<~> CHAPTER 68 - HELENA

I was still tired when I woke up but the first thing to hit me was the worry that Luna hadn't come back yet. I jerked up and looked around only to find Luna sitting next to me smiling.

("Are you okay, Helena?") she asked.

I rubbed the gunk out of my eyes and took a deep breath. "I was worried about you. You weren't here when I got back. Piper said she would wake me..." I looked over at Piper who had rolled over fast asleep now.

("I was the last to arrive but Piper was much more fatigued by her trip through this floor than I was... She told me that you wanted her to wake you but I thought it was better to let both of you sleep. But that's not important right now. Helena, we need to talk about the last floor. Did anything strange happen near the end?")

I looked down at my lap and felt my chest tighten up at the question. "I fought a monster that looked like my dad... And, Oh! After I ate it, I transformed into a frost salamander!"

Luna frowned at my response, her usual interest in my shifting wasn't there at all.

("You ate it? And then what happened?") she urged seriously.

I stared at her for a moment, a little confused by her behavior. "Nothing. After I killed the remaining monsters I walked through a few more corridors and ended up here."

("Did the floor change for you? After you killed it?") she asked.

"It did... after I ate it the walls suddenly turned white again and almost blinded me when the lights came back on. I was exhausted after the fight though, I didn't notice anything else. Why? Did something happen?"

Luna scratched her ear and looked off to the side in thought for a moment before replying, ("The floor changed. I was in the middle of fighting something when it suddenly died and the walls turned white for me too. That isn't what normally happens, at least for me. After I fight that monster, I'm forced to walk through a burning building. This time, the monster I was fighting fell over and I had to navigate through the white-walled maze instead.")

"Do you... think I broke the dungeon floor?"

Luna's eyes went wide and she suddenly looked around as if spooked by my words. When nothing happened she focused back on me. ("Careful! Don't talk like that, the dungeon might take offense!")

I switched to talking with the rings. ("Seriously though, did I do something wrong? Should I not have eaten that thing?")

Luna pursed her lips. ("Most people have to kill things on that floor... I don't think it's because you killed the monster, I think it's because you ate its heart. Maybe you did something more significant to it than we realized.")

("Should I try not to do that anymore? I don't know if I could stop myself...")

("No,") Luna replied while shaking her head. ("Even if you could stop yourself, I don't think it would be wise for you to neglect such a strong source of improvement. I'm just thinking that... maybe you killed whatever made the lost halls so horrible for good. We'll have to investigate a little once everyone wakes up, see if you permanently killed it. This could really be a huge deal.")

("Did I do something bad without knowing it?")

Luna scrunched her eyebrows. ("...Yes and no. The lost halls have always been a huge roadblock for the city. Few people are willing to go through that floor more than once, and many are not even willing to give that floor a try at all. It's one of the more deadly floors of this dungeon despite its relatively low difficulty because it uses your bad memories against you like a weapon. Many people aren't willing to go through that, they know whatever they're haunted by will paralyze them too much for the risk to be worth it,")

("So if this roadblock is gone...")

("Yes, the groups of adventurers crowded on the first five floors suddenly won't have to worry about the treacherous lost halls and burning expensive guiding rods to get through as quickly as possible. The city will suddenly get more access to better materials... but the prices of those materials on the market will eventually decrease and make this city less profitable for us. We will have a little bit of time before that happens, but it might not be worth staying in Fallow anymore. We'll have to ask Maxwell about this...") Luna explained.

("So, you need to investigate to make sure that it's worth staying in this town?") I asked.

Luna shrugged. ("Partially. Turning in valuable information like this also pays well. Especially something like this. They'll need to send people to investigate, but we'll get paid if they can confirm it.")

("So either way, it's worth checking out,") I said.

Luna nodded. ("Yes.")

I sighed and scratched the back of my head. ("What do we do if the floor stays like this? Are you going to go back to Ironcastle?")

Luna frowned and looked down at the floor. ("We may have to... You'll come with us, right?")

I turned to face her fully and balked at the implication. ("What? Of course I will. I don't have any connection to this place other than you guys. If you need to go back to Ironcastle then I'm going too. This place is a prison, why would I want to stay here?")

Luna chuckled before leaning against me. ("Good... I just wanted to make sure.")

"Will it take long to reach the surface?" I asked out loud.

("No, the first five floors of the dungeon are smaller than most of the ones we've gone through and they're crawling with other people. There's a decent chance we won't run into any monsters at all on the way up. It'll take a day at most to make it back to the top from here.") Luna yawned and slumped against me a bit more. She's the only one who hasn't slept since finishing this floor.

"Get some rest, Luna. I'll keep watch for you," I told her while rubbing her shoulder.

She looked up at me with a sleepy smile. ("That sounds like a good plan. Stay in your human form, people may come through here while we're resting. Only wake us if they seem like they want to pick a fight. Wake me up when the others get up, I can stand a little less sleep for the floors ahead.")

"Okay. Get some sleep," I said as she got comfortable with her head on my lap.

