Corvayne stepped into the portal and had a moment where he felt hot before stinging pain assaulted him. It was like every part of him was boiling. He stomped and created a dome of shadows, in moments his regeneration started struggling to fix what felt like fire all over him. He had been blinded for a moment, eyes watering and bleeding before the shadows started pushing out chemical pain. Water streamed down his arms as the stinging faded. Lady Blood Claw's tree branches started forming a dome to match the shadows as Lepin came in through the orange locked doorway and instantly started screaming and clutching her eyes.
A few moments later, Bayou and Little Spur followed, and both collapsed writhing and screaming until Corvayne flared [[Vitality]] and [[Unity]] to help un-melt them, his own body seeming to normalize the damage caused by breathing acid. The other three who were awake started coughing up blood, and Corvayne took a moment to lay Lady Blood Claw down and make sure she was breathing. Interestingly, through the link she felt better than the others, perhaps because she had been pumped full of regeneration.
Corvayne looked through the supplies they had dragged with them and found a few healing potions, and forced some down everyone's mouth, waiting a few minutes. He could feel the slight drain as an unseen breeze blew against the outside of his protective shell. At the same time, Lady Blood Claw's tree was filling in, creating what seemed like a complete extra layer around the entrance. Corvayne could smell again as his nose regenerated, and the smell of lime nearly bowled him over, irritating his nose worse then the itching feeling of it trying to heal through an acid attack.
Corvayne opened the shadowy curtain a moment and felt his nose and eyes start to burn so he quickly closed the gap.
“Not good. This might explain why nobody had found this portal before.” Corvayne said, though his audience were all either groaning or crying.
Gylwin's worm had perished after being bathed in acid, so Corvayne was pretty sure he was on his own. The real body might come through, but so too was there the risk of whatever was hunting them finding them as well.
“I'm going to move us.” He went over and picked up LBC, careful to keep his shadows tied to her framework branches.
“How are you going to be sure you don't fall down a cliff?”
Corvayne pushed his shadow hands out and started feeling the ground around them. The floor didn't give him any hints, looking like pitted metal, but his hands could feel walls, floor, and places there was a drop-off. He took a step along the path, and at that Bayou, Lepin, and Little Spur picked up the crates they had pulled off the truck and started following.
Corvanye's compass didn't seem to like the dungeon, as his first attempt to find a 'safe spot from the acid' just sent it spinning. 'Another safe spot' was similarly rebuffed.
Moments later something bashed into the wood sphere, sending LBC jerking back and knocking Corvayne back a step. He responded by pulling his spear out and thrusting out. Something shrilly screamed then he heard it splashing off. Burning vapor filled the sphere as he pulled his spear back, once more smelling like burnt lime before he was awash in hot pain as acidic mist turned to inert green liquid after melting him. He felt his skin pull back taut as regeneration once again fixed him.
“We need to find a way to resist the air here, we're sitting ducks otherwise.”
Lepin gave him a look, parts of her skin still crawling as it attempted to mend and slough off acid damaged flesh. “We should have taken our chances out in the storm.”
Little Spur adjusted his ring, the gold untouched by acid unlike just about all their clothes, which had black areas and were all soaked. “In the old tongue, disaster and opportunity are written the same.”
Bayou cocked her head. “That would be the old script, you speak a tongue.”
He fiddled with his ring a little. Corvayne nodded and held up the expired Gylwin worm. “Any advice you might pull out of thin air?”
“A secret realm like this one... it's likely that the entire thing, however big the floors are and however many there are, are all going to be either acid air or lakes of acid or whatever else.”
“We are fucked then, unless you can keep the shadow shield up forever.”
Corvayne actually might be able to do that, as he was pretty sure [[Unity]] was feeding him mana from people outside the instance. “I'm more concerned that we've already encountered a monster. Two or three at once and we're going to be exposed to the air. I have some ideas, but I'd like to figure out what we each can do.”
Little Spur raised a hand. “I have some basic formations and can brew potions, but there's almost nothing I can make with what we brought. It requires special ink.”
“Do you have a storage ring stocked with emergency supplies?”
“Left it in my other robes.”
Corvayne nodded. “Unfortunate. Bayou, you have the power to communicate with monsters, do you have any ability to make deals?”
She nodded. “Only with very weak creatures.”
“Can you call out to them, or do I gotta drive us to one?”
Lepin sneered. “You realize she means like, level five? Anyone working in the barn can't do the heavy lifting for actually taming a monster, they are focused on basically doing the house work for higher level tamers.”
