World Sphere - 201 - The Seventh Floor

Chapter 201: The Seventh Dungeon Floor

The unihorn goat was not as difficult as its imposing size made it appear. The dungeon had only upscaled the creature, making it stronger. Relik shattered its skull with a lazy swing of his mace as he dodged it. Hyperion flinched at the powerful strike, causing the head to cave in and crack loudly. I knelt over the goat and noticed the horn had not been damaged from the attack. “Bone steel or something similar,” Relik said, standing over me.

I sent my metal sense into the horn and agreed. There was a matrix of steel contained within the horn in a runic pattern. As long as the goat funneled aether into the horn it would be nearly indestructible. I used my tissue extraction spell on the large goat, extremely happy. “There are over three hundred pounds of meat and organs on this one goat. The aether crystal is orange and worth a good twenty gold.”

“A very profitable dungeon. Congratulations,” Hyperion added, excited for me and maybe for himself as well since he delved it regularly.

“Those were the only creatures on the floor. There are some mud slimes over there. Mostly harmless, but if you step on them, they turn to stone around your foot. They don’t eat flesh but will destroy your footwear. Avoid any spots that look wet.” Relik was already moving deeper into the floor. I thought the slimes were a clever ploy by the dungeon. If one of the mud slimes got your foot, your mobility would be hindered, allowing the blink bunnies and unihorn goats an easier target.

As Relik let off steam, smashing bunnies and goats, I wondered if the hippogriff challenge monster would be the same. The dungeon had used a black hippogriff on the first floor, so maybe it had changed. We reached the familiar hill where the hippogriff used to be. Relik paused, looking for a threat.

“Why haven’t we seen any signs of the shifter?” Hyperion asked.

“We did,” Relik replied. “It has been consuming its kills to try and fool us into thinking it is not here.” I had completely missed the signs, but Relik was the experienced delver. “There are the stairs down,” he pointed. “I think the shifter left the floor guardian and just descended. I don’t see any signs of a fight.”

I sent my lightning elemental forward to stir up the floor guardian. The lightning drake proceeded cautiously, alert for a threat. The entire earthen mound rippled and grew in size. “Lesser earth elemental.” Relik said, preparing.

“How is a fifty-foot elemental lesser?” Hyperion grumbled.

“It is just a tier three creature. It may be large but moves slowly, and as long as you don’t get engulfed by it, you can whittle it down.” Relik explained as my lightning elemental used its ranged lightning attack. An arm of the forming earth elemental was blown off is magnificent cloud of earth and grass. It only survived two more lightning attacks before the guardian crumbled completely. Hyperion was already moving toward the chest that had appeared and Relik looked a little upset about not getting a chance to fight.

Annoyingly, I had to sift through the dirt piles for the aether crystal. A fist-sized tier-two orange crystal. Over two hundred units and worth over two hundred gold. “That is a remarkable prize for a third floor,” Relik noted. I was more curious about what the chest might be. “The soil is also aether rich and infused with the earth affinity. It will be profitable to haul out of the dungeon.”

Hyperion already had the prizes from the chest. “A tier one dungeon essence, two dungeon potions, and six gold coins.” He handed the rewards to me, and I deciphered the runic script.

“The dungeon essence is an ice resistance ability. Both potions are moderate healing potions.” I handed the gold coins back to Hyperion. The gold coins had images of a fire giant on one side and the earth elemental on the other. That meant the final guardian was still likely a fire giant. If this reward chest regularly had dungeon healing potions, then this dungeon was getting more and more profitable. Dungeon potions were always more valuable than alchemy potions.

Relik seemed to be thinking and hadn’t moved to descend just yet. “Is there a problem?” I asked.

Relik slowly turned. “I just thought of another possibility. It seems outrageous but might be a possibility.” He paused, but it wasn’t for dramatic effect. “Maybe the shifter is not seeking refuge in the dungeon to replenish his aether but to escape.” My puzzled expression had him continue. “He may be trying to destroy the dungeon by removing its core.”

