It had the shape of a large chrysalis. Broken up into several large surfaces, its facets glowed with the same golden light as the crystals that illuminated every bit of Myrlight. Slowly it expanded, little bits of golden mist escaping between the gaps. Exhausted mana, channelled to uselessness before it could be brought to a proper purpose, leaked into the air. This was what set the monster apart from its surroundings, as it was lodged between several crystals.
Apexus stared at it and slowly took a step forward. No reaction. The slime took another step. Nothing. A third step. The chrysalis suddenly opened and the stored up energy cascaded towards the floor. Magic was shaped into a body, a constant stream of golden light became a humanoid torso with a swirling lower body connecting it to the ground. It started as half of Apexus’ height, but grew bigger with every passing second.
A knife flew over Apexus’ head and into the radiant insides of the open chrysalis. There was a metallic sound, the knife dropped down to the floor and a certain redhead clicked her tongue. “Fucking hard to aim into something that bright!” Reysha defended herself, and tried again. This time, the knife struck something and the chrysalis’ spewing of light ebbed away.
The light elemental in front of them had grown to the height of Apexus’ shoulders. With no more power flowing its way, it did what felt right and rushed towards the slime. A raised fist crashed into his ribcage and Apexus was forced half a step back. He tried to grab the arm and keep the elemental from moving around too much by utilizing his weight.
With normal enemies, this would have been where Apexus would have moved to pull the monster inside him or at least acid-burn the hand away. The issue was that he couldn’t. What the slime’s supernatural acid was limited to was organic matter. Manifested magic of the light variety was most certainly not part of that category. Something inside the being that allowed it to stabilize may have been, but not even that was true in this case.
The stream of fresh energy removed, the light elemental’s form was already beginning to drift apart as a fine, golden mist. Despite that ongoing disintegration, it was still quick enough to escape Apexus’ hand. It hardly mattered, the slime was only supposed to draw attention anyway.
With a satisfied giggle, Reysha extended her claws and dashed around the two of them. Apexus kept advancing on the radiant monster to have the aggression of it locked on him. He had to take two more punches. A few cracked ribs and lost energy were a worthy price for Reysha to get a free attack on the elemental’s open back.
All ten of her fingers dug deep trenches into the creature. She felt the heat and magic tingle on her skin, neither strong enough to harm her as long as she kept moving. The gashes spewed forth concentrated mist and more of the shrinking creature’s mass was consumed to heal the wounds. Reysha danced back, narrowly dodging a wide-swing by the shortening arm of the enemy. Apexus threw himself on top of the monster and kept it in place as a combination of more tearing by the tiger girl and simple time caused it to completely fall apart. It left nothing behind, the last bits of golden mist soon becoming lost in the air.
“Alright, where did that knife go?” Reysha wondered, while reaching inside her adventurer’s bag and retrieving her glove. Putting it on, she looked around. Somewhere between the softly glowing crystals of gold and silver, she spotted the less bright metal sheen of her thrown weapon. It had bounced off the stone path they were currently on. “Clysia, could ya be a dear and get me that?” she asked and made big kitten eyes towards the metal fairy.
“Affirmative,” Aclysia answered and hovered over. In the meantime, Apexus stretched up. His body elongated until he could reach the chrysalis under the ceiling and pull at it. With a bit of force and grinding, the thing became dislodged. Apexus simply let it fall.
The hollow corpse bounced off the stone floor, some of its crystal outside cracking but not splintering off. A second, smaller bounce followed the first, then it only rolled left to right. Reysha stopped the remaining momentum by planting her foot on the knee-high, laying spawner. Turning its opening towards her, the tiger girl reached inside to retrieve her throwing knife.
“I fucking hate this dungeon,” she cussed, when she pulled it out of the single concentration of flesh inside the chrysalis. Most of the creature’s insides were strictly nothing, with one lump of meat housing the heart and magical cortex, and the rest of the insides being covered with a thin, bump-covered, skin-like membrane that produced the crystals on the outside. “There’s basically nothing to eat around here!” she expanded on her complaint and then dug into the apple sized lump from the corpse.
