NOVEL NEXT Vol.3 Ch.21 – In Hot Pursuit
Chapter 21: In Hot Pursuit
Despite the completely different layout of the dungeon floors, the treasure room looked almost exactly like the one at the end of the first floor. The only difference was that the trees that somehow grew underground and without any natural sunlight were different to the ones on the previous floor.
The first thing I did was swipe the pile of gems, though these were different than the last pile. The last pile had merely been precious stones. Valuable, to be sure, but nothing special. These, though? Every single one of them had enchantments on it. They weren't minor ones, either. If placed into armor or weapons they would confer that enchantment to the entire piece of equipment, making them an order of magnitude more valuable than mere precious gems.
The weapons rack and the pile of rings was, once again, being used by the royal family so we left it well alone and then we arrived at the trees. The fruits looked weird, bulbous and spiky but also juicy and fleshy, with a purple color that would probably stain your tongue for hours if you took even a single bite.
“What are these?" I asked Annabella as I looked at them.
“Body forging fruits," she explained. “They strengthen your body.”
“So what, they make your muscles bulk out?”
She shook her head. “I guess it would be more appropriate to say they make your body more efficient. Eating them doesn't make your muscles bigger or anything, but it does make them denser and stronger. They also make your bones tougher and you need slightly less food and sleep. And... they ever-so-slightly increase the lifespan of humans and other mortals with similar lifespans.”
The moment Annabella finished speaking Alisha ran up to the tree, plucked three of the fruits and shoved them at Annabella, Selene and me. “Eat," she commanded.
“What's gotten into you?" Annabella asked.
Alisha just stared at us. She didn't say anything but I'd spent enough time with her to know what she was thinking. She was terrified of us dying before her and wanted us to live longer. But what really surprised me was the fact that she seemed to include Annabella in her protective streak, as if she was hoping the princess might stick around with us after this. To be fair, I was kind of hoping for the same thing, but I hadn't expected Alisha to have reached the same point yet.
Either way I took the fruit from the beautiful elf, but then turned to Annabella and asked: “Do they work on longer-lived species as well?”
“They gain the same power boost, but it doesn't extend their lifespan by any noticeable amount," the princess replied.
I thanked her, then plucked two more fruits and handed them to Alisha and Yume.
“I'll eat it, but only if you do, too," I told them.
I didn't really have to bribe Alisha into trying a new kind of fruit, but she still accepted the deal. She bit into it, then closed her eyes and flattened her ears, the way she always did when she tasted a new kind of fruit. A second later her ears jumped back up to point at the ceiling as her face scrunched up in disgust. Apparently they tasted as bad as they looked. To her credit, she did not spit it out. She chewed it very deliberately, the fruit flesh making very unappetizing crunching sounds between her teeth, and then audibly swallowed it before going back in for another bite.
Forewarned is forearmed, I thought and bit into my own fruit. Yep, it was exactly as disgusting as Alisha's expression had indicated. Imagine the unpleasant gritty texture of a pear, except the tiny gritty pieces are the size of pomegranate seeds. Now imagine a flavor that is half pomegranate seed and half the nasty white pith of an orange, all so bitter it makes your mouth dry out. That's what the fruit tasted like. And yet, with every swallow my body felt warmer and more powerful, so at least I knew it was working. After I took the first bite Selene and Annabella joined in and finally Yume shrugged and joined us as well. Despite the bitter tea she'd served me in her dreamscape, the little fox ended up having the most visceral reaction to the fruit's flavor, her tails and ears going rigid and her body shuddering all over as she fought not to gag.
A few minutes later we were all guzzling down water to try and get the taste out of our mouths. Well, all of us except Alisha, who had a look of intense concentration on her face and finally said:
“Actually, the aftertaste is pretty nice.”
**
“Have you had one of these fruits before?" I asked Annabella as we finished washing our mouths out.
“No, never," she said. “We are... discouraged from eating anything that extends our lifespan, something about succession taking too long if all members of the royal family live longer than normal lifespans.”
I frowned. “So you shouldn't have eaten that?”
She shrugged. “I'll never be queen anyway, so it doesn't really matter. When I was taunting Richard at the party I was only half kidding, you know? I can pretty much do what I want so long as I don't make too big of waves.”
“Oh, trust me," Selene said, “you'll make waves if you stick around us long enough.”
I caught the slightest blush on the princess' cheeks, but she turned away from us quickly and waited at the teleporter for us.
**
After using the teleporter to leave the dungeon we spent the rest of the day in the capital, grabbing our commissioned gear from Andre the Blacksmith as well as some other gear Annabella had suggested and then resting at the palace. Annabella tried once more to get in contact with her parents but they were apparently still in Calice signing agreements so we decided to traverse the third floor instead of waiting.
