Where before creeping through the 27th Level had felt fraught and filled with mortal peril, it now felt… exciting.

Harald moved slowly, forcing himself to remain cautious, but awareness of his new powers bubbled in his mind. At his command he could summon the Dawnblade, the Goldchop, and his Servitor, a hulking Shadow Mastiff. He was a second level Abyssal Initiate, which inured him to pain while filling him with terrible vitality.

He knew, he knew he should play this quiet, just find a way to sneak out and get home, but he could barely restrain himself.

He wanted to find a foe.

He wanted to test himself.

So he crept down tunnels, listening intently, his lantern at its lowest ebb, and each time he reached a hub chamber he peered inside, not knowing if he hoped to see the portal home or a scarecrow.

He found enemies first.

It was a grand room, stately and huge, with an air of ruined refinement that had been missing from the others. The stone here was white marble, but the rusted blooms were still present, as if clouds of orange had settled thickly across the walls and floor to congeal and harden.

The layout was familiar; archways ringed the ground floor, beyond which lay an encircling covered aisle, but as high as the ceiling was, there was no second story. Instead, large barred alcoves reminded him of the prison cells from the previous hub, but without a walkway before them.

At the head of the chamber, though, was a resplendent frieze carved into the wall depicting the Fallen Angel. She stood upon a lintel set over a small door, eroded by time, though her wings were still vast, each feather detailed.

Harald’s tunnel emerged on the ground floor, in the shadows behind a column, and from where he stood pressed against the wall he could see two scarecrows dancing in the center of the room.

Just like the ghost of his vanquished foe, they cavorted in a circle, leaping and crouching in silent ceremony.

It was eerie. Harald couldn’t tell if there was a pattern to their movements, or if they were just moving as they saw fit. It felt stylized; their dance alternated between stiff steps and sudden, fluid leaps. They seemed unaware of each other, following around and around in an eternal circle, their sleeves occasionally slipping down to reveal their inhuman physiognomy of iron rods and strangle, tensile tendons.

Harald bit his lower lip.

Two scarecrows.

He was pretty sure he could them if he went all out.

He could imagine Nessa’s disapproval so distinctly that he checked himself. He’d already accomplished so much on the 27th. Killing a scarecrow by himself was an awesome feat. But if he was being honest? That had already lost its savor.

First he summoned the Dawnblade into his hand. It materialized with sweet speed, its ruined grip rough in his hand, its length pressed down against his knee.

Then he summoned the Goldchops. They appeared beside him, and immediately he felt potent strength flood into him, his stance subtly changing as he felt himself grow corded with new muscle, his back broader. The Constitution boost also solidified his sense of committing himself to a worthy venture; with this much energy and staying power, how could he lose?

The Goldchops glinted beside him, swaying slightly as if in a subtle breeze, their blades oriented on the dancing scarecrows while the awaited his command.

The next summons felt trickier. The Shadow Mastiff was free-willed, and though it obeyed his commands, what if it gave his position away?

Harald rubbed at his stubbled jaw.

He had to assume a Servitor wouldn’t endanger him.

So he reached into his core, down into the heart of his Cosmos, and summoned the Mastiff to his side.

The tunnel was too narrow to accommodate the two of them, so the Mastiff appeared just behind him. It near filled the narrow corridor, its shoulders broad and angular, its scent pungent and bestial, its eyes burning crimson in the gloom.

But it didn’t immediately whuuf or claw at the ground or otherwise give them away. Instead, it canted its huge blocky head to one side, its gaze locked on the dancing monsters beyond, and then glanced up at Harald, eyes wide, triangular ears alert and peaked.

Harald willed it to stay still.

He wasn’t done prepping.

While Shadow Fortitude was a Passive that didn’t give him away, Aura of the Aching Depths did. So he kept it suppressed even as he trigged Dark Vigor.

Oh, sweet glory.

His body thrilled as that unholy vitality coursed through him, his might doubling, his body feeling weightless, his reservoirs of stamina broadening into oceans. Harald restrained the urge to laugh as black flames ghosted about his frame; even in this dark he could see them, as if his eyesight were attuned to their specific radiance.

