Arrin was pretty confident he wasn’t gaining on Andarit, but he didn’t think he was all that far behind her. It was pretty clear that he was fighting whatever she didn’t kill; the birds he fought were followed by sections of scorched forest, and there were quite a few monkeys on the ground a few minutes after he fought them. He didn’t think they’d been dead for more than a few hours, either.
He wasn’t sure what to think when he found the big cat, other than to be grateful he hadn’t had to fight one. He didn’t know how Andarit had killed it; there were very few things that would leave a monster dead with no sign of a fight.
He definitely wanted to kill her from stealth.
The next few encounters were quick but painful; the alligator almost cost him a leg when it caught him by surprise. He ended up using the best healing potion he had available to keep himself going, then a slower one while resting afterwards. After that, he was far more cautious around water, even when Andarit had gone by without apparent trouble.
The day was gone long before he gave up for the night and found a hiding place. It was a long, uncomfortable night, but nothing attacked.
He only had two days now. Even if he killed Andarit right this moment, it would be hard to get back out in time to collect the payment; it would only be possible if the dungeon had some sort of an easy exit from the beginning of an area. A couple of the ones he’d done had; the others required people to go deep enough to reach a ‘standard’ exit, which was usually at least five floors in. At a guess, he’d only made it through two and was on the third, so it was still possible even if he had to go forward. It simply wasn’t likely.
It was entirely likely that his employer would pay him even if he wasn’t there before the time limit, as long as Andarit was dead in time; they’d been reliable in the past. He didn’t like the risk, but he’d probably have to take it at this point.
Even though he’d walked well into the night, it was still a little over an hour before he reached the spot where - once again - two people had clearly slept. It was clear they’d had a better night of it than he did; he could see the signs of a campfire and some sort of a shelter as well. What sort of magic item they used wasn’t obvious, but he could see where it had been anchored to the ground.
It was clear they’d had a guard walking around the camp for much of the night; hopefully, that meant that they’d either stayed late and slept the extra time to make up the difference or they’d be tired. Arrin was guessing the former; they didn’t know they were being followed, after all, so why should they hurry?
The ashes in the camp fire were still warm, as well; it’d clearly been out for a while, but he was probably only a few hours behind them.
The rest of the day was spent in the jungle, following Andarit and her companion, dealing with the few monsters she hadn’t killed first. This time, Arrin thought he was catching up; Andarit and whoever was with her didn’t seem to be hurrying, based on the few tracks he was able to see. In fact, there were a number of times where it looked like they spent a few minutes wandering somewhat aimlessly. Perhaps they were searching for something?
They even stopped and had a fire sometime in the middle of the day; Arrin didn’t see it, but the coals were still hot when he found the fire.
The monster attacks didn’t stop, but none of them were as bad as the alligator.
He caught up to them just before sunset, when he reached a building that they’d already entered. Arrin circled the building without finding another exit, but they hadn’t left. Either it was a waystation and they were inside or it was the entrance to the next level and probably a safe room.
Arrin decided he’d wait a few hours to let them get nice and sleepy. If he was lucky, they’d even fall asleep before he entered. That would make his job much easier.
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Andarit was in danger.
The knowledge woke Serenity from his sound sleep and sent him diving from his bed towards Andarit’s. It was a good thing that he wasn’t trapped by his sheet this time; even so, he barrelled into the back of a stranger’s legs snout-first, then had the stranger fall backwards onto him. The impact shook Andarit’s bed and he heard a soft “wha?” from somewhere up there.
“Wake up, Andarit!” Serenity didn’t have time for more than that; he needed to handle the intruder, and he could already see that the man had a knife. As the intruder moved to get up, the hand with the knife flailed near Serenity and he lunged for it, biting down firmly on the man’s hand.
His blood tasted good. Serenity decided not to think about that; the important thing was that as long as he hung on, the man wasn’t going to be able to use his arm or his knife. As the man shouted in pain, Serenity tried to reach up and grab the knife. His paws weren’t made for flexibility and they were really too small anyway, but it was worth a try.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
As Serenity scrabbled for the dagger, his claws sliced up the intruder’s hands and knocked it away, but Serenity wasn’t able to grab it. His paws were simply too short and inflexible. He growled deep in his throat, but maintained his bite on the man’s wrist as he grabbed ahold of his upper arm instead.
A moment later, Serenity’s head was slammed into the side of Andarit’s bed. The intruder was screaming “GET OFF! OFF! FUCKING OWW! GET OFF!” as he continued to try to beat Serenity off his arm.
