seem to change much,” said Lia.

“You just kinda get used to it, eventually.” Sylvia stretched her front paws and curled up to make herself more comfortable. “Oh! I think it’s starting now.” A bellowing roar echoed through the hall as the monster at its far end got to its feet and engaged their traveling companion.

Lia watched a few exchanges before taking her hand off her weapon and crossing her arms. “She’s doing a lot better than I thought. Why does she keep insisting that she’s a mage, if she fights like that?” she asked, as she watched the halfbreed club the lizard in the non-existent face.

“Uhmm… I dunno. I think she just likes using magic,” said Sylvia. “Oh! It could just be a matter of pride or something, but I’m not really sure. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Lia’s hand slowly wandered towards the fox and landed on her head after a few moment’s hesitation. “Her class setup seems a little strange. Is she supposed to be some sort of rogue?”

Sylvia blinked. “Woah, how could you tell? I thought she was a warrior for the longest time!” She didn’t shy away from the head pat, but neither did she lean into it.

“She’s too fast to be a warrior if she’s also a mage. You see how she keeps bouncing off the pillars and jumping onto the ceiling?”

“Mhm?” The fox tilted her head.

“Most warriors-hybrids can’t do that until over level 300. They don’t have enough ability points to get the right stat spread.”

“Right…” Sylvia smiled awkwardly as she turned her eyes back to the battle. The cat’s conclusion was certainly correct, but Claire’s ability to bounce off the walls was driven by force magic.

“She really did it.” Lia raised a hand to her glasses as she watched the monster keel. Its head had caved in, after she bashed it a few dozen times. Boris was still intact and presumably alive, but her other weapon, the fin, was not quite as lucky. Its owner, however, was completely unconcerned. She soon replaced the broken paddle with two of the monster’s teeth. The canines she ripped from its jaw were cleaned with a stream of water and given a few test swings before being tucked inside her cloak.

“Does she always just use whatever she finds?” asked the catgirl.

“Mhm! One of my dad’s friends made some weapons for her at one point, but she pretty much lost or broke everything right away. I think these days, she’s just back to using whatever she finds.”

“Because it’s convenient,” said the lyrkress, as she returned. “And it was an ordinary monster. Not a unique.”

“Great job out there,” said Lia. “The way you were using your ice was really creative. I didn’t think you would shoot so much of it into its lungs.”

“Big monsters are weak. You just have to attack their insides,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure that applies to more than just big things,” giggled the catgirl.

Claire shrugged. “Your turn.” She gestured to the corpse, which had already started to fade. A replacement could be seen forming in front of the door; it would soon be ready to take up its predecessor’s place. “Impress me.”

“I plan to.” The cat drew her rapier, wreathed it in a dark flame, and prepared to put on a show.