Chapter 202 - Forged in Purple

A frown appeared on Claire’s scale-covered face as she continued to walk through an impossibly long corridor. She had no idea how long they had been on the move. Her mind had gone completely numb before the third hour had ended, and the fog that had set in around them only served to further distort her sense of time. So thick was the filthy mist that she was unable to see her own two feet, let alone the stone corridor beneath her. Her inability to see, however, did not prevent her from making out the walls that bound her. She could tell exactly where they were, from the way her ears picked up the echoes left by her true form’s heavy stone-crushing steps.

At first, Sylvia had been excited by the smog. Completely enraptured by the idea of seeking out the world that lay within it, she stood on top of Claire’s head for a grand total of five minutes before giving up, returning to her seat, and going straight to bed. Seeing through the veil with her magic had evidently brought nothing but sadness and boredom.

It was not just the corridor itself that disappointed, but its inhabitants as well. The aether wisps that flooded it were completely inconsequential. They were but mindless masses of magical smoke, their levels barely reaching 40. Their bodies were so frail that most perished as soon as they came into contact with anyone possessing a concrete form. The particularly resilient among the phantoms would grow aggressive following the impact, but they were hardly a threat; a light swing of the arms was enough to disperse their bodies for good. At first, Claire had suspected that the wisps were present only to encourage them to let down their guards. That was why she had kept her ears peeled in the first place; she was confident that she could use the sounds accompanying their footsteps to avoid the traps set by the dungeon’s creator and navigate towards the maze’s end. But there were no traps, no spike pits, poison clouds, or swinging scythes anywhere to be seen. The path itself was just as straightforward, sporting not a single twist or turn throughout. The group was left completely unchallenged, even as they finally approached its faraway exit.

“The god that designed this dungeon is an imbecile.”

“Yeah, I know, right!? I can’t believe they duped us like that! That’s gotta be the most boring hallway that’s ever existed!” shouted Sylvia. “I wonder which god it was anyway… I can’t think of any that’d make something this bad.”

“I don’t know.” Claire was tempted to speak the thunder god’s name in vain, but held her tongue after casting a glance at one of his faithful. “Maybe the god of mountains?”

“Uhhhh… hmmm… I dunno. That doesn’t really seem quite right. This dungeon’s mountains aren’t big or fiery enough for that,” said Sylvia. “Oh, I know! Maybe it was the wind god? Wait, does a wind god even exist? I’m pretty sure the celestial for it got his head chopped off…”

“The only part of the dungeon that hinted at that was the exterior. There isn’t any wind inside,” said the lyrkress, with a frown. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Whoever it is is an idiot.”

“Mhm. For sure.”

“Are you two sure you should be openly cursing the gods like that?” said Natalya, with a raw smile. “You might get smited if you piss them off.”

“It’s fine! The one that owns this dungeon is probably already trying to kill us anyway,” said the fox.

“God or not, the facts stand,” added Claire. “He’s either dumb or a jerk.”

Though none of the others openly agreed with the blasphemous claim, the sentiment that drove it was shared by many. Dungeons were meant to be challenges crafted by greater powers to better mortals that wished to further their growth. Tests appraising little beyond the length of one’s rope were largely unappreciated, regarded as pointless, lazy exercises with little to no reward. Even the sects that professed patience the greatest virtue found themselves hesitant to praise such trials as purposeful or justifiable.

“There wasn’t even a trap at the end. What was the point?”

Claire voiced another complaint as she stepped out into the world beyond the misty passageway, a world built upon a field of fluffy clouds. Unlike the ones that she often flew through, the cotton balls beneath their feet were solid enough to support the weight of her true form. That, however, was not to say that they behaved as would pieces of solid ground. There was little resistance; every step came alongside an uncomfortable sinking sensation. The marshmallows would seem to give out and allow their feet to fall through them, only to suddenly harden at a seemingly random depth each time.

While Claire, Arciel, and the rhiar were only annoyed, Natalya was outright terrified. The cat was unable to proceed at the same speed as all the others, often jumping out of her skin whenever she encountered a particularly uneven distortion.

Her fear was not entirely unfounded. There were certainly large holes in the canopy, windows to the ever boring world below. Every other floor so far had featured a blend of mountains and forests, and the sixth was hardly any different. The only peculiarity, if one even existed, was that the trees and rocks were perfectly mixed and intermingled, with each growing out from within the other. Had they not seen the previous floors, the spelunkers might have finally acknowledged the dungeon’s charm, but their prior experience prevented them from labeling it as anything but lazy, a boring rehash of the same old concepts.

