We enter another particularly long corridor, a few steps in Alissa stops. She looks down and stomps her foot in the ground.
"It's hollow," she says.
I have to strain myself to notice the difference, the concrete slabs that make up the floor must be quite thick.
"Well, prepare to run at any moment," I say.
"I will keep an eye on the back, it could be another challenge like the bardiches," Ciel says.
"True."
"Hana, I will have to go in the front, there's a big chance that there's a button or wire somewhere," Alissa says.
Hana nods and we slowly move forward.
Half way in Ciel's idea was proven correct, the first hollow slab we stepped on suddenly disappears into darkness.
"RUN!" She yells.
I realize I should have let them wait and use [
Gate
] like last time...
The slabs fall with a noise of stone scraping on stone, a few seconds later we hear a muffled sound of stone breaking.
Half way along the corridor the slabs stop falling. We stop for a second to understand what happened. Alissa taps the slabs again.
"These ones are hollow! Don't stop!" She yells.
The moment we start running again the slabs just behind us start falling. It was a trap in a trap, made for us to waste time looking back.
I lift Lina by the armpits and start running faster. Roxanne slows down, Aoi jumps from Roxanne's shoulder to my back and curls around my neck, she gives a small lick on my cheek.
"I will just float, damn stupid traps," Roxanne mumbles.
Her bat wings materialize, then she crosses her legs and slowly floats after us. With our two snails neutralized we manage to pick up speed and run faster than the falling slabs.
Alissa slows down near the end of the corridor and stomps the slabs again.
"Those are fine."
I slow down and catch my breath. I kiss the forehead of the cute small animal cuddling on my chest and let her down. A minute later Roxanne lands behind us. Aoi gives me another lick then runs back to Roxanne's shoulder and gives her a small lick, eliciting a smile from Roxanne.
"Weren't you supposed to be training your body?" Ciel asks with a bit of sass.
"Ye-yeah..." Roxanne purses her lips, trying to remain expressionless.
"The only way to get that one to exercise is by rubbing her tail," Hana says.
"But if we had to do that regularly either you or Wolfy would die," Alissa says.
Roxanne pulls down the brim of her hat in embarrassment.
"Stop picking on me," she says, muffled by her hat.
"We are just giving your jokes back," Alissa says with a smug smile.
"So it's revenge then," Roxanne narrows her eyes.
Lina nods vigorously.
"At this point it's a cycle, a never ending cycle of teasing," I say.
My words ring true as no one argues against it.
We turn a corner and see a creepy stone dragonoid head standing still mid-air. His long mouth is open and his stone teeth look menacing.
"I don't like that," Alissa says.
She slows down and hides behind Hana.
We approach the statue cautiously, when we are two meters from it its eyes glow green. We immediately hide behind our shields, Ciel covers Roxanne and I feel she's gathering mana.
A voice comes out of the statue. It has two tones, one is a low rumbling that reverberates in our ears and the other is a deep male voice.
"Dwie kaczki przed dwiema kaczkami, dwie kaczki za dwiema kaczkami i dwie kaczki obok dwóch kaczek. Ile jest kaczek?" The voice says, the only thing I understand is the intonation at the end makes me believe it is a question.
"What in the...," I mutter.
"It's talking in the dragonoid language!" Lina exclaims.
"Can you understand?" Ciel asks.
Lina shakes her head behind her shield, her bangs flail wildly.
"We only know about written language, we have little idea to how it's pronounced. The only hint is when wild dragonoids sometimes exclaim things, most likely expletives…"
"I have a hunch this is a riddle," I say.
"Theeen... We are screwed?" Roxanne asks.
"I think so…"
Lina nods in agreement.
"Czas minął, giń!"
We snap our heads forward, the statue's eyes glow red and its open mouth glows. A fireball is spit out towards Hana, she puts her sword in front and the fireball dissipates. Before we can even talk another fireball flies, then another, and another, and another.
"[
Firewall
]!"
The fireballs stop flying and get absorbed by the literal wall of fire, strengthening the wall but consuming more mana. We see only small bulges where the fireballs try to pass through.
"I have an idea, get down on the ground, now!" I yell.
Awkwardly we lay our bellies down and put our shields above us, I try to cover me and Alissa with mine.
"My mana won't last long like this!" Roxanne yells.
I wait and see the bulges on the wall lower. I hear a sound of stone hitting stone and the fireballs stop a good 60 centimeters above us.
