<~> CHAPTER 43

We returned to Piper and Luna who had been hiding out behind some rocks a short distance away watching. Piper and Maxwell immediately started talking about what happened but they were talking too fast for me to catch so I sat down next to Luna and waited for her to translate for me.

Without even having to ask she started telling me what they learned. ("The miners haven't seen Aria's group before but they had heard from someone on one of the lower floors that more people than usual have been going missing lately. Stronger than normal enemies have also been appearing in places they didn't usually show up so a lot of it has been blamed on that. The minotaur and alraune were normal floor bosses for their floors but an umber hound on the sixteenth floor and whatever that spider thing we fought was not normal.")

("Yeah, I don't really know if the umber hound I fought on the floor with the lake came from there though, I fell through the ground and ended up here with it on top of me. It could have come from somewhere else entirely for all we know.") I glanced back around the rock at the miners. Their guards were still wary of us returning but some of their people had started dragging the corpse of the barlette we had left there back to their camp.

Luna hesitated, ("True, but it showing up on the sixteenth floor at all is strange.")

I waited for Luna to listen in on the other conversation a bit more and eventually, she had an update for me. ("For now Aria is going to continue traveling up with us. The miners offered to take her in but she feels more comfortable continuing on with us after we fought the spider thing together. She doesn't know if she's going to run into her friends but she's holding out hope that they are still alive.")

I nodded, not having anything to add. After the discussion petered out we started heading back the way we came. There were likely other paths up to the next floor from here but Maxwell knew where he was going from where we were before, he hadn't explored much of this part of this floor since they didn't take mining jobs often. The walk back was mostly peaceful, for the few barlettes we ran into on the way back I was asked not to help so that Aria, Maxwell, and Piper could get used to fighting in close quarters together. Aria wasn't too bad with a sword but she normally used a bow and daggers, neither of which we had. Luna told me that Maxwell had suggested that the two of us spar as beginners but I declined. I don't believe we trust each other enough for that at this stage.

My eyes were mostly drawn to the magical rocks. I hadn't shifted back to my wolf form since we left the mining group behind, I was too interested in looking around with the novel magic sight this blindfold gave me. At one point though I saw something that gave me pause.

"Hey, wait," I told the group.

Everyone turned to me in surprise when I walked over to something that had been discarded on the ground. It was a rusty looking mining pick. It wasn't in good shape but I wasn't really interested in using it much, I just wanted to get a piece of one of these interesting crystals to take with me. It acted like a torch to me when using this strange magic sight, and even without the blindfold, one of the brighter ones could be used in place of an actual torch for the others.

("Helena, we don't have much room for any of these crystals and we don't know which ones are valuable,") Luna told me.

I looked back at her and smiled. ("That's alright, I just want a little souvenir to take with me. Something practical like a magic glowing rock doesn't sound bad.")

She smiled back at me and shrugged. ("Well, if you don't intend to sell it, that's fine. Do you know which one you want?")

I looked around and decided to go for whichever was the brightest. If I was going to take one of the crystals because they were somewhat practical, I might as well go for the brightest one right? I shifted back and forth doing my best to find one that was bright to both of my senses. Once I decided on the crystal I was going to choose I shifted back to my wolf form and picked up the old pickaxe. The wood handle was rough and covered in splinters. I would normally be more worried about it, but my healing will push the splinters right back out of me. This pickaxe wouldn't be worth keeping but grabbing a few crystals shouldn't be so bad.

The tiny outcropping of crystal I had chosen was a pretty royal blue. Despite the shards being smaller than all the ones nearby, they glowed the most intensely to my blindfold. To my more mundane eyes, the magical glow was beautiful and reminded me of Luna's pretty eyes. I smiled, maybe I could make her a necklace out of a piece. I wonder if these are safe to use as jewelry. I wouldn't want either of us to wear something radioactive.

Before hitting the crystal I turned to Luna. ("These things are safe to take with us right? I know that people mine them but they aren't going to give anyone any diseases right?") There were plenty of minerals that are toxic to you and glowing things aren't exactly the safest looking even if the source seems safer than something radioactive.

Luna conferred with Piper for a moment before turning back to me. ("Piper says that she's never heard of anyone getting illnesses from any of these crystals and they're frequently used as jewelry by affluent people in this city. Most of them have other useful properties in things like weapons and armor but none of us knows which are which. Anything made with any of this was above our means and we didn't get the opportunity to learn which of these is more valuable from the few times we've guarded people on this floor before,") she replied.

("Okay, great! I'm going to break some pieces of this one off then... Wait. I don't have a bag or anything, how am I even going to carry it?") I frowned and looked down at the glowing rock.

("How much are you planning on taking?") she asked.

I shrugged. ("I don't know, like a fist-sized chunk or something?")

("Oh, I'll ask Maxwell for one of the coin pouches we found. That should be enough to hold some of the crystals.")

I smiled. ("Thanks, Luna.")

