The New Bond

“When people fight, usually there's a reason, and from the outside, most times, it's easy to pick a side depending on views you might have. But if the fight has proper reasons and you take a step back, both sides can have a claim to being right and wrong.” - Tallinn Esper Barron of the shores of Welkom

Renald Karvum

When Ren had learned of Kat's experiences in Arilon and her almost dying to some form of assassin, he had ordered Graves’s group to bring her back to Karvum, but quietly and somewhere, his sister wouldn't get involved with the politics of his plan.

That had been the first thing to go slightly wrong. The next was when a new dragon rider had tagged along with Graves’s group. Ren, at first, had been surprised that Graves hadn't taken the chance to rid the continent of one of those scaled beasts, but the reason why had appeared in his following letter. It had explained that somehow, the rider was the daughter of a grand beast, and both she and his sister had tokens to the upcoming realm event. That had put killing her off the list almost entirely unless he wanted to be killed himself. Thankfully, the girl, Aster, seemed to be fine getting basic lessons in combat and other minor things alongside Kat. He didn't know how she had kept a straight face with a dragon sleeping in the camp.

The plan to try to get rid of her had come to him as he'd flown over on Udall. They couldn't be the cause of the girl dying as it might cause issues with a grand beast, but if she were to die alone in a dungeon, then how could Karvum be held responsible?

When he'd met the girl in his tent, he was surprised at first by her age and appearance; someone that young being bonded meant that she had done so in grade zero or one. Had the grand beast given her a dragon egg? How it happened didn't really matter in the end. All he needed to make sure of was that if she lived through this dungeon, she would die with her dragon in the next or die when they came out due to injuries. Kat couldn't be allowed into a realm event with a dragon rider unless he wanted her to end up the same way their brother had.

Aster

Working as fast as I could, I continued in the game of chase, and the Abomination was playing as I pulled my next arrow out. If I wanted the yellow stone to crumble when it was struck, a frost arrow would be my last choice to use. The Elder Claw Arrows could have mana imbued into them to help, but would that be enough? If I couldn't break the rock in the first shot, would the monster figure out what I was doing?

My indecision was paused as the stopping of the Abomination behind me stopped. I turned to look behind me, stopping and waiting, wondering what it was doing. The long moment of quiet was broken as the floor quaked underneath me, rumbling as the whole room seemed to heave. Then, the rockpile exploded outwards with a wave of mana and debris. There wasn't any time for me to move or react as the spray of rock hit me, sending me flying. Feeling a stone smash into my forehead, I let go of my bow and covered my face with my arms as I hit the ground. Tumbling, I bounced off the ground a few times before coming to a stop. Letting out a groan, I rubbed the side of my head, wincing at the sharp pain and bringing my hand back to see red, sticky blood covering my fingers. Sitting up, I coughed as the dust filled my lungs, and the world spun for a second. Blinking a few times, I waited for it to steady before looking around for my bow.

Everything was tinged with a slight blur around the edges, and dust covered the floor, making anything hard to spot, but out of luck or chance, my bow was only a half dozen feet to my left, half of it hidden under a pile of metal scrap. Standing up slowly, I was even more thankful for Careful Step helping me keep my balance as I made my way over, slightly stumbling as my body still shook off the effects of the explosion. Lifting the rusted metal up with a grunt and tossing it away, I picked my bow up, ensuring the string was intact and hadn’t snapped. The string was the newer metal silk thread, and its weave remained intact. The rest of my equipment could wait until the boss was dead. Near the center of the room, the steady grind of stone and a slight shake of the ground told me it was moving again. Pulling an arrow out of a loop, I looked at the Abomination as the dust parted, giving me a view. While the Abomination was up and moving, it had suffered a lot more than I had from the explosion. Half of its pickaxe arm was missing, and its left leg had cracks running up it, with yellow dust spilling out from inside. Had it tried to kill me in a way that hurt itself because it couldn't catch me? If I was in grade one, it might have done a lot more damage, but with my leather armor taking the brunt of the mana explosion and none of the rocks being exceptionally sharp, my endurance had held me together. Even so, my body would be covered in one big bruise in a few hours that would hurt.