Thus, the next morning found us back at the entrance to the dungeon where we selected the second floor treasure chamber and then descended down the stairs leading to the next floor.
Annabella had warned us that the third floor would be fire-elemental, so I had expected a volcanic landscape, but it ended up being something else entirely.
The first thing I noticed was the heat followed by the crackling of burning wood. Then once my eyes had adjusted I realized what I was looking at. The third floor was a forest, similar to the second floor, except the forest was on fire.
Under normal circumstances a fire like this in an enclosed space should have killed us with the smoke alone, but this was a dungeon and so despite the entire forest being on fire there was not a wisp of smoke to be seen anywhere, just thousands of trees burning perpetually.
And of course I was immediately glad I had followed Annabella's suggestion of buying a set of heat-resistant clothes for each of us. Of course magic could only do so much, so the clothing itself was fairly thin and breezy and even with that, rivulets of sweat were dripping down my forehead already.
“It's like being in Hephaestus' ass crack," I ground out. “At least—”
“If you say 'at least it's a dry heat'," Selene interrupted, “I'm going to slug you.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“Is there some kind of respite here?" Alisha asked, fanning herself.
“The rest points are nice and cool," Annabella replied. “So the best thing we can do is move forward.”
“That's good," I said. “What about the enemies?”
“Mainly fire golems," Annabella said.
I frowned. “Hold on. Don't you mean fire elementals?”
She shook her head. “No. A fire elemental would be composed of just fire, but these clearly have physical forms, they're just covered in something that perpetually burns.”
“Gotcha," I said. “What else?”
“There's these huge snakes," she said. “They're red and brown and orange and blend into the environment really well and instead of poison they pump you full of molten metal if they bite you.”
“How huge are we talking?”
“As thick around as two of us and a hundred feet long.”
“Fuck," I said, picturing it. “How do you normally deal with those?”
“I've never dealt with them at all," she said. “From here on out I'm just relying on my great-grandfather's notes. But his journal mentioned that they're nowhere near as fast as normal snakes so dodging and then stabbing them supposedly works well. You just need to make sure not to stab them with a weapon not enchanted for durability because their molten hot insides can warp normal blades.”
“I guess I'd best take care of them, then," Alisha said. “I don't even need to touch them to stab them.”
“Good call," I said.
I turned around to see if Yume had anything to add and saw a light blue aura surrounding her. She seemed to be deep in concentration and then something snapped into place and she opened her eyes.
“There, that should do it.”
“What did..." I began and then noticed what had happened. All five of us now had a thin layer of Yume's magic around us and the heat had dropped down to that of a sunny summer afternoon.
“Thank you," Selene groaned out and then petted Yume's head, making the fox girl's ears twitch and a small smile spread across her face.
**
The third floor was a far cry from the first and second. Not only was the environment hazardous, but the enemies were also noticeably stronger than what we had been facing so far. Both the golems and the snakes were dangerous to approach, so the best way to attack them was for Yume and me to use Qi Projection to hit them from afar, followed by Annabella sending crystal constructs at them. Selene swinging her sword had the most devastating effect, but every time she attacked an enemy Alisha had to stop and heal the scalds and burns she caught during the fight. It also didn't help that Selene's Qi Projection wasn't very good yet. She could do it, but it took her longer than was practical in a real fight and in the dungeon she had precious little time to train.
But while we were walking I noticed something, namely crystal growths on the trees along the sides of the path. Then I looked behind me and asked:
“Does this path look familiar to you?”
“Familiar how?" Alisha asked.
Selene meanwhile seemed to relax. “I thought I was just imagining it. You've noticed it too, huh?”
“Noticed what?" Alisha asked. She was sounding a little annoyed.
I, meanwhile, smiled at Selene. “Good, I'm not going crazy," I said to her, then looked at the others. “I believe this is the same forest as the second floor.” Alisha and Yume blinked. “See the crystal growths on the trees and the ruins poking out of the ground? This is the same place, just on fire.” I turned over to look at Annabella and found her looking a little embarrassed. “Something wrong?”
“Sorry, I should have said something," she said sheepishly. “It is the same forest but on fire. Well, mostly the same. There are two differences.”
“Namely?”
“The path leading to the coliseum is blocked here, a pile of burning rubble bars the path. Meanwhile, the trees blocking another path have burned down, which leads to this floor's boss room.”
“I wonder what this means for our theory about the dungeons," I said.
“I guess this is the same place, but at a later point in time," Selene said.
“What, did the world get set on fire by the Outsiders?" I asked.
“Maybe people set the forest on fire to burn them out," Yume said and just then a piercing shriek echoed all around us.
I spun to face Annabella. “That didn't sound much like a snake," I said. I wasn't trying to make it sound like an accusation but I wasn't sure if I had succeeded.
“No, it didn't," she replied. “This doesn't sound like anything in my great-grandfather's notes.”
