Dressed to Kill 13 (Patreon)

Was it worth to take the risk? To dive into the next floor of the dungeon, alone? I should — 

I should stop kidding myself. I decided to face off against a pack of wolves with nothing but a big metal rod.I decided a long time ago — years ago — that I was going to clear the dungeon, to keep this new life of mine alive. For myself. For my mom. Of course I’m clearing the next floor. Every kill means more experience. More experience means more opportunities. A new type of monster just meant a fancy new dress to me.

Sure, I didn’t end up a noble. But I wasn’t just a seamstress anymore.

[Shadow Cloak I] [Mana: 4/10]

A cloak of darkness hugged me tight, blocking the lantern’s light from escaping. Darkness filled the cave, save for the golden orange-light of the portal. The next floor of the dungeon was filled with twilight. I stepped into it as a walking shadow.

The change in environment assaulted my senses once again. Though it was deep at night on the first floor, the second featured golden twilight, soft and late and filtered through the leaves of a dancing canopy. This floor of the dungeon was the forest; it was huge and alive and everything moved and smelled of rich earth and life.

Insects and mushrooms and vines covered the trees. Birds chirped. The shadows in the forest ran deep. There was an open path before me, the trees thinnest along a road of rough earth and tree root and what foliage could survive this far below the canopy.

The shadows between the trees were deep.

I stepped off the road, walking carefully over uneven terrain, blending in with the shadows. Sandy said the second floor featured bug monsters. There could be anything in a forest. I kept my eyes open as I crept forward inch by inch.

I only had enough mana to kill four more.

My imagination went wild with what I would face. What if there were millipedes the size of horses? Would they die instantly? Butterflies that could fly away from me? No, thats ridiculous. Butterflies aren’t monsters. The more I scanned the floor of the forest the more cramped it felt.

Though it appeared open, it was far more restrictive than the previous floor. Beyond the sparse trees was a wall of warped bark. This only an illusion of a forest. It was a cage full of monsters.

The forest road twisted and turned, the wall winding at the edges. I followed it for minutes without seeing a monster. Ahead, the canopy fell away into shadow, the shape of leaves dancing in the trees. My paranoia grew. I stared upward.

Something moved beneath me, the ground giving way. I jumped backward as I scanned the ground. The shadows of the canopy distracted me from the terrain below. I expected a snake that I stepped on or a sinkhole opening beneath me.

Instead I saw a web sliding across the ground.

A monster slammed into the ground where I had been. It had eight legs, a shining carapace striped in hot pink and metallic red. It chittered as it spun about, eight eyes glinting with the golden light of afternoon, fangs dripping a purple liquid so bright it seemed tog low.

Of course it’s spiders. Why wouldn’t it be spiders!

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 3/10] [Cancel]

[+6 XP] [Level up] [Excess Discarded]

Chitin broke almost as easily as muscle and flesh, my needle stabbing directly through the side of the monster. The needle struggled to break through the hard armor, but only for a moment, then it cracked through the carapace and into the gooey flesh and the monster fell dead.

[Shadow Cloak] fell away and bug juice splattered onto me.

“Spiders.” I cursed.

Then I assessed the side of the bug again. All told… it was rather pretty, how it reflected in the light. If I cut the side into pieces, I wondered if it could make passable armor. I wondered what element and skills it would grant. The ability to manipulate spider web? A higher level of thread mastery? The power to climb walls?

I would find out later. For now I needed to clear as far as I could in the dungeon. I watched the ground more carefully now, stepping over roots and into areas I could clearly see.

The shadows around me now seemed to take the form of all kinds of bugs. My gaze jumped around, scanning the shadows for lurking monsters. Occasional breezes sent a rustling noise through the canopy and leaves fluttering to the ground.

I screamed as something grabbed my foot and threw me from the forest floor. The world turned upside down. It closed around my ankle and ripped me off the ground. Only an instinctive response kept me holding onto my needle.

The world was upside down, mottled black, shadows dancing as branches moved.

A spider hovered in front of me.

It chittered, curious, reaching out with its fangs; I swung backward, throwing my body weight into the motion. The spider skittered back. The ever-burning lamp at my side fell from my belt and hit the ground with the sound of shattering glass and the rush of fire that found new fuel.

I tried to stab the sewing needle towards the spider, but it jumped away, dodging from me. Finally, I activated my skill.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 2/10] [Cancel]

The grip of magic pulled my arms in a vice, forcing my body to bend upwards until the needle stabbed into the spider. I only had a moment to wonder how much I could abuse the movement of this magic before the smell of smoke overtook my other senses. My eyes started to burn.

[+4 XP]

The spider’s body dropped with a crunch. But that still left me dangling upside down as smoke poured off the dead leaves at the bottom of the forest.

