Chapter 21: Beyond the Pale
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The layout of the second floor was all wrong.
Tunnels meandered and twisted in strange ways. And wide-open, cavernous spaces now existed in places where he couldn’t recall them being before. Furthermore, uniform stonework—like the dark brick material they’d encountered around Glemberfang’s lair—now riddled the second floor here and there, in tandem with the usual, rocky surfaces. Rumbling and quaking continued intermittently too, as Bold Arrow fought its way down through scores of E and D-rated spawns. Rock and ice collapsed over top of them with growing frequency, and in some parts the ground even bottomed out, falling away into complete and utter darkness below. Tunnels disappeared in the blink of an eye, chambers rearranged, and just keeping track of their position was proving more difficult by the second.
It was madness.
It was nothing like Bly had ever encountered in the Gleaming Caves before.
Quietly and to himself, he took some comfort in the fact that Alyse had taken the responsibility of heading down to the third floor herself. He should never have doubted her, or have been so upset to have not been asked to come with her. but that was Alyse Crane, after all. She worked best alone, and Bly had no doubt she was giving it her all, same as them.
“Trelen, left!” Vineta shouted.
Snapping his attention in that direction, Bly quickly produced an icicle and sent it hurdling on a trajectory towards the wolf spider ahead of him. In the same motion, he flung his other arm through the air, sending instead a firebolt down the same path. With a simple mental gesture, a scatter shot was issued, and the firebolt peeled away until it had struck down two ice demons in a burst of flames.
A shimmering yellow field suddenly bloomed across Bly’s vision, followed by a thundering noise, as Vineta’s defensive barrier buckled slightly. Standing tall over the party, a stone golem reeled back and slammed its fist down across the shield spell yet again.
“Trel, take the shot.” Bredic gritted his teeth, his voice filled with certain strain as a stream of fire spewed from his sigil and pummeled the stone golem’s core.
Bly’s arm snapped to the right, and a barrage of icicles streaked across the gap. Five successive hits allowed fire and ice to fuse, exploding on impact, and causing the stone around the golem’s core to burst and break apart. No sooner had the last of Bly’s ice spells left his grasp, a violet arrowhead plunged deep into the golem’s core as well. The small, gyrating orb of Lisel's primary ability collapsed in on itself, and a burst of purple energy sent the golem tumbling backwards onto the ground, unmoving.
With the last of the golems dispatched, at least for now, the remaining ice demons and wolf spiders were easy pickings. Before much longer, the final spawn had hit the ground, and soon only the sounds of the party’s collective panting remained. As they collected themselves, another quake throughout the cavern made them pause, forcing them to maintain their balance. But once they were certain the floor wouldn't bottom out beneath them, Vineta spoke.
“How are we on resources?” She asked almost at once, her voice plain but a bit shaky. The shimmer of her barrier spell finally faded, she added, “My short-term mana is decent, but I… I could use a breather for a few minutes.”
“Me too.” Lisel chimed in, quickly moving across the cavern to collect her stray arrows.
Gesturing for his sage terminal to open, Blychert glanced at his own short-term mana for a moment. Thanks to Devouring Threads, his mana supply was in good shape. As long as the party kept its synergy up, and as long as he didn’t have to dip too deep into his higher leveled spells, he wouldn’t run into any problems until later.
“Take it easy, V.” Bly heard Bredic murmuring to Vineta nearby, and he paused for a moment to listen, “We’re not doing half bad. Alright? I bet that psycho lady has already found Xander, and his giving him a whooping as we speak.”
“You don’t know that—”
“But I know us.” Bredic shrugged, “I know what we’ve got to do. And you heard what she said, if we don’t keep this up, then all of this might as well have been for nothing! And look... you were right, you know? I don’t want to be here. I really hate dungeons—sick to death of this. But I’m here now, aren’t I? So come on, what are we waiting for? That son a bitch can’t do this on his own, and I’ll go out of my way just to prove it to him. Believe it.”
Blychert couldn’t help but grin somewhat, as he swiped across to the party menu. He studied its contents for a few seconds, before scrolling down to their delving data. However, that’s when something strange became readily apparent, and a confused look took over.
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[Party]
> Now delving the [Gleaming Caves], floor [Error]
> Core Volatility: 66%
> Active Wayshrine(s): [Error]
> Daily Bonus Reward: [Error]
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The core volatility had… increased?
And what was going on with the rest of the dungeon data? Everything was completely out of the ordinary—like it was broken somehow. It wasn't uncommon knowledge that volatility spikes occurred most often when bosses were defeated, or under special circumstances like ley line overflows. But then, that didn’t explain why the rating had jumped nearly fifty percent since Glemberfang’s demise, and it didn’t explain why the rating was continuing to rise despite their efforts to purge every spawn they came across.
It was like something else entirely was affecting this dungeon.