"We can crawl through this! Just keep your heads down!" Hana yells.
"Stop the wall!" I yell.
Roxanne ends the spell and a stream of fireballs flies through our heads, they continue until they hit the end of the corridor, burning the hedge but doing nothing to the black magical wall.
Slowly and with a bit of difficulty we crawl forward and move past the dragonoid's statue. When the last of us crosses, the statue stops spewing fireballs and floats back to its original height.
"That was interesting..." Ciel says, she looks at the statue with a bit of amusement.
"Should we destroy it?" I ask.
"No!" Lina yells, then she drops her head and her cheeks turn red.
"Okay," I smile to her cuteness.
"We could learn a lot about the dragonoid language if we listen to it," Lina says meekly.
Roxanne looks over the corner.
"Well, I think it might be a bit difficult to find it again, mostly because this maze makes zero sense," she says.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Lina, come here and check with me, we didn't make a mistake right?" Lina scurries over to Roxanne and they look over the map they were drawing. "If this is right then it makes no sense, this corridor goes way past a path we already passed through. Either the maze changed or the dimensions of our map are completely off. This maze barely looks like a maze too, look at this."
The paths we are taking look more like a root system than a neatly packed maze where every single meter is either an explorable corridor or a wall. The path we took clearly looks like there's a single correct way while every other branch ends into a dead end sooner or later. I have been paying attention to the vision of the summons so I haven't been paying attention to the path we took.
"I will put a 'coordinate' here," I say, "Let's go back and double check the map."
We prepare ourselves and run past the dragonoid head. Fireballs follow after us but Roxanne casts another [
Firewall
].
We go back to the place where Roxanne thinks the paths intersect and there's nothing wrong there. Now even I can see the maze really isn't warped.
I open a [
Gate
] back to our previous position and a negligible amount of mana is used. That's odd. I get an Idea
"There's a spell in [Space Magic] called [
Warp Space
], you can create a house that on the inside is bigger than on the outside," I say.
The girls look confused but Roxanne seems to have an idea of what I'm talking.
"In my world we call it non-euclidean space. Going into a direction doesn't have the same cost as going in another direction.
"Ah, I remember, it's called warped-distances space," Roxanne says, "An example, you could say that going north for 5 minutes at a constant speed would make you walk 10 meters, then you walk south for 5 minutes and you end up walking 20 meters."
"That's incredible, I never heard of a dungeon doing something like this," Ciel asks.
"That's because it's commonly used in gauntlet type dungeons where they try to challenge the perception of the adventurer," I say, "These types of dungeons are sets of challenges. They are extremely rare because at the end of the dungeon there's a reward, once the reward is taken normally the dungeon collapses."
"This also kind of confirms there's a treasure chest at the end of this maze," Roxanne says, "Though I'm not sure why the maze is using warped-distances space, so far it has only made mapping the maze more confusing."
We get the answer to our question at the next corner.
"That's an [
Eternal Gate
]," Roxanne says.
It's a spell from [Space Magic]. I can only feel trace amounts of mana coming out of it, it's a very well done spell. It's a retangular portal covered by a very thin see-through white cloth, we see the maze on the other side. If it weren't for the "cloth" the portal would be nearly imperceptible.
With zero resistance we pass through the white "cloth" and the maze gets more annoying, behind us there's no way back, this is a one-way portal.
A small light shines through the cracks on the ground.
"Faza druga," a dragonoid voice whispers around us.
We warily wait for a few minutes but nothing else happens so we continue our exploration.
"This looks familiar," Roxanne says.
"Yes, the portal could have sent us back," Lina says.
A few minutes later we reach a corridor of swinging bardiches. I still have the "coordinate" of the first bardiche corridor. I open the [
Gate
] and I'm taken to the other side of this corridor, we really did get sent back.
"Cheat," Ciel mutters after she crosses the [
Gate
].
We enter a corridor and see another portal on it.
"This is different, there was only a dead-end here last time," Roxanne says.
"I guess we gotta map it exhaustively, then," I say.
We enter the portal and slowly the lights of our [
Spirit Lights
] dim until there's nothing.
"Hold each other!" I yell.
I grab Hana and Lina.
"Role call!" I order.
"Here," Alissa says.
"Here," Hana says.
"Here," Lina says.
"Here," Roxanne says.
"Kweh!" Aoi yells.
"Here," Ciel says.
"Gih!" Gify pops into my shoulder and chirps.
