Chapter 85: The third floor

Alex Sandclaw’s POV:

The third floor was a lot like the first and second floor. Just like the first floor, it had wide open spaces, and many walls made of stalactites. But these spaces were set in many large caves, all connected by maze-like tunnels, just like the second floor.

To our great surprise, each cave was its own little ecosystem. So far we’d only seen two, but it was very promising. The first one was the entrance cave. It was connected to the second floor by a hidden tunnel. Professor Scott had guided us through the maze until we came upon a passageway hidden by an outcropping. From there, we’d walked down at least another few hundred meters, and strangely enough, instead of getting colder, it had actually gotten warmer. And as much as I appreciated the warmth, it also sucked, since I couldn’t level [Temperature resistance] as much anymore because of it. Not unless the temperature became significantly higher.

Sadly, Tiki had walked with her noble friends on the way down. Sure, I would’ve preferred she’d walk with us, but mostly I just felt sad for Tiki. Those students were awful. Especially that woman, treating me like I was some servant. What an asshole. Or the other one that was constantly asking if I needed help so I didn’t knock things over. As if I hadn’t gotten enough of that back on campus. Just because I had a tail, didn’t mean I was clumsy.

I understood why Tiki had to go with them—she’d explained it last night when she apologized for her ‘friend’—but I still didn’t like it.

When we got to the first cave, we were in awe. The cave was filled with mushrooms and ferns of all colors. Vines climbed up the wall, and there was a small stream of water that flowed from a crack in the center of the ceiling. It landed in a pond, from where it then flowed down until it hit the wall, where it disappeared once again. I wondered where the water came from and went to, why the ferns were rainbow coloured, and where these plants got their energy from since the only light came from the bright moss covering the ceiling. But despite my many questions—or maybe because of them—the cave was a sight to behold.

After everyone had taken a good look around, professor Scott led us to the edge of the pond where he sat down and explained some things. Mostly he talked about the cave. Like how the brightly glowing moss on the ceiling was called Sun moss and spat out light identical to the sun. But he also talked about the rest of the third floor. It wasn’t anything we didn’t already know, however. Between the three of us, we’d done our fair share of research before we came here. Though Felix definitely knew the most of us three.

While we listened, Felix commented on some of the things professor Scott said, and explained some things more in detail, like the lay-out of the floor. Sadly, he didn’t know the one thing I was really curious about: why there were whole, functioning ecosystems down here. Soon, the professor was done talking and sent us all on our way. We followed our guide through the ferns and mushrooms until finally we reached one of the outer walls. Just like the second floor, there was a tunnel. Strangely enough, the plants stopped right at the edge of the entrance, like there was a barrier there,

The tunnel was also wider than the second floor’s tunnels, and I saw Felix relishing in his ability to spread his wings. I grinned at him and gave him an awkward walking hug. He hugged me back with his wings. “Will you be okay here?” I asked, referring to his recently found claustrophobia.

He nodded. “Yeah, this is much better. I still don’t like the idea of being so deep underground, but as long as I can stretch my wings, I can handle it.”

Soon we arrived at the second cave. It was similar to the first, but there were some differences. There was less water, and it flowed from wall to wall like a mini river, instead of dropping down into a pond. Is this where the water of the previous cave went? If so, neat. Other than that there were fewer mushrooms, with more muted colors, and the ferns were taller. The real big difference, however, was the movement in the underbrush.

“Is it just me, or is something moving around in those ferns?” I asked.

Felix looked over to where I was pointing, and the ferns trembled again. “There’s definitely something there, alright,” he said, then turned to Tiki. “How do you want to do this? Do you want to use your traps now or later?”

Tiki thought it over for a moment, then answered. “I’m pretty sure I have enough for these last few days, so I might as well start using them now. As for how we’re going to do this…” she said, then explained her plan to us.

We listened to her, then did as she asked and moved back up the tunnel we’d just come from. Meanwhile, Tiki took off her bag and took out a flask of something very untasty looking. It was brown and moved around sluggishly, like honey, but just a bit more liquid. She then grabbed a metal plate. There were already runes carved into it, and though I didn’t understand what the runes said, I recognized them from when we practiced together. When something stepped on it, or any connecting piece, it would spark.

She placed the plate down on the ground and started drawing circles and lines around it with a piece of chalk she got from a pocket in her armor. At least, I thought it was chalk, but it had a strange sparkle to it. It looked pretty, and I wondered if I could use it to make normal drawings, too. I’d have to ask her later. I could already see the image of a sparkly Felix drawn on the wall.

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After she finished drawing, she picked up the flask and poured its contents onto the plate. I could smell it from here, and it smelled almost worse than it looked. And it looked bad, like one of the monsters here had taken a shit all over Tiki’s work. At least it didn’t smell like that, so there was that. Instead, it smelled more like the fireworks they’d had during the winter solstice festival in one of the towns I’d come across after I fled home, but stronger. There were some other smells mixed in as well. It smelled faintly oily and also not unlike some of the cleaning supplies the kitchen in the dorms had.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts of home and called out. “Why does it look so bad?”

