Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

Goldie tried to remain very still and keep the mana circulating through her body in a regular, uninterrupted pattern, even as she felt herself pushed closer and closer to a blisteringly hot stone wall.

She drew to within two inches, an inch, half an inch, of the surface, before the knight whose back she rode on managed to crawl through the gap without pressing her into the surface. Even with mana keeping her internal temperature as close to stasis as it could, Goldie doubted that being pressed into a groove that had recently held magma would be good for her health.

Now she and the knight whose back she rode on found themselves in a wider space, where the surroundings were slightly cooler. They came to a pause while Sir Humphrey cracked his neck, mopped his face with the back of one hand, and panted. He looked exhausted, his body quaking with each exhale.

"Goddess… just a little further," Sir Humphrey muttered under his breath. He tilted his head back slightly to look at Goldie over his shoulder, his brow visibly soaked with sweat despite just having been wiped. "I hope I did not injure you?"

I am well, sir, Goldie replied. I came within an inch of being cooked, but if not for you, I would have to burn my feet with every step in this place. She looked at his hands, which despite being gloved and coated in mana were visibly bleeding through the openings where his hands joined to his wrists.

Sir Humphrey smiled and nodded at her. "It is my honor to be of assistance."

Well, I will heal your hands as well as I can once we reach the end of this floor, Goldie promised.

The knight grimaced. "That would be welcome." He faced forward once more. "Best that we press on."

Goldie resumed her silence and let her defender continue without distraction. She hoped that Samson was faring as well as she was.

Both of them had found it surprisingly easy to hitch rides with knights who understood what the mystic beasts had contributed to the expedition thus far. Sir Humphrey seemed to feel a particular debt to Adon, from Goldie's brief conversations with him.

It was fortunate that the spiders had proven to be relatively popular with the knights, since William and Frederick were up ahead slaying monsters with their most trusted knights—and unable to guarantee the safety of anyone in close proximity to themselves.

Sir Humphrey and Goldie made up the very rear of the party, to the point where Goldie could only barely see the next figures in the group as Sir Humphrey resumed his upward climb. The magma level had been tilted by the collapse below in such a way that while the floor was still navigable, the old channels where the molten liquid had run previously no longer contained it. Instead, the magma ran along the places where the floor, a wall, and parts of the ceiling had been, in a thin but deadly layer of coverage that forced the party to climb along the channels where magma had once sat. Certain areas of the level were so choked with rubble from the turbulence that had taken place that the group had been forced into partial excavations and tight squeezes in a few spots.

Still, under the Dessians' leadership, focused on retreat, the party had not lost any additional knights as of yet, at least as far as Goldie knew. The spider could not help suspecting that the Dungeon Core was deliberately trying to let them escape. Wouldn't that be the best way to give itself the chance to recover?

She kept this theory to herself, though. The others seemed to have enough on their minds already. There was no need to make the Claustrian knights feel worse than they already did for leaving the dungeon without their Princess.

Adon, Rosslyn, are you all right…?

She quickly forced herself to stop thinking about that. It wasn't as if Goldie could reach deeper into her brain and find the answer to that question.

There was only one thing Goldie could actually affect: how she behaved as a passenger on this return mission.

She wasn't even being invited to participate in the fighting this time—though that consisted only of limited engagements with enemies that the party came across seemingly at random, rather than any organized resistance, from what Goldie had seen. Most of the knights weren't doing any fighting. They were just climbing slowly back up the slightly tilted level, looking for the way out.

Goldie could not sleep—then she would stop shielding herself from the ambient heat with mana, and her body would literally be cooked—but she stayed as still and inactive as possible for the rest of the level.

Only once she and Sir Humphrey had made it to the floor's exit and reunited with Samson and the knight transporting him did Goldie actually have anything to say anyway. After she had healed Sir Humphrey's hands and Samson had provided the same service to his knight, Goldie took to mothering her offspring.

Sammy, probably better not to touch that, she sent regarding a seemingly dead monster from the magma level that lay across the border between the level and the tunnel to the next space. She thought the creature might be faking being dead, so when Samson moved to inspect it, she reacted instinctively.

She was proven wrong almost immediately, when a knight ran a sword through the lizard-like monster's center of mass.

But once she started mothering Samson, it was hard to stop.

Have you eaten anything since the ant floor? Goldie asked.

A few minutes later: Are you drinking enough water? We just came through that magma area…

Goldie heard herself worrying over him, and she thought she sounded annoying and nagging, but it was hard to feel so out of control of everything around her. She had been entirely useless through the previous level, and she would probably be useless as they ascended through the next two. This was something she could influence. Samson's health and safety.

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Mama, I'm fine, Samson sent curtly. He sounded as tired and stressed as she felt.

I just want to make sure, Goldie replied gently. I want to take good care of you.

There was an awkward silence.

What is this really about? Samson finally sent.

Exactly what I said, Goldie responded.

Whatever. Whatever you say.

They lapsed into silence for a moment, but Samson was the one who broke it again.

