Runt of the Litter - Tales from Alirast

Trillia curled up behind the [Shield of Faith] and let Leaf operate on its own. Another heavy thud shook the ground under her.

"Go for it's eye!" Layla called out as she hurled a spear at the creature's face before lifting the mace that hung at her hip.

"Brace!" Fred called at the last second, Layla braced on instinct, and the club of the cyclops that was currently battering the party sent her hurtling toward the dungeon wall. She slammed into it with a groan but seemed to be recovering quickly.

Hearing no more heavy thumps, Trillia darted out from the side of her shield with her rapier in hand. The cyclops was swinging what looked like a tree trunk around, they had already cut into the damn thing dozens of times, but it didn't even seem to be slowing the creature, and most of those cuts had already been healed.

As she made her way to the back of the creature's legs, she charged mana into her weapon, once more falling into [Mana-Conduit] and letting her class guide her movement. "Make the sky and earth tremble! [Lightning Slash]!"

That was a mistake. The creature seemed to be howling in agony as one of its feet had been blown clean off. It stumbled forward slightly but was still flailing wildly. Trillia watched her mana dip dangerously low before her regeneration tried to keep up.

The mistake was in that she could no longer hear anything. The sound of the strike reverberated off the walls, causing a deafening cacophony of sound that set her ears ringing.

The rest of her group had tried to find what little cover they could in the rubble of the dungeon room.

The room itself looked like some building made to fit a creature of the Cyclops's size. Smooth stone structures covered in moss and aged as if they had existed for a thousand years, crumbling buildings all over that had been consumed and repurposed by the dungeon itself.

A wall of a house would sometimes be free-standing, and other times had been half engulfed by rough cave stone, making the entire floor a city-like labyrinth.

The cyclops fell to one knee, and it once more began chanting in a language she didn't recognize. She could understand its intent well enough as she watched a bright green mana flow from the dungeon itself into the damaged limb.

"It's healing!" She shouted, but no response came.

Layla bounced out of cover and ran toward the cyclops, her mace once more hanging at her hip, and the spear she had acquired somewhere in her adventures was back in her hand. The thing was an artifact that Trillia was a little jealous of. The thing felt light as a feather until a second away from hitting its target when it used gravity mana on itself to weigh it down. Layla could call it back to her hands on a whim.

The cyclops dropped its club and raised its hand to protect its eye. The spear fully pierced one hand and stuck a solid six inches into the other. The little Cleric didn't celebrate her hit. Instead, she raised both hands above her head, once more wielding her mace.

"Now!" She was a clever girl. All of them heard her command through their connection to the rings.

Malor stood up from cover. Trillia saw the minotaur standing in a sea of churning mana from the spell he had been preparing. "May your might shake the stone! [Titan's Strength]!"

The mana raced into Layla's arms, and as she brought the mace down, a sickening crunch resounded nearly as loudly as Trillia's lightning slash had. The Cyclop's bent knee was gone, and the creature was falling over, trying to separate its hands.

Leaf came cleaving down from in the air, biting deeply into the creature's eye. Amelia finished the fight by slamming a heavy hammer into its head, silencing the screams of agony.

The group took deep breaths as they got close to each other to check the damages.

"I'm low on mana, and Master Stas still doesn't want me to use you as a crutch, Trillia. Does anyone have spare mana potions?"

Trillia pulled a mana potion out of her ring. "Here, it won't restore your mana directly, but it does triple your natural regeneration. Think that will be ok?"

Layla shrugged and took the potion, popping the cork and downing it.

Amelia dropped the hammer onto the hammer holder on her back, pulling out a small harp and sitting on a rock. As she began plucking away, notifications rang out in Trillia's mind. Alerting her that she had boosted regeneration rates from the song.

Fred limped over to the group, shaking his head. "Fuck's sake, I think I'm the one holding us back in this place."

Trillia moved over to gingerly remove his shield, which had been dented around a now broken arm from the cyclop's original empowered strike.

"Days like this, I wish I wasn't a human. Faster skill learning and mentorship is nice, but it would be great not to suffer so many damn broken bones."

Malor plopped down next to Amelia and fished out a couple of his own mana potions.

"I can set it and start the healing process, but fixing a broken bone is a much slower spell to cast at my level, and to be honest, I don't have the mana for it."

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Layla commented as she joined Trillia in inspecting their human friend's broken arm.

"Damnit! Sorry, everyone."

"Don't be stupid." Trillia mumbled as she pulled out a dagger to cut off the sleeve of his shirt. "We didn't know what we were up against, and other than Layla, the rest of us would have broken a lot more than just a shield arm. I may have something close to the Orc trait for my Brawn, but I'm not immune to broken bones."

Fred didn't seem entirely convinced, and if Trillia was honest, he was their weakest link in the combat department. But only if you ignored all the buffs he gave to their weapons and armor just by being around.

"You're a force multiplier. Maybe we should rethink how we handle who takes the first hit from now on?" Layla was happy to call out the very thought that Trillia had been silently musing.

"That might be wise, and it would also help me not burn through so much mana. If I only have to buff and enchant Layla for defenses, I won't be so winded after every encounter." Malor spoke as he ran a towel over his face, soaking up the sweat that was matting his fur.

"Damn, what a good fight!" A voice familiar to them called out.

