Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

The butterfly and the Princess had not been climbing downward for very long before the climate began to noticeably change.

Adon was the first to feel it. The air became uncomfortably chill for him. He felt his body begin to slow down, his internal parts and even his wings affected by the sudden and pervasive drop in temperature.

He had been flying beside Rosslyn, moving under his own power, but at this point, he landed on her back. She immediately understood that something was off.

Is it the air? Rosslyn thought.

The temperature in the air, Adon transmitted. It dropped a lot in the last ten feet.

"I had not noticed it at first, but I can feel what you mean now," she said quietly. "Stay close."

I wasn't planning to go anywhere, Adon replied. If it gets much colder, I won't be able to fly without burning mana to stay warm.

"Tell me if you think you're about to fall," Rosslyn said.

Adon sent a quick affirmative response, and she continued descending. Gradually, the area seemed to acquire some ambient light. Adon slowly recognized that there were some broken crystals glowing in the shattered stone of the chasm around this space in particular. The quality of the rock also appeared to be slightly different from the stone above.

I think we're entering a different level, Adon sent.

"I think so," she replied. She swallowed, and he felt her slight nervousness as if it was a miasma she exuded—a gentle, but slightly sour feeling in the air, which would have been unnoticeable if he were not so close to her skin.

If they were entering a new biome, there might be surviving inhabitants there. The occupants of each floor had been tougher than those on the ones previous. And now there were only the two of them left to fight.

Both the butterfly and the Princess knew what that meant.

Still, they descended. There was no other place to go but down.

As they continued, the gentle ambient light did not grow particularly more intense. The surviving glowing crystals seemed to be scattered randomly across the fractured stone of the wall Rosslyn climbed along, and they were not particularly powerful. Their inconsistent presence lent everything an eerie blue glow of variable strength, giving a feeling as if the two were submerged in an extremely cold pool of water.

Gradually, Adon recognized that the floor they were descending through had been more or less fully crushed in the collapse of the floor above. There were still handholds and rock for Rosslyn to climb along, but an increasing amount of what she grabbed seemed to be broken stone that had fallen haphazardly into a new structure. He saw that she had to be careful that the rocks did not come loose, and occasionally, there was an open space between the stones that forced her to shift to one side or the other in order to find more handholds or footholds.

Adon wanted to help her somehow, but he had his own problems to deal with. The air continued to grow colder and colder, until the Princess herself was shivering, her skin clammy with goosebumps and her breath visible.

He was forced to slowly burn through mana as they moved, using just enough to keep himself warm so that he could remain active and alert. Rosslyn eventually joined him in doing that. Her body was starting to slow down too.

Then she paused in her climb.

What happened? Adon sent. Did your fingers freeze in place?

No, I just set my hand down in something weird, Rosslyn thought. She had stopped speaking aloud. Every breath she exhaled wasted precious body heat, so she thought it was best not to talk any more than necessary. He could just read her mind anyway.

Adon looked down, but all he saw was ice around her hand. Maybe some of it was partially melted, but it was hard to tell. The dim light of the pale glowing blue crystals only partially illuminated the space in that area.

It's not ice? he asked.

No, the texture is off.

She pulled her hand away, and Adon finally saw a bit of what she meant.

The substance that had appeared to be ice came away on her hand and stuck there, gooey and stretchy. It connected the bare skin of her palm to the rock of the cliff like a string of translucent snot.

Rosslyn raised her hand to her face to look at it more closely, furrowing her brow slightly.

Are you sure it's not dangerous? Adon sent nervously.

Far from it, but I want to know what this is, Rosslyn thought.

A moment later, she was shaking her head and looking for the next handhold. She hadn't even wiped her hand off.

Adon didn't ask any questions for a few minutes. He waited for them to be a bit further away. Then: Did you figure anything out from that clear sludge?

Not certain, but I think that it was an ice elemental, she thought.

You said it wasn't ice, though, he replied.

Despite the name, ice elementals are not made of ice, exactly. They control ice, but their bodies have another substance that forms their real essence. The same is true for fire elementals and other kinds. I guess you would not be familiar with them?

No, Adon sent.

Well, since this level collapsed, it is unlikely to matter. I decided to move on quickly, both because this whole environment is difficult for both of us to sit still in for very long, and because elementals will usually reform themselves if their core is intact, even if their bodies are splattered all over the ground. I doubt that this one had an intact core. If it did, and its body was crushed in the collapse earlier, it should have reformed by now. Still, if we had been required to fight a group of ice elementals, even with the entire company, we would be hard-pressed to do so in such a cold environment. It makes me wonder…

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Adon did not need her to finish articulating the thought. He could sense where her mind was going.

Why had the Dungeon Core been so desperate to keep the group from descending any further, if it had something like that waiting for them? A level that might have been even more difficult for the party than the magma floor.

The only answer is something you guys said before, Adon finished for her. The Dungeon is unfinished, and the subsequent levels were going to be incomplete. It needed to kill us off or drive us out as quickly as it could, or it wouldn't survive.

"Hmm." Rosslyn didn't use any words or articulate any detailed thoughts, just made that single noise to convey her doubts.

Adon doubted his explanation, too, but he had nothing else to go off of.

They let the subject drop as they continued the downward climb, and both Princess and butterfly sought to save energy just to keep themselves warm for a bit longer and not be forced to stop due to exhaustion. Adon could see the descent was taking a lot out of her. Rosslyn's hands had begun to shake with cold and weariness.

