The mound of animated sludge glomped down on Karla’s head, quickly swallowing her down to the shoulders.
“Slime!” Elia cried as she thrust her hand into the sludge, trying to pry it of the girl’s face, but it was like a sack of pure muscle, muscle that was now trying to pull her in as well. Before she could ask Rye to conjure enough ice to freeze it solid, Mouggen tugged on the other side until it was taught.
“On three. Three!” he yelled and they both pulled.
Some part of the sludge tore and Karla scrambled to help pull the pieces apart over her head, coughing and spitting out muck and mulched leaves the moment her head was free.
You have gained: Soul x61
Elia pat her on the back. “There there. Now, what does that teach us about carelessly strolling through dungeon doors?”
“It’s bad – ugh,” Karla retched. “I smell like a heap of dung.”
“Sludges are made of muck, browning leaves, and twigs,” said Mouggen, no doubt grinning behind his mask. “Congratulations, princess. You almost got done in by a compost heap.”
“Yeah, well… I’m the tank! If that had hit any of you, your necks would’ve snapped clean in two.”
She had a point. The ceiling of the entrance and lobby was high, and the sludge weighed at around sixty pounds of water and muscle. Elia didn’t need to remember any physics classes to know that these things were lethal.
“Alright. Rye, you’re up.”
Rye split herself off, forming a rough mirror of herself through her [Dream-haze projection].
“Alright, I’m out. What now?”
“Now, go stand over… there. No, a bit further away. A bit further.”
A blur of muck slammed into the ground right where Rye was standing, dissipating her haze. Elia felt it like a sharp tug on her reservoir as she reformed in front of her.
“OH MY GOSH I ALMOST PEED MYSELF.” A wave of understanding washed over her ethereal face. “You! You knew this was going to happen, Elia. I just got this boon, we didn’t even know if that would hurt me and you just dangled me in front of their mucky faces like, like…”
“Like bait?”
“Exactly! Like a winter beetle on a fishing hook.”
“What’s a winter beetle?” Cesare asked.
“Oh, it’s this little pretty beetle you can find in tree stumps that fish just absolutely love.”
“What’s a ‘winter’?” Mouggen asked.
“Winter is a season, that… oh, haha, very funny Mouggen.”
He didn’t look like he meant it as a joke. “What do you mean? There are only two seasons, the summer of our lord Ruthe, and the fall of our lady Worga.”
“Actually, there are four.” Everyone turned to Elia with even more confused faces than before. “Spring, summer, fall, and winter? Really, are your seasons screwed as well? This is elementary shh-stuff.”
“Yeah, maybe where you come from. Spring isn’t a real thing.”
“Well, neither is winter,” Karla said.
People bickered and squabbled as Elia continued to scrutinize Mouggen. He must be suffering from terrible memory loss. She’d had his problem before. When the first time the undead curse took her mind, it took memories aplenty. Time was the only remedy she knew, and even then it took her nearly three decades to remember most things she even knew had been taken from her. His amnesia would heal, or it wouldn’t. They’d need to find a minor grailshard to do anything about it, but that was a possibility for the far future. They had a tower to climb.
She eyed the slimes, oozes, sludges or whatever.
“Alright people, enough chit-chat, we do this slow and careful. I’ll be up front to scout ahead, with Karla to take the blows. Nali and Cesare will be in the middle, where it’s safest. And Mouggen will be in the back, guarding our collective behinds. Any questions?”
“I still think winter and spring aren’t real,” Karla muttered. “They even sound weird. Winturr. Spring-uh. Who thinks of these things?”
“Probably whoever decided that birds aren’t real. Which is really weird considering you all know what birds are, which implies that they existed at some point but…” All eyes on her again. “You know what? Let’s go loot this tower. Better use of our time.”
“‘Lycea of Yorivale,’” Cesare said, squinting at a metal placard. “‘Founded by ye olde Hans Arp, endorsed be ye gods of sommer and fall, to whom we magi and conjurers all solemnly swear oure allegiance, oure sole worship, and oure ever-living prostration so longe the sun may shine. To Loften and to oure eternal gods, to the sun and to the dream.’ Hmmm, the academy of Yorivale. Hey, I think I visited this place when I was alive once. Only walked past of course.”
