<~> CHAPTER 27

Luna hesitantly sat next to me as I caught my breath after the fight with the minotaur. I felt a little gross after letting my human clothes get splashed with minotaur blood. I wiped myself with the white sand hoping to pull most of the sticky blood off of me.

("Are you okay?") Luna asked.

I paused. I don't know what I was feeling... embarrassed? I let myself lose control again. It wasn't as bad this time but it felt dangerous every time I fell into the well of my instincts.

I continued to wipe the sand over my bloody clothes. ("I'm okay. I didn't mean to get all of this blood on me so I'm trying to clean it off.")

That wasn't what she was asking exactly. I knew that. But I didn't want to face her real question right now. I just wanted to pretend everything was normal.

Her hand touched my shoulder and I flinched. I turned to face her and she was... smiling. ("You took a few nasty hits in that fight and then you took a while to respond after you killed it. I was worried something had happened, I'm glad you're okay.")

Was she concerned I was hurt? I thought she was concerned about me losing control again... ("I...") I didn't want to bring it up. I didn't want to draw attention to losing control again. ("I'm not hurt anymore. It got some solid hits in but any damage I took was healed up when I... ate it.")

("That's good. I'm glad you're not hurt.") She patted my thigh in a spot that didn't have any blood on it.

"I found something!" Maxwell called out from the center of the room.

Luna grabbed my hand and helped pull me to my feet. I didn't need the help but... I appreciated the gesture. My heart clenched as I followed her over, her cute ears twitched, and subtly turned toward Maxwell to see what he was doing. She led me over to the others by the hand where Maxwell was digging through the sand in the center of the arena.

He found a chest!

Maxwell was practically beaming as he chattered with Piper so quickly I couldn't pick out any of the words. I could tell he was excited from the tone alone.

("Three chests in one run, this is the most we've found in one trip by far,") Luna told me.

I nodded in response as Maxwell pulled his short prybar from his pack and wedged it between the lock. With a quick yank, the lock broke off and fell into the sand. He pulled out the remains of the lock and lifted the top.

The first thing he pulled out was yet another bag of coins. He passed those to Piper before pulling out a thick leather belt with several hanging straps and pouches. The pouches were empty but something told me that the thing spoke to him.

"I'd .... this. Any ....?" Looks like he wanted it, I didn't need a belt like this so I nodded toward him.

When no one looked like they had any issues he smiled and started to transfer some of the stuff from his old belt to his new one. While he did that I peeked over his shoulder and looked inside the box. Not much else. Looks like a few clothes. None of them gave me that weird feeling like Luna's sash so I didn't think they were magic, they were just... mundane.

Maxwell eventually finished and went back to the contents of the chest. He pulled out some of the clothes and held them up... only to turn bright red. Piper laughed out loud and slapped him on the back. It seems what he pulled out was... silky women's underwear. They had been so mixed up it was hard to tell what they were until he untangled them and pulled one out.

I looked over at Luna who had also gone a little red at the display. I smiled and reached out to take them from him and he happily handed them over to be free of them. At a glance, I knew they would be too small for me but... I held them up to Luna. They'd be perfect for her. Piper started cackling again as Luna snatched them away and stuffed them into her bag with a red face. As much as I'd like to keep teasing her Maxwell had found one more item in the box.

It looked like a blindfold. On one side it was padded with silk and on the other it had a flexible but hard flat band. The band was black, or maybe a very dark blue, and in the center was a red stylized depiction of an eye. Maxwell held it to his face and put it on before quickly yanking it off and shaking his head. He looked a little disoriented from the experience and held the blindfold out to me. I furrowed my brows and took it from him.

Putting it on was... confusing. I couldn't figure out what I was 'looking' at, at first. I turned my head this way and that until I think I figured out what it was. Luna was glowing like a bright spot in front of me and Piper was a slightly dimmer but warm spot on the other side. Maxwell was a dim glow but I could tell it was him, his backpack also glowed, both from the bag itself and from the mix of different monster parts inside of it. I held up my hand in front of my face and it was glowing hot, about the same or more as Luna was. I think this thing lets you see magic. I kept looking around, the walls of the dungeon glowed ever so slightly too but it wasn't as noticeable as people were, even Maxwell.

I pulled it off and handed the blindfold to Luna. ("You should try it too, it's weird.")

She nodded and put it on. After a moment of looking disoriented, she adjusted to the blindfold pretty quickly. Just like me she held up her hand and compared the two of our magical glows.

("Helena, can you shift into your wolf form for me?")

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I nodded and took a step back before shifting. Even under the blindfold I could see her eyebrows go up in surprise. She pulled the blindfold off and rubbed at her eyes. ("You're blindingly bright when in that form. Probably twice as bright as you are normally. You wanna look?")

I took it back and tried to put it on over my wolf face but I couldn't get it in place enough to actually see out of it. I shrugged and shifted back to my human form before slipping it on and shifting only my right arm. I squinted at the blinding spot. Luna was right, my wolf form was just drenched in magic compared to everyone else. I couldn't stand to stare at my hand anymore and pulled it away from my eyes and blinked the spots out of my vision.

