The very instant the clouds consumed us, my body went haywire.
My feet were the first sign that something was wrong. Despite pushing more fire mana into them, Jet Step failed to activate, sputtering out. The briefest peek at my mana revealed I still had more than enough, but before I could dwell further on the matter, something far worse happened.
I was slowing down.
While, by all rights, I should have been in free fall, Verin and I were rapidly coming to a complete stop. The unexpected force wasn’t applied fully evenly, and I began to spin, lazily rotating around Verin’s glacier.
Under different circumstances, the change would have baffled me, but in the present, the only emotion I had room for was terror. Is it some sort of skill to keep us from running away? The creature hadn’t struck me as the type to have a tractor-beam skill, but what else could be attacking us?
Hoping for some sort of hail mary, I overloaded my armor as I waited for a beak to snatch me from the air. The clouds seemed to quiver with tension alongside us.
One second passed. Two. Our speed had crawled to a snail’s pace. Three. Four. Was it playing with us now that we couldn’t move? Would it drag the kill out? Or perhaps was it struggling to track us through the dense clouds? Five. Six. Sev-
CAW!
The beast’s cry drilled into my head, the clouds around me momentarily thinning from the powerful vibration. Instead of filling me with dread, however, the noise arrived with a sort of confused relief.
Was that… Did it get farther away? Loud though the deformed bird was, that hadn’t been the sound of a creature only meters away. I tried to pinpoint the origin with my powerful Perception, placing it roughly halfway back to the island.
Not believing our luck, my mind jumped to all sorts of even worse thoughts. Was there something even more horrifying in the clouds that had scared the beast off? Or, our momentum had already nearly vanished — would we be stuck here forever until we starved?
At last, the two of us came to a complete and utter stop. As if waiting for that exact moment, the system finally deigned to explain our situation more clearly.
You have entered the Cleansing Cloud Cover!
All movement and propulsion skills disabled.
Motion being brought to a halt pending cleansing.
Disabling barriers and protective skills.
Before my eyes, Verin’s ice began to melt, and I dismissed my daggers as the stunned noble fell into my arms. The effect seemed unable to forcibly dismiss my physical armor, though it managed to eat away at my earthen protection in a similar manner, completely deactivating my enhancement.
“What-” It was the only word Verin managed to squeak out before a powerful wind attempted to scrape us raw. A host of raindrops accompanied it, pelting us and soaking in deep before the wind ripped the moisture away.
Initiating cleansing.
All mud and dirt removed.
All mud and earth effects disabled.
Absorbing excess water.
…
Success!
Motion restored.
I barely had time to register the messages before we were falling once more, our previously controlled flight replaced with the lurching terror of being dropped from on high. Ever the noble, Verin kept herself from yelling in my presence, though she clung to me like her life depended on it.
In fairness, it probably did.
Without warning, the clouds spit us out, our vision instantly clearing.
In some twisted way, that almost made the entire ordeal worth it. As the adrenaline fled my system and I started to accept that I was not about to die, I forced myself to ignore the recent encounter. Instead, I focused on the view below me, the sheer scope of it taking my breath away.
And not just that. I’m skydiving, I realized. The giant bird from hell would not have been the instructor I would have chosen, but still, this was the sort of experience people forked over a lot of money for, wasn’t it? More than that, my Perception made me feel like a satellite, able to pick out minute details on the surface that I would never have seen back on Earth.
Somehow, Verin didn’t seem to share in my excitement. Maybe because she was facing up instead of down? I considered flipping her around to help her out but ultimately decided against it.
If there was a single disappointment, it was that the surface was largely uniform. Everywhere the eye could see were the same trees and bushes that we’d just left on the islands above.
Which made sense. The only exception to the monotony was the series of massive craters, as though a giant had haphazardly ripped out chunks of the earth. Not that there’d been much doubt, but it was clear that the islands had come from the land below.
If there was one major difference, however, it was at the ground level. Whereas the floating islands sported fresh grass and stone pathways, the earth below was brown across the board. As though the entire world had recently survived a catastrophic mudslide, there wasn’t a single surface without a thick coating of swampy mud.
“Probably can’t go back up…” I mumbled. I wasn’t entirely certain I had enough mana in the first place, but even if I did, the clouds would likely cancel my Jet Steps again. “Guess we go down, then.” Activating Featherfoot, I put a stop to our meteoric descent.
Perhaps sad to be denied her skydiving experience, Verin released a heaving sigh. Aiming for the treetops below, we gently drifted down to the surface.
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Our slow descension offered me some time to collect myself and reflect on the attack we’d just narrowly survived. A few pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together for me, but my mind was still riddled with questions.