A creature that looked remarkably like a dwarf and a cyclops had a child popped its head out of a building. "I suppose that clears you up to floor three! Visus hasn't been taken down by anyone under level two hundred in years!"

The creature's name was Vincere. Every boss and creature's name in this damn dungeon started with a V. Whatever the core was playing at, it loved alliteration and the letter V.

"He was a damn tough brute, that's for certain. We made a fatal mistake early in the fight." Trillia let herself relax as Layla started to tend to Fred's arm. If Vincere had shown up, the dungeon was done testing them. "We didn't think he could cast and use healing and regeneration magic. If I hadn't blown so much of my mana on that last strike, I'm not sure if we would have won."

Vincere nodded and slowly stepped over and around more rubble, placing a hand on top of Visus' head, making the body vanish. "Yeah, he's an old paladin that wandered into the boss decades ago. Had all but given up on life after his faith had been shaken to its core. He's been with us ever since."

Layla paused and looked over at the midget Cyclops with curiosity. "Wait. You mean the dungeon didn't spawn him? Did we...? Wait..."

Vincere caught on and shook his hands wildly. "No, no, no. Don't worry. His god abandoned the realm and him. So, he formed a new pact with the dungeon core. He can't leave the dungeon anymore, but the dungeon can respawn him."

"I'm just glad we stumbled on another somewhat friendly dungeon. For the last three months, we have been traveling throughout the mountains for our work with the dwarves, and most of the dungeons have been out for blood." Trillia pulled out some dried meat and passed some around to her friends, offering some to Vincere, who happily took a piece himself.

"Yeah...we have been trying to contact them and form an alliance but have had no luck. The Viceroy says it's like some of them have lost their minds. I'm not sure what's happening, but you kids be careful."

The Viceroy was what the core called itself, something the group had determined on the first floor. "Anyway! Our dungeon specializes in mining tools and instruments, so I'm not really sure what sort of reward we can provide for you. Except the experience itself."

The group shared looks, they didn't really need an award, they were mostly trying to gain combat experience while Trillia was working towards finishing her evolution. "I have an idea! Your dungeon creatures dropped some of these." She fished around in a pouch at her side and pulled out a smooth round monster core.

"I've been feeding them to my animal companions, but for many years, whenever we killed a creature, they didn't drop one. Does the Viceroy know why they suddenly have?"

At the mention of her animal companions, Vincere looked around the room quizzically. "I asked them to wait outside the boss room. We've been leaning on them pretty heavily in the last few dungeons. With the rampant amount of cores we are acquiring, they have also spiked up in power. It means if they join us in the fights, we get less experience now. A few months ago a friend said he had a specialized skill to boost his beast's stats with the cores. Mine seem to do it on their own."

The little cyclops nodded sagely before sitting on a fallen column. "Yeah, maybe the past year or so? The Viceroy says that the system is changing very rapidly, probably once a week or so, something small changes. Sorry, I don't think we're actually allowed to tell you more."

Trillia gave a knowing nod. "It's fine. The gods and system work at their own pace and don't tend to care much for mortal worries. Just the fact that we know the system is changing is enough for us."

With the snap of his fingers, he jumped up from the seat he had just taken. "That's what we can give you as a reward! One of our smiths on a lower level has started to tinker with what she is calling Semi-Sentient Core Based Armaments. She's workshopping the name. But so far, she has started to make weapons and armor that are very modular, utilizing the cores we are finding more and more of. I see that the young human there has an armorsmithing class; maybe your group can learn a thing or two?"

Fred had all but forgotten about his broken arm. "That would be amazing! Are you guys ok with getting that as a reward?"

"Sure! You and Malor were already experimenting with using the cores anyway, right? If the dungeon can give us some pointers, that'd be great!" Layla smiled as she pulled on his arm. A loud pop and a lot of cursing later, she had a splint wrapped around the arm and had cast a half dozen minor healing spells on it.

As Vincere started walking them to their new destination, Fred poked Layla in the cheek with his good hand. "You gonna tell us what has changed yet?"

"Again, with this?" Layla shot him a glance.

"I'm curious! Nothing on the outside has changed, but you're way faster than you used to be, and you also heal way faster."

Amelia chuckled as she wrapped an arm around the orc and pulled her into a half hug. "We just wanna know if you're ok....and maybe we're a little curious how it is going. We were all to scared to try."

Layla tried to swat the much taller minotaur away to no avail before surrendering herself to the hug. "It's mostly been internal organs. Master Stas replaced my orc heart with two troll hearts. My lungs were infused with some of that ichor he took from the immortal body. It's made it so that I'm immune to most air-based diseases. The troll hearts have...really warped the way my regeneration works. Our big worry now is that my orc traits are fighting with my troll traits. Since both sets of traits work on making me difficult to kill. The hope is that something new comes out of the union, which is why he is warning me away from leaning too heavily on healing magic and Trillia's absurd regeneration rates."

Vincere spoke up from the front after she had finished speaking. "Oh, are you a Xeno-Alchemist?"

"I am in training, yeah."

"Fascinating stuff! The Viceroy is really interested in it. He claims there is a lot of untapped potential in any given species."

"Ha! Sounds like Master Stas. I can't deny the effectiveness. My health regen went from a hundred or so a second to a few thousand. If something doesn't cancel out my regeneration or knock me down to zero health in a single hit, I shrug most things off now."

Trillia was curious to ask Stas more about that process.

Current Progress Towards Evolution: 67%