Bayou started to speak then put her head down. Corvayne cleared his throat, which caused it to burn so he spit to the side. “What about you then? Anything that might help?”
Lepin spun her gun. “I'm a crack shot and I'm good at lassoing.”
“Okay. I'm going to see if we can find something like a acid squirrel or rabbit for Bayou to charm.”
“Why?”
“Eyes, ears, and ideally she can drag a bigger acid beast to us in the direction of our choosing.”
As if to punctuate his point, something rammed into the sphere, knocking it over and causing a gap to leak in vapor. Corvayne stabbed out, hitting an eye and driving the monster back. He was pretty sure it had way too many features on its face, and a few of them were now dripping from his spear.
He took a deep breath and then grabbed a chunk of meat and stuffed it in his mouth. Almost instantly there was mind boggling pain but also incredible flavor, his jaw nearly locking as he chewed, caught between hunger for the meat and terrible pain as its citric flavored juices burned him all the way down and left him somehow hungry for more.
“We need to find a helper to lure monsters to us, and eat those monsters. Over and over, until we either die or get enough resistance to acid that we can navigate this floor.”
“If I tried to do that I'd die.” Bayou said, looking pale at Corvayne. He felt something warm and realized that part of his lip had melted. He wiped his face, removing some of the grime and old flesh away.
“If you don't, we'll die.”
Little Spur nodded. “The path of cowtivation is to ride into the sunset in defiance of heaven.”
Bayou sighed. “I fell off that horse.”
Corvayne shrugged. “We have some help. You won't die as long as you guys eat one at a time. We need your help.”
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Bayou nodded. Lepin snorted. “Okay, I want to see how you operate, spear man. I heard a whole lot of things from Night Rider.”
“Oh, you were supposed to watch me?”
“There was a theory you were behind the disappearances.”
Corvayne raised an eyebrow. “I've been here for two weeks. Bad theory.”
Little Spur had to pipe up. “You seem to pull new powers out every time you have a problem. The jail cannot hold you. The sect leader might have a crush on you.”
“You don't have to make up the last one.” Corvayne said, aligning his compass for a weak animal they could befriend.
“It's part of why Night Rider is nervous.”
Corvayne walked up stairs, which was very disorienting and difficult with keeping the shadows in place and keeping Lady Blood Claw mostly lined up with the steps, and by nessecity getting acid vapor into the space they had and burning their legs and ankles. His boots were starting to show wear and tear, and he was pretty sure it would only be a few hours before they started losing all their non magical gear.
It was roughly five minutes before they parked the sphere over a hole, only being attacked once more by something else that ran away, an entirely different monster with red hot burning tentacles that seared its way into the sphere then just as quickly withdrew with a tremendous scream. The little creature that came out looked something like an amber larva with little feathery rabbit ears, four black bead eyes and soft feeler-limbs giving the impression of a timid creature sniffing the changed air.
Bayou sat and started whispering and talking, offering some of the meat they had packed in the crates to the creature. Corvayne started coaching her on what he was trying to do, with Little Spur helping and Lepin looking on in doubt. Even so, the little critter demanded a lot of meat and Bayou had to keep repeating what she said for nearly half an hour before it moved to the edge of the wood and scratched it, prompting Corvayne to use his shadows to open a hole.
“He will find us a Nepller.” Bayou looked much more tired, gripping her jade tablet in both hands while sitting down, not even bothering to try and input the next code.
“What's a Nepller?” Corvayne asked her.
She shrugged as the little critter she had contracted with ran back in, trailing green vapor that's tart flavor preceded both burning chemical pain and a creature that looked like a spider-warthog snapping at it, knocking branches aside before Corvayne almost mechanically drove his spear into one of its eyes, once, twice, three times in a blink before the creature fell, unable to remove its head from the branches before his spear cracked through its skull. He dragged the corpse in and shut the 'door' in his shadows, the wood creeping back to cover his space.
He checked to see if LBC was awake, but her steady shuddering breaths suggested dreams. He instead focused on butchering the seven legged creature. Little Spur built a small fire, which was a mistake in some ways as burning the meat caused the dome to fill with acrid smoke.
One piece of the meat was given to Bayou's pet, then they took eating the cooked legs one at a time. Corvayne gently guided [[Unity]] to help them stay whole as they swallowed the meat. Bayou in particular had to take tiny bites, gripping Little Spurs hand as tears welled in her eyes, wiping the blood from her ravaged mouth using a rapidly diminishing towel.