Apexus tended to agree. They had only encountered two types of enemies inside this dungeon. One were these chrysalises, or Light Cocoons as they called them, who would create a light elemental if triggered by the proximity of an adventurer. Depending on the colour of the Light Cocoon, gold or silver, the elemental would either be specialized in strength or speed. The group had found that they had more issues with the latter. Apexus was falling ever further behind in combat, the lack of muscles and sinews limiting his own physical ability. His weight and acidity still helped in most ways. This particular dungeon just had him delegated to being a damage sponge. When fighting a faster opponent, he was of little help to Reysha.
The second type of enemy was a sentient crystal formation that also fell in the elemental category. Essentially, it was a Light Cocoon who had traded being a hollow spawner for more crystal armour and limbs. They called those Brightshards and they too had attributes depending on colour. They also shared the attribute of having next to no meat to them.
“Does it occur to you that the Light Cocoons appear to be reverse geodes?” Aclysia asked, while giving Reysha her second dagger back. “Their outside is beautiful, but the inside has a messy texture and is overall unappealing or uninteresting to behold.”
“I’m too hungry to make any observations like that,” Apexus responded, wondering if he wanted to devour what Reysha left him. The problem was that the crystals tasted like barely anything and what was there wasn’t exactly appetizing. It had a dusty taste to it, as if he was cleaning a surface with his tongue after leaving it alone for a week. The meat was alright, but there wasn’t a lot of it. Essentially, eating any of the enemies in this dungeon was like eating only the carapace of a lobster.
It was a good thing they had a map or otherwise the lack of food variety may have driven the slime and the Noir Rogue crazy. They had enough to keep them from starving, but they still wanted to be out of there as quickly as possible.
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“Elementals are bad food,” Apexus spurted out his thoughts and Reysha nodded.
“Technically speaking, these,” Aclysia pointed at the Light Cocoon, “are not elementals. By strict categorization, only beings who are comprised primarily of magic may bear that title. They would be a related sub-species.”
“I don’t caaaaareeeee,” Reysha whined, swallowing what little meat she had harvested. “This shit tastes like unseasoned chicken and there isn’t even a lot of it. Where is all my good magic spice?!”
“They likely exorcise all of their magic in the process of creating the actual elementals,” Aclysia explained.
“Can you ring up your daddy and tell him to rework this piece of shit dungeon?” the redhead kept complaining, while straining her ears. She pointed at one of the nearby tunnels. Apexus turned his head and noticed the clicking as well. He stepped away from his two women to position himself in wait. To keep luring the monster in, Reysha kept talking, “For real, this is so boring. We’re just carving our way through these caves!”
“For one, this dungeon would be rather dangerous for beginners, may I remind you that Nudru’s group was annihilated here?” To the experienced and highly synergistic trio, Myrlight was of little threat, but there were a number of mistakes new adventurers could make. Underestimating the physical ability of the elementals was an easy starter. Triggering several Light Cocoons at the same time the second. Not killing the Light Cocoons quickly before their constant energy feeding created a monstrous elemental a third.
The first few encounters had been quite dicey even for the three of them, but they had figured out strategies that worked out in most situations after the first day. That wouldn’t work if they hadn’t already had the power to brute force through some experimental encounters. Under-levelled adventurers, such that Nudru’s group had been, would be slaughtered with one misstep.
“Secondly,” Aclysia continued, “it is highly doubtful my father – who I would implore you to not call daddy – was involved in this.” Her open mouth indicated that she had more to say, but Reysha’s giggling made her hesitate.
In that pause, the monster came around the corner. A silver Brightshard, balancing on two stilt-like legs. Its neckless head was of a narrowing, cylindrical shape, a single jagged shard serving as the top. While that part of the body was smooth, the rest was broken up into several asymmetrical segments. Even the two arms weren’t the same girth. Both had lower segments that resembled blades.
Springing the surprise on the monster, Apexus cut off the easy escape route by extending his wings. The fast enemy was startled enough that he could do so before it jumped away with its superior speed. Apexus then proceeded to hug the enemy in a deadly embrace and started to envelop it. Dissolving the crystal would take quite a while, its high mineral density made it hard to process for Apexus. Not impossible, armour grown by prey was recognized by the slime’s acid regulating system as part of their biology, but difficult.