I breathe in relief. Everyone tries to cast [
Spirit Light
] again but nothing happens, Hana breathes fire and I hear small fireballs being cast but neither produces any light.
Suddenly our [
Spirit Lights
] suddenly produce light again and I nearly jump back in surprise.
The hedges were substituted by mirrors. Our reflections are repeated endlessly all around us, we look pale from the recent fear of darkness. Now there's a ceiling covering us and square arches hold each mirror in place.
"Creepy as hell," Roxanne says.
"Eh, kinda beautiful," Ciel says.
Roxanne looks at her with a crooked smile.
"You know, your sense of beauty is kinda skewed. You enjoy the dungeons way too much."
In other words, Ciel is kind of an adrenaline junkie.
"What?" Ciel shrugs, "I just like seeing new things, things that impress me."
"Yeah,
dangerous
things, you are addicted to having your heart beat fast."
"I agree with Ciel, dungeons can give us some very interesting experiences," Alissa says.
"You are both weird," Roxanne shakes her head.
"Look who's talking," Ciel says with a hint of sass.
"Ei, I'm a fun person."
"Better being like this than being a blood lusting weirdo," Alissa says.
Now Hana pouts.
"I don't think she was referencing you," I say to Hana.
"Oh..." Hana looks away with embarrassment.
The fact that Hana assumed she was being talked about tells us all we need about how Hana sees herself.
"Just admit you are all weirdos, I'm a weirdo and so is Lina too," I say, Lina looks down in sadness, "It doesn't matter, you are all good people and I love you all."
Though Hana and Alissa are more on the depraved side than on the weird side. Ciel rolls her eyes and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
"You and your honeyed words," she says.
"Well then...?" I look at the others.
After a row of kisses, a lick, and a head rub from Gify we move on. Or try to move on, Alissa gets highly disoriented in this maze.
"Too much movement, it's making me dizzy," she says.
Perhaps her eyes see too much detail. Dozens of our reflections plus our [
Spirit Lights
] must be too much information for her.
"Focus on the ground, keep looking at the corner between the wall and where the ground should be," I say.
Looking forward disorients yourself too much.
In the end all this one does is make us waste time, we finally reach another portal and we are taken back into a familiar hedge corridor. We take our time there and have our lunch.
We pass through the falling slabs again, I put a "coordinate" and run along with only Hana, then I teleport the girls. After that we reach again the floating stone dragonoid head, it immediately starts spewing fireballs. This time with a [
Firewall
] placed right on its face we crawl past it faster.
We enter another portal and I feel trace amounts of mana behind us. Me, Roxanne, and Ciel look up, there's a large and perfectly round boulder floating above us.
"This is bad, RUN!" I yell.
I saw that movie, I saw how this goes.
We start running and the sound of stone scraping on stone can be heard behind us. The hedges aren't 90º degrees corners anymore, they curve smoothly, allowing the large boulder to continue forward without losing much momentum.
After a minute of running Alissa yells.
"The boulder is not getting faster or slower, this is weird!"
"Everyone stop and fire a single spell at it on my signal then run!" I yell.
I keep running for a few seconds longer, then we reach a straight corridor.
"Now!"
We turn around and multiple [
Earth Bullets
], a [
Torrent
] a [
Wind Hammer
] and Aoi's fireball are sent towards the boulder. Cool guys don't look at explosions so we start running again.
We hear the sound of glass cracking and the sound of the boulder stops. We finally look back to see a large amount of glass chunks spread all over the corridor. The boulder only had a small crust made of stone. In the middle a small green gem can be seen, this is what was moving the boulder.
In the next few seconds the chunks turn grey and melt, slowly they evaporate into nothing.
"You know, this place is kinda crazy," I say.
"Agreed," Roxanne says.
"Eh, it's fun," Hana says.
Alissa and Ciel nod in agreement.
"Why do we have to run so much..." Lina says and pouts.
I pat her head. I actually like running, but I understand the short legs of a dwarf make this more tiring for her than for us.
On the last corridor that we explore we see a portal.
"It should be ending soon," Ciel says.
"Good, my feet are tired," Roxanne says.
I feel a sudden burst of mana in front of us, the world loses color, I look forward and Alissa is not there anymore. I look at the ground and a small circular formation is glowing and slowly fading. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
"Teleport trap!" Roxanne yells.
I focus on my connection with Alissa. I can still sense it but I can't discern the distance or the direction. No no no no.
