Chapter 83

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The First Peak, The Eighth Floor, The Dungeon

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Aston shivered with his entire body as the end of this frozen mountain came into sight. It'd only been three days since he'd left the minotaur village with Wave, and he could say with certainty that he understood what his father meant. The world was more than the Tenth and the village there. At home, it was temperate and pleasant. The trek across the desert had been exhausting. It was the first time he'd ever experienced sweating, which he decided was simultaneously relief and annoyance. It cooled him down, but it also made his fur stick and itch in the most unpleasant way. The Creator had shaped Looms to live on the Ninth, and his carapace kept him at a comfortable temperature.

Wave tried to pass off that he was fine, but the glaze his eyes gained and the way his mouth hung open by the end of their crossing didn't look good. He'd drunk plenty of water after they'd seen the human, reasoning that he wouldn't need it to fight. He looked better after, so Aston worried less.

The Tenth was, as had been expected, the other temperature extreme. The sweat in his fur, which had been such a boon in the desert, betrayed him. It cooled rapidly and let the cold through what should have been insulating fur.

He was glad that the walk to the Third Peak Village was short. The snowbolds helped him clean the freezing sweat from his fur and gave him plenty of warm furs to sleep with over the night. He felt far better in the morning, and the village's high shaman gave him a cloak. She claimed that it'd been pulled from the frozen corpse of a guilder, a party member of the human on the Ninth.

He didn't particularly care where it came from. It was warm, and that was enough. They offered one to Looms, but the Scorpan refused it. He claimed that his carapace worked just as well for cold as heat. Aston wasn't sure about that, but he'd give Looms the cloak if it came to that.

They left early the following day. The manasun only just lightening the horizon. He'd let out a pleased grunt as the cloak kept the wind at bay. Even though it didn't completely cover him, having been made for a smaller being, its effect wrapped around him entirely. From the frog of his hooves to the tips of his horns.

The mountain climb was made far easier thanks to Wave's knowledge of the passages and shortcuts through the frozen rock. They briefly encountered the Air Spirit, who urged them to move quickly. Aston wasn't sure what she meant by, "He should get the chance to see the next stage. I owe him that much at least," but he knew the words weren't intended for him.

As the sun seemed to set the sky aflame with a riot of colors, the most spectacular sunset he'd ever seen, they approached the 'beginning' of the floor. Just inside the cave leading to the Seventh, an unusual pair waited.

A grey drake-kin stood tall, eyes accusing and cradling a monster core as large as his hammer's head. Beside the monster stood a human. Aston narrowed his eyes at the woman, and she shrunk back, half-hiding behind the drake-kin. He'd heard of the human living amongst the Drake-Kin. His eyes scanned her as they came closer. He wasn't sure what he expected. He'd never seen a human before. Pale skin, bushy, untamed hair. Shivering at the winds as they blew into the cave.

She looked... entirely unthreatening if Aston was honest with himself.

"Hello, Wave." The drake-kin greeted. Wave stopped in his tracks, and his eyes widened in surprise as the drake-kin continued. "Long time no see. You know, it's polite to keep in touch with your family. No Sprite messages, no house calls. A girl might think you'd forgotten her entirely." The words were teasing, but Aston could hear the hurt in her tone.

"Hue!" Wave exclaimed, his shock instantly turning to happiness. Aston blinked in surprise as the ordinarily serious and reserved being rushed forward to envelop the drake-kin, 'Hue,' in a tackle-hug. She barely handed the core off to the human in time as Wave crashed into her, and they fell to the stone floor. They immediately started squabbling, and Aston understood. He smiled at the reunited siblings as they argued and caught up, still rolling on the floor.

The human eyed the minotaur and scorpan warily as they approached at a more sedate pace. "This is for you, I guess," she said awkwardly, holding out the core with shaking arms. Aston accepted the core with care, then turned to face Looms. The scorpan nodded, and turned sideways. Aston opened the pouch hanging from the scorpan's shoulders and slid the core in. With the core secured, he turned back to the woman.

"Thank you, human," he grunted. The human language was strange, but he was capable of speaking it. She shuffled in place, and there was an awkward silence between them, broken only by the still squabbling siblings. As Aston opened his mouth to speak, the human beat him to the punch.

"What's the Tenth like?" She blurted, then immediately backtracked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. It was stupid of me to ask. I'm sorry." Aston touched the rambling human's shoulder with a kind smile. He had her measure.