Again, another spider boar, this one almost getting free before Corvayne tripped it with [Cross Skill: Reap], black hands holding it down for him to hit the neck.
Again, two boars, one taking a spear hit, the other taking a bullet and spraying them in its dying moments, staining their clothes dark brown colors where the material wasn't immune to the acid.
Again, another boar. They water they drank from the few bottles they took mixed the vapors burning them, tasting of iron but enough to sustain them.
Again, two boars, this time Lepin fanning the hammer to hit its skull and a leg, forcing Corvayne to reach into the swirling burning mists to pull his prey out.
At this point Lepin was just wearing her boots, a poncho that covered only her top half, and her gun. Bayou wasn't much better, only more modest because she had fashioned a leather skirt. Little Spur had golden underwear on that didn't seem to mind the acid at all. Of course, his jam-jammies were fine. And LBC, well, he was getting used to seeing her naked.
Again. A new monster sort of like a weasel with gill-like eyes that seemed to breath, its three horns scraping Corvayne before died when he wrestled it to the ground and Lepin cut it's neck, losing the knife but gaining different meat, still tart and painful.
But a little less. The others slept in shifts, the little rabbit wiggling as it feasted on leftovers, dragging parts back into it's burrow, waiting for Bayou to awaken.
Again. The meat tasted great, and they were not running short on wood. It was day outside, he could feel light pressing against his shadows. The little pet spoke to Bayou when she woke, and they moved the sphere to a spot that he suspected was better shaded and out of the way. Sometimes they'd hear giants moving, the pitted coral-like ground rumbling as huge beasts moved past their little dot of non-acidic air.
Again, a snake like creature, not big but long enough to give them each a ration.
The rabbit slept for an hour then was back awake, earning meat. Three monsters, forcing Corvayne to fence outside the wood dome while Lepin took four more shots to kill two, the third making a mistake that let him use [Cross Skill: Backbiter] on it, his spear's teeth tearing into the meat and filling him up.
It was dark again, and he slept, and woke, and the rabbit would bring another monster. The wood dome had expanded enough that they could fight within, the acid no longer strong enough to hamper them from standard dungeon tactics. Him in front, then Little Spur
Again, something made of hands that sacrificed a few and ran. The group gave most of it to the rabbit, as the meat was deeply unappealing.
It was a week before he finally noticed a change, the food no longer triggering irritation.
Lepin noticed too. “It should take us years of eating cursed food to develop resistance.”
Corvanye suspected that [[Growth]] had something to do with it, probably in combination with all his [[Essence]] pact levels. He was also pretty sure that everyone was getting levels from the non stop barrage of monsters, but he didn't pry as to what exact levels they were. It certainly seemed that Bayou's rabbit was getting more and more bold and evasive. It probably was gaining the others lots of levels too, given they were all considered a party.
Corvayne stepped outside the dome and for the first time didn't feel his eyeballs melting. He was somewhat familiar now with the pitted green metal and stone that formed a sort of cup, though he hadn't realized the pillars that formed a valley were so tall. Green and yellow mists hid the tops, probably at the same height that one would see regular clouds. The gap they had stumbled through blindly looked to be from a plaza with holes in the material leading to what looked like a many mile fall into boiling green clouds. Above, the sky was purple like wine with yellow and green underlit clouds drifting across, the only other feature dark towers with chains connecting them, floating with tortured stone visages adorning the sides, as well as metal green hands, dripping fluid as the winds splashed acid against them.
Looking around, it looked like this floor was nearly all floating towers, connected by chains and whispy looking strands of matter. Every feature, up close, looked like it had moved from geometric shapes to more organic ones, all suggesting untold agony and horror. Great visages with empty moaning mouths, no doubt the size of Cascadia's skyscrapers, seemed to float through the space. Under the stone visage was another mask, slowly being revealed as the old one was weathered away, the one he was looking at a rictus of terror emerging from a melting face of madness. From miles away he could see stones falling like dust. From above, chains fell like loops of loose string, only shattering the illusion as it raised a distant booming cloud landing on another tower.
He returned to their little hide out and looked at the next path. They must have been atop one of those massive structures or a link, as he could see paths towards other floating spires. Some of them were made from grime hardened atop massive chains. The view on this floor was extra long, he had to look far to see the hints of pillars fading into purple, and even then only as the acidic clouds parted for a moment. Looking at the biological design of nearby towers, he suspected that the ribs would be mazes, no doubt dripping with stronger acid as he could see streams of something occasional leaking out of a patchwork of rib-cage like holes in the structures.