“Maybe something's pissed that we figured out the truth," Selene said.
A pale blur shot towards me and I reacted instinctively, swinging my sword through a Qi Projection, sending a diagonal slash outward. The pale blur was cut but jumped away in time to avoid being sliced in half. The thing paused to stare at the wound I had caused it and we all got a good look at it before it scrambled back into the trees. The thing was humanoid but too tall, its limbs far longer than they should be and the hands tipped in sharp claws. The entire thing was the color of maggot flesh, rail-thin but with the swollen belly of the truly starving and a pale canker growing over its heart. The beast also had a face like a deer's skull, complete with bared teeth and antlers, but with tiny orange goat eyes glimmering in the empty-looking sockets.
“Oh goddess, what is that thing?" Alisha whimpered.
“It's a wendigo," I growled. “Outsider beasts answering to the Black Goat.”
“So it's true then?" Selene asked. “They burned the forest down to flush Outsiders out?”
“Later," I said and drew my crossbow. “Form up in a circle, these things are fast.”
“You've fought them before?" Alisha asked.
I nodded. “When I was alone with Yume.”
“I remember giving a pretty terrible showing in that fight," the fox girl said.
“You have a proper blade this time," I remarked.
“That I do," she said, then breathed deeply and her ears twitched once, twice, then she sent out a Qi Projection, almost faster than I could see, deep into the forest and a sudden yelp confirmed that she'd hit her target. A second later her kill was confirmed when more howls echoed around us, sounding somehow mournful and giddy at the same time. The beasts didn't come after us directly. Instead we heard the sounds of tearing flesh and chewing as the other wendigo devoured their fallen comrade.
“Are they doing what I think they're doing?" Alisha asked. She looked a little green around the gills.
“Yes," I said. “Wendigo are born from people who resort to cannibalism while lost in the woods. They have no scruples about eating their own dead.”
“How do we fight them?" Selene asked, ever the pragmatist.
“Get them to think you're vulnerable, then hit them faster than they can dodge away," I told her.
“Gonna be pretty hard to act vulnerable when there's five of us," Selene said.
“I guess," I said, then 'accidentally' dropped my crossbow. “Ah, butterfingers.” Just as I bent to pick it up I heard something rushing towards me followed by the swish of Yume's blade through the air. By the time I had righted myself, the wendigo that had rushed at me slid apart, its body needing a second to register that Yume had carved clean through it.
The little fox was amazing. She hadn't just known exactly what I was doing and reacted accordingly, she had also deliberately left her back open, presenting an easy target. So, the moment the wendigo's body crashed to the ground I was already moving, pumping Qi into my sword to unleash a fire lance that struck the one that was trying to exploit her perceived opening.
I didn't quite manage to pierce its heart but I did manage to unbalance it long enough for Annabella to stab its canker and the heart beneath it.
“Is that all of them?" Annabella asked, dismissing her sword and summoning a new one to get rid of the juices on it. Before she had started training under Yume that trick would have been far too costly for her but she was getting really good at it.
“Yume?" I asked and looked back to see her ears twitching madly.
“I can't tell for sure over the crackling wood," she finally said in a huff. “But I'm pretty sure they're all dead.”
“Would you let me examine one of them?" Annabella asked when it became clear that nothing else was going to leap out at us.
“Sure," I said and carefully maneuvered us over to the one she had stabbed. She knelt down in front of the body and held her hand out over it, her fingers splayed out, not making contact with the body. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply for almost a minute, then stood back up again.
“So my great-grandfather wasn't wrong," she finally said. “These things are not creatures of the dungeon. They came from outside.”
“How can you tell?" I asked.
“The dungeon's mana is distinctive," she explained. “And there aren't even traces of it in these creatures. Thus, they couldn't have been born here.”
“Alright, that cinches it," I said. “If they don't belong in the dungeon then the cultists we're after must have left them here to slow pursuers down.”
“That should mean we're getting closer to our target, right?" Selene asked.
“Exactly," I said, then turned to Annabella. “How many days do we need to cross this floor?”
“Today and the day after we'll spend on the floor itself, the day after that comes the boss fight. Or it should, if the journal can be trusted.”
“Alright," I said, then remembered something else. “What about the liquid you wanted to gather for the universal antidote? Do we need to take a detour for that?”
She shook her head. “No. The watering hole where we fought the giant beast on the second floor exists here, too, except the liquid isn't water but the stuff we're looking for. We'll need to go past that spot anyway.”
“That's good," I said. “Honestly, I know being attacked by wendigo should be unnerving, but I'm mostly excited that we're getting close enough that we're finding their traps.”
“Agreed," Annabella said. “I was a little worried we were chasing something that didn't exist, but this is undeniable proof that we're on the right track.”
