The rocks sailed down to crack into the ashen walkers. One hit a shoulder, the other a back.
The reaction was immediate.
The walkers jerked around soundlessly, arms flailing. A moment later one of them noticed Harald and Sam high above on their landing and the knowledge seemed to pass to the other three, who oriented on them a second later.
But they didn’t immediately rush up the dozen broad steps. Instead they seemed to peer up at them, disfigured heads easing from side to side as they seemed to consider the situation.
Harald drew his blade. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”
“I think they need more encouragement,” said Sam, bouncing another rock in her palm. She frowned, drew her arm back, then loosed.
The second rock flew down crack an ashen walker right in the face. The blow left a sizeable dent in the monster’s skull and caused it to stagger back into its fellows, who thrust it forward. It stumbled, caught its balance, then tore up the steps, arms outstretched, porcelain claws glittering in the faint blue light.
“Well done,” said Harald, moving to his position at the top of the first flight of steps. “Here we go.”
The other three walkers loped up after the first. They climbed the central flight with ease, turned, and raced up the second set of steps to the long landing just below.
Harald inhaled deeply, steadying his nerves. Shoulders down, chest out, blade up. He widened his stance. Tower? Yes, no time to think it through.
The first walker crossed the second landing in four long steps and turned to surge up the last few steps to engage them, arms outstretched.
Here we go.
Harald reached for the abyss, sought that elusive nothingness that was everywhere and nowhere at once, and activated his Abyssal Attunement.
The abyss blossomed within him, and Harald felt it draw on the power of his Throne of Harmony, gaining in strength and potency.
But something else occurred simultaneously: the Aura of the Aching Depths activated. Rushing power flowed through Harald. It felt like standing under an icy waterfall, his body becoming a conduit for something greater, something alien, something of endless hunger to consume.
The sounds around him dampened, a subtle effect that stole the edge from his harsh breathing, the slap of the walker’s feet upon the flagstones, the pounding of his own pulse. He felt his presence push out around him, the power of the abyss leeching into the very air itself.
The ashen walker ran into this nimbus of nothingness and it slowed, its furious assault becoming hesitant, its arms drawing back even as it came up the stairs.
Power.
Not just the enhanced physicality of his new-forged body. Not just the sense of corded strength that wrapped around his arms, that flowed up his legs, that spread across his back, but a higher power, distinct from the purified beauty of the Fallen Angel, the power, the awesome, voracious, eternal power welling up from the depths of the abyss.
Sam was beside him, a silver kite shield appearing in the air just to her left, giving her room to swing.
But this ashen walker was his.
Harald swung his blade, the annihilating power of the abyss coursing down its length and sheathing its silver in the deepest jet.
His blade chopped down in a classic overhand cut and bit into the walker’s arm. Harald felt the abyss blossom, a nexus of eerie, void-like energy connecting with the walker’s essence. His blade cut through the outstretched arm, severing the limb, but the attack drew out a portion of the monster’s vitality, tendrils of dark energy briefly spiraling out into the air.
The walker jerked back, nearly losing its balance upon the steps. It drew its stump back to its chest, the wound blackened like charred wood.
A subtle of rush of vitality infused Harald, manifesting as a subtle aura of darkness that enveloped him briefly before fading, not hampering his vision in the least, but a manifestation of the abyss’s blessing about his form.
All this happened at once, and then the three other walkers bunched up behind the first, reaching for Sam, impatient right till they ran into Harald’s aura.
One leaped across the gap that separated the right angle turn from the second landing to their own. Harald caught a flash of movement, of windmilling arms as it came at Sam, but he was too intent on his Dungeon Square, black longsword reversing clumsily to slash up under the wounded walker’s guard and open its chest.
The abyss drank deep.
Another pulse of vitality flooded into Harald as the wound darkened like ink soaking into the fibrous layers of the monster’s wasp-nest chest.
Sam shouted her defiance as her silver shield swung about to intercept the leaping walker. It scrabbled at the shield’s edge, hung on, but then the shield winked out of existence and it fell.