I drop a "coordinate" and jump into the glowing circle.
Nothing happens.
FUCKING FUCK FUCK TITS FUCK CUM PUS FUCK!
Wait! this maze didn't have a single real enemy, she's not in immediate danger. It's okay, she's fine, she's gonna be fine. We have time to find her, lots of time, I can still go back to Lyle, teleport them all on the outskirts of Rabanara and spend however long here to find her. Consequences be damned, I will hide behind Vanea's oath to escape the empire if the fact that I can use [
Gate
] becomes known.
I look at my Emergency Ring, it glows green. She's fine, everything is fine, we will find her, this is just a prank/hahah funny/you got trolled type of dungeon. Fuck whoever thought random teleportation traps were a good idea, I hope you are burning in hell.
I turn my Emergency Ring green, I'm fine, everything is fine. Wait, fuck, I'm dumb, I'm so fucking dumb, I'm so massively fucking dumb. MORSE CODE, I COULD HAVE TAUGHT HER MORSE CODE SO WE COULD TALK IF SOMETHING EXACTLY LIKE THIS EVER HAPPENED.
I hit my head with my palm. Someone hugs me from behind.
"Wolfy, calm down," Ciel whispers into my ears.
Roxanne, Hana, and Lina surround me. I'm really thankful I have them around to keep me straight.
"I-I'm calm, I just remembered something I could have taught her so we could communicate through the Emergency Rings," I say.
Ciel looks at me puzzled, I think she has an idea of what I'm talking about.
"Maybe we should have bought that lithograph you once talked about," Hana says.
"Yeah, maybe, but we have to focus on the now," Ciel says.
"We are going back and scouring through what we already explored," I say.
The girls nod and we quickly move on. I still have my "coordinates" so the journey will be much faster.
She's not there, we wasted a whole hour searching for nothing. I have us quickly go back to the last portal, I hit myself for not leaving a "coordinate" there.
We return and cross the last portal, while the maze so far was rather straightforward, this part is a complete mess. Corridors that bend smoothly, circles and circles upon circles, corridors that go endlessly only to end up looping on itself. Even the square slabs that were being used to help with measuring distance now are a complete patchwork. Roxanne and Lina have to stress themselves to measure distances and during all this time my anxiety increases.
"We have to move faster," I say.
"We don't know if there would be other traps," Hana says, her eyebrows scrunch up in concern.
I grit my teeth, I'm not the kind to be reckless but the anxiety is pushing me towards that way.
I put down a "coordinate" every minute or so. I only have 7 slots and 5 of them are being used for other places. I step on every slab and walk sideways so I step on every part of the corridor just so I can make sure no one else falls to these traps.
I end up falling to 3 teleportation traps, vindicating my behavior. I yell Alissa's name every so often and also whenever I fall into a trap, but I hear nothing in return.
I return from the fourth trap, I'm getting a headache. This is the 77th coordinate I have put down and no sign of Alissa.
I feel a pain in one of my fingers, I look at it and my Emergency Ring is glowing red. I feel Alissa is on the move, though I still can't feel her direction or distance.
"FUCK! We have to move faster!" I yell.
The girls frown but Roxanne nods.
"Lina, we have to deal with only making a rough sketch, pay attention to the map and nothing else," Roxanne says.
Lina nods and we start jogging.
More curves, more weird bends, more loops, more crossroads. Fuck this place.
"Czas minął, giń!" Whispers a dragonoid voice.
I feel mana gathering behind us. We all turn and ready our shields, a stone dragonoid head appears from behind a corner, his eyes are red and his mouth is glowing.
We instantly chuck multiple spells at it, making it blow into multiple pieces.
"Well, that's a waste," Ciel says.
The pieces start to float again and in a few seconds the dragonoid face is reconstructed.
"Ah fucking hell, run!" I yell.
We turn the corner as a fireball flies pasts us and burns part of the hedge.
We keep running, the map be damned, we are relying on pure memory now. The only good thing being that the stone head doesn't fly fast, Lina isn't going to get tired from running so soon.
I have to do something, I have to find a way to get back to Alissa, some way, somehow. My "Companion" connection with her is useless I have to do something else, the Holly's can't see movement inside the maze, whatever space warp is used here is very strong.
I look at my Emergency Ring, there must be a way that information is transferred between them, it works even in a spatial distortion, there must be something special with it.
"Hold the stone head for me for a second," I say and stop.
