Chapter 92
Laura’s soul has started to collapse. As of this moment I am incapable of interfering with her soul without causing a great deal of harm to myself.
“Whats going on?!” Aria
“Relax, though it is painful this is normal. Her soul is reshaping itself, for lack of a better word, into a much more stable form. This will make her much more powerful.” Jack
“Can’t you help ease the pain, please i don’t want her to hurt so much.” Aria
“Not without doing more harm than good to both of us, please bear with it, i know she is” Jack
Aria was quiet after that, though she was still nervous.
It lasted for ten minutes, almost exactly. Laura regained clarity several minutes after that.
“How do you feel?” Jack
“I feel, powerful. Like i have more energy at my disposal than ever before. I feel like i could go against an army of dragons, and win. Though i know i can’t, it’s still an intoxicating feeling.” Laura
I can feel her power as well. She has been beating against a bottleneck for much longer than I have been alive, and it shows. Her soul is easily four times the size of mine, and six times as dense. As of this moment my advantages against her are control and knowledge, and that's only because i have had more energy readily availble for me to consume. This advantage won’t last long.
“I guess i really do owe you, huh. Thanks, if there is anything you need just ask. I haven’t been able to develop my soul properly for decades, though i feel like I am at the edge of a bottleneck again.” Laura
“There is one thing. I’m planning on going on a dungeon dive soon, the boss is supposed to be a soul mage. I was hoping to learn a thing or two from them, want to come along?” Jack
“That sounds enlightening. I’m in.” Laura
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“Oh, i’ll go too!” Aria
“There is just one more person i want to meet up with before we head out.” Jack
“Is it your goblin butler that you had doing soul experiments?” Laura
“Yeah, he is somewhere in the castle i believe.” Jack
“No he isn’t. follow me, I know exactly where he is.” Laura
Ten minutes later we are at a small bar in the working class district. Alfred is sitting at the counter nursing a mug of beer. He obviously hasn’t been here long as he isn’t yet tipsy. It didn’t take much for me to convince him to come along, just an explanation.
As we head out of the city we pick the minds of passerbyers for information regarding the dungeon we are heading for, sharing what we learned through a mental link. The dungeon is inside a mountain, with the base being the entrance and the peak being the exit. The dungeon has gone out of it’s way to cram as many floors as it can into as little actual space as it can, clocking in at well over five hundred floors. In order to achieve this the dungeon expanded space as much as it possibly could with what it had at its disposal. It is also a very old dungeon, around a thousand years old or so. No one has managed to get to the peak within the last decade, or at least no one weaker than a god. The first hundred floors are perfectly mapped out, with the next three hundred only having rudimentary maps that we could make out, the rest are unknown. It isn’t a very popular dungeon as the material rewards are on the low side compared to it’s difficulty, though as a result it attracts the kind of people that want to challenge themselves.. Each ten or so floors is it’s own biome, pretty standard for older dungeons. We will be able to join a team going into the dungeon at it’s entrance pretty easily. And most importantly it is five miles to the south. We could get there with ease.
We departed from the south gate, I carried the much physically weaker Alfred as we sprinted towards the dungeon. And it was about as difficult as we expected it to be, we even passed by a couple people on our way, and a couple of them passed by us. When we got there we saw a small shanty town, temporary shacks everywhere with a couple more permanent and rather impressive buildings for merchants, banks, and hotels, along with a couple other establishments. Overall it is pretty small for a dungeon village, especially for a dungeon of this size. The low popularity along with a major city being close by are the likely candidates for that.
The three of us get to work scanning the crowds trying to find a group that would be able to take us to the peak of the dungeon while Aria sits on Luara’s head a hums a little. It takes awhile to find a group that has been too the peak, or at least close, and would be willing to party up with us. We could try it on our own be we would most likely fail. After around an hour and a half we come across a group of three that are both planning a dive this afternoon and have been to the top floor, though they didn’t beat the boss.
After deciding i would be the one to speak we approached them. There is an orc with a large war axe, a She-Devil mage, based on her gear she specializes in healing, and a high human wearing full plate armour and carrying a tower shield and a an equally large hammer. Finding out their names was just as easy, the Orc was named Grat, the She-Devil is Riki, and the High Human is Thomas.
“Hello , I was wondering whether you would consider allowing me and my friends here to accompany you on your dive this evening.” Jack
“I’m assuming you’re soul mages, who else would not only want to single us out but know who to single out. Assuming you’re wanting to go to the peak that is.” Grat
“Do you get this kind of proposition often?” Jack
“From time to time. Soul mages aren’t exactly common. There is a negotiable fee for our services. And i have to tell you that we have never actually beaten the boss, though you probably already knew that.” Grat
After conferring with the others for a moment i make an offer.
“We’ll pay for the supplies.” Jack
“Fine, but don’t even try to be cheap with it.” Grat
The She-Devil guides us to a shop that carries most of the supplies before handing us a list of the absolute minimum supplies we are required to get, along with a slightly longer list of recommended supplies.
End chapter 92