Evelyn awoke from her sleep. She first thought she would have awoken exhausted with aches across her body because of the dreams she had. Old fond dreams that she realized would never be able to be fulfilled. She turned to see that Adrith seemed asleep. He was sitting against the wall with his head tilted to the side. She rose up quietly as she began to look through their things, she wanted to make sure nothing was missing, and to her good fortune, they seemed to not be missing anything. She began to walk over to Adrith and began to cast her light spell quietly.
“Hear me, oh sparks of fire which light the night, answer me, Light”
As 8 motes of soft white light floated over Evelyn’s head as she looked down to see Adrith stirring.
“Ready to go?” Evelyn asked lightly being playful as she poked fun at him passing out.
Adrith rubbed his face, “Yes, I am”.
Evelyn extended her hand for Adrith to use to help himself up. Adrith looked up and nodded as he took hold of her hand and they worked together to lift him quickly. Evelyn looked him up and down and realized that he was not wearing armor, “Hmm, you won’t be wearing your armor up?”
Adrith turned to Evelyn as he said, “Oh, yes. My armor is heavily damaged. It’ll probably be more of a detriment wearing it while fighting”.
Evelyn nodded as she looked at his blades. The scabbards seemed damaged, the guards were warped if not entirely gone. And even his handles were cracking. “Seems that’s not the only thing hm?” Evelyn pointed out, slightly jesting but also somewhat seriously.
Adrith nodded his head, “Yes they are. I was hoping to have them fixed when we found a smith”.
Evelyn slightly tilted her head while nodding, “Maybe, it might also be worth it more to sell the metal and get new blades”.
Adrith looked at his blades as he lightly patted the scabbards, “Maybe, however, I think I am somewhat fond of them. So I think I want to keep them”.
Evelyn chuckled to herself, Adrith looked at her as he asked, “What? Was it something I said?”
Evelyn lightly waved her hand, “No no, hehe, I just never thought of you being very sentimental about things like that. I thought you would have been one to be like-”, she put her arms out and made her voice comedically deeper to imitate him, “It’s a tool. Tools are meant to be used and replaced when broken”.
Adrith shook his head with a chuckle, “Alright alright, come on let’s get going”.
Evelyn laughed as she began to cast her Wishing Star spell, forming the golden disc underneath their pile of loot and lifting it up. As they began their ascent. The moment they entered the floors with the smooth dark stone, they knew they had reached the first 10 floors of the dungeon. These floors were some of the easiest to traverse, often being able to be traversed within a day even for beginner dungeon delvers. As for Adrith and Evelyn, they were experienced enough to travel through these areas with ease. Evelyn had a very solid memory of the areas, and the paths that were normally traversed were very easy to find.
It had been only a few hours when Evelyn finally noticed, there were multiple scratches and slashes across the stone walls. She realized that it was strange, they were deep and thick slashes. She then began to see countless more, and then finally a shake in the Dungeon. Her eyes flicked up as she knelt down to keep herself steady. Adrith braced himself against the wall as they looked to each other. They both realized this was intentional damage. Someone was trying to flood these top floors for any who would be trying to make their way up to the caravan.
A thick red mist began to run along the floor, then soon it began to rise. The moment the rumbling and earth-shaking stopped Evelyn stood up and instantly said, “We need to head down, we know the way back down”.
Adrith shook his head, “We can’t we won’t make it to the caravan“.
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Evelyn retorted, “If we die here, we will miss the caravan and lose all our loot”.
Evelyn and Adrith looked to each other for a moment as they began to hear yelling off in the distance. From behind them, they could hear the yelling of multiple people.
“MOVE!”
As both Adrith and Evelyn turned they saw multiple lights and 6 people running for their lives from this wall of red mist. Adrith and Evelyn noticed at the very front was a man they were familiar with, Connor and he was followed by the rest of his group who were in mismatched clothing. With the one closest to the red mist being Maidrin.
Evelyn turned to Adrith as she saw him starting to already run, “Hey! Wait for me!”
The two began to run, Evelyn knew this monster, it was truly less of a monster and more like a natural disaster within the dungeon. Even though the dungeon can be damaged and the only thing that would come of it would be that the dungeon will fix itself after a day, there is a certain point where that is not the only thing that will happen. If enough damage is sustained in the dungeon, the floors will begin to fill with a red mist, known as Blood Mist. The mist will fill any floor that has sustained significant damage, even if it had not been the floor where the Blood Mist originated from. Evelyn was thankful that they did not do this when they fought the Chimera Dragon, because if they did, then they would have had a Blood Mist fill the floor they had just killed the Chimera Dragon in or even when they were fighting the Chimera Dragon.
Evelyn ran as fast as she could yet she could feel herself slowing, so she began to guide her Wishing Star behind her and had it move and hit her from behind to force her to sit on the disc. She felt the impact, but it was light enough to not hurt, as she began to float beside Adrith, “Well, I suppose this is a great sending-off gift the Dungeon left for us”.
Adrith shook his head as he asked, “How are the others?”
Evelyn turned to see Connor had taken hold of one of his team members and was slowly yet steadily catching up with them, she could see Maidrin had taken hold of their other 2 team members and was right behind Connor, “They seem fine, Connor does look like he is trying to get us to notice him, should we slow down for them?”
Adrith said, “Why not? Also, weren’t you scared of dying here? Why do you seem so lax now?”
“Because we know that the Blood Beasts will be trying to eat them and not us”, Evelyn said as she laughingly started to float back to meet up with Connor and Maidrin, “Hello everyone, long time no see”.
Connor was huffing and puffing as he seemed to have been running for a while, “Well hello gorgeous, long time no see indeed”.
Evelyn looked at Connor as she said, “Well it seems you remember some things”.
Connor shook his head as he continued to heave and breathe heavily, “Yes. Gloria used a spell to divine what happened” Connor’s head then dips down for a moment as he takes another heavy breath, “Whoo, hey Gorgeous, do you have room on there for 2 more”.
Evelyn thought for a moment as a smile came onto her face, “Hmmm, no, but I do have a spot for the missus on your shoulder”.
Connot heaved out in great relief, “Better than nothing”
Connor begins to come close as Evelyn takes hold of Gloria who was trying not to fall until this moment. She leaned over to take hold of Evelyn, “Thank you! He was so rough!”
As the group bantered, Adrith turned back, he could tell on their faces many of them seemed fine with the situation. Some were very worried about falling, however, in the end, they seemed more than alright with what was happening. Adrith called out to Evelyn in a very clear voice that made her realize he was using his strange spell, “Why does everyone seem so calm?”
Evelyn chuckled to herself, she realized some things. Adrith out of them was the most versed in the Dungeon as a whole. Yet he came from a time when it was not forced to be a profession. Where those of upstanding and otherwise would be forced in. So there were things he didn’t know, “This is actually quite normal. Often the only real worry is if you don’t know where it will show up. If the Blood Beasts come from the top floors, then it is very worrisome, since they will trap you here for another day. Yet when they come from a floor lower than you, then you just have to run to escape”.
Adrith nodded, Evelyn smiled, “Something like this just means you did well. Others are so jealous of what you could do that they want to try and sabotage you”.
Adrith turned back as he could see the countless people laughing, some worrying, yet none were screaming in total dismay after they realized that they could outrun the Blood Beasts.
‘This group was strange’. Adrith thought as he looked back at them, they could laugh at the certain death behind them. As Adrith turned back, he began to see light. Brilliant golden light within the dungeon that illuminated the floor as he saw the dark stone blocks turn black.
As the moment they reached the light, they were all blinded by the light of the sun.
They had made it.