Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 34 preview (Patreon)

Running for your life and the adrenaline that comes from that can give you a decent boost at the start, but the downside of adrenaline is that it utilizes a lot of the energy that is embedded in your cells very quickly. It’s why so many fighters “gas” themselves, as they run out of the energy that is easily accessible, long before the secondary and tertiary energy systems in the human body kick in. It’s why cardio is so important, to help build the stores and also to teach the human mind that it can keep pushing the body even when it’s exhausted.

Of course, a lot of those reasonable and useful training considerations and techniques fly out the window when you’re pouring healing energy into the body at the same time. Core energy, healing potential utilized to speed up the process of rebuilding, all of that swept away portions of the lactic acid build-up and improved the oxygen content within the cells immediately. At the same time, already taxed and overworked, the body – my body – was in anaerobic production anyway.

All of which meant that by the time I started flagging a little, when the adrenaline from fleeing the tarzaks began to fade, I had another source of energy ready at hand. I just had to keep pumping healing energy in – and chewing on the handfuls of food and washing it all down with water when I could – whilst I ran.

As I mentioned, the tenth floor was not midnight dark, just gloomy. There were shadows everywhere, all the better for the shadow cats to stalk their prey. They were the kings of the next few floors, but thankfully few enough in number on the tenth that it would take monumental bad luck – or the fall from a very high place and the resounding noise – to attract the attention of one.

Still, knowing that any corner, any shadowed recess, might hide a lurking predator waiting to jump on me and tear out my throat, I could not take the time to slow and patiently check my surroundings. There was a large nest behind me, a pack of tarzaks – yes, I never could decide which term worked best for them; the Tionerth word basically translated as “group” – and they would not stop.

Which meant I needed space. A lot of it. Preferably something tall to climb, maybe a cave with a secondary exit. All well and good, but I had no map, no idea which part of the cave system I was in. I had a rough idea of the shape of the floor – a rather elongated, jagged, lightning scar – but the numerous side branches were confusing and numerous.

No, finding a suitable place to rest, as hoodoos loomed above me and I wove my way forwards, was going to be tricky. Worst was the occasional monster drop – a stone imp or fallen razorwing that came crashing down without warning. More than one adventurer had passed on because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That meant running, out in the clear, was foolish – but get too close and the ambush predators in the shadows could grab at you. The shadow cats – not really cats, mind you, but they had a tendency to play with their prey just as much – were not the only danger.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I noted a struggling tarzak. Caught and drawn in, the tendrils of grey ivy, the trailing edges of a curshavy plant’s vines dragging its prey in. This looked like a mature curshavy and I made mental note of its location, as best as I could.

Dangerous things, with sharpened edges for the vines that cut and tore, that dragged bodies in the moment you stepped too deep within. A step too close and it reacted, but you could just as easily walk by one and never notice, if you were not in the optimal location. In all cases, they had the advantage of not actually eating cores and shards, so finding mature ones was a huge boon. You were guaranteed to find a few orbs – possibly a lot.

The problem, of course, was the older they were, the harder they were to kill since their “hearts” were not just fire resistant and generally shielded under multiple layers of hardened bark, but you couldn’t exactly bleed them out.

They also, when injured, bled a highly fragrant sap. At one point, it was an extremely popular perfume base. Among certain groups, it still was, but the secondary effect of the perfume was that it drew nearby monsters to it. As such, during an outbreak or a dungeon fault breach, those wearing the perfume were often the first targets, causing it to drop in popularity among all but the most foolish or forgetful.

Still, it kept being added, on the backend, by many, since it really was a lovely smell.

I kept running, pain coursing through me with every step. Time loss meant only the next step, the next breath, the next jolt of pain were the important. When a razorwing came close enough, flying low to see what the fast-moving creature below it was, I reacted by pure instinct. Bashed it aside with my borrowed shield, never breaking stride.

Except, of course, I was not entirely fully balanced or properly set up for such movement and doing so threw me off. I tumbled to the ground, rolling over and over again till I came to a stop, new aches joining old ones in a new symphony of agony.

I lay there, panting, trying desperately to refill my body with air. The dungeon was silent around me – no more truly silent than a forest floor at night, but deathly quiet to a city dweller. My breath was the loudest noise, a rasping, drawn in and out, forcing me to slowly cycle energy through me as I waited for the pain to subside, for energy to refill my externalities.

There was a flowing wave of heat going through my legs, a murmured reminder of the work I had pushed through it. My shoulder was better, though it throbbed from having been caught as I fell, put under further pressure. I could sense that the newly healed and barely patched-together clavicle was barely holding on, new cracks joining old ones.

More energy poured down that way. I groaned, slowly pulling myself upwards, finding more water to drink, greedily. A half dozen gulps before I put the flask down, drawn to the weakly struggling flapping of the monster by my side.

Angry and resentful, it flopped towards me, broken wings and smashed mouth no hindrance to its venom. It wanted me dead and would flop over as best it could till it could reach me. So I let it, taking the time to chew on some food, my sandy and dirty hand adding a little crunch to the handful of trail mix that I swallowed.

More fuel for the fire.

When the razorwing reached me, I reached over and smashed its head in, extracted its shard and staggered to my feet. Looking about me carefully for once, I decided that however far I had gotten was far enough.

Time to find a place to rest up and heal.

After that, I could plan how to survive the rest of the floor.