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I turned and used the rusty pick to try and smash a piece off. The pick was pretty blunt and I was probably being a little clumsy so most of the crystal outcropping smashed into a thousand little pieces. I turned and shielded my face when the thing practically exploded on me. When I looked back there were crystals all over the place. Luckily the explosion wasn't enough to actually hurt me, even up close, but that was pretty scary.

("Helena! Are you okay!?")

I turned and waved with a sheepish smile on my face. ("I'm okay, don't really know my own strength. None of the pieces hit any of you did they?")

I did a quick scan of everyone, they seemed more amused than anything else.

("No, everyone seems to be alright...") Luna brought the bag over to me, I had half expected the crystals to crunch under her feet but her boots weren't strong enough to break them.

I shifted back to my human form and took the bag from her. I wanted to get a good look at the shards to see if I had damaged any of the magic in them. Unfortunately, I had. Most of the crystals didn't glow as brightly to my mana sight as they had before. Even the dim ones to my mana sight still glowed to my mundane sight though surprisingly. I guess whatever made these things more magical than the other crystals didn't have much to do with how brightly they glowed. Not proportionally anyway.

Looking over the broken pieces I found a few that I decided to keep. The first one was a large chunk a bit bigger than my human fist. It broke in such a way that gave it mostly clean facets. It could probably be cleaned up a little more but it looked nice, even better, it seemed to glow more brightly to my mana sight than the crystal outcropping in general had. I didn't know if it was the source or just a particular hot spot of the magic that made it glow, but either way, it seemed to be the best. I also gathered a few other smaller pieces. I only picked the ones that still had magic in them but since I had limited space I only chose the ones that didn't look too damaged. In addition to the fist-sized one, I had four crystals a bit smaller than my palm and six smaller ones, about the size of my fingernail. I would have liked to take more of the pretty glowing crystals but this was the most I could fit in the purse Maxwell and Luna had given me and I don't want to push my luck with them.

Once I finished with all of that, Maxwell started leading us forward again. They were pretty good-natured about me taking a silly detour like this. I wondered if the ones I had mined myself were valuable. I wouldn't be upset if they weren't. I mostly just chose them because they looked pretty, not because they were expensive. It would probably be worse for me if they were worth a lot, I was serious when I said wanted these as souvenirs and if they were too valuable I would have to consider selling them and I really didn't want to.

I kept looking at some of the other crystals we passed. Not many of the other crystals were as bright as the ones I collected but there were definitely others that were brighter. I didn't see any of the same color as the ones that I had taken but I could only see the color when I was in my wolf form and I had been swapping back and forth to take in all the sights. I was probably driving my friends crazy.

I suppressed a laugh but Luna noticed. She took a step closer and looked up at me in my wolf form. Any hints of fear that this form had previously given her were completely gone now, she looked up at me with a sweet smile even when I looked like this.

("What's so funny?") she asked. Her ears twitched and her tail lazily swung back and forth. Despite walking through a dangerous dungeon she looked relaxed and content. Not that this floor was proving that dangerous, none of these monsters were a threat to any of us.

I chuckled. ("I was just thinking that me shifting back and forth so much must be driving you guys nuts.")

She smiled and shrugged. ("I can't speak for the others but I don't mind it. I feel like you're just keeping an eye on us, to keep us safe. I'm not sure how different your two forms feel but I assume they have trade-offs.")

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and looked away. ("What would you say if I was only doing it to compare how pretty everything was in my wolf form verses through the blindfold?")

Luna's eyebrows rose and she turned away from me before she started to giggle. ("You're serious?")

I could tell she wasn't mad so I just laughed along with her. ("Yeah, I've never seen anything like this before. It's amazing.") I shifted back to my human form and gently took her hand. She normally wouldn't allow me to when walking through the dungeon but between my hearing and the relatively slow monsters on this floor, she didn't argue. As much as I felt like I was jinxing things to think it, this floor wasn't very dangerous.

Luna squeezed my hand in hers and we kept walking.

Eventually we found what we were looking for. The stairs up to the next level. I hadn't been told what the next floor was but it was obvious that we were setting up camp here for the night. I wonder if we would come across others coming and going through the stairs. Would the miners come across us while we were camping here?

("Luna, should we be worried about other people when camping next to the stairs like this?") I asked.

She shrugged. ("Yes and no. It's kind of an unofficial code not to attack other people near the stairs. Even from a pragmatic standpoint, spilling blood can attract monsters, and attracting monsters to the stairs of a dungeon is bad for everyone. That doesn't mean it never happens and it's why it's important to keep a watch but fighting near the stairs is usually not something you should worry about. It's a bigger concern if they follow you when you leave the stairs.")

I nodded. ("Makes sense.")

("...Helena?")

("Hm?") I turned to look back at her.

She was holding her bedroll and looking away with a blush on her face. ("Would it be alright if I slept next to you when we're not on watch?")

With a blush on my face, I nodded. Then I cleared my throat when I realized she was still looking away. ("Sure... I don't mind.")