Hordes of soldiers, numbering in the millions, marched in straight lines, their metal helms reflecting the morning light every which way. Pikes were held high, forming a bristling forest of steel and wood, and men on horses had swords buckled to their saddles, keeping them at the ready, in case they lost their lances.

Interspread through the lines were groups of men holding steel barrels mounted on wood. They were currently doing last minute maintenance on these contraptions. The whole army seemed restless, railing for the fight they would face shortly.

I could see the opposing forces from where I stood, up high on a cliff overlooking the fields in knew would soon be soaked in blood. Hopefully most of it would be the enemy’s, and we’ll emerge victorious—Slim through the chance might seem.

The other army outnumber us three to one. While we had millions of brave men and women, they had inhuman beasts augmenting their ranks, and some of the most powerful mages ever seen on their side.

All too soon though, they began their rolling charge, the whole mass of them shaking the ground, and raising a dust trail miles high. I relayed a command to the woman standing next to me, covered in bright, resplendent armor, and our men began to move…. 

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(Hogvir) “Oi— Kai, time to wake up, we’re leaving!”

I woke up, startled by Hogvir’s shouting. I sat for a moment, banishing the remnants of the dream, before hurriedly pulling my silver hair back into a simple ponytail, and throwing on my coat and mask. I tidied up my bedroll, and stuck it into my knapsack. I took down the wards surrounding my tent, and packed that up as well. All the tents went on the one remaining mule, and I joined everyone else, as we cleaned up the campsite. The other two groups that had been here yesterday have already left, and we shortly followed them into the eleventh floor of the labyrinth.

The very next room was filled with armored skeletons, wielding every sort of weapon conceivable, and with various styles of armor, ranging from full plate to basic leather armors. Hogvir was released on them, and they were quickly broken. He still looks a little troubled, but less then before. Something in me hopes that he found a resolution somehow.

We journeyed deeper into the eleventh floor, and had the satisfying feeling of actual combat, rather than the constant vigilance required on the tenth floor. It had worn everybody a bit thin, and now we were getting some good stress relief.

Eventually, the smiths noticed a small ore vein running through one of the rooms—It was a magikite iron vein, which could be mined to get mana rich iron. It made a good foundation for magic circle inscriptions. These inscriptions could be inlaid into armor to provide resistances to certain elements, or to boost a few stats. It was an essential ore for armors like Hogvir and his group, so they quickly mined out the vein, gathering a few handfuls of the ore—enough to last a few months, with how little is needed to make the inscriptions.

Another one of the rooms we entered was filled with bright light, emanating from a massive crystal in the center of the room. Embedded into the crystal was a simple looking longsword, slowly rusting away. I tapped the crystal, and was astounded by the degree of its rigidity and hardness. I looked at the sword again, gaining an appreciation for however had made the thing, that it was able to pierce the crystal, and for the one who had the strength to drive it in up to the hilt.

Some of the smiths, taking the sword to be a challenge, attempted to pull the sword from the crystal, to no avail. It didn’t move an centimeter, nor did it break, contrary to it’s rusted and fragile appearance. The adventurer’s laughed at the attempts—apparently the sword was somewhat of a tourist attraction. No matter who was pulling it, it had never moved, and nobody could remember how it had ended up in the crystal in the first place. It was just another mystery to be found in a labyrinth.

As everybody was leaving the room, I approached the sword, the bladesmith in me curious at how such a thing had been made. I touched the sword’s hilt, and felt the powerful coursing of mana in it. It was easily equal the the power held within Twilight, which surprised me due to the sword’s age—power would naturally leak out over time, unless the sword saw action, where it would take in some of the mana of monsters killed. And, from what I could tell, the sword was only made of steel, and not any more powerful metals. That it had such a degree of power still spoke volumes about it’s creator, and his/her skill.

Truly enamored with the sword, I tried pulling it out without thinking, only wanting to see the blade itself. Everybody else was now in the next room, and I don’t think they noticed my absence, which was good, because it would be kind of hard to explain why the old sword had come free under a single light tug of mine. Honestly, I didn’t know how it happened, and only 

remembered that the sword wasn’t supposed to move after the blade was lying in my hands. It was blackened with age, and had rust spots running along its length. It wasn’t very sharp, but gave the impression that there was nothing it couldn’t cut. I looked at it awhile, mesmerized by the simplistic beauty in the blade. It wasn’t decorated, but had a feeling of elegance about it, like the sword was one of the old, honorable nobles tasked with protecting the people instead of extorting them.

Looking at it, I realized that it would be suspicious as all hell if I returned to the group with a new sword, after visiting a room with only one, supposedly impossible to remove sword in it. Wondering what I should do, suddenly the sword shrunk into a dagger, the metal reforming itself, though it still had those rust spots on it, and was lighter now.

Now completely stunned, I rolled the dagger in my hand, wondering how it had done that. Working off intuition, I activated〖Analyze〗on the dagger, and was met with a screen.

Ancient’s RespiteA blade crafted long ago, with now forgotten techniques, by one of the greatest smiths ever.Properties:Mana BreakIdeal ShapeAwarenessForgotten KnowledgeGrowth

It had the same property as Twilight,〖Growth〗. I still haven't figured out what it does, but now that I have another blade to compare it to, I can’t help but get the feeling that it’s a big deal. I was right to hide it. 

And the other properties of the blade were more than a little overpowered.

〖Mana Break〗dispels any mana constructs it touches, letting you cut through barriers and wards with incompatible ease.