Drawing back an arrow, I inspected the body of the boss. Now that I had connected the yellow stone as being its weak spots, the fight took on a new, much easier light. Each of its joints was made up of the yellow material. It still didn't make sense how it allowed the Abomination to bend stone like normal muscles, but magic was probably doing quite a bit of the work. With its cracked leg, the boss was now slower than it had been, letting me line up my shot and imbue the Claw Wood arrow with mana. I wanted power alone for this shot, and even if a Frost Arrow had the strength to break the golem's leg, the frost the skill let out might work against me. The joint on the golem's leg had been covered in the front by a stone plate, but now its left leg was a wreck. The joint was open.

Not wanting to miss this operation and lose another arrow, I waited for the Abomination to raise its left leg and bring its right hand back and as far away from the joint before I let the arrow loose. The boss tried to block the arrow, but its hand was too far away, and with only one leg on the ground, its balance was thrown off. The arrow struck where on a human a knee would be, and like a dust bomb, the yellow stone was blown apart. The joint that I'd thought was helping the boss to move holding its entire leg together. Piece by piece, the leg crumbled, and the Abomination tilted before it fell over.

That was when I truly felt like an idiot. A grade two boss, the first boss of a dungeon, had caused me this much trouble because I didn't put two and two together.

When there was time, I needed to sit with Umbra and apologize to her. While I was good with a bow and fighting living, bleeding creatures, I wasn't good at fighting things that just ignored my attacks or shrugged them off. I needed to find a way to fight things that countered me.

With the boss being one leg shorter than most things on the first floor, it was easy to finish off while staying out of its crawling range, with each arrow hitting its target of a joint. After the last appendage had been reduced to a pile, I received a popup letting me know the boss had been defeated. Sitting down, I grunted and sighed, giving a quick glance at the message.

[You have killed a Dungeon Boss - Living Sulfur Abomination - Level 84]

[You have defeated a Dungeon Boss, Grade 2, Increased Experience is awarded]

[You have leveled up]

Rubbing my face and skipping the rest of the notifications, I settled the bow on my lap as I looked from the kill notification to the level to gain my face, scrunching up at the single level the boss offered. Turning my head, I absentmindedly took my pack off and sighed at the jagged cuts that lined the fabric. Thankfully, none of the rocks had cut deep enough to pierce the inside of the pack. But it was another thing I'd have to visit a shop to get. I was looking at the boss's rubble body. My eyes caught on the yellow orb and the core. Reaching down, I grabbed the core about the size of my fist and put it into the bag, then looked at the other orb and picked it up, identifying it.

[Miner's Sulfur Promise - Uncommon - Dropped from the eye of a sulfur abomination, when bound, this item allows the user to sense sulfur in a 30-foot area passively.]

[Note: This item is unbound]

It took a second to make the connection that the yellow rock that was everywhere was sulfur, but when I did, I shrugged. Rock was a rock. Still, the item might have some use, so I put it in my bag as well before looking around.

The teleportation circle back to the entrance was sitting on the edge of the room, giving off a blue glow, a promise of clean air, and a dragon to sleep next to. Turning my head, I looked at the door that had appeared from the stone wall on the other side of the room. It was a glossy silver doorway that held the promise of more levels and cores. Sighing, I got to my feet and nodded slowly. After clearing the first room or area of the second floor, I'd take a moment to rest.

Checking to make sure the cut on my head had stopped bleeding and that there were no other serious injuries, I walked up to the door and pushed on it. Instead of opening, I was met with a system message.

[Proceed to floor 2?]

[0/1 Delvers in the boss room confirmed.]