I turn my Emergency Ring green and "extend" my soul over it. I feel something and then it's gone. I turn it off then on again. Same thing, there's really something going on. It uses a single point of my mana to work, it's sending that mana somewhere.
I focus all my attention on that ring and turn it. I felt something, it went north-west.
"Done! Move!"
I see that the stone head is decreasing its regeneration time, soon enough it might be unstoppable.
We run more and I stop again, still north-west.
I fell on a teleportation trap, I immediately come back.
We run and stop again, west.
We run and stop again, west.
We run and stop again, north-west.
We run and stop again, north.
I fell on another teleportation trap, I come back with the stone head almost on top of me. My sword eats the fireballs as I catch up with the girls. The fireballs are quite powerful, I think I can only eat about 5 of them before the emellanat melts.
We run and stop again, north.
"ALISSA!" I yell.
We run and stop again, north.
We run and stop again, north.
"ALISSA!"
"WOLF!"
FUCKING FINALLY.
Alissa appears on a corner, color comes back to my world. I run up to her and fall on another teleportation trap. FUCK YOU MAZE!
I come back to a deathly pale Alissa, she immediately runs up to me. I hug her tight, the sweet smell of her hair fills my nose. Stupid fucking dungeon.
"We have to go!" Hana yells.
I look away from the face of my love to see that we are cornered by the stone heads on both sides.
"Move forward!" I yell and release Alissa.
Alissa's stalker must still be weaker than ours. We blow it up and run past it.
Alissa guides us through the path she didn't take, her memory is quite good. We loop a few times back into already explored territory but we slowly map out this last part of the maze.
Lina and Roxanne tire out again, me and Hana have to carry them.
A few minutes after I notice the heads are not following us anymore. We continue exploring and meet up face-to-face with one of the heads, we run away and the stone head stops at a certain point.
"What the hell?" I mutter.
This happens twice, there's a small area that it seems the heads do not move past.
"The end must be around here!" Roxanne exclaims.
Shit, that's true.
We slow down and carefully map the area. Ciel carries Lina when my arms get tired. After a spiral we reach a portal.
Beyond the portal is a very long wooden chest, it's gilded with gold and silver, a golden dragonoid face is gilded on the front.
"Finally..." I mutter.
We release our breaths and nearly collapse, the tension of the chase slips away.
We slowly walk up to the chest. Alissa fires an arrow on it and we stand ready.
Nothing happens.
"Good, no mimic," Ciel says.
I approach the chest and put a hand on the handle.
"Together now," I say.
We all lift up the chest lid.
There's a beautiful spear inside it. The shaft is made of a piece of brown wood with multiple tin black circles on it. There's a single gem above the area where normally one would grip it one handed. The shape of the tip is simple, it is made of glossy grey wood. There's an intricate wavy pattern carved all over it and filled with silver.
"An elven spear," Alissa says.
Roxanne nods in agreement.
"From the High Forest, specifically," she says.
The elves from the High Forest use wood on their weapons. They can harden it and enchant it to have similar strength and edge to steel.
"I guess this means this dungeon is just a fragment of dragonoid culture instead of being a proper tomb," Lina says with a hint of disappointment,"No way a high elven spear would be found inside it otherwise."
I put points on [Wood Appraisal].
"The shaft is made of high quality heartwood from the Hearthtree while the tip is made from the bark of the Tree of the Stalwart."
"No idea what this means but I assume it is good," Hana says, her eyes glued to the spear.
"Same," I shrug.
Ciel looks enviously at Hana, her glaive is more versatile but it seems this spear is enchanted. Hana picks the spear and pours mana in it, it's 2 meters tall and in a second it stretches to 2.5 meters tall.
"Now that's amazing," Hana says, nearly drooling.
"Hopefully it won't break," Roxanne says.
"If a high elven spear breaks easily I will stab the nearest golden elf with it," Hana says and chuckles.
We hear a hiss going upwards and an explosion, we look up and fireworks fill the sky. Multiple colors and shapes, explosion upon explosion upon explosion fills the cave with light and a rainbow of sparkles.
"Gratulacje, wygrywasz!" A very loud dragonoid voice yells, it shakes our bones and nearly hurts our ears.
The cave turns silent and a chill runs trough my back.
"We have to go," I say.
I open a [
Gate
] back to the outside of the maze.
The elementals at the entrance to the castle saw and heard the fireworks, a space mage popped his head out of the castle for a second to see what was happening. There is no doubt in my mind that the undead inside that forest have seen or heard this, we have to run away.