He repeatedly thought about suggesting that they find a place to rest, but he forced himself to resist each time. Rosslyn knew her limits better than he did. More importantly, there was not going to be anywhere safe to rest in this frosty zone of the Dungeon. The temperature all around them was hostile to both human and mystic beast survival. If they stopped, they would probably die, and it would be his fault for pushing the idea.

Telepathy did not reveal the Princess having any thoughts of stopping. In fact, it was almost pure radio silence, despite how sharp and sensitive Adon's powers of telepathic listening had become.

Rosslyn focused on nothing but finding the next rock foothold to stand on and lowering herself a bit further. There was good in that. Adon felt the cold more than her, as far as he could tell. There was a dead look to her eyes, but there was also determination and grit.

The Princess would not be dissuaded or distracted from her mission by any obstacle.

It was natural that Adon spotted it first.

What's that sticking out there? He sent a telepathic pointer, since Rosslyn could not see him pointing with his antennae while he was on her back.

She looked automatically where he was directing her and smiled as soon as she saw it.

Food, she thought.

Then the Princess started shifting to the side, slowly easing herself closer to the large pale object sticking out of the cliff face.

Adon focused a little mana into his eyes, and then he understood what Rosslyn was seeing. The white object was a large, furry creature that had been crushed between two giant stones. Only its upper half now jutted out of the side of the cliff. Looking more carefully, he even saw frozen blood stuck around the places where the waist of the corpse met the stones of the wall.

What kind of monster do you think it was? Adon asked as they reached the creature.

Looks like a yeti, she thought, but I'm happy to eat anything that isn't human right now. I need meat. This cold is taking a lot out of me. Thank the Goddess for this. I cannot know for certain whether the rations we have left were going to do it for us when we stop to rest and sleep… Thank the Goddess for you, Adon.

The butterfly was slightly surprised.

I didn't do anything but see it, he sent.

When I was going to keep moving past without seeing, Rosslyn thought back. Just accept the credit. She gave him a visibly tired smile, and Adon noticed how her eyes looked like they were on the verge of closing. Rosslyn's body wanted badly to go to sleep.

Of course, if she did that here, she would never wake up. She would fall into endless darkness or, best case, she would find an icy ledge to collapse onto and freeze to death.

It struck the butterfly that Rosslyn might also run out of power and be unable to keep moving if they continued as things were.

He looked down at her hands for the first time since they had been climbing and saw that they were red and raw, with hints of purple around the edges. Rosslyn's fingers were also covered in superficial cuts from the rough stones she had been gripping with her unprotected hands. They hardly showed any traces of blood, as if the red liquid had frozen in her veins.

The Princess had been climbing through the section of the abyss that ran through the icy level for a while now. Over an hour? It was hard to keep track of time there.

He couldn't help wondering, Is that frostbite on her hands?

Yet Rosslyn was still smiling as she looked at him.

We'd better get this thing out of here, Adon sent.

Right, she thought. She nodded slowly, sleepily, and looked back at the yeti. Stopping seemed to have worsened the effects of the cold on her.

You're still circulating mana to stay warm, right? he asked.

I am, but I cycled down to save some energy, she thought. I mean, I am using less than I was at the beginning, so I can keep going for the long haul.

I see, Adon sent.

Her body was much larger than his, so she was probably burning through her reserves more quickly than him.

She groped slowly at her waist until she came away with a dagger. Then she started sawing at the edges of the yeti's body where it met the cliff face.

Adon carefully observed her movements. He didn't need to review and compare other memories of her to recognize that her body wasn't operating properly.

She's slow and shivery. Hypothermia?

As Rosslyn finished cutting away the meat, her technique noticeably devolved. The Princess's patience seemed to be running out, and she resorted to hacking with her dagger rather than slicing. The meat broke away from the wall with a sickening crack, and the sudden shift of weight yanked Rosslyn away from the cliffside.

Rosslyn clawed at the wall with her dagger hand, but her blade found no purchase in the split second while she was still within reach. She tilted backward in the air, and it looked like she would fall. But she barely clung to the cliff face with only her feet, which pinched together around a thin stone formation. Her body bent at the waist under the weight of the yeti, suspended in the air.

Hundreds of pounds of dense monster meat pulled her one way. Only the grip of her feet and legs squeezing the wall held her up.

Adon was still attached to her back at the shoulder. He heard how her breathing tensed. He sensed that she was almost at her limit physically, and he considered what he might do.

I could use Transformation. If I fly up above her—

But then Rosslyn rendered his train of thought moot. She somehow managed to do a kind of standing weighted crunch and pulled her upper half forward despite carrying the bulk of the yeti's upper body gripped in one hand. Her face slapped against the cold stone cliff with a sickened grunt of exertion. She gritted her teeth as she stuck the dagger back in her belt—not in its sheath, just her belt—and gripped the wall with her dagger hand. She was secure again.

A feeling of relief suffused the air for a moment. Then Rosslyn could think again.

Oh no, she thought exhaustedly. How do I climb down carrying this thing? I should have considered how heavy…

Don't worry, Adon sent. Just let yourself drop backward.

What? Rosslyn thought. She sounded not just skeptical, but confused. Too tired even to think straight.

Just drop. Fall backward. Keep hold of the yeti if you can. I have a firm grip on your back. I have a lot of energy left in the tank. I'll catch you, just like I did earlier.

Rosslyn only hesitated for a moment. She looked back at the butterfly on her shoulder. Then she gave Adon the smallest of smiles, and she released her grip on the wall.