To reduce the struggle, Reysha stepped over and crushed the monsters still exposed head with a couple of choice kicks. Strictly speaking, Apexus could have stopped eating at that point. Needing to replenish biomass and energy, he was best advised to keep munching on the dusty crystals. The constant glowing didn’t leave a lot of the spice of magic inside them.
“What do you find entertaining?” Aclysia wanted to know when Reysha continued to giggle.
“It’s just… you know how some people pray to the gods for forgiveness and guidance and that shit?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“You know ‘Forgive me, father, for I have sinned’?” She sat down next to Aclysia.
“I successfully recall that being the common phrase for the worship of more stern and male entities like Jersoja, yes?”
“What if-“ Reysha snorted, barely holding in her own laughter. “What if they said: ‘Sorry, daddy, I’ve been naughty’?” Just after she had managed to say that, she toppled over backwards. Insane laughter echoed from the walls while the angel next to her blushed with a mixture of second-hand embarrassment and anger.
“You should respect the divine!” the white-haired woman declared. “They are the reason you are here!”
“I guess they pushed the boat out, but mortals are sailing it,” Reysha slowly recovered from her giggling. “I don’t care much for the theoretic great, great grandmother thanks to whom I was born. I mean, praise be to Proadi for having the brilliant idea to make something as sexy as me. Don’t feel I owe her my life for it tho.”
Aclysia just sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to pull the redhead into expanded theology and its virtues no matter how hard she tried. “To expand upon my point, my father would have nothing to do with the creation of this dungeon. The aesthetic of our surroundings lead me to believe this would be the work of Clort, god of crystals and competition. It may also be the case that a god outside the 33 originals made this place. In any case, this Spring Leaf does not bear the sign of my creator.”
“Hashahin wouldn’t put something this awful on us,” Apexus stated. “He is a good person. He gave me my melody. Nobody who makes Aclysia could do something this awful.”
“That is… entirely fair,” Reysha conceded the point.
“Your flattering does not bring you forgiveness for the awful joke you just made,” Aclysia pointed out.
“Aww, sawwy mommy,” Reysha spoke in an absurdly cutesy, downright obnoxious, slur. “I’ll be a gowd liddle gawl I proimise.” She leaned in closer. “Can I haz kisses?”
“I require you to never do that voice or that joke again and then I may oblige you,” Aclysia retorted.
“Can promise for the voice, not for the joke, sweet cheeks,” Reysha winked. “Ya know how I work.”
“Then I shall withhold what you desire and give it to someone more deserving,” Aclysia decided and got up. With hasty steps and flowing robe, she made her way to Apexus and cuddled his expanded body. “Darling deserves all of my kisses,” she hummed and showered the side of his face with attention.
“My melody deserves all of the hugs,” Apexus responded and wrapped his unoccupied arms and wings around the metal fairy.
“Oy, what’re ya leaving me out of your love-pile for?” Reysha complained and quickly followed. The rest of the monster was dissolved while they giggled, hugged and kissed. They stayed on alert through ears and Reysha’s nose, but otherwise took a moment to forget about their frustrations. As Apexus reshaped his regular form, the tiger girl suggested, “Serious question though, how about we spare us the rest of the extended route and just get the fuck on with it and out of here? Everything here seems to have three organs tops.”
Apexus considered for a moment. Because she was absolutely right, the decision wasn’t straightforward. They had been walking around for four days now and encountered only one Growth Apexus found worthwhile. The crystal-producing ducts the enemies shared wasn’t the most revolutionary thing ever but, at the very worst, it would give Apexus some glowing nails and the chance to grow protective patches elsewhere. At the best, it would evolve with him to become crystals he could reactively increase in size.
Finding another kind of enemy, one with more choices, would have been more to his liking. However, between having something that was good enough, Aclysia’s plan to exploit the workings of his evolution conditions and this dungeon being low on the deliciousness scale, the decision was made. “Yeah, let’s rush to the boss,” he said.