Hyperion scoffed, “The dungeon collapse would kill him too.”

Relik shook his head, “No. The walls of the dungeon inside the Ley line will fail, and he could escape to another nearby dungeon within the ley line, then exit that dungeon elsewhere in the Sphere.”

My jaw dropped, “That is possible?” Callem’s son had been trapped inside a dungeon when it was evolving and was never heard from again. I had never read anything about the mechanics of dungeon collapse, but I knew it was difficult to claim a dungeon’s core.

Relik didn’t look certain, “Perhaps. There is some basis to a theory there, and I have met one person who rode out a dungeon collapse before. We either should be rushing to catch the shifter before he finds the core, or continue at our pace and hope I am mistaken.”

Relik was leaving the decision to me. I looked at the stairs to the fourth level and the large pile of earth elemental remains. So far, the evolution had been ideally curated and well worth the investment. If we rushed, we might be taken by surprise by the shifter.

“We increase our pace, but don’t rush.” I finally stated. Relik nodded and switched from his mace to his favored massive sword on his back. He led the way to the next floor.

The old second floor was a massive orchard with sling-throwing kobolds and blink dogs. The apple trees had vinegar apples that we juiced for aether-infused apple cider vinegar. As a commodity, it was not very profitable.

Now, the apple trees were the size of oak trees, and the apples were out of easy reach. At first, I was unhappy with the change, but then I reconsidered. The trunks of the apple trees were almost four feet in diameter. I had another commodity from the dungeon if the tree lumber was viable in construction.

I sent a pair of my elementals to explore the giant orchard while I flew up to grab some of the apples. Flying down, I handed an apple to Relik and Hyperion. I took a bit out of mine, expecting a sour taste, but instead found it sweet. I also felt a wave of sleepiness wash over me. A quick cast of neutralize poison eliminated the effect. This was like a mini-packaged potion. My alchemist would have to make sure there were no detrimental effects, but there were thousands of apples in those trees.

My elementals didn’t have any trouble with the kobolds. The kobolds were more numerous now and had different coloring on their scales. Now, the kobolds came in faded copper, light blue, and burnt red. The copper kobolds had slings, the blue kobolds had wooden shields and spears, and the red kobolds had the fire dart spell. They were all tier-one creatures but operated intelligently in groups of six to ten. Of course, they were no match for the tier-five elementals.

The blink dogs had apparently been removed from the floor by the dungeon. The floor guardian was an owlbear in the past, and that is what we found in the center of the orchard. The corpse of the owlbear was twisted, barely recognizable. It looked larger than the previous iteration.

Hyperion raided the untouched reward chest, finding a tier-one spell book for the lightning dart spell, a runic shield, and dozens of silver coins. The runic shield was the prize in the chest as it slightly enhanced the wielder's speed when defending. The other prize was the owlbear’s aether crystal. A small tier-three crystal of about twenty units, worth about one hundred gold on the market and five times as valuable as the tier-two crystal the previous owlbear yielded.

We had been quick in the cleaning and followed an eager Relik down. Relik had been disappointed with the two new floors but seemed happy with the upgrades to the old floors. Of course, I was only assuming that as his body language was difficult to read.

Roaring, crashing waves sounded as we stepped onto the long beach. The surf was much more violent than it used to be on the second floor. The second floor used to be a long beach run with giant crabs and water elementals. Neither creature was overly difficult as long as you kept out of the water. The crabs would pull you in to down you, and the water elementals would also try to immobilize you in the water.

Now, waves towering over ten feet crashed hard, churning the sand and creating a foamy wash. This was the fourth floor, so we were expecting difficult challenges. As we moved down the beach, two large blue crabs scuttled out of the surf. Relik indicated he wanted to handle them. He walked with confidence as his sword came down with lightning speed on the leading crab. The shell resisted caving in but he hammered the crab into the sand, snapping all six legs off. The second crab soon met the same fate.

