Adrith had found sleep, for the Awoken they didn’t need many of the same needs normal people needed. The Awoken didn’t need to eat, water was just a luxury to make sure their body and voice did not degrade if they were to stay up for long stints, however, the Awoken did require sleep.
Sleeping did not serve the same purpose it did for normal people. The Awoken did not tire, they did not physically degrade in stamina over a day, however, they did mentally fatigue. The mind is something that is the most easily damaged on an Awoken, and sleep allows the mind to recuperate in a way that is easily controlled and sustainable.
Yet sleep also served another purpose, sleep allowed an Awoken to recover from all injuries and recover their energy in a rapid way that would make any wizard jealous. This miraculous recovery ability allowed any Awoken to become top shape within the day.
8 hours of sleep was all that was needed to perform this miraculous recovery. With this sleep comes the next greatest feat an Awoken performs by the grace of the gods.
The last place where an Awoken had slept is where the Awoken will arise from upon death. This is both the greatest boon of the Awoken and one of their biggest weaknesses for when the last place they had slept could become a hostile area. Yet down in the Dungeon, few places could be called safe, not even right where they were. It was secure enough to not have them die right away, yet they were in the very depths of hell.
Adrith had now awoken and began to sit up, beginning to rub his eyes as he asked, “What did I miss?”
Evelyn responded quite quickly, “Nothing other than the usual movements of the small pests”.
Adrith nodded as he began to stand, “We should begin to head off”.
Evelyn however held out her hand and said, “We shall when I get a proper set of clothing”.
Adrith looked to Evelyn as he inquisitively asked, “And how are we gonna do that?”
Evelyn made a light gesture to the multiple cloths and leathers she acquired, “I scrounged through the mounds and found these, you should be able to repair all of this. Since your armor reeks of unstable energy. It must have been in a state like these and you used magic”.
Adrith shook his head, “Sadly I can not help you with that. I may know magic but I am unable to perform unassisted incantations”.
Evelyn was seated as she nodded and held out what seemed to be a wand, “I found this. Use it. I want to be clothed”.
Adrith took it and tilted his head to the side then the other as he said, “Let’s see if we can find you something”. He took a deep breath as he took the wand into his hand and brought it up to his face and held it like a Duelist fencer would a sword, “By my command, that which is composed of the five elements, be boldened by the 5 elements, heed my command, Mend”. With his firm command and a flick of the wand, the cloths, leathers. And metals all reformed.
With a skeptical eyebrow raised Evelyn began to look through the many articles of items she had found for this and said, “How curious, say, what are the 5 elements exactly. I don't know where they apply to you mending leather”.
Adrith shook his head as he began to kneel and sift through the things with Evelyn, “The 5 elements are fire, water, earth, air, and wood. How I performed my incantation was through the association of elements with materials. Metal is fire, cotton is water, linen is air, leather is earth, and wood is, well, wood”.
Evelyn nodded her head, “Creative, I suppose. Then the spell is transmutative?”
Adrith gave a light nod, “In a sense. It is a long-lasting transmutation, however not permanent. It prioritizes damage that breaks complete function, so that's why some of these may not be quite so good”. Adrith took hold of a linen flag and ripped it lightly with his hands to make a point, “So let's choose wisely among these”.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Evelyn looked to Adrith when he finished talking she asked a question, “How long is the transmutation?”
Adrith thought for a moment then said, “5 days”.
Evelyn then rolled her eyes, “Cliche, couldn't have been something else?”
Adrith shook his head with a scoff, “If 5 days aren't enough then we'll need to rough it out either way”.
Evelyn looked at him curiously, “Why?”
Adrith lightly gestured up as he finally found a cloth flag that seemed sturdy enough, “Because we have about 60 floors to make it to the surface”
“What?” Evelyn asked in astonishment, “You mean there are 60 levels to the dungeon, most assumed it stopped at 40”.
The man shook his head as he began to scrounge through the pile more and pulled out some leather belts, “40 is the final point where you will see a Chimera Dragon. However, as you have probably seen, it is nowhere here”.
Evelyn shook her head as she pulled out a pair of boots, “I have. So, Mister Expert, with where we are, how long will it take us to leave the dungeon? And how do you plan on fighting all the monsters down here with us having only 1 wand”.
Adrith turned and lightly waved his hand, “Oh no, we’re not fighting anything we don’t have to. We’ll be sneaking through and running. Neither you nor I can handle the things down here by ourselves on our best days. But right now? We’ll be lucky to get out”.
Once Adrith said that his eyes shifted over to scan Evelyn. He had been watching the entire time, wondering what was different, why was she so calm. As it was then he noticed, she had a twitch in his hand, her feet shifted constantly and she even seemed to hold herself close. Yet it was then in this quiet moment he noticed her take a breath in and began to quietly chant. It was something so inaudible that even in this noiseless place it was nearly impossible to hear, yet Adrith picked up just a tidbit.
Adrith nodded to himself as he knew the few words she chanted were her incantation trigger words, and she seemed to be constantly saying them to perform meditation. An impressive feat Adrith couldn’t even perform in his life, ‘must have been how she kept herself from falling into her own darkness’ was all Adrith could think before he stood up with the materials.
“Alright, enough talk” Adrith cut the silence that broke Evelyn’s concentration, “We need to get you dressed, and we need to get moving, We don’t know when will be the next time we get into a situation we get to sleep and recuperate, we need to use it while we can”.
Evelyn began to stand up as she said, “Okay, how are you doing this?”
Adrith sighed as he kneeled and began to wrap the flag cloth around her waist and then tie it down with a belt, “So I will be doing basic things like turning the flag into a pair of pants. First I need it to be like a long skirt then these other belts will be around your thighs and calves to keep the cloth close”.
Evelyn nodded her head as she continued, “And let me guess, that padded shirt and breastplate will be my upper half of clothing?”
Adrith fastened the belts as he said, “Clever, you are correct, and those boots will have to do. Make sure they fit well and pad the insides if you need”. Once Adrith had finished, he stepped back and nodded to himself, “Wep, that’ll do, alright, you should be able to handle the rest”.
Evelyn nodded and slipped in, “Quite”.
After 20 minutes of Evelyn fiddling with her makeshift armor and ill-fitted boots, she did a few jumps as she said, “I suppose it works, so who will be using the catalyst?”
Adrith lightly tossed the wand towards Evelyn, “You, you’ll need it more than I when it comes to getting out of a fight”.
Evelyn clumsily caught the wand and looked at the man inquisitively, inspecting his armor and noting the probable weight as it seemed to be a set of modified plate armor. Something that was done when it became harder to find magical smiths. Those types had many additional plates in many places to increase the protection, multiple underlayers, and other forms of mundane protection. Yet these also made it about as heavy as wearing a 2nd or even 3rd set of full plate armor, Yet a style like this had not been seen in quite some time, from what Evelyn remembered most who fought monsters now would wear lighter armor with some plate near the chest for optimized defense. The only ones who could or would wear that armor would be the rich and elite, and they would never go near a monster.
“Right, I suppose you might be able to run right through the stone if you could move so quickly in that armor”, Evelyn remarked.
Adrith nodded as he began to stand up, putting his helm on with a chuckle, “I probably could, now come on, we got some ground to cover. I wanna make it out of the Depths before we run out of energy”.
The two began to take their first steps forward, as the sounds of screeching and bones crunching became a constant occurring sound, as they reached the stairs, where they could hear the screeching of the horrors above.