The realm above was decorated with a little more care. Not all the clouds were white. Some were pink, others a light yellow or blue. The various tones and shades blended together to paint an eye-catching illustration, a beautiful castle dyed in all the colours of dawn. It would have been a beautiful scene to behold, one that suggested the dungeon to be among the sun goddess’ creations, had the sky not been flooded with misshapen monsters that in no way qualified for her approval.

“Are those meant to be birds?” Claire was not the only spelunker staring at the oddities. Arciel’s gaze was also focused on the flying sentries, albeit more cautiously. Her staff was kept trained on the nearest flock, following it, in case it drew too close.

“Uhmmm… I think they might be part eldritch? But I’m not really sure,” said Sylvia, with a confused tilt of the head. “They look like they are, but they don’t really smell right.”

At the core of each individual was a single person-sized eye, connected through magical links to a silver ring decorated with runes, pinions, and additional oculi. Their bottom halves were adorned with the elements, the precise choice of which depended on the individual. One group was frozen, another was on fire, and yet another sported fierce galewinds, but whatever the case, the primordial energy appeared not to affect the monsters or their surroundings. They flew in haphazard flocks arranged with no obvious rhyme or reason. Completely lacking the triangular structure that some birds preferred, they conducted themselves almost as would a school of gigantic, airborne fish.

“There’s an easy way to find out.” The qiligon grabbed Boris by the tail and raised him overhead.

“Wait! I’m pretty sure they’re ignoring us right now! Attacking them really doesn’t seem like the best idea!” Having already anticipated the response, Natalya began shouting as soon as the lyrkress reached for her weapon. There was no doubt that the warning had been spoken, heard, and processed in time, but Claire continued regardless.

The lizard-turned-spear flew through the air and impaled three targets. Damaged but not deceased, all three rose back into the air and shrieked at the top of their nonexistent lungs. In just one moment, every monster in the area had gone from neutral to hostile. A familiar situation that left a faint smile upon the lyrkress’ face.

“I swear to Tzaarkus, Claire! Why don’t you ever listen!?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sticking out her long, serpentine tongue, the force of nature flapped her wings and leapt straight into the encroaching horde.

“There are a lot of them,” said Matthais with a grin. “We’re gonna have to form up. Lia, you join Claire in the fray. Arciel, you will be in charge of long-ranged bombardment. I’ll take care of anything that gets too close.”

“Relax.” Claire spoke as she mowed through the fliers with her talons. “We’ll be fine.” The monsters began firing projectiles in her direction, but none of them landed on target. Ducking and weaving, she dove through the flock, parting it like a shark with the blade in her mouth.

“Blech! What the heck!? These things are nasty!” complained Sylvia. She ran to the edge of her seat and scraped the taste off her tongue with her paws.

“Why are you trying to eat them?” asked Claire. Her voice was clear, despite the weapon in her mouth.

“Well they kinda act like fish, so I thought that they might taste like them too.”

“Maybe in your dreams.”

“Ew, yuck! I don’t wanna be stuck dreaming about eating these things. Even the leviathan was tastier!”

Though the two halfbreeds were completely carefree, the rest of the group was not as unbothered. Not knowing what to expect, the Vel’khanese knight stayed close to his lady. A single glance at the critters had informed him that dodging their attacks was not an option. He was going to have to block the projectiles so that they would fail to touch his master. The problem lay in Arciel’s elemental weaknesses. Her species was one extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, and while she had eventually developed a resistance to the cold, courtesy of all the time she had spent in her various hideaways, heat lay outside the range of tolerance. Her choice of classes did little to pad the pain point. Fire and lightning could bypass the defenses brought by shadow and blood, and the monsters could use both.

The upside was that his body was well-suited for the task at hand. He had been chosen from among the elites not for his lack of discipline, his warmongering ways, or his skill in close combat, but his resilience. As one raised in Primrose’s essence, his exoskeleton was harder than mithril, and his scythes outclassed even chromanium blades. Paired with his five digit vitality score, his racial qualities made him a perfect shield, a bodyguard that could last through the ages. And surely enough, his defenses held true, just as they had when he was subjected to the shoggoth’s assault.