We joined Relik in examining the kills. Like goat horns, the chitinous shell had the same metallic matrix woven into it. “The shell is only slightly larger than a shield,” Hyperion commented.

“It probably wouldn’t take too much to connect the shell’s runic weave to an aether crystal. That would make some cheap shields for adventurers, but the runic pattern is only useful against physical damage. If Relik blade had been infused with aetheric magic, the shell would have shattered,” I said after studying the shells more in-depth.

“I don’t know. The blue coloring is a little gaudy, and the shape is odd,” Hyperion commented seriously, but I ignored him as I took the two shells after freeing them with tissue extraction. The aether crystal was not impressive, but it was still worth gold. Relik infused his sword on the next crab, easily cutting it in half.

Further down the beach, we encountered the improved water elementals. The water elementals merged with the sand to create a quicksand that was difficult to move on. Relik’s boots kept him on top of the sand, but Hyperion struggled. The water elementals moved through the sand, making it difficult to target them. I had the lightning elemental clear a path with its breath weapon to keep us moving. The water elementals were effortlessly destroyed, but we didn’t have time to find the aether crystal in the sand.

Relik pointed to the surf as we followed the lightning elemental down the long beach. “That foam is some type of slime. We don’t need to investigate at the moment, but it is encouraging that the dungeon has incorporated many seeded creatures.”

Our progress quickly reached the cove where the guardian of the floor was located. It used to be a monstrous crab, but now the remnants of an octopus lay scattered about. A stone bridge crossed the cove to a cave that would descend to the next level. The walkway was covered in tentacles, a sign of shifter’s passing. “I didn’t know the dungeon was seeded with an octopus,” I said as we walked cautiously across the bridge.

“I don’t think it was,” Relik said in a detached voice as he scanned the water depths on either side of us. “There were small fish and octopus in the waters before. Sometimes, we spent some time fishing the waters. The fish were quite tasty. The dungeon probably enhanced the smaller octopus.”

Hyperion was not happy. “Did the shifter take the chest this time? What about the aether crystal for the floor boss?” We ignored his complaints as we continued the pursuit. The cave on the opposite side echoed the softer waves of the cove. Relik hesitated outside before stepping in and descending the steps.

The sixth level of the progenitor dungeon was a long, well-lit ravine and matched the appearance of the old fourth level. Veins of blood marble lined the walls. Although the blood marble looked ominous, with throbbing red veins streaking the black marble, the stone was precious as it synergized with healing magics. It was difficult to quarry, but the low-lands thirsted for this unique marble. Even though the blocks were difficult to transport, Remy also touted the margins on the marble.

Cave alcoves dotted the ravine walls, which contained the floor’s creatures. I sent my elementals up to draw them out to see what we were dealing with. The dungeon didn’t have anything to deal with the flying elementals as streams of giant centipedes erupted from the caves. The insects were about six feet in length as they descended down the walls in mass toward our group. We all knew they had a mild paralytic, so no one needed to voice it.

A howl erupted from further down the chasm, and Relik noted, “There are a lot more centipedes than there used to be, and I guess the dungeon moved the blink dogs down here. I don’t see any signs of the blood vultures.”

“How did the shifter get through here unscathed?” Hyperion asked, annoyed, as he got ready to fight.

“There are plenty of shadows along the walls. It has the ability to move in them,” Relik noted as my elemental started the carnage. By the ease with which their breath weapon exploded the centipedes, I guessed they were just tier-one creatures, even if there were hundreds of them. “It is a wave attack,” Relik indicated the pack of twenty blink dogs rushing through the ravine to reach us with the centipedes.

It looked like we were finally going to have to fight, as the elementals couldn’t kill the wave quickly enough. I ordered the lightning elementals to land and added a third to serve as our forward screen. Relik was in front of us and twirling his massive sword. There was no sense of danger from the oncoming horde, and the shape of the ravine gave the three elementals a clear cone of destruction for their breath weapons against the blink dogs. The dogs did look larger and more fierce than they used to be.