I'm worried about them too, he sent. Don't worry about me, though. I'm right here. You can see me. I'm… safe. I wish they were too.

Right, Goldie sent.

She knew she was being a bit silly. There wasn't much to say.

The party resumed the journey upward shortly afterward. Sir Humphrey and Samson's knight were able to remain much closer this time, but the ascent was still quiet. Both Goldie and Samson stood alone with their thoughts.

When they reached the griffins' level, it had been damaged in a similar fashion to the magma floor, but on the bright side, it was mostly concentrated on one side. Half of the caves they could see as they entered the floor had collapsed, and Goldie saw traces of blood and feathers amid the stones in a couple of the caved in tunnels.

Apparently some of the griffins had attempted to escape as their dens collapsed, only to be crushed and trapped close to survival.

Goldie reached out to those piles of rocks with Telepathy, but there was no sign of life there. She observed that with mixed feelings. The griffins had been their allies. They might have remained dangerous on a revisit to the floor—they had been compelled by the power of the Dungeon Core to attack the party when it approached the exit before—but Goldie also felt an instinctive respect for these creatures. And perhaps the Dungeon Core's control would have been disrupted by the damage William had described the dungeon having done to itself.

Not all of the caves had collapsed, though.

And far from all of the floor's inhabitants were dead.

As the party advanced back through the level, shadows winged overhead. Goldie looked up, already knowing what she would see—and then there were a dozen of them visible, perched near the tops of the cliffs.

She felt strangely relieved as she met the golden eyes that stared down at the group—though she wondered, at the same time, if they looked like prey to these mythological creatures, fusions of two apex predators.

At any rate, the griffins did not attack. They simply remained watchful as the humans crossed their territory. They seemed to have all formed a united group now that some of the caves had collapsed. With the return of the intruders, each griffin watched the others' backs.

Their numbers did not seem as large as Goldie remembered. She wondered if a few might have flown the coop. They could certainly leave, as far as she understood the mechanics of the situation. There was no magic to stop them, unless it was the dungeon's own magic, which was at least partly broken now.

Goldie felt the mind of one as it flew overhead at one point, and she did not even sense hostility or a desire to prey upon them. The feeling was something more like curiosity. The griffins seemed to be unable to verbalize their thoughts, but having loved Red, Goldie already had plenty of experience in communicating with those who could not voice their feelings.

The read she had on the griffins was that they were simply curious. Now that they were no longer compelled to fight, either the humans or the strixes, they simply wanted to know what these strange, ungainly creatures were, that walked through their land.

The monsters got no answers, of course.

William passed along one of his rare instructions—he had mostly just let the knights govern themselves on the way up here—and told them to leave the griffins alone unless attacked.

"Leave them in peace," he said. "They seem to lack the wits to try to escape this failing dungeon, and they will be trapped in here at any rate when we seal the entrance. Leaving them to starve to death on their own is far better than risking any of our lives in killing them."

Goldie heard a snippet of additional thought from him—her Telepathy seemed to be growing stronger, as Adon's had slowly improved over time. William's thought was a sentiment to the effect that the griffins were dangerous and not to be messed with unless they had good reason.

The party progressed through the floor much more quickly than they had through the magma level. It had been destabilized much less—or at least less noticeably—than the magma level. Rather than being tilted at an insane angle that turned the entire expedition into a climb, it was really just some limited cave collapses here.

Soon, the group was ascending to the first level, where the lizard monsters still lived.

Those mindless creatures were the first of the monsters that Goldie actually witnessed attack the group since they began the return journey. The lizards threw themselves at the humans with no apparent thought for their own survival—nothing in mind but endless hunger—until Frederick and William shot them through with a tangle of forking bolts of lightning.

The survivors quickly scattered and did not trouble them again.

Finally, the group reached the great opening they had descended down.

The entryway was visible in the distance as a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time in days, the group could see natural sunlight.

The knights let out a small, weary cheer at the sight.

Goldie understood the sentiment, but she did not join in. Instead, she felt an odd sense of foreboding. She had successfully avoided thinking as much about Adon and Rosslyn while they moved through the griffins' territory—mainly because she was paying the monsters most of her attention.

Now she thought not only of Adon and Rosslyn, but also of the situation outside.

As they climbed, she wondered what they would see when they emerged into daylight. Would the entrance to the dungeon be surrounded by imperial troops? Would the city have fallen?

The climb back up seemed impossibly slow. It was naturally slower than the descent had been, but it felt like it took half a day.

That was obviously untrue, since the quality of the light coming through the opening did not have time to noticeably change during the climb.

As they reached the top, Goldie heard knights all around her gasp—but only the Claustrians.

What is going on? she sent quietly, only communicating with Sir Humphrey.

"The banners raised communicate a message," he said in a slightly strangled voice, pointing at a dozen giant streaming banners raised in a circle ringing the city walls.

What is the message? Goldie asked.

"It appears that the enemy requested a duel with a representative for the city, and the Kingdom has answered…"