Chapter 6. A Flight of Stairs. ~Alex.

It has only been a couple weeks. How is it that this delve is so much harder than our last?

The final opponent in our latest encounter falls, and my breathing is steady but deep. Now that I’m having to constantly filter my own air for infections, keeping focus on the rest of the party and all the enemies is becoming too taxing. First though, I check up on Bond, the only one of us whose powers are unsuited for blocking the passive malaise this deep into the forest.

A tuft of flame shoots out with Wildfire’s exhale, “I don’t know if I’m getting used to the scent of smoke that I’m blocking it out, or if I’m getting better at this whole breath-warding thing.” She takes in a deep inhale and with her focused on it, it looks like two streamers of fire are sucked up into her nose. As she’s about to release it in a heavy sigh, it gets stuck in her sinuses and she instead denotates an explosive sneeze.

My cleansing work is practically automatic for the poor air quality, so I flash some healing on Bond and rush over to her. Though, rather than her being in pain she starts laughing and when I’m giving her an examination she exclaims, “Oh Divines that’s better. I can breathe so much easier now. Thanks for the checkup, Alex, but I think I’m fine. Better than even.”

Despite the brief cloud of smog when she sneezed, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with her airways, “Well, at least you didn’t fry anything important. Can’t really say anything about your mental state though.”

She laughs and slaps a hand on my shoulder before I check through the rest of our party. Sid, like Wildfire, has taken to using his magic as a barrier or filter to stop the contaminants getting to him, and his seems to be working flawlessly. When I’m checking on Garn, I find that his assertion that he’s been dealing with the air to be only technically correct.

Riddled with various diseases and afflictions I get to work curing and cursing him. Having taken him at his word that he was well after these last few encounters, “Blood carries life. Liver detoxifies blood. Garnet relishes Challenge.”

I tap him on his gut and glare at him, “The liver does its part, but it’s not the sole bastion nor even really the frontliner,” I poke him in his neck and armpits, “These and other little nodules throughout your body are where much of the disease fighting actually occurs.”

After saying that the dungeon’s avatar that’s been following after us slips from their seat in the branches, “(Oh shit. Fuck. Sorry. Didn’t mean to- Uhh, I’ll just shut up now.)”

Sid rolls his eyes at the antics but Bond leaps at the opportunity, “No, no-no-no. Since we’ve got your attention, what caused that lapse just then? Usually, I can track you pretty well, but you sort of disassociated for a moment there when you were falling.”

The silhouette of a man looks away from us and rubs the back of his neck, “(Uh, I don’t know if I shou-)” He looks back in the direction Sid says Life is, our progress has been rough, but we’re nearly there by his reckoning. The figure slumps dejectedly for a moment before straightening and turning towards us again, “(The kids say you guys get a pass, and that since its mostly just embarrassing for me, I should soldier on through.)”

His avatar and the very world around us smiles for a short moment. Garn wraps me in a hug and I see Wildfire grasp Bond’s hand as we soak in the atmosphere of love and pride. DNA shakes his head, “(Right. Story time. So, uhh, yeah. Hadn’t actually realized it until Alex prompted me with that anatomy lesson. So, you guys have been around, you’ve seen my heart back when it was in Life’s hollow, right?)”

I nod along with the team, “(Well, part of my advancement, I sort of leaned into that whole macabre organ- thing, wait no. Gah, words suck. {Motif}, {Theme} are already big concepts. You get it though, right? Anyways, yeah. Since you’re on a more thorough Inspection and considering the other report that’s heading back towards the Guild, I figure it would be best to show you guys some more secrets.)”

Bond raises a finger in question, “So, the whole: heart, lungs, liver, brain conversion procedure’s you’ve got. Each of those have their own Master template as a core of yours?”

“(Basically, yeah. Some of them have to be out in the open and reachable, though they can be guarded. But others I can keep hidden. {Rules} are weird man.)”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Wildfire pipes up, “If I were to guess, I’d imagine that your Lungs are guarded by Life, somewhere high up in his canopy. ‘Out in the open, reachable’ but also imminently impractical to actually get to.”

DNA snaps his fingers and points at her, “(Prize to the little lady. Whoops, shit, damn it. Uh, stupid menus.)”

I find myself chuckling along with Wildfire as the offhand comment sends the dungeon on a tangent. The wind whispering with dozens of different thoughts, just barely out of hearing.

Sid clears his throat, “Not that this isn’t entertaining, but I believe you mention: ‘embarrassing stories’?”