Harald extended his Dawnblade, pointing at one of the scarecrows even as Abyssal Attunement ran down the green sword like an oil slick.

That one is yours, he commanded the Shadow Mastiff. When I give the word.

Then he willed the Goldchops to split up, each to a target, and with a deep breath, set them flying forth.

He immediately sprinted after them.

The Goldchops blurred out, spinning head over haft with an eagerness that made Harald grin.

The Shadow Mastiff bayed.

The sound reverberated within the room, but though it sounded fearsome, it had no effect on Harald.

The scarecrows, however, immediately ceased their cavorting to flinch back, claws rising, just as the Goldchops came flying out of the darkness at their heads.

Harald’s target blinked away in time, but the second took the hatchet straight to the chest.

Harald activated the Aura of the Aching Depths as he curved his sprint toward the remaining scarecrow, intent on finishing it off so he could turn all his resources upon the second even as he willed both Goldchops to search out their vanished prey.

As fast as Harald could run, the Shadow Mastiff was faster.

It loped ahead of him, three bounds and then it was upon the scarecrow, front paws on its shoulders to drive it to the ground as its huge maw closed upon the monster’s neck.

Only for it to disappear just before it could hit the ground.

Harald cursed, wheeled about, searching them both out, and that’s when he saw the third scarecrow.

It had been crouching in the darkness beyond the pillars of the far side of the room. Now it rose, eyes burning bright red, to glare at Harald.

Fuck.

Pain slammed into his head as if he’d been broadsided by a swung shovel. Harald gasped and pressed his hand to his temple, squinting as he saw both Goldchops fly down the length of the hall to where the first two must have appeared.

The Shadow Mastiff bayed again and raced toward the third scarecrow.

Three of them.

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Was retreat even possible?

Too late.

Harald turned and ran toward the north of the room where the narrow door was surmounted by the angel frieze.

By the angels, even with the pain clamoring in his head it felt good to be so light on his feet. Trailing black flames, he leaped and swung on intuition, and sure enough a scarecrow appeared before him, its crimson eyes going wide as the Aura of the Aching Depths washed over it like a dark tidal wave, Harald’s abyssal blade coming down in a great overhead chop.

They always blinked to the farthest empty corner.

With three in the room and the Goldchops and Mastiff in play, it meant one of them was guaranteed to seek this space.

Harald cried out savagely as his blade slammed home upon the scarecrow’s upflung arm. It clove through the bars and sinews and cut deep into the monster’s neck.

But even as augmented as he was, scarecrows were tough opponents.

Black smoke rose from where the abyssal blade had touched flesh, and with the combined might of the Aching Depths and the touch of the abyss, the scarecrow staggered back, momentarily off balance.

Dark Vigor made it impossible not to tear his blade free and slash again. Harald bent his full will upon destroying his foe. It stumbled back against the wall, overwhelmed by the ferocity of the onslaught, the pressure of his aura, the debilitating power of the abyssal blade.

It felt like chopping down a tree, but Dark Vigor gave Harald illimitable energy and his blows hammered down again and again.

He’d have finished the scarecrow off there and then if two distinct assaults on his mind hadn’t dropped at once.

Harald screamed and staggered back, almost dropping the Dawnblade in his desire to cradle his head.

But just as quickly one of the assaults vanished, leaving a sole attacker rending his mind. The scarecrow before him blinked away, and Harald spun, tears running down his cheeks from the severity of the assault, his mind dazed as he fought the urge to vomit.

The Mastiff leaped across the room to pounce on a scarecrow, getting a bite in just as it teleported away.

Goldchops flew back and forth, questing without surcease for the evasive foes.

Harald gasped, took a deep, shuddering breath, and tried to get a sense of how the tide of battle flowed.

The scarecrows were running ragged.

The one he’d mauled was barely able to stay on its feet, and even as Harald watched it appeared too close to a Goldchop, which reversed directly and flew right into its mask, splitting open its woody head and braining it.