Harald’s foe was hunched over as if winded, wounded arm pressed to its blackened chest-wound. It reached for him with its good arm, but the attack was feeble, a feint perhaps to drive Harald back.
But the Dungeon Square had its own sweet simplicity, its lethal logic. Hours upon days of training proved their worth. His longsword swept down and back up from the bottom left, slashing across the walker’s thigh and then lopping off its good arm at the elbow. The monster faltered, unable to scream, and Harald finished it off by driving the sword with all his strength down into its neck.
The abyssal energy blazed where blade met flesh, and the walker fell back and off Harald’s sword, tangling with the last walker, its neck-wound blackening as it fell, and a euphoric pulse of power entered him as he turned to flank the walker fighting Sam.
She was making short work of it, having cut off a hand and stabbed it once in the chest, but the monsters had no blood, seemed capable of taking simple stabs in stride.
The quarters were too tight for luxurious swings, so Harald simply booted it in the hip. The monster was light; it was knocked clear off the steps, falling to the floor below.
“I had it!” cried Sam.
There was no time for a response. The fourth walker had thrust its dying partner away and lunged at Harald, only to run into Sam’s Shield of Valor. The kite shield appeared just before it could tear Harald’s flank open, then disappeared as Harald spun, his abyssal blade slashing horizontally over its arms to slice open its face.
Its head blackened around the slash, and new vigor coursed into Harald, who laughed, exhilarated. It made him feel invulnerable, untouchable. He wanted to wade in after the monster, to finish it, but the first walker was still stirring at the base of the steps, fighting off its own death.
So Harald hopped back up beside Sam.
The two walkers who’d fallen were scrambling back up the stairs, the drop not having hurt them.
Sam’s Beacon of Hope aura flickered on, and Harald felt its warmth and inspiration wash over him, numbing some of the abyss’s mania. Taking a deep breath he watched as the fourth walker clawed at its blackening visage, then slumped back against the wall, the wound proving fatal.
The remaining two charged them like maddened bulls, only to falter as they ran once more into Harald’s aura. Still, the loss of their companions had dulled their survival instincts; they simply stumbled over the corpses and right into Harald and Sam’s blades.
Two or three slashes, and they fell.
For a moment Harald could only stare at the dead walkers, then he stepped back and surveyed the hall.
Nothing emerged from the alcoves.
“I think that’s it,” he panted, then sucked in a deep breath as exultation hit him. “We did it!”
Sam’s grin was equally fierce, but she kept her blade up. “It’s good policy to make sure they’re dead.”
“Yeah?” Harald stepped back alongside her. “They look dead to me.”
“One way to make sure.” And she carefully moved down the steps to slide her blade into each of their heads. It was like stabbing an ancient piece of furniture, their dusty, hollow heads easily giving way before the tip of her sword.
“Cold, Sam.” Harald couldn’t stop grinning. The Aura of the Aching Depths had dissipated with the death of their foes, but those pulses of vitality were taking a little longer to wear off; it felt like a jolt from really good coffee, or the rush one gets after an icy plunge.
Finishing with the last walker, she frowned at their bodies then glanced at him. “Was it your Abyssal Attunement that did this?”
“Yes.” He took another deep breath and got himself under control. “Its the touch of the abyss. It leaches their vitality and gives me a burst. Just fading now. It’s… it’s heady stuff, but your aura helps keep me grounded.”
“Wish I could keep my powers going for longer, then.” She eyed him. “You looked a little wild there.”
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“I felt a little wild.” He rubbed the back of his head. “But damn, come on, we slaughtered these four.”
“Yes, we did.” Her smile returned. “We had terrain, planning, and a choke point. It was perfect.”
“And your shield is great. I thought it might be a buckler or something, but no, it’s a full-sized kite shield. Excellent.”
Her smile turned to a beam. “Thanks. I kind of love it. When I summon it I hear this ethereal… this otherworldly music, just in my mind. It feels like a song the stars themselves might sing.”