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***

Several hours later Maxwell woke up with a start and looked around in confusion. His sudden jump woke up Piper up as well. She put a hand on his shoulder and he calmed down before he stood up and started going through his bag.

"Are you awake?" Piper asked me quietly.

I chuckled in reply. "I was wondering if the blindfold would make you think I was asleep."

She looked down at Luna. "How long has she been asleep?"

I don't know the words for how they keep time, don't know if they even have them. "A while, probably long enough to continue. She said the remaining floors shouldn't be an issue. I don't want to wake her unless we're getting ready to leave though."

Piper frowned and looked over at the door back into the maze we had come through. "One of us will have to check out the previous floor though... I assume Luna explained what happened. How many guiding rods do you have left?"

"She did, yeah. I have two left. I didn't use a second one after confirming the first was close enough to my whiskers," I replied.

"Did the two of you figure out what might have caused it?" she asked.

"I ate something's heart and then the walls turned white for me too. Luna thinks I might have killed... the monster that makes the floor like that for good," I said struggling with my words.

Piper frowned and looked over at Aria. "Aria can't be the one to check. The floor changed for her and it was much worse this time, she needs time to recover. She wouldn't be able to handle it again so soon." She looked over at Maxwell and lowered her voice. "Can't be Maxwell... just trust me."

"I could go..." I suggested.

Piper thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "No, things are too confusing around you as it is. For all we know it'll just be weird for you, it has to be one of us to check... If the floor is broken then it might not teleport us at all and it'll take only a little while to check. If whatever happened is temporary then whoever checks will get lost and have to find their way back with the guiding rods. It'll have to be either me or Luna..."

I looked down at the sleeping foxgirl resting her head on my lap. "Do you think she'll handle it okay? My floor was quite... rough."

"I think Luna has the easiest time with it actually..."

"So you're saying that the floor isn't easy for you either?" I asked.

She met my gaze and just stared at me for a moment. "No, it isn't. I don't want to talk about it."

I sighed. "Fine. When are we planning on doing this?"

"Doing what?" Maxwell suddenly asked after he finished whatever he was doing in his pack.

Piper looked at him for a long moment. "Luna said that something happened to the last floor. She thinks Helena might have broken it."

Maxwell's eyebrows rose. "You're sure?"

"No, that's why we need to confirm it," Piper replied.

I scratched the back of my head. "Luna said that we might need to leave town, things might not be worth it for you anymore if the lost halls are easier for people to cross."

"Leave Fallow?" Piper said with trepidation. I was able to pick up the name of the town now, I had only heard it through the rings up until now.

Maxwell's face scrunched up in thought. "Yes... the prices of things after the sixth floor will go down in .... Might depend on what it is though, things like crystal mining might be able to be made up for in more frequent trips."

Price? Value? Not sure about the missing word this time. I was able to pick up the word for mining though. I think I'm nearly fluent now, I just need to increase my vocabulary. It's become a lot easier to talk in this language, I've been using it exclusively for a few weeks now.

Piper sighed and leaned against the wall. "The Ironcastle dungeon was even more annoying though."

"I agree..." Maxwell said.

Piper looked at the door again with a frown. "I should probably go. Give Luna some more time to rest. At least everyone will still be here when I get back if the dungeon is still normal." She turned to me. "Hand over those guiding rods. Three should be plenty."

"I have one left too," Maxwell said as the two of us handed them over to her.

Piper nodded. "Four should be more than enough. Hopefully, I won't even need one... Or maybe hopefully not. I'm not sure if I'd prefer to leave Fallow for Ironcastle."

She shrugged took a deep breath and walked through the door, quietly shutting it behind herself. Maxwell and I stared at the door silently for a while with only the sounds of Aria and Luna's relaxed breathing. When I finally pried my eyes off the door I looked over at Aria. She was curled into a ball on the floor still. Piper hadn't said much about it, but it seemed like the poor catgirl had it rough.

The door to the rest of the dungeon floor opened back up and Piper walked through. "Yeah... there's something wrong with the floor now. Even after walking for a while, the dungeon never moved me. There are no monsters and the floor didn't change at all on the way back either. The floor seems entirely still now... I also feel like if the dungeon was upset about it, wouldn't it have lashed out at us by now? If we did break the floor, the dungeon seems okay with it..."

Maxwell sighed. "It's been half a day while we slept, if it was going to go back to normal you would think it would have done so by now... Even if this means we have to leave Fallow for a more .... dungeon, it's hard for me to feel anything but relief that I won't have to go through that floor again."

There was a quiet pause before Piper responded with her own sigh. "I agree."

"Well, at least the .... for this .... should be good. I'm excited to see how much money we make from this trip," Maxwell said.

"Wanna .... this will be our most .... trip ever?" Piper said with a smile.

"Oh, it will be, no doubt about that. The better .... would be if it'll beat the old .... by two times or three times."

I was able to guess what they were talking about even if I didn't recognize all the words they were using, but I wasn't all that interested in making wagers with them either. I gently roused Luna awake. I was ready to get out of here. We're so close to the end of the dungeon now.