Belatedly, I recalled that I had one major clue that I hadn’t yet checked: I’d managed to hit the monster with God’s Eye. Scrolling up through my notifications, I returned to the description I hadn’t had the wherewithal to read in the moment.
Din’Ket the Usurper: Level 48, 25000/25000hp
In ages long past, Din’Ket was revered as the lord of the earth, ruling over the region in conjunction with her brother, the lord of the skies. Despite her grand dominion, however, Din’Ket was never content with her position, coveting her brother’s domain. A great war soon followed, pitting the siblings against one another.
Unwilling and unable to slay his sister, the lord of the skies raised his people into the sky before erecting a barrier of clouds beneath them, capable of fending off Din’Ket’s power. With the two realms separated from one another, an uneasy peace reigned for time untold.
In a cunning act of trickery, however, Din’Ket convinced her brother to allow her above the clouds with heartfelt words of peace. After ambushing and trapping the Roc Lord, Din’Ket now uses the magic of his feathers to keep herself aloft. Though she has achieved her dark ambition, the cloud cover still repels her, barring her return to the earth below. Not yet powerful enough to undo her brother’s workings, she will stop at nothing to retrieve the rest of his feathers.
Gods’ Eye has reached level 13!
Without a doubt, it was the longest description I’d received to date. Once again, I was left wondering how much the dungeon had assimilated from the existing pocket space and how much it had fabricated entirely. Had there truly been a people here in the distant past? Had the war actually happened? Or was this just the dungeon core’s way of spicing things up? I resolved myself to ask Sett the next time he awoke.
Either way, I was finally getting a sense of what we were up against in this region of the dungeon. More than that, I now knew why we’d been hunted down, too. I turned my gaze to the trio of feathers on my waist, recalling the plinth’s earlier words about “broadcasting” their mana signature. To say I was regretting my incaution was an understatement.
In the end, though, things had turned out fine. Out of any of us, Cal was the best suited to survive on her own, and I had no doubts that we’d find her once we returned to the skies. As for me and Verin, we would manage. Neither mud nor clouds would stop us.
That being said, there certainly was a lot of mud to deal with. Finally ending our descent, I touched down on a tree branch, only Featherfoot allowing it to survive under our collective weight. It was one of the few areas I could have landed without having to wade through a layer of sludgy muck. I wasn’t looking forward to navigating the swampy terrain, but unless I wanted to spend all day jumping from tree to tree with Verin, I didn’t see much other choice.
Verin herself seemed to agree. “Lady Tess. You have my deepest thanks for your assistance. Despite my reticence to brave the less-than-hospitable conditions, however, I would ask that we find a location where you can release me.” Still held firmly in my arms, Verin was evidently keen to walk on her own two feet again.
Not trusting the branch to hold our weight once I released Verin, I opted to clear us some space first. I shuffled Verin firmly over to one arm, summoning up a spear of water mana in the other, making it as long as I could. With a brief burst of overloaded mana, I stabbed the spear downwards, hoping to clean away some of the mud.
As desired, the sludgy substance recoiled from my spear tip and the water mana therein. Unfortunately, this soon proved to be for entirely different reasons than I’d expected.
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You have stabbed ??? for 30 damage!
Whoops. Even as I was digesting the message, a blast of mud came flying from the ground, threatening to throw us off of our precarious perch.
Jet Step. Featherfoot. Knowing how much Verin liked to stay clean, I did my best to dodge it. One indignant shriek from Verin later, and we were back in the air.
Even as I searched for a new spot to land, a wide swath of mud began to pull itself together, bulging upwards into an indistinct mound. If perhaps to be expected after our experiences atop the clouds, God’s Eye identified it as a Greater Mud Elemental.
Not content to wait until I’d found firm footing, the elemental hocked another few mud bolts at us, forcing me to rapidly reposition. Verin was yelling, squirming about in my arms as she tried to get my attention, but I ignored her. After all, I was sure I knew what she wanted.
No worries, Verin. I’ll keep you from getting muddy.
Although, it was possible that would be a bit tricky. How was I supposed to fight the elemental with only one hand? Couldn’t really use a bow like that. As I angled myself towards a nearby tree, I decided to summon up a throwing knife, overloading it with a dash of water mana and awkwardly chucking it at the enemy below.
You have damaged a Greater Mud Elemental for 20 damage!
Nice. It wasn’t much, but provided I could keep my mana expenditure low enough, it was proof of concept.
“Just another minute or two,” I assured a frantic Verin. Her response was lost to the wind as I finally reached the nearest tree, immediately kicking off of it with another Jet Step. Mud bolts and water knives filled the air as I continued my mad parkour routine, switching between Jet Step, Featherfoot, and Heavy Step to change my trajectory and speed at the drop of a hat.
Acrobatics has reached level 9!
