Despite what I said before, I told her everything. I didn’t want to keep the secrets from someone who put so much faith in me. I started slowly explaining how I got my nanites and added more details, one after another. Each time I gauged her interest. But I never got the feeling that she wanted anything to do with the nanites. I kept Orange to myself. She didn’t want me to share her existence. And I respected her wishes.
After I finished explaining that I use shards to pay for my augments, and what exactly my augments were, Shadara sat quietly. I sat in my chair, my hands nervously fidgeting. The sound of metal sliding on metal was the only sound, and it felt deafening.
Shadara took a deep breath. “Wow. That’s quite the secret. And I can see why that Bark would want it.” She crossed her arms. “But don’t worry about me. I have no desire to do anything to my body. How you can willingly alter your body so radically is something I can’t bring myself to do.”
“And that’s why I was so hesitant to tell you.” I tapped my fingertips together. “The only reason I keep augmenting myself is because I need to. If that’s my one advantage, I might as well use it. Or that’s what I thought. Now, it’s kind of been done out of necessity to reach the fifth floor as soon as possible.”
“Right. You still have that thing hunting you.” Shadara nodded. “But that challenge on the third floor will keep it away for the time being. And the bav’varst will probably kill whatever body it takes over a couple of times. Because of the way you make it sound, each time it dies, it has to start over. That’s the only explanation for the time between attacks that makes sense.”
“I hope you’re right.” The sphinx's challenge on the second floor wouldn’t slow it down. But why didn’t it catch up to me on the third floor? I’m not complaining, but it does seem odd. Is it trying to get as high of a level as possible before coming after me again?
Shadara hopped off her chair and grabbed my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go see this Gary.”
I looked at my energy level. After showing my augmented muscle, I still had almost two bars. “But Elara said it was full of monsters. Do you want to eat first?” I stood up and grabbed a pair of meal potions from my bag.
“Don’t worry, we have plenty of food for you.” Elara’s voice signaled her materialization in the room as she walked through the door without opening it. “And before you ask, no, there’s no charge. The food here is free, tasty, and plentiful. We are happy to serve any need or desire you wish.”
Shadara pointed to Elara with her thumb while grinning. “Free food. That sounds perfect for you.”
I chuckled. “It’s free for now. Let’s see how long that lasts.”
Elara arched an eyebrow and then shook her head to recompose herself. She opened the door. “Follow me, ladies.”
We followed her into the hallway and then changed the number on a door to ninety-nine. We walked into a grand dining room with several rows of long tables. Each table and chair were made of the same mahogany as the doors. The chairs were also fitted with thick burgundy cushions.
Four crystal chandeliers illuminated the room, while the walls were again littered with more massive paintings of ocean scenes. We saw several other collections of what I could only assume were other people climbing the Nexus. Each group was accompanied by a ghostly maid, or butler. Nobody paid any attention to us entering.
Elara led us to an empty table with plenty of space between us and the nearest other group. After we sat down, our host waved her hand as two pieces of paper floated down in front of us. "Now, if you would please write down whatever you want, we will make as close of an approximation as possible. Please keep it within reason, with no rare or monster meats.”
Two pencils materialized next to the paper. Shadara fumbled with the pencil for a moment before writing what she wanted. I wrote down that I wanted twenty cheeseburgers. Also, I wanted each cheeseburger to be different, with different toppings, and I didn’t care so long as they weren’t mushrooms. Then I added that I also wanted fries with each one.
After I was done, Elara picked up the papers and looked at mine before turning to me. “Are you sure you want that many?”
I nodded. “As weird as it sounds, yeah. I drink meal potions like they were water.”
If a ghost could go pale, I imagined Elara would’ve. But she kept a steady expression. “As you wish.”
Elara returned with a large cart of food shortly afterwards. Shadara had a steak cooked rare, although I didn’t know what animal it came from. I did have to give it to the other two ladies. They stood by and waited patiently for me to finish all of my food. Elara’s eyes went wider with each plate I polished off. While we ate, we told Elara that we wanted to head to the dungeon with Gary.
After listening to every possible suggestion other than heading to the dungeon from Elara, we didn’t change our minds. We needed shards and levels. And I need combat training, while Orange wants answers.
My energy bar filled up to four and a half times as I felt the nanites calm down. Orange, what is that bar even measuring?
It measures the average energy required to make it through a day.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
So, if I don’t eat anything else for four days, I'll still be fine.
Correct, but we advise against that.
You and me both.
Elara led us to another door labeled one hundred and one. We walked in and it looked like we were in a broom closet with a cellar door. “This is what you wanted. There’s your dungeon.”
“Thanks,” I said as I lifted the wooden hatch to reveal a ladder down into a stone halfway.
“Hold up.” Shadara pulled out her little light stone. She strapped it to her head again. “There we go.”
I scratched the back of my head. “Is it really that dark?”
The panther woman frowned. “Not yet. But I’d rather do this now while we have time rather than in the middle of a fight or something.”
I nodded. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
Elara pouted and leaned against the door. “How can you want to go into danger? We have everything you need to live comfortably for the rest of your lives. It’s safe, up here.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Elara, I imagine it would be nice living here, but I can’t stay. There is something I have to do.”
Shadara waved her hand towards me. “And I’m not about to leave her alone. Who knows what kind of trouble she’ll get into?”