"Peace, human. Nothing to be sorry about," he reassured her. Beside him, Looms nodded.

"The Creator has always taught that curiosity must be encouraged. How will you grow without asking questions?" Looms proselytized. The human shook her head, having taken an unconscious step back.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand the language Scorpans speak." She admitted. Looms made an understanding noise, and she flinched back.

Aston sighed. "He said that asking questions is okay. The Creator says we should never stop asking them. How will we learn otherwise?" She calmed and nodded. Looms clicked his mandibles at Aston, and the minotaur chuckled. Of course the scorpan would be annoyed he hadn't translated him word-for-word. The human eyed the scorpan warily.

"What's the Tenth like?" Aston repeated, bringing a hand to his chin as he caught the human's attention again. "It's home."

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The Desert, The Ninth Floor, The Dungeon

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Hallmark had to admit he may have been... generous... in his estimate. After the birds left, he took another sip from his quickly-emptying health potion and the last gulp of the wideawake potion. An hour into his walk, following the direction the birds had flown, a sandstorm came out of nowhere. He'd been so focused on maintaining his direction he hadn't kept an eye on his surroundings. It'd come from behind him, and he quickly found himself enveloped in the swirling sand. The pale light from the moon was snuffed, and he was left in darkness.

He could only grit his teeth as the sand stung his exposed skin. He did his best to keep moving straight, but the lack of any kind of light didn't help with that. He wished he'd had a lantern of some sort. Before this, he'd always had party members able to summon sprites to provide light. He found the practice distasteful and would never call one himself. He would happily take advantage of fools feeding the creatures, though.

Nonetheless, he pushed on. He wasn't sure how long he walked in the storm, But it had to have been at least four hours until the storm lightened to a dark-orange glow, and he could see a few feet around him. It being daytime didn't help with navigation within the storm whatsoever.

He'd been holding one arm up to his eyes, trying to shield them from the biting sand. His exposed skin was red and raw. Once tarnished and dull, his armor had been polished to an unexpected shine. The clothes under his armor were far more worn and tattered than before.

The light in the storm was the same shade of orange in all directions, not giving him any idea of where the false sun was in its journey across the fake sky.

He only knew when he'd reached his destination when the sand turned to stone and an edge appeared out of nothing. Hallmark jerked to a stop, inches from carelessly wandering over what could be a long drop. The sandstorm still raged, and he couldn't stand there forever. He turned left, following the edge closely but not standing nearby. After all, he didn't want to be blindsided by some monster and shoved over.

Eventually, the storm blew itself out, revealing what lay past the cliff.

A Canyon. A massive gash in the desert, cut by a fast-flowing river and filled with greenery. He could hear roars and shrieks as the whistling winds faded.

He peered over the edge, looking down at the cliff face below to judge its height. It was too much, he decided. Far higher than he could jump down from without breaking his legs, even with his foot healed now. He put a hand to his chest as that pain flared up again. He grit his teeth at the sharpness, face contorting into a grimace. When it passed, he let out a relieved sigh. That was only getting worse.

He looked left, then right, trying to identify a path down the cliffside. He couldn't see one and decided to keep walking the way he'd already been going. He'd find a way down eventually. After an hour, a chorus of familiar cries rose from the cliffside before him. He blinked and stumbled back from the edge as more than a dozen metallic-feathered birds rose from within the canyon. A rising wind drew his glance back to the desert, where five living twisters were quickly approaching.

Directly next to him, seven snakes the width of his thigh shook the sand as they unburrowed themselves. They hissed threateningly, hoods spread and poison visibly dripping from their exposed fangs, herding him toward the edge.

He had only one option.

Hallmark turned and leaped from the cliff's edge with as much force as he could, aiming for a coconut tree hanging over the river. He ignored the surprised skwarks of the birds as he briefly joined them in the air, focused entirely on his landing.

He reached out as he approached, then smacked into the flexible tree. He grunted in pain when he hit the bark. His arms clutched tightly around the trunk as his momentum transferred, bending it over the river. With an ominous crack and snap, the tree broke in half. As it fell into the river, Hallmark pushed off, splashing into the crystal-clear water.

