A Soldier's Life - 340 -

Chapter 340:

“Is that what I think it is?” Raelia said wantingly.

“It is a shaping essence, but this one is mine,” I stated firmly. I had been intentionally balancing the scales in their favor just in case something like this came up.

“But you cannot cast spells. I could make much better use of it,” she tried to lock her aquamarine eyes on mine pleadingly.

It usually worked, but not this time. I produced the lesser fire essence I had been saving, “Consolation prize,” I held it out to her. The minor fire essence roiled in my open palm. Raelia’s lips pursed as she decided on a reply.

Maveith’s deep voice echoed behind me, “Raelia, Eryk wants to cast spells one day, too.” Raelia didn’t know what my aether shaping attribute was; other than that, it was abysmal. Raelia rolled her eyes as if saying that would never happen, but she folded her small hand around the fire affinity and walked away disappointed.

I didn’t hesitate, consuming the apex essence. My internal awareness of my aether spiked instantly as the essence raced through my body. I briefly got a crystal-clear picture of my aether core, and it did not look pretty. Its appearance looked like an oblong sphere with tumors growing on it. Before I could inspect it closer, the essence was exhausted, and my clarity ended. I had definitely utilized the majority of the essence but not its entirety.

“Fish for a few hours, and we will return to rest in the safe room,” I announced. I noticed Konstantin had studied me, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. It was euphoric when I consumed apex essences, and the effects lasted longer for me than others.

“I will harvest the manticores,” Maveith said, pulling his runic skinning knife.

“No, I want to save space for the golden figs, Maveith.” He looked a little devastated, so I compromised. “You are capable of carrying a lot yourself, big man.” He brightened and continued toward the nearest one.

Maveith worked on the male’s wings, crafting two flaps that rolled together. He then used his knife to retrieve the manticore’s pouch. I didn’t understand why it was crucial to harvest it each time. While the manticore’s wings would remain intact, Maveith convinced me the sac was small enough not to take up much space, and he didn’t have the materials to treat them in the dungeon. I had a feeling that I would be leaving the dungeon with a lot of manticore pouches.

I gathered some fresh tea leaves from the bushes, bundling them tightly to save space. Konstantin only caught three fish before I decided it was time to head to the safe room. Surprisingly, only two fish yielded minor essences, which went to Konstantin and Raelia. The aetheric smoke for the third had seemed thick enough, but failed to coalesce. It was like something had disrupted the process—probably the dungeon, which was a concern I didn’t share in the open.

Konstantin has descaled and cut fillets to cook, and I decided it was time to go. We hesitated in the jungle room as the corpses of the cats were gone. “How long has it been, Maveith?” Concern in my voice.

“Just over half a day,” he replied, alarmed. Once again, the dungeon was not following the rules. We should have had an entire day before the room reset.

The other problem we had was that we couldn’t locate the cats in the thick foliage. Eventually, I risked it and stepped into the room first, leading with the black spear. Nothing attacked me. I motioned to the others, and we edged around the room's perimeter to enter the passage to the safe room. “I don’t like not understanding the dungeon mechanics,” I said, aggrieved.

“Mechanics?” Maveith questioned the unfamiliar word before parsing out my meaning without explaining it.

As Maveith prepared the fish, we discussed our next steps. “The manticore fight was not easy, and one mistake could have cost one of us our lives,” I said.

“The cat room as well. That shadow hunter is a dangerous foe,” Konstantin contributed. “The easiest creatures are the mountain goats if we can break their charge,” he nodded to me in understanding. “All we need is a match for the bugs.” We were uncertain if the dungeon could understand us, so we were trying to keep it from knowing our true purpose was the manticores and its eventual destruction. Although the latter may be a question better posed to the Eternis Council. If my assumption was correct and those golden figs could be used as a base for aether restorative potions, then this dungeon could be of astronomical value to their people.

“Are we leaving then?” Maveith asked, following the conversation. All eyes turned to me as if I was the presumed leader.

Castile would need between 30 and 90 apex essences to restore her damaged channels. If it took 10 major essences to equal one apex essence’s channel healing ability, we could be here for a very long time, risking our lives. Moreover, Gilda and Maveith’s family would eventually begin to worry if we were gone for more than a month. “Not for a while. Let’s heal Baldo and see if we can find the reward chest in the maze chamber. We were just one goat short of completing the room.”

The white fish tasted slightly buttery, with a flaky texture and cartilage. I could imagine it being fantastic deep-fried in a batter. I made a mental note to store some fillets next time we cleared the room.

Baldo’s wails of pain soon echoed in the safe room as Raelia administered the healing potion, which he made unnecessarily complicated. The wing popped, and I think it might have been dislocated rather than broken. Baldo was soon confused about why he was bellowing as he tested his arm. He immediately thanked his savior by aggressively pushing Raelia against the wall with his head. “Stop, Baldo. Or I will need a healing potion, too.” He understood her body language and sat obediently. She gave him the hand sign to rest, and he curled up at her feet. He was still digesting the goat livers, so at least he wasn’t hungry.

Konstantin reminded me of the bad news. “We only have seven good arrows between us,” he indicated to Maveith.