“I feel something when I activate my power, too. Though mine’s less poetic. It’s more…” He tried to find the right way to describe it. “More like I’m connecting with something so alien that the… the very process of understanding changes my mind. The abyss. While my Aching Depths is active, it feels so overwhelmingly right, the contradictions make sense, but now…” He frowned and waggled his head from side to side. “Now less so.”
“It’s potent.” Sam frowned at the dead walkers and the Copper scales that had appeared over them. “I saw them falter when they hit your aura. Like they’d run into mud. And something tells me ashen walkers aren’t usually intimidated easily.”
“Yeah.” Harald didn’t know what to say, so he simply nodded. “I saw that, too.”
“And Harald.” She considered, picking her words carefully. “Your power, when you strike them? I only caught flashes of it, but…”
“But?”
“You look pretty terrifying when it happens.”
“Terrifying? How so?”
“Again, I only caught a flash. But… I mean this as a good thing, I guess, as it’ll work to your advantage? But your eyes flashed pure white, like Eclavistra’s? And I saw wisps of shadow flow into you. I don’t know. You looked…?” Her smile was apologetic. “Just really scary.”
“Huh.” Harald considered his warped blade. “I saw it, some. Felt it.”
For a moment they stood in silence, then Sam turned her attention to the bodies. “Shall we divide the scales?”
“How much did we get?”
Sam collected them all. “Ten Coppers.”
Harald accepted his five. “Guess we should hold onto these. For living expenses?”
“Hmm.” Sam was studying the delicate, iridescent scales in her palm that glistened with the pale luminescence of the moon. “I’ve got enough in my savings to take care of groceries for awhile yet. Forty percent tax is steep.”
“You want to absorb them?”
Sam bounced her scales in her palm. “I think so? How about this: we’ll shift the split in the dungeon to compensate for my expenses outside. That way we can benefit from all our earnings in here without needing to donate to the Mining Consortium.”
“Sure.” Harald handed two of his Coppers back to her. “Sounds smart. I’ve always wondered though. Doesn’t it drive all those bureaucrats mad that we can absorb scales in the dungeon without their being able to tax them?”
“I don’t think it does.” Sam raised her palm, closed her eyes, and the scales flared brightly before disappearing. She smiled a quiet, private smile, then looked at him once more. “Everything serves the noble houses in the end. Even our growing strong in here. Remember how they took note of our total number of scales absorbed before coming in? If we spend all our time growing in strength, they’ll notice our advancement on the way out and we’ll gain notoriety. Which will lead to the houses seeking to recruit us.”
Harald scratched at his jaw. “I’m already House Darrowdelve.”
“Don’t be naïve, Harald.” Sam wiped her sword down with a cloth she drew from her scabbard. “Your father was tough enough to be left alone, and you weren’t worth the effort of recruiting. But if you become noteworthy? You’ll start to receive offers to accept another, bigger house as a feudal lord.”
“Unless I become as strong as my father.”
“You won’t be able to evade their notice in the process of getting there.” Sam considered. “Unless you insist on taking the Iron Gate from now on, and working your way down each time from the 1st Level.”
“Right,” said Harald dryly.
“I’m serious. You’re already going to draw a ton of attention for having activated your first Throne on the 4th Level. Actually, that’s going to be a problem.” Sam dropped into a crouch, hand going to her chin. “They’re going to assume you somehow smuggled a Zenith Tide in here with you without declaring it, which is a serious crime. Unless we can explain how you acquired 10,000 Copper Moons in a day or two.”
Harald blinked. “Damn. You’re right.”
“Even if we descended to the 21st Level to get Golden Dawns, we’d still need to collect a hundred of them. Which would take weeks. If we could even convince them that we could survive down there.”
Harald nodded pensively. “I obviously don’t want to talk about Vorakhar’s patronage. Or explain my new class.”
“They’ll ask, though you’re not obligated to answer. Not answering will only draw even more attention. Nothing stirs people up like a mystery.”
“So I’ll lie. Say I got something slightly rare, but nothing fancy.”