He was able to get to the shore quickly, taking advantage of the relatively calmer waters in a nearby eddy. Once on the riverside, he bared his teeth at the circling kettle of vultures. It was only thanks to the glint of the sun on a feather that he dodged in time. More followed the first, and he retreated into the patch of trees nearby. There were a few thumps as feathers embedded themselves in the trunks and branches of the thick vegetation, but they quickly trailed off.

Hallmark almost cheered as he heard the birds' cries growing fainter.

Almost. Because instead, Hallmark stood quite still as a deep rumble emanated from the bushes behind him. He whirled in a smooth, practiced motion, drawing his sword and bringing it up to skewer the leaping beast as it lunged.

But no beast was lunging at him. Instead, he saw a ball of blinding light building within a maned creature superficially similar to the Tigers on the Third. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he threw himself sideways as the ball turned to a beam. He kept moving as the beam followed, trying to circle around and strike the beast from the side.

He didn't anticipate the three smaller, maneless beasts jumping from the bushes, standing to guard the first's flank, and unleashing less powerful beams. Hallmark let out a bark of laughter he would call an expression of pure joy as he rolled beneath their shorter-lived beams. Others would liken it to the unhinged laughter of the insane, as it never ended. In fact, it only grew when the larger beast's beam spluttered and died.

Both could be true, Hallmark reasoned, as he stood facing the quartet of golden-furred beasts. His laughter finally stopped, replaced with a grin that stretched ear-to-ear as he rushed the beasts, sword already swinging. He ignored the sharp pain in his chest making itself known once again as he activated the enchantments. The blade stopped dead as it hit the smaller monster's spine. He pulled it back, slicing through the monster's muscle, then thrust into its chest. Its heart was pierced, and he saw the light in its eyes die. Finally, something he could actually kill.

He leaped back as its companions made their displeasure known. They gave way to the larger as it approached, and Hallmark knew the look of challenge and revenge in its eyes.

This was going to be FUN.

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The Dungeon Core, The Eleventh Floor, The Dungeon

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It's our best chance at survival! Why can't you see that!? I raged at the insufferable soul formed of what I could only describe as distilled stupidity. After quietly listening to my plan, Instincts decided it was a trap and renewed the fighting immediately. After a brief struggle, I squeezed it into the tip again and used the momentary advantage to get a message to Wave. He was the nearest non-manabeing monster that could actually retrieve the core I needed.

Instincts quickly took advantage of my distraction, and a minute later, we were locked in a stalemate that had persisted for all these days. Now that I was paying attention, I could feel the sheer density of the mana around us. How much it'd grown from when this all began.

If I had to, I'd compare it to air and water. Once sparse but ever-present, it now filled every crevice and facet. The Core was almost full to bursting, and I knew that the accretion disk could hold many times the amount in the Core. In fact, I could feel the beginnings of that dangerous over-full feeling I'd experienced shortly after my 'rebirth.' I sent that feeling to Instincts.

Do you feel this?! This is our death. It's not someone trying to shatter us, but your stubbornness and paranoia will cause it! We need to bleed off some mana, at the very least!

The simple soul felt dismissive as if it considered ME more dangerous than that feeling. It was absurd. If it'd genuinely been with me since my reincarnation here, it had once felt this feeling too. I vividly remembered the certainty that if it continued, I'd DIE. I'd once attributed those feelings to Instincts, but now I wasn't so sure. Had it not felt those feelings? As the dominant soul at the time, had I somehow sheltered it? Or was it really just dismissing the danger?

I couldn't be sure either way and asking these questions did nothing to help my current situation.

The increased density of mana changed how we were using it. Where once it'd flowed like water against the other's, now it scraped and pushed like tectonic plates. The only reason I hadn't compared it to rock earlier was because there was still some shifting and give. The moment it reached that density, then passed that threshold... would be it. The End.

And I refused to die a second time. I blinked, surprised at my own thoughts. A Second Time? So I had died? I only remembered falling asleep, then coming to floating on the ocean in a gemstone. I imagined narrowing my eyes. Something was going on here. There was definitely more to my reincarnation than I'd previously thought.

My wavering attention cost me a little as my frontline faltered. Cursing, I shoved the miserable little soul's mana back. I let my attention be consumed with our conflict. There was no point theorizing at the moment. Either Wave would return with the core, and I would get this imbecilic soul out of my core, or we'd all die.

To that end, I kept the pressure up, forcing Instincts further and further to the side of the core. It'd take days to get it there, but I'd be ready by the time Wave arrived.

I'd get this thing out of MY body or die trying.

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