We reach the castle and everyone is on the entrance waiting for us.
I stop in my tracks and nearly trip. One of the Holly's see 6 shadows moving towards her at incredible speed, 5 shadows run past her while one takes flight. It's a white scaled dragonoid with a black glow, destruction types are very sensitive to spells. It charges Holly with a spear and before it strikes I dismiss both Hollys.
"The undead are coming towards us! Run!" I yell.
Everyone's faces pale and Tankar grips his sword.
"Ciel, make sure no one falls behind!" I order.
Her face shows fear for a second, perhaps she thought she could be left behind? Right now she's the best for this. I keep my gaze stern and color returns to her face, she makes up her resolve and nods to me.
"Move!"
I summon a small bird, I tell it to hide and observe at the first gatehouse. We are reaching the second gatehouse when the bird spots the dragonoid undead. I can feel the bird's life slipping away as the undead approach, I dismiss it and form a plan.
We reach the tunnel and I stop.
"Alissa, Ciel, Lina, you three go with Lyle and escort them to the bottom of the tower. Once there you turn the Emergency Ring green. Me, Roxanne, and Hana will hold this tunnel until then."
I dismiss the fire elemental and summon two earth elementals and a wind elemental.
"What!? No!" Alissa yells.
"No time to argue! The undead are almost on top of us! Overload the scaffold and it should be fast!" I pull Alissa close and whisper in her ear, "I can use [
Gate
] to reach the cave, I need Lyle away so we can fight at full power."
She grits her teeth and clenches her fist. She gives me an angry kiss on the cheek and they run away, I see Lina is extremely anxious. She leaves with 2 earth elementals and the wind elemental. I'm left with the last earth elemental.
Hana pulls out her new spear. She and Roxanne are very tense. Aoi is quiet and focused, her monster nature makes her a natural for combat.
"Let's see how well this holds out," Hana says and smiles fearsomely.
I take away 2 points from [Mana Recovery] and add them to [Earth Magic], making it 2+3, now I can use [
Earth Wall
].
"We'll be fine, drink an elixir and we can keep them away," I say.
I drink one too and smile to Roxanne. Gify pops into my shoulder.
"Gih, giih, gih!"
Roxanne chuckles.
"What did he say?" I ask.
"Something about lizard barbecue, he wants me to give him a piece of those dragonoids."
I'm unsure how a nature spirit would react to eating undead but whatever, he helped Roxanne relax.
With Hana at the middle and me and the elemental flanking her, the tunnel gets a bit cramped. But that's enough to hold back the undead.
Two minutes later 6 shadowy figures appear. They hide behind their round shields like a phalanx, except there's 3 on top, making it a vertical wall of shields.
I feel my lungs get filled with the smell of acetone, it burns my insides and my eyes water. I feel shivers run through my entire body, my bones instinctively tell me to run, that this presence is wrong. Small particles of dust slowly stop moving and get suspended in the air, another sign of reality bending to the presence of the undead.
The calming feeling of water running through my shoulder clears my head. For a second Gify links our minds, our fears turn into one but so does our courage. We stand our ground united, we are in sync.
They all charge at the same time, a wall of spears thrust into us. They are not using pikes, with this Hana's spear is longer. Her spear bends one of the shields and penetrates it slightly. The elemental takes a spear on the arm, it barely scratches him. Roxanne lets out a [
Ice Lance
] in the middle, helping Hana hold them back. I cast [
Earth Wall
] on the ceiling, the top 3 spears get stuck into the wall I made.
I feel mana gathering. Two breaths of fire slip through the shield gaps and get dissipated by mine and Hana's swords. Hana is holding her sword with her shield hand just for the spell"absorbing effect.
"[
EXPLOSION
]!"
Blood and small pieces of meat fly through the gaps, all shields retreat except the one on the middle which falls down on the ground. A pool of meat and blood is all that remains, I see the 5 dragonoid eyes peek around their shields. They look at their fallen brethren.
"Spirits!" I order.
We all cast another [
Spirit Light
] and throw the balls towards them. The undead retreat even more.
"Humanoids, surrender. None of you will escape us," I hear an ethereal dragonoid voice, it's raspy and shaky.
There's no reason to provoke them, we keep our mouths shut.
I feel the blood drops that spilled on my face suddenly move, I get frightened and nearly smack myself. The blood drop escapes through my hand and floats back to where the undead exploded.