“And the moment you use your abilities in public? Say, against Yeoric?”
“Right. So you think I should confess my class?”
“I don’t know.” Sam frowned. “In the long run there’ll be no hiding your abilities.”
“I could claim its a shadow-based class. Do you know of any rare ones?”
“Shadow-based? There’s your basic Shadowmancer Adept, not common, but you see them here and there. Wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Or you have the much rarer Umbral Sentinel. That might be your best bet, as an Adept isn’t generally a powerful enough class to explain your ascending like this.”
“Umbral Sentinel.” Harald tried to remember. There’d been a period when he was younger when he’d devoured all the encyclopedias and history books on the dungeon, but that had been years ago. “What did they do again?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t remember exactly, but they specialize in using shadows to both conceal themselves but also monitor a certain area of the dungeon. They’re like spiders with their webs. They set up shop in an ideal location, then kill any monster that wanders in.”
“And that could explain my growth?”
“Maybe?” Sam sounded skeptical. “If you claimed to have set up in an ideal location, perhaps, and then camped out for a week.”
“Man. Vic and Nessa are going to think we died if we stay away that long.”
“Well, I could go tell them. Get supplies. I wouldn’t raise any flags.”
Harald considered. “And I would just stay in here? I guess that could work…?”
Sam smiled. “Not ideal, but better than your being arrested for failing to explain how you suddenly got 10,000 Copper Moons.”
Harald considered the corpses. Glanced around the strange hallway, then nodded. To stay in the dungeon for a week or two. Some of the Gold parties were said to spend that long working their way through the deeper levels. They brought entire support crews to sustain them. But Copper raiders rarely had the staying power.
But what if he did? If he stayed in here, spent his time communing with the abyss, with finding monsters and killing them? Harvesting scales full time?
After all, what did he have to return to? The Platinum Rose auction, notices of overdue payments on his debts, and Nessa’s lessons? Her sword lessons were the only things he’d truly miss, but he’d be getting enough practice down here regardless.
Sam was watching him closely. “You like the idea.” It wasn’t a question.
“I think I do. We could arrange places to meet up. You could tell Vic and Nessa. And I could just… stay and fight.”
“Stay and fight.” Her stare was deadpan. “You know you sound psychotic? Nobody just ‘stays and fights’ in the dungeon. Not for long. You need to sleep.”
“Sure. I’ll find a safe place.”
“There are no safe places. Oh, here’s a simple idea: I’ll just go fetch a Zenith Tide. It’s most of what I’ve got left from my life savings, but they won’t tax me bringing it in. Then you emerge first and claim I gave it to you. I’ll either absorb it myself, or pay taxes on it when I come out a day later, by which point they’ll have lost track of what’s going on. Hopefully.”
His vision of weeks spent in the dark hunting monsters faded. “That makes sense,” he said reluctantly.
“Look, if you don’t want my spending all my remaining wealth on you, just say so.”
“No! I mean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just that…”
“You want to stay down here.”
He winced as he glanced at her. “Kind of?”
“How much has this class changed you?” She peered at him. “Nobody wants to stay in a deathtrap dungeon by themselves. Or, they shouldn’t.”
“I don’t know.” He studied his palms. “My class gave me a +5 bonus to Ego. I’m at 23 now.”
Sam’s eyes widened in shock.
“And while I know it would be hard, that difficulty just doesn’t phase me.” Harald looked down, centered on his emotions. “I’m not scared. It’s not that I think it’s safe. It’s just… I feel like if I want to do this, then I’ll be able to pull it off. And.” He snapped his gaze up to her. “You’ve got a Zenith Tide. You should absorb it, Ascend.”
She held his gaze. “I’ve… thought about it.”
“And?”
“I didn’t want to be broke. Even after you liberated me from my oath. I’ve always had a home. Your home. The one thing being oathbound gave me was a sense of security, of place. Which was obviously reinforced by my old class. And… the thought of just absorbing all my savings to ascend, and then be broke when Darrowdelve Manor is sold… it was frightening.”
She looked away.