There were a few close calls as massive globs of mud practically skimmed my sides, with one such attack nearly slamming into Verin’s face, but my Intelligence and Perception served me well. Paired with the extra aerial maneuverability from my three Roc Lord feathers, my stats let me lead the elemental around by the nose.
Despite my flagging mana, the fight was already a foregone conclusion. In under a minute, the mound of mud met its end, losing cohesion and falling apart.
You have defeated a Greater Mud Elemental!
A trickle of mana escaped from the corpse, shooting off into the distance. I might have followed it, except I had more immediate concerns. Once more, I stabbed at the mud with a water spear, cleaning off some of the underlying pavement before fully descending.
Task complete, I deposited Verin gently on the ground.
“I cleared us a spot,” I helpfully informed her, “so you wouldn’t get muddy.”
For whatever reason, Verin seemed slightly off, with wide eyes and frazzled hair, possibly from the leftover adrenaline of our skydiving experience. She stood on shaky legs and looked down at her body as if surprised to find herself in one piece.
“Yes… I see that. Good- Good job, Lady Tess.” Apparently not quite ready to stand yet, Verin lowered herself back to the ground. “Might I- Might I suggest we stick to the ground for the foreseeable future?” Seeming oddly queasy, Verin sent a hand to her stomach as she shut her eyes tight.
I shrugged, not particularly minding one way or the other. “Okay. You should probably use your defensive skill, then.”
With a weary sigh, Verin responded. “Do I dare ask why?”
I scanned our surroundings, the earth entirely covered in brown muck save for our small, singular patch.
Everywhere I looked, the mud began to move, forming into countless elementals of all shapes and sizes. Evidently clued in to our location after our last fight, they began to ooze their ways over.
“Well,” I answered, “you’ll probably get a bit muddy if you don’t.”
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Heavy Armor has reached level 13!
Spears has reached level 18!
Water Magic has reached level 19!
You have defeated Greater Mud Elemental x6, Mud Elemental x18, Lesser Mud Elemental x25!
With all manner of mud covering my armor, I collapsed to the ground, physically and mentally spent. Had we fought something more conventional, then there would be dozens of bodies surrounding me as proof of our struggle. As it was, the only sight that greeted us was a mass of cracked earth, now frozen and inert.
The fight had been long and protracted, and I’d been forced to constantly move about to avoid getting completely engulfed by the swarm of elementals. Despite the fact that I’d been the one to put more noticeable effort into the battle, it was Verin who’d done the lion’s share of the work, however. If her frost magic was powerful against the air elementals, then it was doubly so against the mud version, gradually freezing them solid.
Safe from their attacks inside her glacier, she might have been able to defeat them all on her own, provided I was there to dig her out afterwards.
Speaking of said glacier, it broke open presently, with Verin calmly walking out, none the worse for wear. It seemed her time inside her defensive skill had settled her stomach, as she no longer looked quite as shaky or nauseous. After briefly checking that I was all right, she voiced her thoughts.
“I will admit, even a few months prior, I did not envision myself winning such fights. Truly, a gratifying experience. With that being said, I remain uncertain as to our next steps.” She tilted her chin, broadly gesturing to the land around us, devoid of any notable points of interest.
Pulling myself from the ground, I dismissed my armor, the mud caking it vanishing along with it. Thankfully, I had a good idea of where we should go.
“I saw something,” was all I said, wandering off. With a sigh -- for whatever reason -- Verin followed.
Some mana had escaped from the first elemental we’d defeated, and it hadn’t been an isolated incident. The entire fight, I watched as streams of mana fled from each mound of mud, all of them converging on one location. It was here that I was thankful for the increased spatial reasoning that Intelligence granted me. Along with my enhanced memory, it was trivial to map out where all the lines intersected.
“Here-ish, I think.” We were at the edge of where Verin’s class skills had reached, the earth beneath us still frozen. Rather than trying to wash it away, I decided to cut it, summoning up a sword and enhancing it with both water and fire mana. Steam rolled off the blade, and a few slashes made fast work of the icy ground. From there, I stabbed the blade into the section I’d carved out before pulling, a section of earth coming up much like a popsicle.
Sadly, I hadn’t been right on the money, and it took a few more such operations before I found what I was looking for. After the ground was completely littered with cuts and furrows, I finally discovered something that could explain the odd phenomenon I’d witnessed.
Surprisingly, it was something I was well accustomed to by now, too. I tossed our hard-won treasure over to Verin who barely managed to catch it as recognition washed over her.
“An aerial gem,” she remarked.
And it was. Except, the more I looked at it, the more it felt like it also wasn’t at the same time, a ruddy brown marring the otherwise airy green. Curious, I hit it with God’s Eye.
Sullied Aerial Gem
The name didn’t inspire much confidence, but Verin was still optimistic.
