<~> CHAPTER 16

I sat on the ground still panting from the non-stop march up the stairs. Luna had told me that monsters very rarely follow people upstairs but I wasn't the only of us who didn't want to take that risk and didn't stop climbing the stairs till we made it to the top. I shifted back to my human form on the way up to spare myself the embarrassment of panting like a dog in front of my friends. I'm not sure if it was the right move though because I was now sweating and had to pull my sticky hair out of my face.

I looked at Luna. ("What the hell were those things? They look right out of a fucking horror movie.")

She raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term but decided to move past it. ("I'm not sure what kind of monsters those were, they looked undead but I can't be sure. Let me ask Maxwell...") She scratched the question in the dirt as Maxwell and Piper talked. I listened in, trying hard to pick up some of their words.

Maxwell shook his head and Luna translated, ("He says he doesn't know what those things are. He also thinks they're undead based on how they looked but they don't look like anything he's heard described before. I told him that they didn't seem especially weak to fire though, which is confusing.")

As the others continued to talk I excused myself and stepped away for a moment. I looked around the dark remains of the goblin camp. All of the torches and braziers the goblins were using have burned out by now so the only areas that were lit up were our torches and my eyes. This place felt reassuring now, I could actually see up here. The murky fog that got worse because of my eyes made me feel like dead weight. I sat on a wall made of oblong stones and messy mortar and just looked around for a while.

I jumped when Luna's hand touched my shoulder. ("Are you okay?") she asked me.

Mulling over my thoughts I turned to look at her. Even in my human form I was a bit taller than her, if not for her fox ears. ("...On this floor I feel useful. I could sneak, hunt, and scout without many issues. In that forest my eyes make it harder to see, not only for myself but for everyone... I don't like getting in your way and being in the dungeon means that fog will probably never clear up.")

The fox girl sat down next to me and put her hand on my knee, gently rubbing it while she looked lost in thought. After a few quiet moments she replied, ("I think I understand how you feel. My muteness makes things hard on everyone... Before we came across you I could barely communicate at all, especially on floors like that one where there is nothing to write on. After a while the two of them sometimes forget I'm there when they get lost in conversation... I would only be a burden if I tried to talk with them more, Maxwell would be fatigued from bottoming out on mana and Piper wouldn't be able to heal. So I've had to quietly accept it and get used to feeling alone all the time...")

I wrapped an arm around Luna and pulled her into a side hug. She looked up at me with surprise, her eyes were watery from her held-back tears. I squeezed her once and looked into her eyes. ("...I'm sorry you've had to go through that. Talk to me as much as you need to. I'll always listen.") There wasn't much more I could say so I just squeezed her once more and let her relax and lean against me. We sat there in silence for a while, looking over the ruins of the goblin city.

("We should head back. I'm sure the two of them have come to some sort of conclusion by now,") Luna whispered through the rings.

She stood up and watched to make sure I was following before leading the two of us back to our camp by the stairs. Maxwell and Piper had spent the time getting a campfire going and were idly talking when we returned.

I sat on the floor across from Maxwell and turned to Luna. ("So, what are we doing about that floor?")

Luna relayed the question in the dirt in front of us, the question made Maxwell grimace. He replied after a moment and Luna relayed it to me, ("He says that he's not sure what to do. Individually he doesn't think the monsters are that tough but none of us can take on all of them at once. They're also hard to spot in the fog and... your eyes make it worse.")

I frowned and nodded.

("He asks if there's any way for you to... turn it off?")

I closed my eyes and took a breath, trying to pull on the same feeling as the one that lets me shift between forms and trying to focus it on my eyes. When I opened them again... they still lit everything up.

I shook my head. ("I don't think so, if I can then I don't know how.")

After reading Luna's response in the dirt he sighed and nodded. He then asked something to Luna who looked confused by the question. She turned to me. ("Helena, how did you see the first one when we were still talking? Or, come to think of it, how did you see the one that was coming up behind us?")

I furrowed my brows. ("I didn't see them until you all did. I heard them moving through the woods.")

Luna's eyebrows raised, ("You heard them? It was silent down there until they all started screaming.")

I shook my head, ("It was quiet but I could hear them coming. The first one was trying to sneak up on us but the second one was rushing through the underbrush.")

She hastily scribbled that into the dirt which got some excited chattering between Maxwell and Piper.

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("They're saying that if you can hear them coming then we should be able to move through the area without getting surrounded. Maxwell is confident the two of them can kill the monsters before they can signal more to come join them. He says he was just being too cautious when he came up on the monster and didn't know he needed to silence them and stop them from calling more. If you can warn us which direction they're in and roughly how close, we can make our way through the area without too much trouble. We've done floors like this before in the other dungeon.")