Was it a boss? Was there something wrong with the core? Whatever it was, it didn’t make any sense. But maybe, that's what had Alyse so on edge?
“Hey, guys…” Bly started worriedly, glancing up at the rest of the party, “I think there’s something wrong with—”
A shadow suddenly lurched overhead of where Blychert stood. But before he could even bring his hands up to cast a reactionary barrier spell, his entire body was hoisted off the ground and enveloped within the large, toothy maw of none other than a rock thrasher.
t had spawned right on top of him!?
“Swift shield—envelop!” The spell ignited, Blychert groaning through severe pain as the thrasher’s jaw clamped down.
Fortunately, he was only halfway inside its mouth at that point, but everything around him was a complete blur of sound and light. Bly could hear the others shouting, their attacks firing off as the creature shook him around violently. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure how to get himself out of this situation. But shield was about spent, and he had to think fast.
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A deep rumbling caught Bly’s attention abruptly, as he maneuvered his head around, flicking his gaze down towards the ground. The terrain at the thrasher’s feet was unstable, buckling as its weight fell upon it. Small chunks of rock were already beginning to fall away into deeper darkness, followed by bigger pieces. The ground would give, if only with a little more push.
That's it.. Bly thought desperately.
Spinning around, the energy of his shield spell all but dissipated, he reached up and aimed at the roof of the rock thrasher’s mouth, and began to cast as quickly as he could muster, “Binding element, let the depths of frost take root. From the heart of winter’s embrace, I summon with might, an icy bond—gah!”
The shield broke, and the thrasher’s teeth punctured his leg.
“Guh—swift and merciless—freezing chain!”
As the monster’s mouth opened wide once again, Bly let loose his spell. It struck through the soft palate of the rock thrasher’s upper mouth, and the creature reared up onto its hindlegs. But without a second to spare, Bly clung to one of the thrasher’s large teeth and turned, looking down as he aimed for one of the exposed holes in the ground. He released, shooting the other end of his freezing chain at blistering speed. It shot through the ground, and began to hurdle into some unknown depths below.
And then, everything happened too suddenly for Bly to reconcile.
The thrasher came crashing down upon the cavern floor with force, as the chain applied tension, causing the ground to give and completely cave in. As Bly fell to the ground himself, he scrambled, but there was no stopping the chain reaction now.
He fell.
Terrain shifted, the thunderous sound of rock crumbling around them, and darkness… so much darkness as Blychert fell—freefalling into the depths, the thrasher bellowing out just below him. The hole above him grew smaller and smaller, and his leg clipped a piece of jagged stone as his entire body shifted with the impact; rock struck abdomen, then arm, then abdomen again, then the side of his head…
“Swift… shield…” Bly groaned, his vision blurry and distorted as he continued to fall.
The yellow light sputtered to life, but it didn’t last long. For within a few seconds, the barrier impacted something hard, dissipating almost at once. Bly’s velocity terminated, he tumbled several times, and went face first plugging into ice-cold water.
***
When Blychert opened his eyes, he saw an ocean—a body of water that could have spanned the entire world if it wanted, it was so vast.
Peering down slowly, his bare feet wrinkled through a patch of grass, but beyond them he found that he was standing at the edge of a cliff. Down below the marbled cliff face, huge boulders were set in the water, though they were little more than specks, and the waves that lapped upon them were as thin as lines on piece of parchment.
“Blychert…?”
A voice echoed in the wind, reverberating for what felt like a timeless moment captured.
Blychert turned, glancing over his shoulder in the opposite direction. There was something, a… person, standing right up against the backdrop of a rising sun. Their features were dark, poorly defined, but a mere silhouette against the dawn’s early light. Beyond their left shoulder, sunlight broke against the vine-riddled, weatherworn walls of a distant castle, perched high atop the tallest mountain thereof.
“Blychert…?”
The voice echoed again, eerily inhuman but not altogether unfamiliar.
As if beckoned to do so, Bly started forward. He took one step, and then another, and several more thereafter. But no matter how many steps he took, nothing seemed to grow any closer. The sun remained at its only height, the castle remained in the distance, and the silhouette stood unmoving.
“Trelen—”
He jumped, the voice practically ringing up close and in his ears. He turned, startled, but determined to understand.
Suddenly, the cliff was gone, and the ocean with it. Instead, he was standing in a familiar glade, the squat tower of Bartolo's abode beyond the natural pool. There was no wind, and all the whirligigs wrapping around the base perimeter of the tower were painfully still.
“Where did you go…?”
“Huh?” Bly muttered confusedly, turning around once more to address the voice as it echoed all around him. His mind was glossy, clouded by some wisp of a memory. But he could see ahead of him. And where once stood a figure set before the rising sun, another silhouette stood on the path leading away from the glade, just there on the edge of the forest.