The Mastiff seemed to be having a grand old time. It had ceased baying to instead snarl and bark excitedly, rushing to and fro as it chased the disappearing scarecrows, its huge shaggy tail wagging back and forth.

Harald straightened.

Dark Vigor washed away the pain, the nausea, the momentary panic.

Black flames coruscated around him like a hellish nimbus.

They had this fight.

They had it.

Harald spun the Dawnblade about once and then rushed back into the fray. The fact that this room had but the one level was the true blessing; it prevented the scarecrows from blinking up and down the floors, which would have neutralized him and the Mastiff.

But they needed to corral the scarecrows.

Harald ordered the Goldchops to remain in the back third of the hall and for the Mastiff to patrol the center.

The scarecrows blipped in and out once or twice, were immediately assaulted, and then, as Harald has hoped, teleported to his end of the hall, thinking him the least threatening.

Their mistake.

Harald willed his Dark Vigor to empower the Aura of the Aching Depths to the utmost, drawing on both Thrones so that his aura grew oppressively thick and enervating. The air around him darkened, as if they stood at the bottom of a pond, and grew thick and cold.

Harald rushed at the closest foe, sword trailing behind him in the Tail Stance, and he reached the scarecrow just as it turned and blasted his mind with its psychic assault.

Harald gasped, eyes going wide, but swung regardless, a great upward sweep of his abyssal blade that slashed the monster’s robe and thwokked home between its legs.

The blow sank home, and thought the scarecrow didn’t react as a human might, it was still a terrible wound.

But Harald was in close enough for it to slash, so that it raked him with its fearsome talons, once across the chest, tearing away the last of his leather armor, and then once across the shoulder.

Harald felt like buffets from a gale, rocking him but leaving no impression of pain.

Grimacing, he wrenched his blade free and went to skewer his foe, but it blinked away, appearing in the aisle at the center of the chamber.

The Shadow Mastiff bayed and lunged after it, the reverberating howl causing the scarecrow to press its claws to its wooden head.

Harald thrust his hand into his pouch, absorbed some random scales, and sensed more than felt his wounds heal over.

The third scarecrow blinked into view right beside him, and slammed its fist into Harald’s gut.

It was like taking a sledgehammer to the stomach.

Harald bent over the creature’s arm, breath exploding from his lungs as he felt his innards liquefy.

The scarecrow tore its fist away and slammed him in the back of the head, driving him to the ground so hard he bounced.

Dark Vigor yet burned around him, but its flames began to ebb.

Without its unholy vitality, Harald knew that would have been the end of him.

Blood coughed up his throat, hot and coppery. He’d lost his blade. His vision doubled then began to blank.

A loud bark sounded and the scarecrow looming above him was barreled back by a leaping bolt of black fury.

And yet Harald felt no pain.

Despite the blood he kept coughing up, the way his thoughts were becoming bleary, his whole body distant, he felt nothing but urgency.

So he shoved his hand into the great burlap pouch and just set to absorbing scales.

His vision grew sharp, the roiling murky mess that was his stomach eased, the blood ceased to gout out his mouth.

A moment later he sat up, wiping the back of his wrist across his eyes, and took in the chamber.

The scarecrows were dead.

The Goldchops were pulling themselves out of one corpse, while the Shadow Mastiff was shaking the third about like a rag toy, its huge jaws clamped around its neck.

Harald let out a shuddery breath.

That had been close.

Far, far too close.

Grimacing, he summoned his window, wanting to see how many scales he’d absorbed.

Scales: 493,384/1,000,000

His count had gone up by another 2,100 scales.

Healing was expensive.

Then again, he was just shoving his hand into a mess of scales and absorbing them all.

Not exactly a surgical procedure.

The Mastiff released the scarecrow, tossing the mauled body aside, and padded over to sniff at Harald. Its breath was fetid and hot, and its nose was wet as it pushed against Harald’s cheek a few times before it gave him a great sandpapery lick over the ear.

“Hey, hey,” laughed Harald, pushing its huge head gently away. “I’m fine. Promise.”