She looked up at us and grimaced. “My brother took the good ingredients, so I’m making do with what I had left. And I’d like to save my good stuff for later. It would be a waste to use it now, only for the enchantments to fail.”

I nodded. “Alright. So what does this one do?”

She grinned but didn’t say anything.

“Will you keeping it hidden risk our safety?” Felix asked. “If not, it’s fine. But I’d rather not get stunned by a loud noise again.”

She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. “It’ll be fine, just wait and watch. Though, you might want to plug your ears back up again.”

With that, she placed her hand on the plate—in a part that wasn’t covered by the… potion—and the lines of chalk and the grooves on the plate lit up with dark light, like living, glowing shadows crawled through the enchantments. From what little I knew of enchantments, I knew the glowing was a side effect of inefficiencies. But by the stars, it was amazing. I’d seen plenty of magic in the last few months here at the Academy, but nothing had been quite this magical. Not even Felix’s magic was quite this fairytale-like.

Tiki moved back to join us, then nodded to Felix. Without hesitation, Felix roared. It was loud and I could almost feel it reverberating in my bones. The sound echoed through the tunnel, and for a moment I was stunned. Then I glanced over at Felix, amazed and shocked. I hadn’t known he could roar quite that loudly. For his part, Felix looked a bit surprised, too. As if he hadn’t expected it to be quite so loud, either.

We didn’t get a moment to dwell on it, though, as Felix’s roar was responded to with a monster’s roar of its own. And then another, and another. From where we stood, we couldn’t see too much of the cave, but the ferns in front of the tunnel shook and trembled as the monsters rushed past to get to us. Stupidly, they’d clustered up, too.

As the first one broke the foliage, I finally got a good look at one. It was ugly, like most of the monsters down here had been, but to my surprise it was neither a lizard nor a mushroom. It looked eerily similar to the sheep-wolves from the surface, actually. A canine body, with white and gray wooly fur. But unlike its surface-dwelling counterpart, its head was gruesomely twisted. Teeth of different sizes shot out of its maw in all directions, it didn’t have any eyes, only blank hollows, and it had a crazed look about it.

The monster stopped for a moment to sniff the air, then promptly started to foam and drool. The moment its troupe had caught up with it, they sprinted forwards as one—right into Tiki’s trap.

For a small terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then the enchanted plate glowed and sparked. The monsters were right over the trap as it exploded. It went off with a muted thwump, and the wolves were blasted backwards, burning goop clinging to their fur. After landing, the moment they realized what was happening, they started rolling on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames.

It didn’t work.

I watched on in horror as the fire grew and started consuming flesh instead of fur. The wolves screamed and howled with pain as their bodies charred and sizzled. Parts of their fur and flesh sloughed off as their fat melted and their blood boiled. The smell was atrocious, like burning hair and when you left a snake cooking over the fire for too long. We all took a collective few steps back, away from the horror taking place in front of us.

Soon, the screams turned to coughs and painful gasps for air. It didn’t take long for the first wolf to die. It had suffocated in the smoke of its own burning body that it hadn’t been able to escape, despite its desperate struggle to do so. It didn’t take long for the rest to die as well, leaving us standing in the smoky tunnel with nothing but the sound of our own breathing and the occasional pop from the fires.

I stared at the corpses for a while before turning away and throwing up my breakfast. From my side, I heard Tiki doing the same. When I was finally done, I wiped my snout on my sleeve and turned back to the others.

“We’re not using that one again,” I said. Watching the wolves burn to death and suffocate had been awful. At least when I killed them with my sword, I was an active participant in the fight. But this hadn’t been a fight. It had been an execution, and I didn’t like it.

“I… I…” Tiki stammered. “I didn’t expect it to be so gruesome. I knew they'd be killed by fire, but that was awful.”

Felix was the only one who disagreed. “I think we should keep it as an option. As horrible as it was—and don’t get me wrong, that was exceptionally horrible—it was also incredibly effective. We don’t need to use it now, but I imagine that when we’re fighting higher level opponents, this will be very effective.”

She sighed. “I know you’re right, but I still don’t like it. In any case, I won’t be using that one again anytime soon. I’ll keep it as a last resort.”

I frowned at Felix, then sighed as well. I knew he was right, even if I didn’t like it either. In the end, what mattered was that the monsters were dead. They would’ve attacked us and killed us if we hadn’t killed them first, just like any monster. And I knew that at some point we’d be sent out to kill monsters to protect towns and villages, to protect people. So did it really matter how they died, then or now? I supposed not.

I still didn’t like it, but in the end, protecting myself, my friends, and everyone else was more important. I’d just have to get over it now that the stakes were still low. Felix seemed to have already done so. And to a smaller degree, so did Tiki. I’d have to talk to them about it, how they dealt with it. Because I already knew that, despite my new-found conviction to get over this, I’d be seeing these wolves in my nightmares for a while to come.