Once again, Bly tried to move closer. But this time, as he stepped forward, his left foot sunk into the dirt. Scrambling and fighting, Bly’s other foot began to sink as well. Before he knew it, his entire lower body was sinking through the ground.
“Where are you…?”
“Help—” Bly stammered, his neck and lips already dropping below the earth. But it was too late, he closed his eyes, and sunk.
“Get up.”
Bly’s eyes shot open, startled again but beyond relieved to hear the familiar tone of Alyse’s voice.
He was now standing in the field just at the back of their cottage in Kelvalder. He could feel the chilling cold of morning on his skin, and the scrutinizing gaze of his teacher just ahead of him. But something was wrong about this scene too. The perimeter of his vision was completely distorted and unfocused, as if nothing else in this space could withstand being materialized without his line of sight falling upon it.
“Where… am I?” Bly mumbled, suddenly feeling the weight of a foggy mind.
“…You’re safe now.” Alyse replied, but even her voice seemed wrong too; like it was hers, but it wasn’t her speaking. It was as if… a memory? A dream?
“You… you said it wasn’t safe.” Bly shook his head, and even his own words were slow and stifled. For some reason, pain was beginning to flare in his leg, and in his arm, and across his abdomen, but he persisted, “Why did you… say that?”
A wide, grotesquely inhuman smile stretched across Alyse’s face, and her voice began to speak in a different tone. This one wasn't hers, it was cold but tender, and Alyse’s smile remained unaltered as the voice said, “No, it’s not time to lie down yet, little brother. He is waiting. Come, I will show you...”
“Wait—!”
Alyse raised her hand, and a cone of flames rip roared across the distance between them, consuming Bly’s body in a wreath of fire all at once.
Blychert’s eyes shot open again, and he gasped for air, choking up a bit of water as he did. He felt his body being dragged across stone, and there was some source of blue light casting shadows above him in strange ways.
How long had he been out of it?
“Trelen!” Xander’s voice huffed out of nowhere, “Damn it, get up—”
“What—where—” Bly gasped again, completely disoriented. His entire body was riddled in pain all of a sudden, but he managed to find his footing as Xander hoisted him up, “Where—are we?”
Adjusting his eyes to the light, Bly realized the source was emanating from Xander’s longsword, a pale but dim luminosity. But Xander… his eyes were wide, desperate and wild looking. His armor was covered in dark ichor, as if he'd been fighting, and his face was flush with heat.
“Did you see her?” He insisted. When Blychert didn’t respond, Xander shoved him up against the wall of the narrow tunnel, looking to his left as he murmured, “Where are you...?”
“What—? Who?” Bly stammered, wondering if Xander hadn’t fully lost his mind.
“She was right here…” Xander mumbled, letting go of Bly as he rubbed the side of his head, “I had her. She was just here. Damn it!”
Xander stumbled backward, scratching his chin fervently as he looked around. Bly took the opportunity to peel himself from the wall and to look around for himself, but winced as he was forced to clutch the side of his bloody leg.
The tunnel here was small, jagged, and barely walkable. Glancing back, Bly saw the pool of water by the light of Xander’s sword, and stepped forward somewhat to look up. The rock thrasher’s body was lying there completely still. But to his surprise, there was no hole above the chamber, just solid rock.
“Xander…” Bly turned again, more worried now than before, “Where are we? What are you talking about?”
Xander shot an ominous glance at him, shushing him somewhat, as he said, “She's still here, I'm sure of it. I heard her speak to me.”
A chill ran down Blychert’s spine, but replied, "Who?"
“We have to find her again—” Xander urged, before starting off down the tunnel in the opposite direction, "She'll show us the way again."
“Wait, Xander—!” Bly hurried up to catch him, though it was difficult just moving.
There was no sign of Alyse, or any of the others. He had no idea what floor they were even on at this point, and he was badly injured. But… Xander had found him, and if one thing stood out in Bly’s mind, it was that whatever Xander had been “following” had led him straight to Bly. The strange vision of Alyse suddenly flashed in Bly's mind; that weird voice, what it had said to him just before he came to...
That couldn't be a coincidence.
It made him pause to think that maybe that “thing” wasn’t also responsible for all the mayhem in the dungeon. If there really was some strange entity at large down here, maybe even the kind Missus Stein had described, what did that mean for their chances of getting out alive? But, hadn't she said something about the Pale Lady not being able to speak? That it was some kind of a curse? And he'd clearly heard a voice talk to him. And Xander had said the same thing.
"Trelen, let's go." Xander looked back, a stern but surprisingly committed tone of voice.
Whatever was going on down here, Blychert couldn't say. But for now, he'd follow the swordsman. That was what they'd set out to do, anyway. Whether or not this entity was leading Xander into a trap, well...
Right now, he simply had no other choice.