Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 26 preview (Patreon)

By the time dawn – true dawn – actually broke, we had been up for a few hours. Breakfast – a big, hearty meal of the equivalent grain to oats – with a dash of local honey, dried fruit and meat helped provide sufficient nutrition and energy for the rest of the day. The numerous bramble goats we had killed made for good eating, and, thankfully, with the wisps in play, making strips of meat to eat was simple enough.

I was truly beginning to appreciate having the elementalist with us. Kira’s ability to manipulate flame, to control it with a degree of efficiency – and, increasingly, the byproducts of flame like warmth and drying aspects and even the radiated heat – was growing with each surge of level. It was not always directly apparent, but her Friend of Flame skill was giving her ever greater utility.

On the other hand…

“You know, you might want to consider making a shield or something.” I was ambling along besides her as we traversed the ground to the final exit, more relaxed now that we started seeing the corpses of slain bramble goats, following the footsteps of previous adventurers.

“A shield? Of fire?” Kira said.

“Mmm, a wall – or something that you could have hovering before you? Maybe make it so hot it becomes physical?” I said, recalling images of cartoons of living fire chains.

“You… know how fire works, right? It’s not actually something that you can hold,” Kira’s voice was filled with doubt and incredulity as she spoke to me.

“Well, I know how it’s supposed to work” I gestured at the wisps. “But those aren’t normal, either, are they?”

“It still is the same thing. They’re just fire given personality,” Kira replied. “They aren’t solid, not like water, not like earth. They’re like… air.”

“Except air is physical too.”

When Kira snorted, I pursed my lips and blew at her. She flinched, then waved a hand in front of her face, causing me to check my breath while she grumbled. However, my little example did get her thinking, which had been the whole point.

Leaving her to consider what I had said, about what might be an option with her own skill to help safeguard against creatures charging her, I wandered away. Fishing in a pocket for the local equivalent of a mint, it took only a few dozen steps before I ended up with company.

“Do you think they’ll try for us again?” Brand asked, glancing around warily. No suspicious groups today, though we had come across two other parties thus far. One busy butchering their latest kill and another spotted in the distance, still at their campsite.

“Don’t know,” I said. “It depends on how smart and vindictive they are. I expect by the time we come back, they’ll have a lot more to worry about.” I trailed off before shrugging. “It was bad luck that they managed to spot us anyway; it can’t be easy keeping an eye on so many groups. By the time we’re back, they’ll likely be running.”

“For their despicable Weller-cursed lives.”

“Big word.” I grinned as Brand shot me a look, but he cracked a smile a moment later, the scowl on his face fading.

“Kira’s not the only one with some education.”

“True.”

“Surprised you know it.”

I snorted. “I worked in a tavern. You’d be surprised at the words minstrels and bards use. And how often they’re willing to explain them.”

“Why would I be surprised?” Brand lifted his chin. “I’ve been to taverns before.”

“Of course you have.” Not that we discussed how many he had been to, but that was okay. I had enough of his background to know that Brand had not had a lot of time for leisure, with a drunkard of a father and brothers that needed feeding and upkeep. Half the reason he ran the dungeon was to find a way out of the constant trap of work, paying for his family’s upkeep and then working again.

With maybe a touch of debt involved in there, though he had yet to speak about it.

Then again, we all had our secrets.

Passing through the checkpoint at the exit we had chosen – makeshift as it might be – was a matter of having a conversation with the adventurers. They were wary of anyone coming in, but after we talked with them for a little while, they relaxed. Simple conversation – at least for now – was the easiest method to verify we were not doppelgangers, though that was no guarantee. Later on, when the minor wartime pendants were available, they would be the main form of verification.

The next floor, once we passed through the long passage down, was a more natural cave system. There was some argument whether it should be considered a full level, though most noted the different monsters and the altered geography of the level below and were on the side of the Explorers Guild.

Others, however, saw the varied cave system that one had to explore as just an extension of the transition phase. Certainly, such transition levels were common, the gap between levels rarely offering a simple and wide trail downwards. Yet, such transition zones rarely had as many and varied monsters as the ones we found here – nor did it have the dominant monster type that characterized a cave system.

It did, however, explain why the bramble goats – able to repopulate in such vast numbers that farming them on the level above was a constant nuisance – had yet to transition further down. After all, they lacked the necessary limbs to move between caves, even if they were able crawl with a significant degree of aptitude.

The seventh floor for us, though, was simple. We met more moskeael, more giant leeches that hung out on the inside of walls and acted like lamprey and eels, awaiting us as we climbed down and, of course, the limmia – those scorpion-hornet hybrids that hung off ceilings and waited for us to pass by to get stung.

Unfortunately for them, ambush predators almost one and all, having the wisps that could shine a light on their presence made their particular form of attacks almost useless. Eventually, of course, we would run into creatures that could camouflage themselves actively, utilizing their own version of skills, but that would be on lower levels.

Right now, most of these just relied on the dark and the blending of their bodies with the surroundings to launch their attacks, and for us, that was a non-starter.

Even the boss moskeael that we came across was not much of a fight. We found it hunkering low, feeding on a limmia that had attempted to strike it, tearing into the body with its mouth on the bottom of a cavern floor, and pinned it with Sophia’s skills and the wisps. By the time it managed to free itself, it was half-dead and Yorrick, throwing himself off the cave edge, slammed into it with a nasty crack that snapped its spine and one of Yorrikc’s ribs.

Not caring, he proceeded to stab the monster till it died, leeching a significant amount of life force.

In that way, the seventh and eighth floors were passed – rather more peaceably than the sixth.