“We can make our own from the manticore quills,” Maveith said. He took one of the metallic spikes from his bundle. “Normally, the barbs are cut and angled for just the arrowhead. The hollow head causes heavy bleeding. Even if removed, it leaves a large bleeding puncture. They can be used as arrows by nesting two and notching one end.” Maveith gave a toothy smile at Konstantin, “They would be short enough for your bow, but none will likely be big enough for mine.”

“Yes, goliath, you like everything big,” Konstantin muttered at Maveith’s joke.

Maveith spent some time showing how to handle the metallic quills. The manticore poison denatured quickly in the air, but they still heated the metallic tubes to make sure no lingering poison remained. The quills were of different diameters and tapered slightly over the length, and you needed to find two that could be nested together to get a suitable length. The glue used for fletchings held the shafts together. Of all the quills Maveith had collected and were in my dimensional space, they constructed twenty-three arrows for Konstantin and two for Maveith’s longer draw.

We headed back to the goat room, and from our vantage point over the maze, we could see that the golden figs had repopulated. This time, the culling of the goats took a little longer, as Raelia tried to pull smaller groups rather than have them rush us all at once. We wasted some time, as the goats remained at the base of the climb, expiring. Some would be dead too long to obtain an essence. Still, it was safer, and we wouldn’t be losing much.

It took two hours of short flights before just three stubborn goats remained in the maze. Raelia landed, and we descended as a group. “There were sixteen goats this time,” Raelia stated for everyone. The dungeon had altered a room again.

As Maveith harvested the horns and I used the collector, Konstantin offered some speculation. “Maybe the dungeon is cheating because we are cheating.”

“It still changed the manticore room. The female was new, and there were only four of us,” I said, dismissing his conjecture.

“Yes, but all of us actually never entered the dungeon properly. Maybe if we all left and only four of us entered, it would be more favorable for our delve.” We all looked at Konstantin. It made a strange kind of sense, sort of like a dungeon reset.

“It will not hurt to retry,” I said in agreement.

I divided the eight major coordination essences among us equally. I kept the two extra minor essences, and three of the goats yielded nothing. Raelia and Baldo quickly led us to the three goats residing in the maze, and Baldo was awarded all three of those essences for his work. He started to get really sleepy from all the goat livers and essences he had consumed, so, with Raelia’s permission, he joined Navek and Ginger after the last goat was harvested.

The group was excited as we headed toward the center of the maze and the fig tree. If our assumption was correct, there would be a reward chest present, and we were not disappointed. A much larger ornate chest resided under the branches laden with the yellow spheres. I pulsed earth speak as we approached, not finding any changes. The fruit was slightly smaller, which was expected from our experiences in the Shimmering Labyrinth.

Everyone was intent on the chest as we huddled around it. I carefully opened it to find a massive black steel helm with sculpted ram horns curling on the side. The face of the helm was that of a goat and, due to the flat black color, looked a little demonic to me. I handed it to Konstantin, who found it fairly heavy. He turned it in his hands. “Looks to be a runic script on the interior, and it is too large for me. Padding can be added to make it fit.” He handed it to Maveith, who was about to try it on, but I stopped him.

“It might fit you, but let’s wait until we know what it does. What if it is cursed, and you can never remove it again? How would you eat?”

“That would be a terrible curse,” Maveith agreed, handing it back to me. I studied the tiny runic script under the light of a glowstone before sending it to my space. We divided up the silver coins and harvested the golden figs together on a tarp that I tied the corners on. It was a smaller harvest in both quantity and volume than just over a day ago. The dungeon needed time to recover.

This time, the caterpillar room went much more smoothly. Raelia and I entered together, while the others hung back far. The explosion was less intense, and I noticed some water dripping from the recesses in the ceiling. The dungeon was adapting to our methods, and in time, this room would become more challenging if we couldn’t flash-burn the web-netting. At least there were still only twenty-three caterpillar husks. Maveith was deciding on the two that looked the tastiest while I harvested the essences. Once again, the collector struggled like it had with the fish. I only received eighteen lesser nature essences this time, splitting them with Konstantin.

The reward chest yielded a coil of silk rope. It was only as thick as my finger but was extremely difficult to cut, even with Maveith’s runic skinning knife, and there had to be over one hundred feet here. I didn’t get any aetheric feedback from the cordage, so I doubted it was an artifact. Still, having a strong, light rope was useful. I stored it for the group as we made our way to the entrance chamber.

While the others made to cook their caterpillar feast, I tried moving blocks of air through the dungeon entrance with my space, returning with small blocks of stone to dump in the blood caterpillar room. It was working as it got easier to breathe in the small chamber. After a few trips, I recruited Maveith to use his stone shaping to reinforce the walls and ceiling. Hopefully, this would prevent the cave tunnel from collapsing further.

Everyone rested a day before we all gathered outside the dungeon. The idea was to let the dungeon completely replenish all the rooms before we exited and entered together. I had excavated about five feet, making it not as tight of a fit for the four of us. The ceiling and walls were now a solid block of stone thanks to Maveith’s efforts. Our prospects of exiting via this passage were significantly improved and would only take some time on Maveith’s and my part. “Should we wait another day before entering?” Raelia asked.

“There is not enough breathable air to wait that long,” I replied. Let's see if this works,” I said, leading the group back into the dungeon.

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