“Shit, shit shit.”

My momentum left me dangling helplessly back and forth. There were at least thirty feet between me and the ground, enough to break a leg if I was lucky. Luck wouldn’t help me survive the fire. Would a healing potion heal burns? Would it heal a broken leg?

I had a feeling the answer to that last question was no.

I swung to reach the nearest branch, building up speed as I made myself into a living  pendulum. I reached out with my free hand, brushing the side of the nearest branch, before swinging back with a thunk and slamming into the tree behind me. 

[Health: 9/10]

My momentum was gone in an instant, a stark reminder of the weight of my failure. The fire licked up at me from below, hungry and angry and spreading with the sound of crackling wood and leaves, steam and smoke sputtering up to sting my eyes and choke me. I started swinging again, this time mindful of the tree behind me, and when I got as close as I dared, I activated my skill.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 1/10] [CANCELLED]

Magic ripped me forward, straining my arms and slamming me into the tree. The needle split the bark… and I swung backwards as the force disbursed. [Running Stitch] cancelled, taking the mana and one of my sewing needles with it. I coughed as fire built in my lungs, the smoke unavoidable. I was out of mana,

[Health: 8/10]

I couldn’t afford to die here; how stupid would I have to be to die here? Not even to the monsters, but to the damned lamp. I needed to get out of here. The pain in my lungs intensified instead of weakening, my lungs full of fire. I was coughing ash, heat stinging my skin as the fire tried to alight the roots of the trees below me. The smallest saplings went up.

[Health: 7/10]

I swung for the rope and missed it. With shaking hands, I pulled out the second sewing needle from my bag, doing my best to cling onto it. All I had was stealth and stitching. I needed more. This is what nobles were born with; the power to survive. They would have mobility skills to escape or survival skills to absorb the fall into the fire below. All I had was a stupid outfit and stupid sewing skills.

[Health: 6/10]

There was still a rope hanging from the end of the sewing needle stuck in the tree. I pulled on [Thread Manipulation] as hard as I could. The rope inched towards me, swinging with me as I neared it like my hand was a magnet.

I felt my bonds around my ankles loosen.

I wasn’t close enough to grab the rope. I was going to fall if the threads loosened. I tried to pull myself up to grab them instead — maybe if I pulled myself above the canopy I could crawl away. Instead, I found the web holding me aloft inching towards me just like the rope. Thread manipulation was affecting it too.

If it counted for thread manipulation, what else would it count for? Exhausted and out of options, I pulled myself to the tiny end of the web, holding the hold of the needle out. With careful application of [Thread Manipulation] I pulled the web through the eye of the needle.

[Health: 5/10]

With my last bit of my mana, I activated my skill.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 0/10]

I stabbed forward into another tree. This time, I kept going, stitching a pattern into the bark. The web burned as it spun around my ankles. The magic unraveled the spider web hidden in the canopy above, forcing it forward and into the bark. 

[Health: 4/10]

I stitched patterns into the bark until the web ran out, my ankles burning and bleeding, my lungs gasping for air. When the last of the web above unraveled, I simply dropped, grabbing for the tree and finding a hand hold in the web I had stabbed into its side. Great stitches of messy spiderweb adorned the bark in a pattern down its side.

I hugged the tree, inching down step by step before falling a few feet at the bottom. My lungs protested against my will, gasping for air.

[Health: 3/10]

Pressing myself low, I sprinted onto the forest path and back towards the exit, fighting the ever present smoke. Fire and ash gave way to the bird and small animal calls now raised into a massive alarm. I kept jogging forward, avoiding the ground.

One of my two needles was stabbed into a tree on the second floor of the dungeon. If anyone found it… there would only be one answer to who was clearing the dungeon with a giant needle.

I gasped for air like a drowning woman, staggering to all fours before turning back and looking at the fire. It was spreading. Slowly. Blood stained the inside of my pants where the snare burned my skin and pulled me into the spider web. Ash clung to me.

I pushed myself to my feet and ran until I slammed through the portal back to the first floor. I didn’t think I could run anymore, but I had anyway. I pressed my hands to the cold stone, feeling the heat drain from my body, relishing in the dirty floor. Wolf corpses pooled blood at the side. Relief was an unexpected emotion on seeing a corpse.

Gasping and hacking, I unbuttoning my backpack with shaking hands and held the healing potion inside.

Then I stopped myself, still choking on the taste of smoke. I wasn’t in any danger. I looked back at the portal to the next stage of the dungeon. The monsters didn’t follow. I was as safe as I could be.

Except my [Shadow Cloak] was gone and so was my mana. I had no way to get out without the guard seeing me.