Book 2: Chapters 14: Return and Trade

  Alex breathed slow and deep.

  His knuckles were split again, small hairline cracks running down each one, calloused skin torn and scabbed, but he didn’t stop punching.

  Each strike against the thick wooden pillar sent a low hum of aether rippling through the camp. The pillar groaned, hairline fractures spiraling outward , up and down it’s length like spiderwebs. With every impact, a pulse of black-blue aether rolled down Alex’s arms, then sank into his torso like breath pulled inward and shot into the wooden structure like an artillery gun.

  Solo training, day seven. He wasn’t done, not even close.

  The [Condensing Spiral] technique still whirled around him, slow and wide now, dragging in ambient aether from every tree, rock, and breeze. It wasn’t his advanced [Three-Fold] gathering technique, he couldn’t manage to keep that one active while training. But he could manage with the basic version, as long as he didn’t move around too much.

  His new willpower and Adept Tier status was what made this particular breakthrough in his aether control possible. Along with the studying he had done with the scroll gifted by Sylvaris. He was starting to look at and feel aether a bit differently. He could feel it now not just as heat or pressure, but as layers. Like tones in a song. Harmonics.

  High-pitched pulses from the sky. Low rumbles in the earth. Mid-range flows drifting between plants and moss and birdsong. It wasn’t just energy anymore. It was music. Aether was music. And he was learning the rhythm. A beat that flowed through the world in the language of magic itself. It was primitive still, painfully slow in fact. He barely had a grasp on the ideas, and he was going by feeling and instinct far more than anything else, but it was progress at the very least.

  At some point he sat down, palms open, elbows on his knees. Sweat ran down his back. His thoughts buzzed with the lingering edges of aether. He reached inward, not just into his body, but his intuition. That strange, magical sixth sense that had first opened in the forest and never quite closed again.

  Something in the air shifted.

  A flash of a slender, one-eyed figure sparked behind his eyes. Not a real one, Obby’s hallucination body showing itself to him. “You’re new path of understanding aether is an interesting one. That Sylvaris had some wild ideas to say the least. There is lot’s we can do with this.”

  Enchantment ideas stirred inside Alex’ mind, partially his own, partially guided and informed by Obby’s influence and knowledge. Patterns for reinforcing tendons, embedding directional force into ligaments. Temporary overlays for reflex boosts. New vein-like channels crafted as specialized pathways for his aether energy. Artificial spell patterns etched into his tissues themselves. None of it he could do yet, not until his [Glyphcraft] skill ranked up again. But soon.

  He’d need to be ready.

  The crack of wood reverberated through the camp as he began to pick up his training once again , but then Alex felt it. A wave of aether far different than anything else in the area. And it came from underground.

  He stopped his training and began moving toward the tunnels at a brisk pace. Within a minute he could her voices echoing loudly down the tunnels. Not of alarm or fear, he heard laughter and relief.

  He picked up his pace, rounding a corner at nearly a sprint, and then he saw them, one by one, staggering into the cavern from the white aether doorway.

  Devon appeared first, somehow upright, even though his clothing looked like it had fought a bear. Kate was behind him, limping. Her sword was gone and her expression unreadable. Garret flopped to the ground with a dramatic groan.

  “We’re alive! Someone feed me and tell me I’m handsome!”

  Lance held Allie’s arm, and she was trying very hard to pretend she didn’t need it. Cole’s armor was cut, slashed and hanging by a few bare threads. Zach had a cut on his forehead. Peter looked like he hadn’t slept in two days.

  Tom-Tom was covered in soot and laughing to himself.

  Alex didn’t speak at first. He just looked them over. They were all intact. Each of them bloodied and bruised, but they were all in one piece. He exhaled slowly.

  “You look awful,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Allie muttered. “Missed your pep talks.”

  Zach dropped into a crouch beside the cavern wall, shaking his head. “How the hell did you do that solo?”

  Alex tilted his head. “You telling me you didn’t?”

  Devon raised a hand. “We almost died. Multiple times. I got paralyzed by a glyphs inside a gravity well for like thirty seconds.”

  “I fell through a trap floor into a bone pit,” Lance added. “There was no room at all in there. Killed four skeletons with a torch and my knees.”

  “I broke two knives and part of my sanity,” Allie said.

  Tom-Tom grinned. “I made friends with a bug. Then I ate him. Circle of life.”

  Peter rubbed his eyes. “Point is… that dungeon is hell.”

  Alex chuckled, “Yeah. I know.”

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  He waved them all to follow and got everyone topside, but under the sunlight. They sat down around the fire as someone lit it. Food was found, water passed around. It was slow and methodical, like the cleanup in the aftermath of a bad storm no one talked about, but everyone had survived.

  The fire crackled low as Devon sat alone, cross-legged at one edge of the group. He poked absently at a bit of burnt-charred wood with a twig. His usually animated face was extra pale, drawn and quiet.

  Cole noticed his gloomy stature. “You good?” he asked gently as he crouched down beside him.

  Devon didn’t answer right away. He sighed and rubbed his thumb along the scarred edge of one of his aether crystals.

  “I—I mean, I made it through. But I slowed everyone down.”

  Eric looked over, leaning his forearms across his knees. “Bullshit.”

  “No, seriously,” Devon said. “I nearly botched the pressure glyph in that second trap room. If Peter hadn’t hit me with his buff spell, we would’ve been soup. And I don’t hit hard like Lance or Zach. I barely landed a strike during the Grave-Tyrant fight. I just… I dunno.”

