The adventures and the smiths let out a small cheer.
We’ve made to to the tenth floor, after seven days. Though it’s unlikely that we’ll find good smithing materials immediately, the possibility existed, exciting everyone with how near our goal is.
Hogvir’s seemed troubled about something these past few days. Normally, it wouldn’t be any of my business, but he also keeps giving me little looks, his brow furrowed in deep thought. I can’t help but get the feeling that whatever’s going on, involves me.
I haven't had to fight since the floor guardian incident. In fact, the leader of the adventurer party—a rail thin man named Veroth, had suggested to me that I hang back, and if we come across another impossible to beat enemy, I would strike. Unless those circumstances came about again, I was to preserve my energy. I was their very own trump card.
I wonder how they would feel if I told them that I wasn’t just a glass cannon, only able to deal one deadly blow? I could easily use strikes of the same magnitude multiple times. If that spider had survived, I would have been able to hit it seven or eight more times, with equal or greater power then the one strike that it had actually needed.
After passing into the tenth floor of the labyrinth, one of the more extreme examples of the differences between floor levels became apparent. Whereas the previous floors had mostly been cave-like passages and larger ‘rooms’, with the occasional crystal cave or miniature forest, the tenth floor was one gigantic swamp.
Walking through the door, murky water immediately came to our shins. Well, considering how I’m the shortest one in the group, the water came to my knees. Large trees twisted all over the place, their roots elevated above the ground slightly. I could see a brightly colored patch of flowers in the distance, through the fog lightly blanketing the floor.
I heard frogs croaking, and the occasional shrill cry of some sort of bird. I couldn’t see any enemies, but I knew from experience that most of the deadly things on this floor would kill you without even realizing it. The tenth floor was fondly known as ‘The Hell Swamp’ by most adventurers, due to its many pitfalls, traps, poisonous and venomous animals, plants, and insects. Most of the plant life was semi-sentient in the swamp, some of which were carnivorous in nature.
Those brightly colored flowers? Likely growing out of the corpse of adventurer who had taken a wrong step somewhere.
The water? Infested with amphibious creatures which love fresh, bloody meat.
The trees? Well, I’m not too sure about this one, but apparently they sometimes fall right onto a passing group, killing most of them.
The fog? Some of it is extremely toxic, and paralytic in nature.
Welcome to the tenth floor of the labyrinth, the only floor with a higher death count than the floors lower than it.
We were all immediately on our toes, keeping an eye out for any of the myriad of ways we could die. This floor would have to be crossed in a single day, since we aren't suicidal enough to consider camping in the swamp for a night.
We assumed a diamond type formation, with our mules in the very center, then the smiths, and the adventurers on the outside edges. Hogvir and I walked at the rear, watching behind us, as there were some things in the swamp which would wait until you’ve passed, then strike.
The first thing that tried to kill us was a small arrow-shaped pitch black frog. It hopped down an overhanging branch, and was about to land on one of the adventurers heads when he noticed the frog, and quickly smacked it away with the back of his sword, mid-fall. We all breathed a sigh of relief. In this swamp, contrary to what held true in natural forests and swamps, the darker something was, the more deadly you could assume it to be. The brightly colored things in this swamp are actually mostly harmless. Unless you eat them. Then you’re screwed.
We were doing well, until one of the adventurer’s up in the front of the formation missed a dark brown snake the size of a twig, and it bit one of the mules. The mule died within minutes, foaming at the mouth and twitching madly. There wasn’t anything we could do to save it. The mule’s death reinforced the need to prevent things like this in the first place, by spotting the dangers ahead of time. We’re just lucky it was a mule that died, and not one of the stronger adventurers or any of the smiths. The tents and supplies that the mule had been carrying was divided between everybody, and I ended up with a bag of dried meat. I was somewhat concerned by the fact that I essentially now had what could be considered bait, hanging from my back.
After this, we started walking faster, wanting to leave the swamp as soon as possible. There were a few instances where we came across small dark-colored animals, and killed them as soon as possible. There was a bad scare when one of the snakes grazed a smith with it’s bite, causing him to weaken for an hour, before the small dose of venom ran it’s course.
We became even more cautious, though it did us no good in the end.
Just as we had reached the exit to the nerve wracking swamp, and people began to let down their guards somewhat, a tiny, pitch black spider fell off a branch, and landed on Veroth’s neck. He casually brushed it off by reflex, not realizing the full danger he was in. The spider fell, and nobody noticed, not even me. The two small welts growing on Veroth’s neck also went unnoticed, though we would find out about them soon enough.
After we crossed the door to the eleventh floor, everybody completely relaxed. We set up camp in the first room of the eleventh floor, which was nearly always empty of monsters due to adventurers exiting the tenth floor, and deciding to take a good, long rest. This has kept monsters from spawning in the room, as it was almost always occupying the room. Even now, there are two other groups here, their fires casting long shadows in the dimly lit space. Our camp was raised away from the other groups, though some of their members came over to greet us, and traded stories. There were a few exclamations of relief that they had gotten out of the tenth level without any casualties, something I thought was a little odd. I also noticed that some of them had slight swelling in their necks.
Hogvir also noticed this, and asked them if there was something wrong. They looked astonished for a moment, and felt the area in question. They looked confused, and stated that nothing felt wrong, and that they were in no pain. We didn’t inquire any further, and I wondered if there was some sort of allergen nearby causing these reactions.
Dinner was dried meat—the same dried meat I had carried through the swamp. I was half expecting some sort of creepy crawly to jump out of the bag as I opened it, but nothing of the sort happened.
There were also some beans. I can’t really say much more about the food, other than the fact that I really miss the pasta from that restaurant.