His body slowly pieces together and a few minutes later he's standing again, it's the destruction type dragonoid. He has white scales, black lines that wave and glow, two long spiral horns that circle many times over his temples, and a pair of penetrating eyes.
"Humanoid, we will turn you into servants. Surrender now and you will suffer no torture" His voice is not ethereal anymore, it's only slightly raspy and deep toned.
Yeah, no.
He looks at us for a few seconds, then he grabs his shield and returns to the shield wall.
"So be it then, you made your choice," the raspiness of his voice is gone.
The more time they take the better for us. The shield wall reforms and move forward, they strike the [
Spirit Lights
] and they disappear in a flash. I see their spears tremble, it takes them a minute return to normal.
Wind picks up dust and nearly blinds us. I feel a lump of mana is coming, I lift my shield and a blunt strike of compacted air hits me. I look forward and the tip of a spear is coming towards me, I parry with ease, the elixir is doing its job.
Small lumps of earth fall in front of us. My [
Earth Wall
] is being dismantled by the destruction type.
They strike again and again and again, merely trying to overpower us. It's good for us that their mana powers are low, their breaths and wind strikes are weak. They lost some of their affinity to their mana once they turned undead.
We are slowly pushed back into the tunnel, better for us as it got cramped. Suddenly 2 of them break off and stay behind, I get a bad feeling from this. I retreat from the line and stay in front of Roxanne.
The undead try to trample us over, they try a suicide charge. I cast [
Earth Wall
] twice and close the tunnel, trapping 2 of them in the middle of my walls. Their bodies are crushed and nearly split into two. One of them dies and Hana cuts down the other, slowly their bodies turns into grey mush and seep back behind the wall.
I put down my wooden log barricade and fuse it with the [
Earth Wall
].
My wall and the logs are slowly chipped away by the fire and wind types. Once a hole is opened I get a feeling of "death". To my side a rumbling sound comes out and the wall crumbles, the falling stone simply disappears. A spinning metal drill pops out followed by the metal and destruction type dragonoids.
Fuck.
"HANA!" I yell.
The drill turns into a spear and is thrown towards Hana. She looks behind and barely avoids getting skewered. The metal dragonoid charges her while the destruction dragonoid comes to me.
His claws strikes my shield, scales fly and a large scratch appears on it. I can't take a full hit from those claws, undead corruption is stacking with his destruction magic, scary.
An [
Ice Lance
] hits him in the chest and I cast a [
Earth Bullet
] on top of it. He's sent flying back into his hole.
"HUMAAAAAN!" He bellows.
The destruction dragonoid is pinned to the wall deep into the tunnel.
Hana abandons the front line and charges the metal dragonoid, who's generating a new spear on his hand. The earth elemental walks forward and holds the dragonoids as their claws rip it to shreds. Hana casts [
Earth Bullet
] into the spear shoulder of the dragonoid, having his strike veer off course and allowing her to pierce his throat with her spear.
I cast [
Earth Wall
] twice and close again the tunnel. My head explodes in pain, overuse.
"[
EXPLOSION
]!"
The destruction dragonoid has his body turn into very small giblets as the tunnel trembles with her spell.
Hana pushes the metal dragonoid into the wall and pins her spear into the stone. This is an incredibly sharp spear.
I cast [
Entangling Vines
] in the metal dragonoid, he gets bound to the wall. Hana struggles for a second but she manages to pull out the spear.
"RUN!" I yell.
I throw an Escape Bomb behind us. It shouldn't make them run but it should at least annoy the shit out of them and slow down their advance for a moment longer.
The tunnel is quite long, we have lots of room for another ambush. I drink an MP potion and pray my overuse doesn't stack too much. We all drink an HP potion, the corruption of the undead already took a few points from us, it's doing more damage than the elixir can heal.
I get a whiff of the Escape Bomb and my stomach churns. That thing smells like what I believe rotten goblin ass sweat would smell like, it provokes an instinctual need to puke.
The earth elemental is killed, I stop and cast a small [
Earth Wall
] and narrow down the tunnel. [
Earth Wall
] is easier to destroy than a normal wall, so I make it seem similar to the tunnel stone, this way they might not realize it's a spell.
Hana switches her spear for her sword. We wait a good 10 minutes, they are taking their time regenerating.
I hear the sounds of claws hitting stone. It grows louder and louder.
The first ones to come are two dragonoids glowing green.
"[
FIRESTORM
]!"