Huh, so it seemed that it was like the dungeon entrance. I looked around and made sure I had all of my non-broken arrows, then checked my pack for the food and water I would need for at least two days, a worse case for how long I'd be inside. Once I was confident, I confirmed and watched the door open. Looking behind me, I saw that the teleaporion circle had vanished.

The entrance to the second floor was a hallway, completely different from the boss room and previous maze of hallways. The Long and narrow path was clean and well lit with cobblestone as a road and the walls a mix of brown brick and moss. Above, there was a line of spaced-out orbs every seven feet that lit the path, giving it an almost friendly invitation.

As I stepped through the door and made my way forward a few feet, the door slowly and soundlessly closed behind me. The air had changed as well, a small breeze from the end of the hall gently ruffling my hair, and after a small sniff, I could smell something fruity and sweet in the air. The walk to the next area was long, longer than I expected, and the door quickly fell away after a bit. After what must have been a few hours of walking at a decent pace, I paused, tilting my head as I inspected the walls again for what had to be the seventh time and stopped.

The walk wasn't exhausting. At the pace I was going, I could probably walk until I had to sleep without too much of an ache, but something felt off, and there wasn't a reason why the path had to be as long as it was.

The walls were the first clue. Walking while keeping an eye out was boring, and with hearing as good as mine, I'd started to count the bricks between moss patches as a way to try to gain a skill. The confusion I currently felt had started when I noticed the pattern. After every eight patches of moss and two hundred bricks, the pattern on the wall and ceiling repeated. Over and over again, the same pattern kept appearing. If that was all, I'd think it was a dungeon thing, but when I made a mark on the wall, a simple arrow, and a smiley face, the same symbol showed back up four minutes later but facing backward. After another few minutes, the face showed up at the same place in the order of moss and bricks, but this time facing forward. In my mind, this meant one thing that I dreaded: I was stuck in a puzzle room, or rather a puzzle hallway, which was worse.

My first goal was to find where the hallway looped and how. Magic was the apparent reason, but if it was a rune I could break or magic from the dungeon, it made a huge difference. Marking the wall, I started my own pattern with numbers. Each of the four hundred bricks at chest height gained a number carved with a knife. The numbers made finding the loop easy. After the number four hundred and six, instead of a new brick, the number four hundred and five was scratched in the brick but backward. The backward numbers continued all the way back to one, then flipped facing the correct way again. It gave me a spot to test ideas, but if I was being honest, besides trying to break the wall, which didn't work, I had no idea what to do. Pulling the moss off the wall showed no hidden runes and nothing new underneath besides dirty bricks. It was after trying to scale the wall and pull the glowing orbs out, something that I did manage to reach but couldn't break. The idea of being stuck in the hallways had started to form, and I didn't want to panic, and meditation would help calm me down.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the hallway with the pack by my side, I relaxed. Activating the skill was the wrong word, but using meditation always took a second for the effects to kick in, but once they did, I could feel my muscles loosen and my breathing grew deeper as I fell into the skill, enjoying the calm and slight comfort it brought.

That calm was almost instantly Interrupted by a system message not even a minute in. It was strange as system messages Usually waited until I exited the skill to appear. With a bit of interest and explanation, I read it.

[Alteration’s Legacy is available and can be activated.]

[Notice: This skill can not be canceled Once activated and will halt all mediation skill advancement while the skill is active.]

It was one of my new skills, one of the few that hadn't made much sense and hadn't been usable yet. My first thought was to dismiss it and go back to relaxing, but there was a strange inner pull that encouraged the use of the skill, one that I could ignore but at the same time didn't want to. The pull wasn't from the bond or even my soul but a weird place somehow in between the two. The feeling didn't give me any spark of fear or anxiety or the sense of an outside influence, but I couldn't place it. To say I was confused was an understatement, and my curiosity pushed me more to try the skill. After a second, I gave in and, focusing on the skill, activated it. The instant pull on my mana was surprising, and out of the corner of my eye, I watched as it dropped before the message started to fade away, and my sense of the surroundings dimmed as well.