“Academy? For conjurers? As in, MORE MAGIC? Well tally-ho then. Onwards Elia, we have secrets to plunder - I mean, to reapropriate and secure for the good of our empire.”
And thus they walked, eyes fixed on the ceiling for deadly drop-slimes, and minds aglow with the promise of treasure, trials, and even more treasure.
----------------------------------------
The tower was in a terrible condition. Pockmark holes scattered across the walls. Larger ones lead to heavy drafts that might suck a person out. Roots, everywhere there were roots and wood and ugly plants creeping their way in, desecrating the once impressive symbol of human ingenuity and learning. The lobby seemed to have been hit the worst, the might of Dorman being kind of useless when the walls could crumble like wet crackers.
They didn’t collapse while they were walking through at least, but there were signs of decrepit age. Bookcases once stacked three stories high, now fallen over. A fallen candelabra that must have weighed a few tons, crushing some sort of mechanical representation of the path of prominent stars. Paper, paper everywhere on the ground, mixing with muck in a pappy slurry.
Deadly slipping traps, those.
Elia’s eyes zipped from door to door, suspicious corner to suspicious corner. A dreg could definitely jump at them from behind those barrels over there. And that root, was that always there? The shadow down the next hall definitely moved, but only she noticed. Only her, not Karla.
Elia was the scout after all. She only needed to feel one sludge graze her shoulder after a thirty-foot fall to tell her how important looking for threats at every point was.
“Watch out, that barrel looks explosive.”
“Wait. Let me check around the corner. Nope, nothing, continue.”
“That corpse looks suspicious. Let’s go a different way.”
In her humble opinion the tower climb was going well, even if she was making jumping at shadows her new hobby. Who knew, maybe those shadows would turn corporeal and strangle them when they weren’t looking.
Best to go somewhere else.
“Um, Elia, I don’t mean to pry since you are the expert, but maybe, just maybe you’re being a tad paranoid?”
“What? No, no, I’m just following Elia’s ninety-nine rules to dungeon safety.” She pointed at the corpse of a man with a starry cloak. “Blast that one for me, would you?”
Rye did. The corpse stayed a corpse.
“I mean, it’s nice that you’re worried and all, but maybe, just maybe loosen up a teensy-weensy bit?” Her companion sighed from where she was half poking out from Elia’s face, superimposed like a second set of eyes. “You’re even making Mouggen look nervous. It’s like you think Rhuna might be lurking around the next corner.”
“She might be! Who knows? Instant travel is possible with bowls of respite, she made sure to teach me that. She’s already hijacked our handy haze, who’s to say she didn’t also install a trac– WHAT WAS THAT!?”
She turned, head on a swivel. Cesare gently raised his legs from a puddle of sludge.
“That sound, dear Rye — dear Elia,was my foot,” he said and in the same breath Nali knocked over a worm-eaten bookcase.
Everyone held their breath. Nothing appeared nearby, no dreg, not any slimes or monsters of nightmares. Elia leveled a glare at the monk.
“I profess my fault,” she said, awaiting punishment.
“… get back in line.” Elia sighed at the sight of the clown show. Why they were even taking the monk with her she had no idea. Cesare at least could muffle sounds and block corridors with oppressively soft wool. Would it be impolite to tell her to wait outside? They weren’t too far in, going back wouldn’t take much time.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out: Nothing bad has happened so far, despite all the… hiccups. Isn’t that a sign that we’ve outgrown most of these petty dangers?”
“We’re not immune to stabs to the neck,” Elia said, rubbing her neck but finding her gorget.
“We are specifically immune to that, thanks to the bargaining power of yours truly. Look, I know you’ve been pushing yourself this past month, trying to look out for Karla and also somewhat living up to that heroic ideation she’s been sending your way, but you need a break. Loosen up. Go places you would never go. Think happy thoughts.”
“Think happy thoughts?” Elia pondered Rye’s ideas. She was right that she was unusually twitchy after the fight against the stygian pike. Her instincts were constantly yelling seven flavors of danger at her from every direction, but they were either registering things way out of her reach, or things that upon closer inspection were just harmless piles of nothing.