〖Ideal Shape〗lets it become any shape, just as you’d assume. It could be anything you wanted it to be.

〖Forgotten Knowledge〗is also fairly obvious—Nobody knows how to make things like this anymore. It implies that if I were to study Ancient's Respite, I had a lot to potentially learn.

〖Awareness〗, I don’t know anything about. Can the sword think or something?

Anyway, now that it was a convenient size, I just it at the bottom of my knapsack. I wondered what the next group to enter this room will think, seeing the sword gone, only having left a slot in the crystal where it had been.

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I ran to catch up the the group, who were worriedly waiting in the next room. Seeing me, they asked me what had happened, and I told them that I wanted a little more time to admire the crystal. They accepted this explanation easily.

We continued down the labyrinth.

There was one thing that concerned me as we made our way.

Veroth was acting...twitchy. I didn’t have a better way to describe it. He would jump at small noises, some of them normally much too quiet for normal people to hear. His eyes were darting about, and had turned slightly bloodshot. He also started fidgeting with his hands, his sword, his armor. Anything, really. It was like he couldn’t get comfortable, or had too much restless energy. I kept an eye on him, hoping it was just me reading too much into things.

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Eventually, we made it to the exit of the eleventh floor. We walked through the transit room and entered the first room of the twelfth floor.

In it, thing had gone very wrong for the two groups that had left before us. There weren’t any monster in the room, but there were bodies laying all over the place, most of them in multiple pieces. I could see one of the archers from the group lying crumpled against a wall, his broken bow impaling him through the chest. He wasn’t quite dead yet though, as his lips were moving in what I presumed to be silent prayer. Hogvir ran to the man, and checked his wounds. The man didn’t see Hogvir right in front of his, so far gone was he. Hogvir only looked back at us, and shook his head. The man’s lips stopped moving a moment later.

We cautiously approached the center of the room, where tents were half-set up, like the group had been attacked while building camp. Everyone gripped their weapons nervously. I took off my knapsack and put it down, and brought Twilight to my off hand, ready to draw at a moment’s notice. The whole situation gave me a really bad feeling.

That feeling was only amplified by the sounds which grew louder as the center of the camp grew closer. There was something—no, multiple somethings shuffling around the place, just out of our sight range. Occasionally, the shuffling was broken by singular grunts, from more than one place.

We passed a tent with two still bodys in it, and as we turned away from it, we saw what had caused all this. Or at least, we saw one of them.

It was a man, but a person no longer. His eyes were red and blood filled, and his irises held no more semblance of humanity. His muscles were protruding sickeningly, with the veins showing pitch black against his too-pale skin. The monster, for that’s what the man had become, saw us, and bared blood-soaked teeth. A low growl was heard before he abruptly flashed, and suddenly stood before our group. A hand grabbed out, and took hold of one of our frontline fighters. The monster punched his chest, and broke through armor and flesh alike, killing him instantly. A few cries were heard from the now-dead man’s friends, before we all drew our weapons, prepared to defend ourselves.

I looked at the monster through〖Analyze〗, and found his inhuman stats reflected in my eyes.

Status: (Abnormal)Name: Jorg GrentTitles:Lost HumanityCannibalMonsterRace: Human(Infected)Age: 28Gender: MaleMain Class: SwordsmanSub Class(es): BrawlerLevel: 31Health: 9000Mana: 0Strength: 86Stamina: 95Dexterity: 59Intelligence: 10Wisdom: 1Luck: 10

Something had changed him into a monster, and boosted his stats at the cost of his mana and humanity. Probably, several members of their groups was infected, and it went unnoticed until they started turning out their own teammates. The question now was, how were they infected? Was it something we had to worry about?

I’ll figure that out later. Right now we have to put this monster out of it’s misery.

Hogvir struck first, his flaming sword slamming into the side of the infected human, and propelling him over the tents. It’s clothing had also caught on fire, serving as a beacon to the other infected people in the room. They came at us, all having those red eyes and bulging muscles. Some screamed inarticulate sounds of rage at us, unable to use words any longer. Hogvir laid about him like usual, but this time he had some pain in his eyes. He was well aware that these monsters were once innocent people, changed by misfortune.

I followed him, dealing precision strikes separating heads from shoulders. I tried my best to avoid the claw like hands of the monsters, and was largely successful, even though their physical stats were larger than mine by a good margin.

There were a few times when they grazed my clothing, though the coat protected me. They weren't able to tear through it at all.

I noticed that blow not killing them did almost nothing—they would shrug off the pain like they didn’t feel it, and continued on even with blood pumping from gaping wounds, or missing limbs. Hogvir also noticed this, and began to aim his strike for the head, like I did, seeing that whenever I struck one, it stayed down.

The fight ended only minutes after it started—but you know how it is. It lasted hours for us.

I flicked the black blood off my blade, and resheathed it, tossing my knapsack back over my shoulder from where it had lain. I looked around, and saw that the adventurers were looking at the dead bodies of the monsters in horror. They probably hadn’t ever killed a person before—though what we faced didn’t count as human anymore.

I squatted down, and used〖Analyze〗on one of the monsters again, for more information.  

This was once a person, but was bitten by a spider rarely found in swamps, causing them to lose their mind, and enter a rage filled state, where they attack anyone nearby. The spider’s poison takes effect two days after initial exposure. There is no cure. Symptoms include sleeplessness, anxiety, short attention span, and increased sensory input.

Shit. I can think of one person in our group who has had all of those symptoms, since we made it out of the swamp in the tenth floor.

This isn’t going to end well.  

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