("What does that mean? Why am I so bright?") I asked Luna.

She shook her head. ("I don't know. I already suspected your wolf form was a unique application of magic power but I've never seen anything like it. I also don't know how you would gain so much mana from the change. Where does the magic go when you're in your human form?")

I frowned and looked down at the blindfold. It was an interesting curiosity but not something that would be all that helpful. My hearing was so good now that I could navigate this maze with my eyes closed but I didn't really gain much from doing that. Not right now anyway, maybe if we went back to the misty floor.

I held it out to Luna but she shook her head and smiled. ("You keep it for now. I don't think I would be able to function very well without my sight. It might come in handy if we have issues with another floor because of the glow of your eyes.")

("I suppose... I don't really have anywhere to put it though...")

("Ah, true. Give me a moment.") She stepped closer to Maxwell and Piper who had been chatting while the two of us experimented with the blindfold. She wrote some stuff in the sand between them and they nodded before taking the blindfold and stuffing it into Piper's bag. Unlike Maxwell, she didn't carry a bag that was bigger on the inside but she had less stuff in general and didn't carry any of the monster parts.

While she was doing that I spotted something that I had entirely forgotten about. I stood up and walked over to the giant axe the minotaur was wielding earlier. The thing was big. It was like a huge Viking axe with a blade that curved slightly at the bottom and had a long downward flange, unlike the typical wood-chopping axe. The whole thing was made from a dark looking steel that had a blue-black shimmer.

I was able to lift it in my human form but it was too unwieldy to swing around one handed like this. The balance felt too top heavy to control it well. I think I could use it decently with both hands though. I shifted to my wolf form and the axe became much easier to work with. The large axe's long and thick handle felt comfortable in my right hand and I didn't have any issue swinging the weapon one handed. I slid over my shield and found that I could use both pretty reliably like this.

("It seems the dungeon continues to favor you,") Piper said.

I turned to see her watching me practice with the axe and kite shield. ("I'm not sure if it does. It wasn't like the minotaur was an easy fight for us either,") I responded

Piper nodded. ("Sure, but it was a fight we could handle with a reward you can effectively use. I won't count on the dungeon favoring us forever but this has been a very lucrative floor, even considering we fought the floor boss. To be honest, a dungeon favoring us sounds much more scary than one ignoring us.")

("Do you think there's a possibility we could upset the dungeon? Or are you afraid it's a trap in the first place?") I asked.

("Either are possible and I don't know enough about dungeons to truly be sure of anything. We should be careful though, The dungeon can be fickle, helpful one moment and vindictive the next.")

I nodded and leaned the axe against my shoulder like a big lumberjack. The downside of bringing this weapon along is that I didn't have any kind of strap or sheathe for it. I would have to carry it the whole way. Better than not having the weapon as an option at all though.

While the other girls and I rested Maxwell was doing the grisly task of decapitating the head of the minotaur. Luna told me that the skull and horns were valuable for their magic though the rest of the body was not. Once Maxwell was finished I took the opportunity to eat my fill of the delicious monster before we moved on. I still felt awkward, almost ashamed, when I ate in front of them but the meat was too good to pass up and they didn't say anything about it.

Once the four of us were finished resting and drinking our fill of water we followed Maxwell's golden mist back into the hall and down a corridor. We still had to take things slow and disable traps along the way but my track record for detecting and disarming the traps before they could trigger had improved a lot. None of the traps were big complicated things or particularly dangerous like a boulder trap but it was nice not having to worry about taking spears to the lung or arrows to the ass.

By this point, we were done with this floor. We avoided monsters where we could and took things slowly. We were getting closer to the exit and I was itching to get onto the floor that I had been promised was less of a headache than this one was. The traps weren't as threatening anymore but there was still this lingering anxiety that if I missed one it would mean one of my friends would get hurt. I also didn't like the idea of punching another hole in my chest so I was happy to avoid that as well.

In a way, I had gotten lucky that my hearing had improved so drastically after eating that bat's heart. That is what happened, isn't it? I remember having improved hearing before this but things really changed after eating that thing. Was that what drew me to eating the hearts of monsters? Was I getting stronger and improving my body even more by eating their hearts? I felt a rush of strength after eating the heart of that minotaur and I didn't have trouble with cold after the first time I fought the frost salamanders.

I thought I was gaining more control over my instincts, or at least integrating with them better but I almost lost myself to them again in that last fight. But was that really a bad thing? Maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way, maybe I am fighting against my instincts too hard. Instead of fighting them maybe I should try and ride the wave. Direct them more positively. Like my emotions, like anger.

When I decided to train for the triathlon I focused all of the anger and spite I had toward my roommate and used that to prove her wrong and train even harder. I just have to figure out how to do the same thing here. Focus my instincts and use them instead of being lost in them.

("Helena! We found it!") Luna said with excitement. I was pulled out of my thoughts as we walked up to the stairs leading upward.

I rested one hand on the wall. I could do this. Just like my anger, I would grow into my instincts and use them, not reject them.

I smiled. ("Then what are we waiting for? Let's go up to the next floor!")