The Shadow Mastiff gave a low whuff and then yawned, displaying such a massive maw lined with such fearsome teeth as it momentarily whined that Harald felt like an idiot for having felt comfortable with it for even a second. Then it snapped its jaw shut, licked its chops once, and padded away to sniff at a dead scarecrow.

The Goldchops floated over to hang on either side of him.

Harald rubbed his head. He’d won, but it had been far too close. His failure to notice the third scarecrow almost cost him everything.

He’d been too eager.

Had rushed in too soon.

But still.

Harald couldn’t restrain a quiet smile. Dark Vigor was amazing. He’d cut straight through the scarecrow’s arm as if it had been an ashen walker. It had infused his Whisper so potently that he’d overwhelmed that scarecrow, prevented it from teleporting away.

And it had kept him going when his wounds should have overwhelmed him, allowed him to take those two blows without instantly blackening out or dying.

On the other hand Shadow Fortitude was… concerning. Pain served a function, after all, it told you how bad things were getting, what had been done to you, how you needed to react to prevent things from getting worse.

The blows Harald had sustained during the fight had felt almost illusory, his body being knocked about without the accompanying agony.

Which was good, sure—he didn’t want to be paralyzed with pain—but also… eerie and strange and on some fundamental level… wrong?

Though without Shadow Fortitude, he probably wouldn’t have been able to shove his hand in the pouch and heal back from the brink of death.

Harald blew out his cheeks.

His powers were amazing, but they were going to take getting used to.

“Thanks,” Harald said, looking up at the Goldchops and then to where the Shadow Mastiff was gnawing on the head of a scarecrow with its huge molars. “You guys really came through.”

Did the twin Goldchops dip a little lower as they hovered beside him? The Shadow Mastiff lifted its head, blinked at him as if embarrassed for his sake, then resumed gnawing.

Scales floated in the air. Healed as he was by the scales, Harald rose smoothly to his feet, still feeling a sense of dissonance over having been so gravely wounded, feeling no pain, healing back, and now being completely normal. It made the fight feel surreal, feverish.

Still, he collected the fifteen Golden Dawns that had appeared above the corpses, and another twenty Goldens and ten Silvers from their collective pouches.

3,600 scales from that fight alone.

Harald spilled out what he had left. Even after all his healing, he’d made a fortune.

16 Aurora Veils.

71 Golden Dawns.

93 Silver Starburst.

A total of 24,030 scales remaining.

How long would it have taken him to make this much on the Iron Levels?

And all of Flutic had been amazed at his acquiring a mere 10,000 scales before.

Though… the accountants had registered him at 475,000-something coming in this time. Adding some 30,000 scales wouldn’t be such an enormous percentage increase. Though the fact that he was doing it again on supposedly the 8th Level…

Harald frowned. What to do?

Absorb it all so stop it from being taxed.

Just before he entered the portal to the 8th, at any rate.

Harald poured the small mound of scales into the hempen pouch, distributed the overflow into his own, then stood.

“See you all soon,” he said, as he dismissed the Mastiff and his Artifacts.

The giant black hound barked at him once angrily before it disappeared.

Harald felt a pang of guilt. Was it conscious down in his Cosmos? Aware of the passage of time? He had so many questions now that he actually had a Servitor.

With his Artifacts and Servitor gone, he felt suddenly alone with only the corpses to keep him company.

Harald retreated to his original tunnel to retrieve his pack and lantern, then resolved to sit their quietly till enough time had passed for him to safely summon help if need be. No sense in pressing on without being able to take recourse in his resources.

Head resting back against the wall, Harald closed his eyes, intent on listening as he simply took stock of how much had changed.

He was now capable—with help from his acquired resources—of defeating three monsters simultaneously on the 27th Level.

Harald didn’t even know what to make of that fact.

It felt too much, alien, overwhelming.

Somewhere he guessed that Vorakhar was smiling.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” he whispered. “I may seem like a great investment so far, but you’ll see. I belong to nobody. Not even you.”