RD 2 Ch 27

Chapter 27

Nyx slithered out of the chamber, casting a few looks over her shoulder at Bran.

He was completely engrossed in the chamber, and it felt odd that it was like she suddenly didn’t exist.

She held the talisman close in one of her snakes, glad he remembered and cared enough to want to keep her safe. But he’d barely looked at her as he’d handed it over.

Her tail… snake half? She still wasn’t set on what to call it. Either way, moving was getting easier. The flexing of the larger scales on the bottom to grip and pull stopped becoming something she had to consciously think about, and she stopped trying to walk throughout the day.

Moving around and avoiding the steamy pit, she moved on to the other chamber she’d noticed in the swim across. This chamber steadily went up, away from the center of the mountain like the one Bran was left in.

She moved along, her mind continuing to wander back to Simone.

The mirror had been a little fuzzy, but she had clearly been a beauty. A very pure woman; it seemed she was a nun.

Was Bran religious? That question made her feel like she barely knew the man suddenly. She had clung to him for a few hours today, and they talked mostly about the instance and fighting.

Nyx couldn't help but bite her thumb. She really needed to do a better job of getting to know Bran.

The passage she was moving through occupied her mind for a moment. It was rougher stone, and there weren’t really steps. She had to use her long, powerful tail to push herself up some of the small ledges.

There was no more jumping for her, but she could coil her tail for support and raise herself up fairly high.

Maybe one day she’d be coordinated enough to strike out quickly from that position.

Her mind flitted back to Bran as it often did. She couldn’t get his confident smile out of her mind.

He was really charming. The way his eyes always seemed to smolder with a hint of danger and when something happened, and then he would go from the dark smolder to a blazing bonfire in an instant.

She held her cheeks and did a little squeal while her snakes danced concerningly around her. He had two other girlfriends, and she was completely crushing on him. She had to fan her face to try and calm the blushing down before she returned.

Slow down, girl, she coached herself. Bran is probably picky. He kicked Katie to the curb, literally, and she’d been adoring and was a stunner. Nyx didn’t want to show too much and scare him away.

If he wanted to play with the drawings on the walls, she had to accept that. It clearly was a new obsession, even if she wanted to be that obsession.

Just the thought of him had the snake holding the talisman flow over so she could see the blood-marked piece of paper. Her hair really was good at picking up her wants and needs to perform. It wasn’t so much like they were entirely under her control but rather took her general thoughts and state of mind to react.

If she wanted them to attack, they did, but how they attacked wasn’t really being controlled by her.

Bran could probably explain it better.

Finally, the dark passage ended in a dimly lit room.

Nyx’s mind stopped thinking about Bran for a second as she started looking around the room. Her snakes weren’t detecting anything dangerous, and there were no clear markings on the wall.

The room was rather bare, but there was a large divot filled with grasses and leaves that might serve as a bed. A table had a few objects, and there was a pile of glittering gold at the end of the bed.

The monster was a dragon. Perhaps it slept with a few choice pieces of gold next to it for comfort? Who knew how dragons worked?

Instead, Nyx went to the table and picked up the bucket, looking inside at the mixture with a frown. It was blood. No, not blood?

Bran would know. She put it in the spatial ring and moved on to the two rings on the table.

[Spatial Ring S]

There were two of them! Jackpot. She and Bran could have matching rings.

She giggled to herself before remembering to look inside the rings. Bran would probably just see them as tools. Simone had flashed an actual engagement ring during that conversation.

Nyx slid the ring onto her finger and admired it. The S Rank ring was probably more valuable than Simone’s. She fiddled with it on her finger, deciding if she liked it or not.

She shook her head, once again remembering to look inside! She needed to focus.

***

“Bran!” Nyx came hurrying back into the room.

I hadn’t been sure how long she’d been gone; trying to make heads or tails of this design had been filling my head plenty. “One moment, Nyx.”

“Bran, there are designs for lots of these inscriptions in here.” One of Nyx’s snakes foisted a spatial ring in front of my face.

“Designs?” My curiosity was piqued, and I snatched the ring, realizing it was an S rank ring as I started to filter through it. Wow, the leech was a hoarder. The contents of the ring were completely disorganized.

“There was another ring, but I didn’t see any designs in it. The thing was mostly gold and gems.” Nyx offered the other ring.

I waved my hand. “Keep it. You found these. Both rings are yours unless you want otherwise.”

“You keep one.” Nyx’s voice was a little odd. “After all, you’ve done so much. I just scrounged around for it.”

“Thank you then. S Rank spatial rings are quite valuable.” I didn’t refuse a second time. “Are the items in the ring system gold and jewels?”

“No?” Nyx hesitated.

“Is there a rank to them?” I helped her out.

“Oh. No. No rank,” she said quickly. “Still feels like I’m walking away with a fortune while I give you a bunch of papers.”

“Meh.” I shrugged. “It isn’t system gold. I’d probably ask to cut that in half. System gold can be used to buy stats in your menu, and outside the instance, a single system gold sells for ten thousand,” I explained.

There was silence next to me.

I turned to see Nyx’s eyes growing wide.

“That’s a lot of money we collected today.”

“Yup. Which is why we are going to let the cyclops grow stronger and drop more gold before we go kill them again. The system is fair in that regard,” I told her.

“You seem very confident in your ability to keep paralyzing the monsters.” Her tone made it clear the comment was at least partially a question.

“That’s based on my spirit, which is my highest stat by far. It is also why Galen couldn’t even scratch me. He’s a spirit-based attacker, and my soul is very well protected.” I found what I was looking for and pulled out a dozen sheets of paper, pasting them on the ground around me.

It was starting to all make sense. The papers were of the individual inscriptions before the leech layered them.