("Are you sure this is a good idea?") I asked her. ("If we make any mistakes we could still get surrounded.")

She scribbled the words in the dirt and after a short few words between the other two Luna replied to me. ("Trust is a two-way road. We've seen how accurate your senses have been, we're willing to rely on them. Are you willing to trust that Maxwell and Piper can take the monsters out without making a mistake?")

Trust. I wasn't sure. Maybe I didn't trust them, or maybe I was just being too cautious. I guess... this would be the first time I'm truly putting my life into their hands. Everything else that we've fought was ultimately handled by my own strength, even the goblin king despite being nearly cut in half. Would I be able to trust them?

I took a breath. I would try. I would try to trust them, they found me and they've helped me out a lot so far. I think I can do it.

I nodded. ("I'll trust you. Let's go back down there and make it through.")

***

The stairs felt far more oppressive on the second way down. There was tension in knowing what we were going to face this time and that it wouldn't be as easy as some goblins hiding around corners to ambush us. This would be another stealth mission. Just like when we hunted down the goblins one by one we would be sneaking up on these undead monsters and silencing them before they could call for others.

I was the first one down again, with my senses I would be able to tell if they were still near the entrance. The scent of pine needles filled my nose, the pleasant smell was corrupted by these horror movie monsters. I crouched low, closed my eyes, and took in the sounds as I sniffed the ground for scents. There were dozens here not long ago, the smells were intermingling so it was difficult to get an accurate read on how many of them there were but I could tell it was a lot.

Focusing on my ears I listened to the quiet atmosphere. With no birds or insects in the forest, I would be able to hear any that were around. No. They were gone for now.

("They're not here. It's safe to come down,") I told Luna through the rings.

We were stretching the distance the rings operated at but it didn't take long to get a response. It sounded faint as if it were far away. ("We're coming.")

I watched the area with my ears perked. When the rest of them get here I'll be keeping my eyes closed for most of this trial and focusing only on the sound. My hearing was even better than Luna's who had much better hearing than the average human. I'll do my best to give directions and track the proximity of the monsters as we make our way out of these woods. We don't need to find the next floor necessarily, just to the edge of the area these things claim as their territory. Most monsters operate like this, so I've been told.

The others met me at the base of the stairs and quietly formed their positions around me. I had one of my clawed hands on Maxwell's shoulder and the other on Luna's. Piper would need to be free because she's not able to tank a hit as well as Maxwell. I took a breath and closed my eyes. I would be doing much of this floor blind.

We progressed slowly, Maxwell stopping to reinforce his markings and carving new ones into the trees that we passed. I could hear them, the monsters of the forest, and I guided us away from them as we went along. Eventually, there was one that was in the way. It was blocking the deer trail that we had found.

("One ahead, it's standing still but I hear it. I'm not sure what kind it is,") I told Luna.

She tapped Maxwell on the side and was probably making gestures as we'd discussed. They didn't have anything as sophisticated as sign language but operating with a mute party member made them come to the obvious conclusion of using hand signs. Unfortunately, it wasn't very developed and they were only able to communicate very basic things to each other this way, enough for our purposes now though.

Maxwell tapped my hand on his shoulder, signaling that he would be headed up alone. I released him and kept listening for more of the monsters in the area. So far I didn't hear anything other than Maxwell's soft footsteps through the thick grass as he approached the creature. All I was able to hear when the two of them finally met was the dull thud of the monster falling to the ground. He had done it, taken the monster down without alerting the horde.

He made his way back and I gently took his shoulder once again and he led us forward. I pulled his shoulder away from any monsters I heard and relayed specific directions to Luna when appropriate. Like this, we made our way to the edge of the forest that surrounded the stairs up.

("Helena, open your eyes for a minute and take a look,") Luna told me.

I opened them up and saw that we were in the open outside of the forest now. The fog had lightened up but it was still present. I would probably be able to get away with keeping them open without blinding everyone here but only barely. I let out a breath and let some of my anxiety go with it. In front of us were hills. From here we could see the occasional foggy shape off in the distance but whatever monsters lurked out there weren't the same ones as in the thicker forest. We couldn't be sure these new ones wouldn't all come running like the others had but at least we shouldn't need to worry about the monsters from the forest scrambling after us too.

("Maxwell says you can keep your eyes open for now, it's not as bad out here.")

I nodded and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. I moved forward so I was near the front of our group again, with the thinner fog it shouldn't be too much of a problem even if there was still some glare.

Maxwell rolled his shoulder and said something to me with a smile before leading us forward through the fog. This was only the start of the new floor of the dungeon.