We all retreated to our tents, and I set up my wards.
Normally, I set up three wards—The first layer being a alarm ward which notifies me of people approaching. It’s set up so that I’ll know once they come within two meters of my tent. The second ward is a simple physical ward, keeping anyone from coming within half a meter of the tent. The last ward is a trap ward, which would activate if someone breaks the physical ward. I think I’ve said that it paralyzes the target in question before, for about a day. While that may seem a little harsh, I thinks it’s one of those things you’ll only ever do once. Speaking from experience, being paralyzed for long periods of time can be a little traumatizing, and it’s not something you forget, either. Thankfully, nobody’s activated that ward, or even found out about the physical ward around my tent. They’ve been remarkably good at giving me my privacy.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Tired and mentally worn out, I decided to sleep instead of meditating, and soon started dreaming.
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(POV Hogvir)
I’m starting to regret acting against Kai. He seems like a good person, if somewhat antisocial. Even though I know almost nothing about him, I feel like if I tried, he could be a lifelong friend. But that chance might be lost now, with what we’re doing behind his back.
Sitting hunched over in my tent, which was too damn small for me, I thought about what had led me to this position.
Our group of merchants, crafters, mages, and other distinguished peoples from the city was first formed from a mutual dislike of how the city was run. Ash and Jourmont, as some of the most powerful people in the city not under the payroll of the governor or his staff, were almost unanimously elected as leaders of the group. I was elected/forced into a leadership role as well, even though I wanted nothing to do with the thing. I just wanted to make beautiful armors. I didn’t want to participate in any sort of fledgling rebellion, even though I eventually accepted my role.
It’s been a few years since then, and we hadn’t made any real progress until a few months ago. That was when some of the higher ranks in the city guard had gotten sick of extorting more taxes from people barely able to buy bread for themselves, and decided to join our efforts.
Things started moving quickly from there, and we thought everything was going well, until we got word of him.
Rumor was that a smith had appeared in the city, and had been selling swords to people in exchange for quality metals. The problem was that most of these swords ended up in the hands of the nobles we so desperately wanted out of the city.
Actually, we didn’t think much about these rumors at first, until one of the boys in my smithy happened to see a noble’s son showing off one of these blades, by cutting the stone pillars supporting a shop he had taken a dislike to straight in half, like thin paper. The store collapsed because of this.
We immediately started paying more attention to the new bladesmith, and saw the danger he represented, simply because most of his clients were nobles.
Then something happened that made us think that, maybe, he could be won over to our side.
A young orphan approached Kai, with a chunk of raw iron the size of a fist in his hands, and asked for a blade to protect his sister with. Kai took the iron, and forged a knife superior to the swords made for noble’s sons, for the boy to keep. He told the boy to keep the deal quiet, because he didn’t want the knife to be stolen from the boy.
Unfortunately, the boy bragged about the knife to some of his friends, and they beat him and sold the knife for money. That’s how we found out about the whole thing.
I can’t help but wonder if Kai’s helped others like this before.
Anyway, after that, we decided that we would try to win Kai over. Jourmont, however, was deeply suspicious of anyone whose background he doesn’t know, and wanted to delay attempting the requirement of Kai until we had a better grasp of who he is.
When they suggested that I bring Kai into the labyrinth somehow, I had an idea of what they were going to do, but didn’t try to stop it. Even if I voiced my thoughts on the matter, they would find someway to bypass my notice. That doesn’t however, stop me from regretting the whole thing. I want to find a way to make it up to Kai, but that would require telling him about it in the first place—And I’m sure that he would be furious that someone was digging in his past. He’s the type that has too much to hide, and too much riding on keeping it hidden.
Right now, though, I can only hope that Ash and Jourmont didn’t find anything in Kai’s home, else this whole thing will only continue.
Sighing, I decided to make a decision about the whole mess after a night’s sleep. Damn tenth floor made me really tired.
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(Jourmont) “Good news, Ash.”
(Ash) “What is it?”
(Jourmont) “I’ve found out who the survivors from that slave camp Kai annihilated are. I haven’t found out where they are at the moment, but it’s only a matter of time now.”
(Ash) “Good. Maybe we’ll get some answers about Kai now.”
(Jourmont) “Exactly what I was thinking. We might also get some information from Hogvir after he comes back out of the labyrinth.”
(Ash) “Yeah. We’ll see what he’s found out from watching Kai. He could probably tell us how strong Kai is, which is information we’ve been lacking from the start.”
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Author's Note:
I thought that it might be useful to know some of the statuses of others so far, so I went ahead and put them in. Here you go—;)
Status:Name: Katariah SilverTitles: (4 Hidden)Race: Demon/ElfAge: 13Gender: FemaleMain Class: MageSub Class(es): Smith; SwordsmanLevel: 22Health: 320Mana: 75200Strength: 50Stamina: 34Dexterity: 64Intelligence: 68Wisdom: 62Luck: 1
Status:Name: Udon HogvirTitles:The Fire GiantWarm HeartedRace: Human/GiantAge: 47Gender: MaleMain Class: SmithSub Class(es): BerserkerLevel: 36Health: 460Mana: 130Strength: 65Stamina: 48Dexterity: 36Intelligence: 28Wisdom: 42Luck: 37
Status:Name: Gregor VerothTitles:LeaderLuckless LoveEx-NobleRace: HumanAge: 24Gender: MaleMain Class: KnightSub Class(es): Cook, Oblivious IdiotLevel: 28Health: 370Mana: 230Strength: 38Stamina: 40Dexterity: 32Intelligence: 34Wisdom: 24Luck: 4
—River.