Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 27 preview (Patreon)

For the first time, we were on a deeper level than the fault. The first few hours of journeying through the ninth floor were slow, as we took time to reacquaint ourselves with the flow of core energy. It filled our bodies, trying to find a degree of equilibrium in our forms that it was lacking from before, and we knew that it eventually would expand our souls and cores themselves.

From here on out, we would have to take things just a little slower, just because our bodies would need time to reacclimatize to the higher concentration of core energy. You could drop a few levels without feeling the effects, though how fast one got sick and to what degree was variable. Sort of like the bends on Earth – except rather than going up being the problem, it was going down.

Another reason why we had to take the ninth floor slower was due to the geography of the place. It was one of soaring chasms and thin, earthen bridges that reached between passes. The ninth floor was where a lot of journeymen explorers were trained, for the shifting geography of the world below meant that they had to constantly map and remap locations.

It was one of the characteristics of this floor, that the core crystals that provided light also were earth-based, growing from the land and attempting to join together. It created spiraling hoodoos and twisting bridges that led to nowhere, but the constant rumbling and mining of the same crystals ensured that the forces playing across the level ended up destroying many of these bridges.

In the end, it left the explorers able to resell new maps on a regular basis, with the latest updates, and individuals who had accumulated a good name for themselves made bank. Small groups of explorers who had accumulated names for themselves – the Golden Compass, the Updated Map, Jonas and Co. – also quietly grew their own reputations within, hiring new explorers to continue the same work as others graduated upwards.

Without these maps, adventurers could – and did – explore the changing ninth floor themselves, dealing with the razorwings, the stone imps and the landeels. The first were flying bat-like creatures that the team had encountered before. Out here, though, where there were more open spaces and they could flock, they became more of a threat.

Kira once again became a major contributor. She released swathes of flame, low in power such that individually they did not tax as much but still managed to destroy the creatures’ wings, burn off fur and confuse them. Sophia pulled on her own skill, widening the plane of her mirrors so that they hung in space, slicing apart wings or blocking approaches.

Even Brand showcased a new trick, utilizing a handful of metal to expand the range of his electricity. Lightning darted and danced from his hands to the flung handfuls of metal, jumping to creatures that flew through the cloud and locking their muscles into rictuses of pain.

Only Yorrick and I were left out, forced to use our much shorter weapons to deal with the flying creatures. Mostly, though, we were just guards for the trio as they dealt with the creatures, Brand only daring to use his new trick when there was sufficient solid ground to let him pick up his metal shavings and debris easily.

We were, thankfully, more useful against the stone imps and landeels. The first were tiny elementals, creatures of nearby stone that had to be crushed, shattered and otherwise pulverized to reveal the internal core that we could then pocket. So long as we managed to keep our own aura around the tiny orb, we could disable the monster, destroying its connection to its earth.

Yorrick utilized the pommel of his largest knife and the edge of his shield to shatter and punch his way through, grumbling all the while about the lack of energy to be leeched. While the creatures were animated, they had not the life force that we living creatures utilized to mobilize us, and thus it was not something that Yorrick could steal to empower himself. Not yet at least – but that was the danger of leeches.

Given enough time, he could probably borrow – or steal on a more permanent basis – from those he killed. Was it any surprise that at least one of the gods, if not more, were leeches? Copies and leeches were cheats in this world, and the only reason they weren’t more scary were how rare they were overall.

That I managed to pick up not one but two of them in the academy said something about my luck, or perhaps more about what pain had done when he brought me here. That damn old man was an ass, but his goals were pain.

“Lin!” I dodged by millimeters, the striking point of a stone imp nearly tearing a hole through my armor as the creature formed feet from me. I wasn’t that worried of them finishing me off, not with my armor, but getting distracted by idle thoughts and painful blocks was a bad idea.

I snapped a tight karate block, feeling the stone gauntlet that I wore on my arm clash against the rocks of the imp’s extended body. It threw the creature off, deforming one side and opening the center mass to a straight punch. Spikes – dozens of them, small rather than large – covered my gauntleted arm, so that when I struck, they plowed through first to tear holes in the creature’s defense and part rocks.

It still hurt, just a little less than punching concrete. These stone imps were made from dozens to scores of rocks, held together by their core, so it was not as though I was punching an unyielding brick wall – done that – or metal pole – done that too – but something more akin to the world’s hardest heavy bag.

It bruised even under the gauntlet, but it also meant that when my fist crashed through, it exploded the rocks away. This left me in easy reaching distance for the core that was always – at least in these versions – in the center of its body.

Grabbing and holding onto it for a few moments, getting slammed and pummeled by the stone limbs, was less than pleasant but it was fast and effective. Removing my hand from its crumbling body, I dropped the orb into my purse, nodding to Yorrick, who nodded back, adding one to the mental tally.

The kid had come a long way since we had graduated. He was more trusting of the group, willing to let us carry our share of the orbs and shards. Partly in fear of one particular purse being destroyed and also because he was keeping a mental tally of what should be there, but also, I like to think, because he was realizing he could trust us.

Or if not, that he could leave. It mattered little anymore; mistrusting one another was a good way of driving the wedge between us further. Like my own realization that maybe I needed help, he must have recognized that would put him in even more of a dire situation, working with others he knew little about, and could trust even less.

“You okay?” Yorrick asked, as I shook my hand out and flexed my fingers.

“I’m fine. Fingers hurt a little but not worth using my skill yet.” I would have to, eventually. Otherwise, they would swell up and become a real pain, robbing me of my ability to flex and grab.

“I meant earlier.”

“Just a headache,” I explained.

“You should look into that. Or stop drawing so much from your vault.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was assuming: that drawing down my own health so much, storing it away, was giving me headaches. It was not necessarily a bad assumption, wrong though it might be. On the other hand…

“I’m fine. I’ll pay closer attention.”

“Fine. Just don’t die.” He leaned in and whispered. “Us frontliners got to stick together, eh?”

“Meatshields unite.”

He snorted, especially since they did not have the same concepts on this world. Still, the term was self-explanatory enough that it got a smile from him. Together, the meatshields moved down the stone bridge, Yorrick carefully staying in the center and gulping with each moment, fighting his own fear.

The kid had really progressed from his roots as a streetrat. Every day he would continue to improve, as we made our way down the dungeon.

A pity what became of him and the party, really.