I added my ranged attacks, lightning spear, and ice ball to pick off the edges, but Relik was not having any difficulty. Hyperion, who had been ready to help, suddenly yawned and leaned against the rocky ravine wall. He cursed, flicking a small slime off his shoulder. Soon, the rush was over, and all was quiet.

“It is going to be more difficult to quarry the marble,” was all Relik said as he walked forward. There were two more rushes in the ravine before we reached the end where the floor guardian resided. The small slimes on the wall were blood slimes, basically land leeches, but they blended in well with the blood marble and started to suck blood on contact with the skin.

The shifter had been unable to sneak past the floor guardian to the final floor. The crag worm’s body was broken, and its head caved in. The burrowing horror had been a tier-two creature prior to the dungeon evolution, but its enhanced size made me think it was at least tier-three now. Relik approached cautiously, while Hyperion was unsurprisingly looking for the reward chest.

The crag worm had a snake-like body with six powerful legs for burrowing. It could also camouflage its scales to match a rocky backdrop. I went to the cone-shaped head and used tissue extraction to get its aether crystal. It was a tier-three yellow crystal. It was small, but still, I would place its value around three hundred gold. Unfortunately, the meat and scales on the crag worm were useless. The burrowing claws were used to make farm plows, but that was the only harvestables.

Hyperion was beyond frustrated as he couldn’t find the reward chest anywhere. It could be under the crag worm, or maybe the shifter had finally taken it. Rewards in dungeons would generally scaled up at the sixth level. Relik waved me over and indicated some blood splatter in dirt, “It actually got injured by this beast.” He kneeled and pushed his finger into it. “Just over an hour old unless the shifter has different blood than ours.”

He looked up at me, knowing there was only one last dungeon level. While we had learned a lot from the delve and pursuit about the dungeon’s evolution, but that was secondary to the confrontation coming. “We should move quickly then.”

“I haven’t found the chest yet!” Hyperion yelled from the other side of the crag worm’s body.

“You can always come back with your delve team and kill it again,” I barked back.

“If he is after the dungeon’s core, it will only be accessible on the last level but hidden. The archway said the final floor guardian is still the fire giant, but it will be much stronger than the upper-end tier two creature it used to be.” Relik informed me. Hyperion had joined us, giving up on his search. He reminded us of the simple plan, “Keep it occupied with your elementals, and Hyperion, try to restrain it while I go in for a killing strike.”

We descended the stairs, coming out the seventh level of the dungeon. Glowing pools with steam coming out of them extended as far as the eye could see. Rocky paths wove between the apparent hot springs. “Well, this is different,” Relik stated with interest.

I had Relik pause a moment while I tried to connect to Sana with the adamantine ring, and found the connection strained but active. I could feel Kiara’s prescience, but the range was too extreme for her to communicate. “Sana, did you set a trap outside the dungeon entrance?”

Her voice was muffled in response, “We have. Have you found the shifter?”

“No, but we are on the seventh layer of the dungeon. He must be down here somewhere. Relik thinks it might be trying to remove the core to destroy the dungeon.”

A brief silence before Sana replied, “Don’t let him do that. I hope you took good notes on each of the floors as you descended. Are there…” she stopped talking. “Be careful, Storme. You have a lot of people counting on you.” I cut the connection to Sana and could hear echoes of Kiara’s protests but she was too far away to assert her will.

I brought up my number of elementals to three, my aether reserves at around 20%, even though I had tried to conserve as much as we descended. “How do we find the shifter?” I asked Relik, ready to end this.

Relik had been examining the landscape while I had talked with Sana. “We should head toward the final guardian,” he said, pointing. In the distance, through the hazy steam, I could see the tiny shadow of a large dome-like structure. The density of the steam from the pools seemed more intense in that direction as well.

I had never delved into the fifth floor before because I had been worried about the cat’s safety. But I knew this floor used to be just a rocky landscape; the steaming pools were new. They were also the only place where the monsters of this floor could hide. The question was, what lived in boiling hot water? 

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