“Then I guess all we can do now is to keep going, right?" Selene asked.
“Yes, let's," I said.
**
It wasn't much longer after that fight that we found the floor's first rest point. Just as Annabella had promised, they were much cooler than the rest of the dungeon. Stepping onto the stone was like stepping into a bubble of cool air. The temperature was actually not that cold, but after walking through a forest fire for hours it might as well have been freezing it felt so nice. The thought of cooking over a fire and raising the temperature actually worried me a bit, but Annabella assured us that it would stay bearable no matter what we did.
More importantly, right after she got the stew going Alisha informed us that Brigid had asked her to speak to her, so she went off to a corner, sat down cross-legged and began communing with her goddess. Normally Brigid left her alone during adventures but, come to think of it, we'd been on the move for almost two weeks from when we'd first set out to Calice and Alisha had accomplished more than a little in the time that had passed, so it wasn't too surprising. To be honest, I was rather hoping the goddess would reward Alisha for her work by giving her more miracles to work with. The dungeon floors were already getting hard enough that she was coming close to exhausting her daily allotment of miracles and it was only going to get harder from here.
When Annabella, Selene, Yume and I were finished with dinner we left the pot hanging over the fire to keep it warm for when Alisha got done with her communion and just chatted. Eventually Annabella found her way next to me.
“So, about that watering hole," she said. Yume and Selene could hear her well enough but it was clear she was speaking mostly to me. “I think I should warn you about that.”
“Yeah, you said it was the solvent you need for the lunar reed," I said.
“Exactly," she said. “And while it's really good for alchemy it's not exactly drinking water.”
“Is it poisonous?”
She waggled her hand in a kinda-sorta motion. “Yeah. Not deadly, but it'll make you sick. So we won't be able to extend our water supply at all.”
“That's fine, we planned for that," I said. “But I'm guessing the monsters here aren't bothered by it, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, they thrive on the stuff. Even the golems drink from it.”
“So we'll be running into a fight, then?”
“Exactly.”
The conversation lulled a little until Yume asked:
“So, how is the fourth floor? Is it still as hazardous?”
“It is, but in a different way," Annabella said. “The fourth floor is based on the wind element. The temperature is normal again and the water is drinkable, but the enemies become much stronger, like wyverns.”
“Wyverns?" Yume asked.
“Right, sorry, I forgot you're not from here," Annabella said. “They're a type of dragon. Instead of having four limbs and a pair of wings, their front limbs are wings.”
“So like a bat or a bird, then?”
“Like a bat, yes. They can crawl on the wings.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Just then the glow around Alisha ceased and the elf stood up with a shaky breath. For a moment I was worried about what Brigid might have said to her but then she let out a giddy giggle and strode over. When she reached us she fixed herself a bowl of stew and flopped down in my lap, leaning against me.
“Welcome back, love," I said and she snuggled into me a little more.
“Good to be back," she said and dug in to her food.
“How did it go?" Selene asked.
Alisha seemed to take delight in leaving us hanging as she ate a couple spoonfuls without saying anything.
So I tickled her until she almost dropped the bowl.
“Alright, alright, I'm telling," she giggled, “please stop.” She caught her breath for a moment and then explained: “So, my goddess increased my daily allotment to seven miracles.” Wow. That was a jump of two whole miracles. Brigid must have been very impressed with her progress. But I could tell she wasn't done yet. She was all but vibrating she was so excited about it. “And she gave me the minor miracle Barrier to use on my own.”
That gave me pause. First of all, Barrier was an obscenely powerful trick in the right hands. It created a thin sheet of magical energy that could be used as a wall to protect but could also be used to sever by placing them into flesh or rope. It could even be used as a platform if summoned horizontally in midair. More importantly, however, this was the second miracle Alisha could cast on her own authority and if a cleric could use two miracles like that...
“Congratulations, Minor Saint Alisha Silvermoon," I said to her, genuinely excited for my lover.
I could tell that it took the others a moment to realize what I'd just said and when they did they all but fell over themselves to congratulate her as well and she preened under the attention, her body getting warmer and her ears twitching uncontrollably.
“Thank you," she said, her voice thick with emotion.
“It's a bit early, though, isn't it?" I asked. “That was a pretty big jump in your progress, wasn't it?”
“It was," she agreed. “My goddess said that while I had earned an advancement, the jump to Minor Saint was mostly to make sure I had the tools to let us survive the coming challenges. I'm... kind of on probation. I need to prove that I deserve all the gifts I was given by keeping all of us safe.”
“I know you will," I said, hugging her close. “I believe in you.”
If you want to see some of them, click that spoiler, but proceed at your own risk:
These aren't even the creepiest. But the creepiest of them, for some godsforsaken reason, have bare breasts and so I can't post them here. If you're curious, ask me on Discord and I'll post them.