Which brought up the question of if her instinct stat was just too high, or if she was missing the sensory input that would let her resolve most of the instinct’s guesswork. Assuming the latter, that implied that some characteristics were linked. If she put too many points into strength, would that mean she would rip her muscles without tenacity? No, tenacity was only against outside forces, but constitution was definitely a good contender. If her muscles just became stronger and stronger, they’d need more energy, energy that her stores simply couldn’t give.
For magic, if her flow, the total power and speed of Rye’s conjuring ability became too strong, would that mean she would have a harder time forming spells? That would be fixed with more channels, which then meant that, for strength, she’d also need finesse assuming she didn’t want to have the fine-motor skills of a T-rex.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“I bet I’d make a great T-rex.”
“Hm? Did you say something?”
Elia shook her head. “I… I guess you were right. I’ve been walking forward so much I never really sat down and thought a bit. Pondering is doing good for me. And loosening up will as well, especially if I need to be ready for whatever final challenge lurks in these halls.”
She looked down the same hallway as before. The shadows didn’t move this time.
“And you know, I could always look out for you. We’ve been together for a few months, but in that time I’ve learned a lot about dregs, about danger and its workings and… Alright, spill it. What’s so funny?”
Elia nearly doubled over from laughing.
“I-It’s nothing. It’s just cute how you think you know how the world works after spending less than a thousandth of what I’ve – hey, you’ve got something in your ear, Karla.”
“GAH, enough! Less talking, more adventuring. Nakama!” Karla yelled and twenty slimes detached themselves from the ceiling. “AAAAH!”
You have gained: Soul x78
You have gained: Soul x89
You have gained: Soul x62
The sludges splattered on the ground like toppled wedding cakes as Elia and Karla stabbed them. The creatures were slow, ponderously so, and they made slightly farty balloon noises wherever a sharp weapon broke through their tough skin. Elia stared at the pitiful sludges, watching how more and more were falling down into the overgrown lobby.
You have gained: Soul x76
You have gained: Soul x65
You have gained: Soul x90
If she’d been the same person she was in the maze, this would have been enough to make her run away for half an hour until she was more lost than before. An overreaction? Not if they could explode, or poison her, or fly, and shoot acidic goo.
But they couldn’t. A crooked smile crept up on her lips, coming from a deep, bubbling desire to pay the world back.
Maybe she could let a little loose.
You have gained: Soul x41
You have gained: Soul x94
You have gained: Soul x31
“Hey, this is kind of fun.”
----------------------------------------
The central library, a massive repository of knowledge built around a room with a great model of the night sky in the middle, was quiet. Emphasis on ‘was’. A multicolored ball of magic screamed past Elia’s ear as she ran across an immaculately carved balustrade.
“HAHA, YES! Suck it, NERD, get your eyes checked.”
The conjurer didn’t mumble or groan or do any of the things any other dreg would have. As his bolt missed its mark, he simply went through the same motions of calling again. The glitzy ball of rainbows was quite bright and distracting, but that didn’t keep Elia from kicking him straight in the head. Even as he went down, the conjurer cast a sign of calm as if on autopilot. The conjurers of Yorivale were well trained.
They had handy satchels that were just begging to be yoinked off their belts as well.
You have gained: Soul x507
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x2, [Uncommon] x1
A shower of hail pelted Elia mid-looting. Frost layered itself on her skin until it cracked, but she was off and toward the next one soon enough, flipping the offending wizard the bird.
“Missed me!” she yelled. “I haven’t felt this alive in years!”
“Th-that is a blatant lie!” ghost-Rye cried as she dodged a flurry of sharp icicles. “And maybe that’s because you’re undead?”
“Semantics! Misdirection, Rye!” She slashed some sort of book-bug as large as a dog as it emerged from a pile of books. “It’s the essence of Love!”
“What does that have to do with love?”
“EXACTLY!”
“Uuum, miss Elia?” Karla yelled from further back where she was being assailed by a swarm of angry books. “What happened to staying in formation?”
“Screw it, that’s what! These dregs are weak-sauce!” Elia cackled manically. She had never felt this empowered since that time decades ago when she could shoot lasers from her fingertips. “Come ON Karla, chip-chop, you afraid of some paper cuts?”
“N-no, but you’re the scout and I’m–“
“Adaptability, Karla, get your head outta that box! This is called reconnaissance in force and so far, all I see are WEAK PATHETIC BOOKWORMS!” A heavy lexicon bonked the girl in the back of her head. “OW! WHO THREW THAT!?”