The first hit was the worst; Serenity wasn’t certain if that was the surprise or if it was actually harder than the next one. The surprise almost made Serenity release his bite, but he immediately clamped down even harder. This would definitely wake Andarit up, and if the man was concentrating on Serenity, he wouldn’t be attacking Andarit.
He was smacked into the side of the bed repeatedly, enough times that Serenity lost count. Eventually, it stopped. Serenity waited, wondering what was going on that he couldn’t see; his vision was mostly blocked by the intruder’s shoulder. The shoulder wasn’t moving; did that mean it was over?
“You can let go now. I think he’s unconscious.” Andarit’s voice came from above and behind Serenity; she was still on the bed, then.
Serenity let go of the man’s wrist and looked at it. Huh, he probably could have let go earlier; it was in no shape to be useful. He was pretty sure he’d at least cracked one of the bones in the man’s forearm; at least one of the bones in his palm was definitely broken because Serenity could see it. He’d also badly torn a semi-circle of flesh where his teeth had been.
Serenity might have felt bad about it if he hadn’t literally caught the man standing over Andarit with a dagger in his hand. He did still feel a little bad about enjoying the taste of the man’s blood, but that wasn’t because of the man; it was simply because he didn’t want to eat people.
Serenity moved away from the man and took a good look at him. It was clear Andarit had whalloped him good; there was a pressure cut on his skull bleeding freely. “Any idea why he’s here? He’s not from the dungeon, he’s from outside.”
Serenity wasn’t certain how he knew that; it was self-evident, but he couldn’t immediately build up the clues that made it obvious, so he started to second-guess himself. When had he realized this wasn’t a monster attack? It took Serenity a moment to figure even that out, but when he thought about it, he knew he’d known the moment he tasted the man’s blood. There was no taste of a dungeon to it, and certainly not this dungeon.
“He’s Night Sky Court.” Andarit sounded disgusted. “A hired killer. Father told me to be cautious, but he thought they’d stopped trying after that attack on him you stopped.
Serenity frowned as he stared at the man. He wasn’t dressed the way Andarit described Court people as dressing, but then she’d only really talked about formal wear. He did seem to be dressed fairly similarly to the man who’d attempted to attack the Duke invisibly, now that she mentioned it. Serenity couldn’t remember if he’d seen the man with his vision, Eyeless Sight, or both.
Serenity concentrated and realized that he’d been subconsciously filtering out a lot of what he saw without thinking about it. The man was visible to his ordinary vision, at least right now, but the mana and essence flows around him were very different from the ones in the floor under him.
Which was probably why he wasn’t paying attention to them; they were everywhere. Still, perhaps that had also influenced his knowledge that the man wasn’t from the dungeon? Even if it hadn’t, it was something to keep in mind for the future. His new sight Skill was going to take a lot of practice, probably as much as Eyeless Sight had when he first got it. While it was similar to the manasight he’d had before, having it on without trying to was definitely different.
Serenity shook his head, then shifted to his human form. When he realized he didn’t have his armor on, he shook his head and chuckled.
“What’s funny?” Andarit glanced up at Serenity. “Oh, you’re not the cute huge lizard anymore.”
That made Serenity actually laugh. “Not a lizard. Dragonling. I was just thinking how distracted I am. It’s probably from lack of sleep.” He headed over to the bed; it was far easier to shift his second form onto himself as armor if it was already close.
Serenity went ahead and shifted his second form from the hilt to armor, covering the form-fitting clothing he was wearing underneath. He really wanted a shower and some laundry service. Well, they’d both be available when they got back to the Lowpeak house in Zenith. He was even saving an entire outfit to be pristine for when that happened; one of the comfortable ones, not the formal gear Andarit had pushed him into.
“Dragonling? Wait, you’re not an adult?” Andarit sounded shocked.
Serenity glanced up at Andarit as he finished the shift. He’d leave off the time in the Tutorial; it was harder to track and he wasn’t certain it really counted anyway. The Final Reaper’s lifetime definitely didn’t count. “As a dragon? No. As a human, though, yes. I’m thirty-eight, I’ll be thirty-nine soon. There’s a reason I spend most of my time in human form.”
A distraction would be good right about now. Serenity wasn’t sure if most shapeshifters would change their development level when they shifted between forms with different age cycles or not, but he was confident that an almost-forty-year-old dragon, while quite possibly not adult, would be taller than he was in his dragonling form.
Serenity glanced at the Night Sky Court intruder and swapped to the active version of his Magesight. Like his old Lifesight, it gave a lot of information about the lifeforce - vital Affinity - of the creature he was looking at. The new version seemed to be more detailed, but Serenity didn’t yet know what the new details meant so he stuck to interpreting what he did know. “Hm. Hurt, but nothing fatal yet. I assume you want to question him?”