“Hey, I understand. But we’ve got a new thing going. We’ve got these incredible classes. We’re both divine ranked, Sam. Divine. Forget ascending to the first Throne, if the houses found out we were divine they’d kidnap us on the spot.”
Sam watched him, troubled.
“What I’m saying is, earning scales to keep ourselves fed and pay for a room somewhere won’t be a problem. Everything’s changed. Everything.”
Sam nodded slowly.
“You’re not oathbound any longer. You’re no longer a Bright Star. You’re the Brightest Star.” He tried to put as much weight behind his words as possible, sensed a barrier of resistance from Sam even as he spoke. “You’re a divine-ranked Netherwarden Knight. You could pick any house to join just by showing them your window. House Drakenhart? Celestara? Silvershield? They’d all fall over themselves to recruit you.”
Sam nodded, uncertain.
He took her hands in his own. “Sam. You’re a big deal now, and there’s no telling how powerful you’re going to become down the road. You need to change the way you’re thinking about everything. That Zenith Tide? You should absorb it the second you get home, ascend, and then come right back here to earn more.”
Sam inhaled sharply and squeezed his hands, her smile tremulous. “That sounds nice.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Yeah.” She pulled her hands away. “I know.”
“Do you?”
Her expression broke as emotion threatened to emerge from her depths. He saw pain in her face, anguish in her eyes, a desperate hope, a raw denial. “I…”
“Oh Sam.” He pulled her into a hug. “You’ll see. Remember? You are the beacon that cleaves through night’s veil, the unwavering luminescence that guides the lost and forlorn.” Sam stiffened in his arms, but he continued, his tone inexorable. “Your strength is a promise to the world: a light that not only reveals, but elevates.”
She bowed her brow to his shoulder and shuddered, fought the tears, then finally stepped back, her smile bright, her eyes liquid with emotion. “Yes.”
He shook her shoulder gently. “Yes.”
Sam placed her hand over his own and pursed her lips, blinking away the tears. “Yes. But… even with that, I can’t help but remember what Vorakhar said.”
“Vorakhar’s job is to lie.”
Her expression became sad. “I think he’s more cunning than that. He speaks enough truth that the lies slip in without being noticed. And what he said, about my not believing in myself, my not feeling like I deserve this… I can’t shake it.”
“You deserve every aspect of this.”
“It’s not that.” She stared at the ground. “It’s stuck with me because maybe I don’t feel like a whole person yet. You freed me, but… what has really changed?”
Harald didn’t know what to say. They stared at each other. Finally he managed, “You don’t want to raid?”
Sam laughed, the sound bleak. “No, of course I do. And I want to remain friends. It’s just that… I need to think more about who I am. What I’m fighting for. And why this feels like a dream from which I’ll wake up at any moment, and find myself doing dishes again in your kitchen.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Sam took a deep breath and straightened. “Yes, of course. But anyway. You want to stay in the dungeon?”
Harald studied her a moment longer, concerned and ill at ease, then nodded. “Sure. You go absorb that Zenith Tide. Tell Vic and Nessa that I’m alive, but that we all need to discuss what happened together. Then bring them back to the 4th Level, where I’ll be waiting.”
“Waiting,” she said wryly.
“Well. Maybe a little hunting.” Harald’s smile turned predatory. “The abyss hungers.”
Sam laughed despairingly. “The abyss hungers. By the angels, never say that again.”
For a moment they stood thus, his hand still on her shoulder, hers over his own, their gazes locked.
“Thank you,” she said at last, simply.
“No. You need never thank me. After all you’ve done? You’ve earned a decade of service from me.”
“Ha.” She stepped back. “You’d burn the food, ruin the sheets, and let the house go to the weeds. No thanks.”
Harald grinned then turned to survey the hall once more. “Then I’ll do what I can for you from in here. Shall we explore just a little bit more?”
She stared down at the alcoves below, at the haunt light, then smiled as her aura came back, filling Harald with warmth and latent joy. “Sure. Let’s go kill ourselves a few more ashen walkers.”