Nali looked up, shielding her eyes. “I believe that came from the walkway above and – oh, look, she’s already gone.”
A few moments later the sounds of slaughter and mayhem continued.
Cesare leaned in to Mouggen. “Are you really sure following her lead is the best we can do?”
The big man shrugged before bisecting a librarian dreg that was about to sneak up on him with a knife. “She’s confident she can handle anything that sneaks up on her. I’m confident she won’t die too quickly. The way she dodges and parries is uncanny, as if she knows the blows are coming. She seems far more experienced than she’s let on. It is… troubling me.”
“I’m more worried about the venue. You’ve heard the rumors of this place too, right?” Cesare looked around nervously. “The abductions, the pre-empire magic, the reason why everyone used to send hordes of dregs to fight and die here. Pointless battles are fought frequently, but not over nothing.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. Unless she somehow manages to set it on fire, what happens in the library stays in the library.” He watched the ghost girl – Rye – run screaming along the first-floor balconies, trailing seven different spells. “On second thought, we wouldn’t want another catastrophic miscast either.”
Cesare shivered. “No, no we wouldn’t.”
A headless corpse slammed into the ground next to them. Elia looked up at them, piercing eyes nestled in a face covered in blood, rimes of frost growing all across her chest from where she was standing on it.
“HOLY sock puppets, I thought I was gonna die. Watch out for those balustrades, they’re not as solid as they look.” She noticed her general look, decided to own it, and brushed a bushel of now red and blonde hair out of her face. “I’m gonna go check the second floor.”
They watched her jog up some stairs, stab an undead in the face and then vault over its corpse onto a table. Moments later, the same girl except pale, blue, and see-through slammed into the ground, dissolving into a cloud of vapor before reforming in front of their eyes.
“Ummm, hello? Sorry for the odd entrance. Elia says that since there are so many quote ‘pissant conjurer-nerds’ on the upper walkways and balconies that you should probably stay close to the walls. Oh, also, many spells have inbuilt guidance, but you just have to step into them and they'll curve around you. Oh, girl, are you alright?” She bounced around, half floating through them like water as she inspected Karla for any damage, dirt, or signs of fatigue. “Don't worry, Elia says she’s got this, that you should stay up front but keep your eyes peeled – weird expression that – and that someone should make sure the monk doesn’t– EEP!”
She disappeared as a rough tug yanked her through the ceiling and up to the second floor balconies.
“Does anybody else think she's kinda endearing?”
Mouggen scoffed. “Oh keep it for after we’re done here, Cesare.” He sidestepped another falling corpse. “Watch your fire up there twin-girl!”
“Sucks to suck!” Elia yelled back. “Also, I’m winning!”
Mouggen’s hand visibly twitched. “Alright then. If she wants a contest, I’m giving her a contest.”
----------------------------------------
While Elia was having a blast, she couldn’t get her mind off that inkling feeling that something was wrong, or out of place. The initial rush was dying down, but she could just keep on going. It was the air, thick with souls. Every kill, every breath invigorated her with a hundred souls microdosing her brain with the good chemicals.
She breathed in a mouthful of rich goodness. “I think souls might be addictive.”
“That sounds kinda bad – above!”
Elia ducked under a sickle-shaped blade of ice, stabbing the offending spellcaster and tearing it in two with one strike.
You have gained: Soul x314
The feeling disappeared just as quickly as it had come. If there were lasting effects to eating souls as an undead, she should know. Which meant her instinct was niggling about something else.
Was it the animated books? No, they were annoying, but between her armor and increased tenacity they couldn’t cut her, only clinging to her steel-capped boots like wet toilet paper.
Any slimes on the ceiling? It didn’t look like there were any left. They wouldn’t have hit her at this pace anyways.
Did someone miscast?
She looked back to the group, Karla and Mouggen easily handling what few armed dregs were being attracted from all this racket. Nobody seemed hurt, besides Cesare who had a nasty papercut running across his arm. Wyckwax would fix that quick enough and–
Elia felt around for the small satchel containing her combat consumables and only found air. It was gone. As was the satchel containing her shards. And all the other ones.