They burn greatly before the fire dragonoids can interrupt the storm. I see Roxanne grimace and lean on her staff, she's suffering from overuse too. Hana hacks at the burned wind dragonoids and decapitate them, immediately their bodies start to slowly reconstruct.
The next one that comes forward is the metal dragonoid, his body is covered in metal and he looks like the Silver Surfer. Hana fires her breath while me, Roxanne, and Aoi chucks fireballs. Aoi seems to be unloading all of her power on this attack.
The dragonoid tries to move forward but it is using all its power and concentration to keep his metal from burning him.
The moment Hana's fire breath runs out I pounce forward and slash at the dragonoid. He's slightly burned and receives a large gash on his chest, he staggers backwards and Hana decapitates him. The wind dragonoids are also partially burned by the fire and get their revival delayed.
The next to come are the fire dragonoids, they come full force trying to overpower Hana.
"[
Water Wall
]!"
Both are caught into the wall and struggle to get out, their mana refuses to leave their bodies. Roxanne holds her head in pain, her breath is ragged.
Hana slashes at the water and it turns red with blood. Suddenly it dies out, Roxanne didn't dispell it, the destruction dragonoid came.
"You shall pay for this!" The white dragonoid yells.
He flies towards us. I feel a lot of mana coming from him, his claws pierce Hana's shield and vambraces, it enters her arm. I believe this is enough to poison her, we have to get back to Ciel.
I cast another [
Earth Wall
] and my head spins.
The dragonoid is squished into the wall, allowing Hana to get herself free from its claws and to slash his arm off. She grimaces in pain and she's one who's used to dealing with pain.
I slash at the legs of the dragonoid, I cut a foot off. Aoi chucks fireballs at the easy target, his eyes get burned.
"Resistance is futile, you will serve me!" The dragonoid yells.
"Run!" I yell.
"I WILL FIND YOOOOO-...!" He screams, his voice booms and reverberates. Then Aoi chucks more fireballs and his scream is cut off.
This time we don't stop, the fear of that voice gives us a final boost in speed, but my lungs burns so much I'm getting out of breath. Roxanne is the one who stops first.
"I'm sorry... I can't... run... anymore," she nearly whispers.
"It's okay…"
Hana's arm is necrotic, half her forearm is blackened and she's sweating cold, this is the danger of the undead. We get another minute to rest and the ring turns green.
"That's our cue."
I open the [
Gate
].
"Gih!"
Gify says a quick goodbye and pops out of existence, our connection wears off and I suddenly feel much more tired.
"Thanks, Gify."
We enter the wet cave, it's quite dusty here and there's mana in the air. I look around and see the corpse of a dragonoid, an arrow pierced one of his his eyes. His glow is no more but I can assume it was a wind-type.
"Hana, I don't think we have time to lower down through the scaffold," I say.
"What are you planning?"
"Hold us and use your winds to keep us from hitting the walls. I will dismiss the elementals and use the last burst of mana on [
Telekinesis
] to keep us from splatting on the ground."
Hana laughs and sighs.
"Fine," she says.
Aoi curls herself on Hana. Hana grabs Roxanne with one hand and holds me with the weakened arm. Roxanne looks pale.
"Hana... I love you," Roxanne says.
"I love you too," Hana smiles and gives her a peck on the lips, "But we are not gonna die, at worst we will get broken legs."
Roxanne grimaces and her legs shake. I dismiss the elementals and the pulley the earth elemental in front of us is holding falls down.
"I love both of you and we are not going to die, not until old age," I say.
"Kweh!"
She loves us all.
Hana jumps without another word and I regret everything.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Roxanne shrieks.
Hana's wings wrap around us. Aoi seems to be laughing inside her mind, the feeling of flight something she desires greatly. We sway around and Hana's wings scrape on the walls. I feel my body turns cold as the light below us rapidly approaches.
I wished I paid more attention to the physics of Kerbal Space Program, perhaps they could help in calculating the optimal distance for the landing burn.
I let my regrets behind and focus on gathering all my mana, no time to be conservative. I cast [
Telekinesis
] on me and Hana. I feel the deceleration and get nauseous, my consciousness nearly slips away.
We are too fast, the wind enchantments is making things harder, I have to use it all. My head explodes, my vision and hearing goes away, I only guide myself by the feeling of the wind.
My mana drains like water. Even through blindness I can still see my menu until my mana dips to minus 100, then I blackout.