“If we can find one of the obelisks, do you think we might be able to travel back into the air as a new island lifts itself from the earth? Although, with so much of the ground covered in mud, it may take us some time to find an obelisk… Perhaps we would be better served by an aerial vie- LADY TESS!”
Not seeing any reason to waste time, I scooped Verin up into my arms, shooting off into the sky.
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Finding the obelisk, as it turned out, was a fairly trivial task. Much like the trees, it was too tall to be fully submerged by the omnipresent layer of mud, and with my Perception and a bird’s eye view, it stuck out fairly obviously.
Seemingly eager to do the honors, Verin practically flung herself from my arms as soon as we landed, stumbling forward to the obelisk. She clutched her stomach again while muttering, doubtlessly lamenting the fact that we hadn’t found time to break for a meal yet.
“With any luck, this will allow us back above the clouds.” Verin placed the disk into the appropriate slot, and much like all the other times, the obelisk lit up. A potent tension filled the air as we readied ourselves to take to the skies.
Rather than send us upwards, however, the obelisk merely shot us a message.
Improper energy type supplied. Would you like to convert the stored energy to the proper form?
Verin accepted the prompt before I could think to, and once more, we prepared ourselves.
A moment later, our hopes were dashed.
Insufficient energy. As conversion consumes additional energy, a proportionally larger amount of energy must be supplied.
Current charge: 3/100
As if disgusted with us that we’d offered it such a paltry amount of energy, the obelisk ejected the disk. I snatched it back up as we shared a look.
“Lady Tess, it appears we may be staying here for longer than I anticipated.”
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Sullied Aerial Gem: 35/100 charged
Faced with the realization that we’d need to fight hundreds of elementals just to charge our singular gem, Verin and I took to our task with the gusto of those without alternatives.
On the positive side, the experience was excellent, and we rarely had any difficulties culling our muddy foes. Had we been able to fall back to a fortified position and relax for a while, the entire situation would have been ideal.
Unfortunately, we did not, a fact that became all the more relevant as first my mind then my body began to give out. Already, I’d been up for a long time, exploring island after island above the clouds. Combined with my mad dash to save Verin and my brush-in with Din’Ket, the hours full of fighting and trekking through the mud were not doing me any favors.
With her lesser Endurance, Verin felt much the same. Well before we’d charged the gem to even half its maximum charge, we were in need of a nap.
While at the best of times that was an unenviable position to be in, without Cal, it was all the more so. As Cal didn’t need to sleep at all, she added a sense of security to all the times Verin and I had conked out. For once, it seemed we’d be doing things the old-fashioned way.
Much as was true on the floating islands, there were still a few structures dotting the landscape, dilapidated though they were. After thoroughly excising our surroundings of all forms of mud, we settled into a rundown shack, setting up the mattresses I’d brought in my spatial storage.
Verin offered to take first watch. Not the best at sleeping under these circumstances, she only wanted to have to fall asleep once, not twice.
Without any similar compunctions, I agreed readily. Before I knew it, I was dozing off.
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Well before I felt even remotely rested, a hand violently shook me, rudely waking me up. For a moment, I assumed Cal was to blame until I groggily recalled her absence.
“Mm? Already? Five more minutes.” Verin was nice. She would understand, right?
A hushed but frantic whisper brushed my pleas to the wayside. “Tess. Lady Tess. Get up. Now!” Worried that her words wouldn’t be enough, Verin placed a hand on my neck, blasting me with a burst of frost magic.
In a single instant, I was on my feet, rapidly casting Invigorate to combat the unpleasant chill. “Wha-”
“There’s an issue. It’s better for you to see for yourself.”
Before I could even start to guess at what was wrong, Verin grabbed my arm, yanking me outside. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to spot what she was worried about.
Unfortunately, that was because it was so large as to be impossible to miss.
In a wide circle around us, perhaps one hundred meters wide, a massive wall of mud stood as if trying to brush the sky. Even as I watched, it grew higher and curved inwards, threatening to form a dome around us. The sheer amount of mud involved was staggering, a far cry from what we’d seen from any of the elementals.
“I am uncertain as to the cause of this phenomenon, but I suggest we vacate with all due haste.” A shiver passed over Verin, an altogether odd thing to see from a frost mage. “Before we are entirely entrapped, it may be a good idea to take to the skies to fly awa-”
As if to taunt her, the mud wall chose that exact moment to make its move.
Rather than move up to trap us in, however, it moved inwards and down.
All at once, the mud began to fall. From every direction, a tsunami approached, converging on our location.
Even knowing that I was out of time, I grabbed Verin and leapt into the air, summoning up only my apron so as to not weigh us down.
As the wave of mud drew closer, we raced into the sky.