“Alright. This was incredibly helpful. Give me another ten minutes, and I think I can wrap up. We’ll sleep in here and head down in the morning?”

“S-sounds good,” Nyx stuttered. “There’s another chamber that seems to be for sleeping, in case these lights will bother you.”

“I can sleep just about anywhere,” I answered distractedly and started getting to work.

The reason that the current inscriptions had all failed was that the leech had bound one of these to himself with blood.

However, I now had the keys to how he had created all of them.

Looking around, I understood where the correct spot should be and peered in the cracks to find the part I was looking for before summoning a Blood Blade and pricking the tip of my finger. I stuck it in the six-inch-deep gouges in the wall and carefully retraced the designated inscription.

“Is the level going to go back down after you do that?” Nyx asked.

“Nope. Well, not yet. I will have a measure of control. We’re going to farm this one, and then before we exit, I’m going to have it reset down to level one. By the time it regenerates for the next run, it should be suppressed again, and higher levels should be unable to enter.” I chuckled darkly.

That type of control also meant that I’d be able to raise the level on my own whenever I wanted. This instance would be my personal farming spot if I wanted.

The plan of coming to the Clan and turning it into a resource generator for me was already well underway.

I finished with a flourish and smiled as the system window popped up with a few options. I set a timer for it to start decreasing levels after I completed the instance. “For the record, please tell no one that I’ve done this.”

“Of course,” Nyx hurriedly answered. “You can count on me.”

“I know I can or I wouldn’t have brought you along.” Flashing her a smile, I went back to work, making sure that everything was set up correctly.

“Right. Right. Give me the ring you keep your bed stuff in, and I’ll set it up.” She held out her hand, and I gave it to her, still working on the inscription and double-checking to see if there were any other functions I might find useful. “It’s ready,” Nyx called into the tunnel what felt like only moments later.

I sighed, having trouble tearing my eyes away from all the inscriptions.

But I knew my body needed sleep.

I got to the room to find a pile of sleeping bags and a small row of candles lit on a table, creating a certain mood. “Hmm?”

“That’s my bed.” Nyx laughed. “There’s a lot more of me now.” She pointed at her tail. “Yours is over there… unless.” She blushed so deeply that it went from the tips of her ears all the way down to the cut of her shirt.

“No. Just confused. I’ve been staring at inscriptions for far too long.” I found an easy excuse.

“Oh, the candles were all I could find for lighting. Pretty sure they won’t burn a stone table, right? They aren’t some super candles?”

“No, they’re just normal ones. The wax was for inscriptions if needed, but this works. I can always melt the wax in other ways.” I shrugged and climbed into my sleeping bag, finding it easy to drift off to dreams of reuniting with Simone and Gloria. In my dreams, I found myself wrapped up by both of them.

***

Hmm? I woke up, still feeling like I was wrapped up in my loves.

My arms were pinned to my side with a giant green serpent coiled around me.

“Nyx,” I said.

“Mmm.” She groaned in her sleep.

“Nyx!” I shouted.

“What?!” She went bolt upright. “Bran, what are you doing in my bed?”

“Are you sure this is your bed?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I was glad I hadn’t hurt her in reflex.

She glanced around, and for the first time, I did, too. “Yeah. It’s my bed. Yours is over there.”

I tongued my cheek for a moment. Well, wouldn’t you look at that? It was over there. “Apparently, I’m a much more mobile sleeper than I remember.”

“This was probably just some sort of snake instinct.” She carefully disentangled her coils from around me. “That’s it. You came over here, and I just coiled around for body heat or something.” Nyx was rapidly nodding to herself.

“Still confused about how I got over here. Either way, let's get going. I’m very awake now.” Waving my hand, I sucked up all the sleeping bags. “The stuff is all set. Now, we just have to get down the mountain.”

“Right, right.” Nyx slithered on ahead of me and shot through the water like she was trying to escape her embarrassment.

I moved through, checking the inscriptions on the room compared to the ones in the ring, fairly confident that this one was also planned out by the leech.

“So, remind me how we’re getting down?” she asked.

“Let's take a moment.” I shielded my eyes from the fake sun above and gazed out.

The island was more in the shape of a teardrop—or perhaps a blood drop might be more apt. The pointy end was where we started. I could see the two blood pools from our current height.

From up on top of the mountain, it was all rather organized. Two-thirds down the blood drop shape were forests on either side. Several small patches of torn-up trees marked areas where we’d fought.

A figure moved, catching my eyes. It was a giant of some sort. “That’s one boss.” I pointed at it and looked on the other side. There should be three on each side. We’d already defeated the boar.

“There.” Nyx pointed to where a tall tree shook. “I bet it’s down that way. That would be a rough mirror of where the birds are on the other side.”

I nodded. “That would put the last one…” I trailed off and took out a piece of paper, quickly making a sketch of the island and marking where we thought the bosses would be. I turned, wanting to look at the bottom of the blood drop.

A city of white stone pulled itself from the forest. It was actually beautiful. Purple figures moved among the stone. A lot of figures. The city rose up until there was a platform with three giant temples overlooking the ocean on the far side.

If the boss wasn’t there, I’d eat my talismans. Scribbling down on the paper a little more, I finished up. “Alright, hold on.” I grabbed Nyx around the waist as her tail whipped about to coil around me.

“Hold on!”

“That’s what I said,” chuckling at the second meaning. I had her secured to my side before I launched myself off the mountain to the side away from the Stamphilian birds. We’d go kill the mini-bosses on the other side and then the next boss over there before camping out and farming the birds for a few days.

We sailed through the air, her snakes flailing in the wind as I drew the B-ranked sword from my spatial ring.

There was enough horizontal momentum that we could easily clear the steep mountain, and once we were where I wanted, I activated the skill Drop.

Nyx screamed as we plummeted straight down, but I let out a laugh.