Knowing that no harm would come to her, Arciel invested her efforts on a wide-ranging offense. She raised her staff overhead, spinning it round and round as she worked her magic. Slowly, one blink at a time, the light faded from her surroundings, replaced by shadows scorned. They flooded the environment at first, but soon gathered within her staff. Hidden from the light, the umbral magic festered, its power magnifying with every breath. The growth phase lasted for exactly three seconds, a fixed time after which the floodgates were opened and everything was unleashed.

Like a star, it shot across the sky, dragging a blanket of darkness in its wake. Every monster touched had its shadow absorbed by the curtain, and those robbed of their shadows, those made incomplete by the spell, found their bodies on the verge of collapse. Without balance between light and dark, their forms began to distort, to slowly warp out of shape as their life forces drained away.

Few found the attack fatal—the spell was focused more on wide-area suppression than lethality—but unable to correctly manipulate their warped limbs, the affected were easy prey. Those that Natalya passed were shredded, effortlessly cleaved to pieces. Some were executed by Claire instead, though often more by happenstance than intention. Whatever the case, the deaths only fueled the mage’s second act. Drawing from the veins of the deceased, she drowned the cloudy realm in blood, a crimson tide that doubled as a meat grinder. Dozens died whenever the red wave surged, and yet, there was no end to them. Another school would always rise above the clouds whenever their numbers started to dwindle, each as bloodthirsty as the last.

The fight they had picked was not the brief extermination that Claire had expected, but rather a painfully prolonged campaign that would stall their advance and rob them of their position as the leader of the pack.

___

“What the hell are they doing?”

Nymphetel raised a brow as she walked across the dungeon’s sixth floor. She was advancing with her sword sheathed and her hood peeled back, signalling to the locals that she had no part in the ongoing conflict. Her partner, with whom she walked hand in hand, proceeded in much the same manner. The lich’s staff was being used only as a walking stick, to aid in navigating the less-than-stable terrain.

Her group was not the only one that demonstrated a lack of aggression. While most of the knights kept their weapons drawn, the particularly experienced spelunkers did exactly as the blackroot elf and hid away their arms. Many parties possessed at least one or two members that had encountered the feathered eye-monsters before. The wisewinged scribes, as they were denoted by the system, existed in a number of the plague gods’ realms, their purpose to judge those that displayed open hostility. If unprovoked, they would allow visitors to pass through their domain, but upon being attacked, the entire colony would commit to fighting to the last.

“Farming experience, maybe?” suggested Drohkchar.

“I doubt it. Killing the same things over and over is extremely inefficient.”

“Most people don’t care, Nymn,” said the lich, with a light-hearted laugh.

“I know.” Brushing her orange-red hair out of her eyes, the elf focused her gaze on the familiar face. “But she does.” Nymphetel took a deep breath and recalled the various lessons drilled into her mind. “They aren’t the type of people to waste their time, unless they’re trying to show off.”

“Well, she is making herself look a lot stronger than most, so it isn’t as if that’s off the table just yet, is it?”

The undead’s claim was certainly not unreasonable, but the former squire dismissed it with a shake of the head. “She’s being too sloppy for that. There has to be another reason.”

The noble lady was not conducting herself with any of the grace that Nymphetel expected, nor was she employing any of the royal Cadrian styles. The elf did not know exactly how powerful Claire was, but she and most of the other blackroots in the duke’s service had hypothesized that she was at least over five hundred, and with especially efficient classes as well. That was the only reason she was able to take on the noncombatant ritual mage class as her quaternary and outgoing facade, without losing enough power to put herself at risk.

“Are you sure you’re not just overthinking it? To me, it just looks like she’s exhausted.”

“Trust me. There’s no way that damned aspect’s only daughter would struggle against something like a group in its two hundreds.” The elf squeezed the skeleton’s fingers as she tore her eyes from the battlefield. “We should leave before she notices us. I’d rather not deal with her if it can be avoided.”

“Alright.” Drohkchar returned the squeeze and made an attempt to pick up the pace, only to immediately trip on one of the many unseen potholes. “Shush. Walking is hard sometimes.”

With a pleased giggle, Nymphetel stepped forward and caught the lich in her arms. “In that case, I think I might just have a better alternative.” Her frame was far tinier than that of the skeletons, but she was able to lift the mage up in her arms, as one would a bride at the altar.

“Now you’re just being silly.”

The elf ignored the skeleton’s complaint and pressed their foreheads together, her lips a crescent smile. “I know.” She picked up the pace and continued marching towards the castle with a light skip in her step. House Augustus’ business was no longer any of hers.