The avatar solidifies again and focuses on him, “(Right, sorry. First things first, how about a Tour, Miss Wildfire? I can provide gift passes for up to one, two, thr- Four friends you can bring along.)”

She looks around at the rest of us, even as we’ve sort of drifted closer together as the conversation continues. Her eyes sparkling with mischief, “Sure. If I find that many other worthy people, I’ll consider bringing them along with me. So, where are you taking us?” as she snuggles into Bond’s side.

With a sweeping gesture, suddenly a path through the tree tops clears and Life’s massive trunk is visible, “(I’ll be showing you where I live and breathe. But enough of all that,)” and the sudden vista closes as he looks to Sid once more, “(Despite being a Mana Heart, as a Disease {Theme} dungeon, you might imagine that the lymph node would play its part in how my dungeon functions. And it does, though I hadn’t realized it until I had a revelation following Alex’s anatomy review.)”

He gestures at the woods around us, “(I’m not really sure if it’s everywhere, but there are definitely noticeable clusters in specific locations. The Crucible is a big one. Others are the favored resting places of my kids,)” he shakes his head, “(Honestly, I don’t know how I missed it before. But yeah, most every big nexus of power in this place has at least some level of clustering of lymph nodes. There are kind of hard to spot, even for me, sized more for a body like this, rather than- One like this.)”

I speak up, “So, does that mean you’re going to start offering to integrate lymph nodes as an organ crystallization option?”

He looks at me askance, “(Are you nuts? Heck no. Err, rather, not for now. The other options are all nice and centralized, maybe a late-stage procedure could work with that sort of distributed network. But also, why would I, as a Disease dungeon, just hand out Disease Immunity like that? Nah. That’s something y’all are going to have to really earn. Like earn to the point where when you get it, you don’t need it anymore.)”

He bores his gaze deeply into Garn, Bond and Wildfire with his head tilted to the side, “(Although… Huh. I guess Helix and Thing have a new project to start on. Welp, I’ve been lurking around you folks too long. So, uhh, good luck on the rest of your delve, I guess. Just as a friendly and completely random piece of advice: Not every battle must be to the death, retreat is an option.)”

And on that wholly unnecessarily dramatic note his avatar’s presence fades completely out of the picture.

“Alright, break’s over. Let me flush out our systems again, and then we’ll head out. Life’s pretty close, shouldn’t be more than a few more encounters.”

We all take a moment to check on our equipment before we ready up and head out. Though, with Sid’s first step out of this bivouac there is an eerie call that coincides with my heart suddenly racing. I don’t recognize the creature, but the magic entwined with it is clear, “Undeath. Lots of it.”

Sid nods, “That was an elk. Bigger, hornier deer. Aside from Leo, or the Bear, it’s likely to be the physically largest threat we’ve faced. Size is a danger all its own.”

Garn grunts out, “Undead dungeons worst. Chop it into pieces. Burn off flesh. Smash bones. Plenty of magic to revive otherwise.”

As we set out, we don’t make it more than a minute before Wildfire calls out and points up into the branches, “Lunar.” I look at the foliage to the south where she’s pointing and have to really push against the charm before I spot them. There’s a flock of the mana drinking birds roosting in the trees. When the elk spews out that terrible cry most of them seem to ignore it, but some take to wing and flee into the canopy.

We keep to our steady pace through the underbrush as I sigh out, “I couldn’t get a good look at them, but I would guess that the Shadow, Holy, and Fire versions were the ones that took flight.”

Sid just gives a clipped, “Yep.”

Wildfire curses for a bit, “I’ve gotten so much better at control and directing the flows, but the strength of my manifestations are all in their damage, not their resilience.”

I release a pulse to call for discipline, “Sid and Garn will just have to manage to disable it long enough for us to move on. Our win condition is Life, not death.” I see Bond and Wildfire share a glance as they hold back a snicker. I shake my head, only having realized my choice of phrase after it was already spoken.

I leave them to their small joys as a smile slips on my face too before being disturbed by another cry from the elk. Much closer this time, though it’s hard to pinpoint where it’s coming from in this charming forest, “By the Divines, why does it keep doing that?”

Sid responds with a thick whisper, “If we were outside a dungeon? It’s a mating call primarily, occasionally for dominance or aggression. This one though, because it’s a haunting sound, it’s more easily laced with Fear. Honestly, even if it wasn’t that flavor of Mana and this was outside the dungeon I’d still be scared of that noise getting closer, even knowing what it is. There’s just far too much Power in that cry to be trifled with.”