The maid sighed. “If I can’t stop you, then at least promise me you’ll keep your eyes open. It really is dangerous down there. I’ll wait two days for you. After that, I’ll have to assume you’re dead. Do you need anything for while you’re down there?”
I turned to Shadara and then back to Elara. “How deep is this dungeon?”
“It’s only a single floor, but it has a lot of dead ends and rooms.” The ghost floated to a barrel and sat on top of it.
“Other than monsters and traps, anything we need to know?” Shadara pulled her bow off and checked her two quivers.
“Nope. Did you need bed rolls? Water bottles? A sack lunch?” Elara held out her hand. “I know you two just ate. And you, Rina—goodness, you ate a lot; is there anything I can do to convince you not to do this?”
Shadara and I exchanged looks of confusion before turning to look at Elara. “Why?” We asked simultaneously.
Her arm went limp as she kicked her foot. “Because if you die, I’ll be put at the end of the queue again. It took years to get another turn to serve a group of climbers. I sat alone in my room with nothing to do for years, waiting for someone like you. Every servant here has to take turns. I’ve only just met you, and you’re already trying to get yourself into danger.”
She sniffled. “You don’t understand what it’s like to live for eternity waiting for something to do. This is my chance to do something. I want you to enjoy yourselves, have fun, or whatever while you’re here. But to do that, you need to live.”
She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “If you go down there, I can’t follow you. It’s against the rules. I won’t even know if you’re alive or not.” Whatever tears she was holding back, let loose.
Shadara and I looked at each other. I don’t know what to say. And by Shadara’s face, she doesn’t either. I scratched my head as the maid kept crying.
I took a deep breath. “Look, Elara. We need to do this.”
“What if we promise to be back in less than a day?” Shadara walked over and squatted down in front of her to look her in the eyes. “And when we come back, we can spend some time doing some of those things you mentioned earlier. We’ll take a couple of days off.” She turned to me. “Is that alright?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see a reason not to.”
Shadara smiled. “After that hell of a third floor, a short vacation is warranted. And to be honest, I’m a bit curious about what that spa treatment you mentioned is going to be like.” She ruffled her hair. “And I’m not going to lie. A good haircut is long overdue.” She pointed to my rough haircut. “You need yours evened out badly.”
I chuckled. “Fair.”
Elara stopped crying. “One day?” I nodded. “Okay. I’ll hold you to that.”
I headed to the ladder and started climbing down. “I’ll go first since I can see in the dark better. Also, I can heal.”
Shadara gave Elara a thumbs-up before following down after me. As I headed down, I looked around and guessed we walked down into a wine cellar. There better not be any rats down here. That wasn’t any fun the first time.
I waited for Shadara to reach the bottom. The place was dark, but the light from the entrance was more than enough for me to see. Dozens of barrels were stacked in groups, blocking some line of sight, the rest were lined against the stone walls. There weren’t any shelves for wine bottles.
Instead of a door, there was a caved-in section of the wall that led into some tunnels where something had burrowed. Shadara pointed to the hole. “What made that hole?”
“No idea, but I’m not sure I want to find out.” I kept my head on a swivel.
“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure?” Shadara’s tail flicked behind her as she strolled past me towards the hole. “Now you can just run away from anything if it looks too dangerous.”
I pulled my gun out of my pocket and made sure it was fully loaded. “Pain still hurts you know.”
My friend stuck her head through the hole. “Well, it looks more like several things carved out of this cave system. This is way too uneven for one digger.”
I caught up to her after making sure nothing was hiding behind any of the barrels. “Any guesses?”
She shook her head. “None. My first instinct is to think of some kind of giant worm, but they wouldn’t be able to eat through the stone.” Her hand went to the broken pieces of stone. “You see here? These are claw marks. It makes me want to guess a burrowing creature, but I don’t know of any burrowing creatures that dig in packs.”
“Rats?”
Shadara kept her eyes on the tunnel. “Nah. These have three claws. Rats have four.”
I hummed. “Well, you’re more likely to know than me.” I walked into the tunnel first. “We might as well get started.” Orange, is it possible for you to put a countdown clock on my HUD? If you can, can you make it for one day?
A clock in the corner of my vision appeared and started counting down from ten hours. Right, ten hours a day, with one hundred minutes per hour. The seconds counted down slower than they felt like they should, solidifying the realization that my mind was indeed processing things faster.
We took our time walking through the winding, branching tunnels. There was nothing except dirt to see and only our footsteps crunching in the dirt to hear. After blindly walking around for thirty minutes, we assumed we were walking in circles. That is, until we turned another corner to find a hole through another stone wall at the end of the tunnel. I knew it wasn’t the same room we entered from because this room was lit.
Shadara tapped my shoulder and put a finger on her lips before nodding to the hole and notching an arrow. I tightened my grip on my gun as I took the lightest steps I could. All the walking we did gave me plenty of practice to control my legs.
I stuck my head in. In the center of the well-lit room was a raised platform with a gilded steel box with a heavy padlock. All along the walls were safes, all but one were wide open.
“It’s all clear,” I said.
But just as I turned to face Shadara, I heard the sounds of something rumbling, groaning, and gurgling all at the same time. My body tensed up as I turned to watch a black ooze seep from the one closed safe.