“Quibbles.” Frantically, she looked around, eyes falling on her bundle of goods slowly floating over the middle of the library.
They reached the other side, where Elia saw perhaps the ugliest, rattiest little conjurer she’d ever seen. He was as large as a kid, lanky like twigs, and wore nothing but a loincloth, a collar, and a star-themed conjurer’s hat.
“Quibbles!”
“Wh-what?”
She pointed at the satche floating into the conjurer’s hands. “HE IS TAKING MY BOY!”
He grabbed his plunder and climbed up a bookcase to the third floor. Elia didn’t have time to clear that one yet. Without a second thought she sprinted up the stairs right after.
Immediately she was pelted by a deluge of low-strength spells. She took the hail on her armored left arm, hacking only at those dregs who came within range, completely ignoring books or lurking slimes.
“GIVE HIM BACK!”
The thief didn’t listen, skittering on three hands like a crippled bug. Rye merged into Elia, taking control of her left arm, but finding the armor frozen at the joints.
Ow that’s cold – I can’t cast! Or, well, I could, but I can’t cast calm.
“Guess I’ll have to do EVERYTHING BY MYSELF LIKE ALWAYS! GRAAAH!”
A spear of ice shattered against her side, sharp pain blooming as Elia’s breath fogged over. She threw her petal knife at the offending conjurer, and though it was made for anything but throwing, it chopped off his casting hand.
She caught up to the conjurer thief with a hobble.
“DIE!” she yelled, swinging with fell purpose.
The skitterer dodged, then skittered out of reach. Elia tried and failed again, the whole song and dance repeating itself. Quibbles croaked in anguish. He did not like being separated from Elia as much as the other way around.
E-elia, maybe if you–
“Shut up! That thing has Quibbles and it’s laughing at me!”
I think it’s just breathing awkwardly.
Elia threw her buckler at the misbegotten thing like a frisbee. It missed, instead bouncing off the railing and disappearing into the distant piles of books and nature-sludge. The thing was faster than her, which was as much an insult as the attempted purloining of her oldest friend.
Quibbles. Without him, the maze would have been impossible. Without him, Elia would have gone crazy eons ago. Without him, it was only a matter of time until she turned dreg.
A ghostly figure popped up in front of the fleeing fool.
“BOO!”
The conjurer slid to a halt, skittering back, and right into Elia’s waiting arms.
“Got you, motherfluffer!” She threw her spoon to the side, punching it hard across the face. Its bones were brittle under her gauntlet. Elia throttled it, digging her fingernails into its wretched neck, clenching so hard the skin under her icy hand cracked.
“…lia. ELIA! Oh my gods, just kill it!”
But Rye’s words didn’t exist in her world, nor did the struggling of the small wizard underneath her as it grew weaker and weaker. This thing tried to steal her toad. How did it go again? All things have a price.
“ELIA!”
Finally, with a weary sigh she snapped its neck. It wasn’t very hard, neither was lifting the thing. It was all skin and bones. It smelled like a chemistry-lab next to a public bathroom. The chain link around the iron collar was broken. What were people studying that they needed people in chains for?
She looked up at a disapproving Rye.
“Thanks for the clutch play.”
“We are going to have a long talk about this after we’re done here.”
She chucked the corpse over the railing. “Why? The dreg had it coming.”
“REGARDLESS of whether that’s true or not, that was cruel, unusually cruel even for you.” Rye’s face fuzzed for a moment. “You’re ok to be around one moment, then all of a sudden you do sh-stuff like this. It scares me.”
“Yeah, well… I’m just glad Quibbles is ok.” Quibbles croaked approvingly. “Yes, yes you are my best little friend. Who would I murder a thousand people for? My little toad-bean, that’s who!”
A distant yelp turned their attention three stories downwards. Mouggen and company had made it quite far into the center of the lobby slash main library, but something had spooked them enough that they were retreating back to the door.
“Hey, what’s that over there?”
Elia looked at where the corpse was sinking into a pile of books and mud. The mountain moved, bulging outwards as all the loose debris was sucked into one giant, book-armored and gelatinous form. The smell of fall leaves reached her even up here.
You have challenged: Great Watchsludge
“Huh. So I was feeling a boss all this time.”
“… does that sludge have a sword?”