He decided to aim them at the tallest tower, figuring that if it was like his previous dungeons, they'd want to go up.
His vision started to waiver and he felt the burn coming on, so he retreated back to the dome to heal.
The rabbit came back a little later, two big spider-boars and a dragonfly shaped flier that rained knives down and could teleport. He infused his shadow hands with gravity and pulled the monster from the air right to his feet, and then grabbed its neck and slammed it on the ground until it stopped moving. Lepin was running low on bullets but he had fashioned her a laso from corrosive leather and she used it to bind one and drag it off balance.
Little Spur killed the other boar with a sword strike, the effort seeming to wind the boy even as his blade expertly parted the beasts neck.
Another week of no help, but no hunters either. They were running low on water, forcing Corvayne to plug it into his compass. The magical gear he had stolen from the bandit was now worn over a rough shirt made of boarskin. It was time to move camp, both because prey was started to get sparse on the crossroads they were on, and because it seemed like they had attained some large factor of acid resistance.
Bayou didn't dismiss the amber acid-rabbit, instead letting the grubby creature perch on her shoulder. Corvayne suspected it had evolved, as he saw little silver streaks and its face had changed to be more mammalian, though it still had four beady eyes. The little thing skitter-hopped ahead, lined up with Corvayne's compass towards water.
He hefted LBC and started walking.
“You know, I keep having to carry people through dungeons...” Every word he spoke made him taste the sort of lime flavored air. The green-brown sludge crunched under his boots, forcing him to re-assess what it was. Some sort of crust from the rain?
Looking ahead, he could see a huge red storm on it's way. They probably wouldn't want to be on the chain when it struck.
Corvayne turned to ask if they wanted to turn back already and, in doing so, got grazed by a small glowing green cloud. He felt it nearly reach bone on his exposed arms, and he hissed and forced [[Vitality]] to regrow the arm and push the sizzling mess off before it got into his veins.
“You all right?” Little Spur said, having moved closer but now watching what they had assumed were just colorful patches of vapor.
Corvayne took a deep breath, ever present citrus smell mixing with the chemical smell of his melted flesh. They needed to cross when the air was clear, and hunker down against the wind when a small cloud of extra strong vapor blew over.
While he was planning, he heard a high pitched yelp.
“It still burns?” Bayou cried out, and Little Spur had to pull her to pull her closer to Corvayne as a yellowish cloud started billowing over the only way off the chain. They were trapped now, with the red storm overtaking the tower they were heading to. The first clouds splashing as they whipped into the huge green pillar.
Lepin made a strangled noise of annoyance. “You are going to get us killed stupid crow!”
“Me? We're fine. There's caves where the chains meet.” They had better hurry, as Corvayne could see the end of the chain vanishing in a billowing red cloud. That was only a few miles away.
He ran ahead, only stopping to make sure that Little Spur and Bayou were keeping up. Lepin had flown ahead, superior Cowtivator abilities letting her blow past him even as Corvayne had [[Agility]] going. Ahead she lassoed and choked a large beetle that was trying to get into a cave.
He reached the intersection of links as the cloud swallowed the next junction. Corvayne faced the slimy looking cave and rather than trying to kill the armored wasp-thing that was hissing at him, he used [Juxtapose] and then [Storm Thrust] to swap it out of its home then belt it off into the void. Shadowy hands made short work of the things little biting larva before he squeezed Lady Blood Claw's leg and the limp woman twitched, plants growing rapidly where his shadow hands guided them until they had formed a dome around their group. Moments later the clouds hit, the sound something like sand being sprayed onto everything. He could see sap dripping as whatever the cloud was seemed to be trying to sand everything down. It was no match for the endless plant growing out of LBC, so they settled down and Corvayne focused on using mend to keep her lungs and heart clear of vines.
He was pretty sure [[Unity]] was the only thing keeping her alive, as he got a sense of health coming into LBC to make up for the near constant damage being done.
It was very dark in the wood structure, but he could see well enough that Little Spur had a hand around Bayou, who he was pretty sure was trying to find his lips. Ah, he'd not told them he could see in the dark. He politely closed his eyes, then opening one to see that Lepin was looking at him, clearly also able to see. He tossed a spare hide at her head, then tipped his hat down and fell asleep to the endlessly wailing acid storm.