  He didn’t look up, but his words cracked on the ends. “I felt like a weak link.”

  For a few moments, no one said anything. Then Cole spoke. “You remember the runes on the second floor? That locked door puzzle with the cycling sigils?”

  Devon glanced up.

  “You were the only one who could crack it,” Cole said. “Not me, not Eric. Not even Kate with her dumb scary instincts.”

  “I did most of that,” Allie added softly from across the fire, then grinned. “But you definitely helped.” Holly slapped her shoulder, causing her to wince. Everyone chuckled softly at that.

  Eric nodded. “You’re not a front line bruiser, Dev. That’s not what you’re here for. You’re the one who gets us through the shit we can’t punch our way out of.”

  Devon’s face twitched into the barest of smiles. “Still… it’s hard. Watching everyone else take down monsters while I just tinker with floating math.”

  Cole leaned over and clapped him once on the back. “Yeah. And that floating math has saved our asses more times than I can count. You’re not a weak link.”

  “You’re a specialist,” Eric added. “And we need you.”

  Devon looked down, nodded once, then wiped his eyes behind his glasses.

  “…Thanks,” he muttered.

  Cole tossed him a small hunk of dried jerky. “Eat. Rebuild your brain cells. We’re all gonna need them.”

  Devon smiled. It wasn’t a wide or showy smile like Garret’s, but it was real.

  Things settled into a quiet contemplation for a while longer. Each person catching their breath and gathering their sanity back. Eventually though, they shared the loot.

  What they had gotten wasn’t much. It turned out they didn’t enter the Dungeon Shop together. Everyone’s points were tallied differently and they all had their own shop room, like an instanced area. So they weren’t exactly able to coordinate their purchases. Still, they had managed to get a few nice things from all their hard work.

  Some essence fragments, spells, a few enchanted items. Obby floated nearby in Alex’s vision, ivisible to everyone else, looking over the items that each person brought out to show. The little freak watched, nodding slowly.

  “Modest haul,” the rock spirit said. “Still alive, though. Grade: B-minus.”

  We actually want them all alive, Obby.

  “Really? I thought we were trying to cull the herd? I don’t understand your plans sometimes. How can you loot all their stuff if they are still alive?”

  Loot all their stuff? They’re my friends, remember. Even if they weren’t how the fuck would I loot their stuff if they died in the dungeon?

  “That’s what I was confused about. I thought it was a dumb plan. Can’t even get their loot.”

  Shut up.

  He focused back on the team, who had now started an impromptu swap meet. Everyone had items out in front of them and offered trades. I few items were already exchanging hands even as he watched.

  Eric caught his attention first. “Hey Alex, can you part with that [Hallow Palm Style] for a couple Essence Rotation Pills? They are better than those essence fragments apparently, but they don’t have any elemental attunement, should be perfect for you right?”

  “What, you can have the tome Eric, I got it for you guys anyway.” He pulled the leather bound book from his bracelet and held it out to him.

  Eric shook his head with a frown. “Nah. It won’t feel right to me. I can’t just take things from you, the essence fragment is one thing, but tomes, and resources too? No way. We are a team, so we trade.”

  Before Alex could stop him, Eric had taken the book from his hand leaving two small blue-white pills in his palm instead. Alex could only roll his eyes and slip the items into his bracelet. The pills really would be a help for him after all.

  “I picked up these boots on the cheap. Trade me that [Flowing Sword Style] tome and you can have them.” Garret chimed in next, holding up a pair of rather nice looking leather boots. They were made of some kind of black leather from a beast Alex didn’t recognize. What he did recognize though, was the red flames that Garret had already drawn on the sides.

  “Okay sure,” he said.

  Regret didn’t come when he slipped on the footwear, even with the glaring red graffiti. They fit rather snag and comfortable all things considered.

  Henry, Peter and Zach pooled together their own items to exchange for his tome on the [Piercing Spear Style], trading the tome for an enchanted vial of glyph ink, a set of minor grade aether crystals (just a step above the ones he ‘borrowed’ from the kobold mines) and something Peter said the System called a ‘Basic Essence Siphon’.

  Turned out the last item was at least somewhat useful. It was an enchanted metal plate similar to his Glyphcrafting Plate. Once set up, Alex could place his Aether Gem from his bracer on the item and it would slowly gather aether and fill the gem.

  But slowly was the real kicker here. His Adept Tier gem would probably be filled out if left to do its thing for a while week straight. So yeah, not really useful by itself, but Alex was certain he could find some use out of it. At least it filled the mortal grade aether gem over the course of a couple hours.

  After that exchange, he bowed out of the little swap meet to let everyone else get things they needed. The trading bonanza continued for another hour before conversation drifted to figuring out their next steps.

  Plans were made over the fire.

  Eric, Peter, and Cole talked about heading back to Vrung’s Quarry, hoping that the smiths in the village could help reforge damaged weapons or upgrade their new finds from the dungeon.

  Garret wanted to go, too, “for armor, and a maybe a potion that makes me berserk before the fight. Like a super boost.” He explained. Alex thought it was unlikely he’d find anything like that, but he appeared hopeful nontheless.

  Allie, Lance, and Zach were already placing their sights on the forest beyond the camp.

  “More beasts,” Allie said, tightening her gloves, “it will mean more experience, and more progress in our stats, and our mage cores.”

  Kate, Devon and Eric all agreed with this. Alex couldn’t place experience points in his mage core anymore, since it was shattered, but that was still an option for everyone else. Between experience points, cultivation, and essence fragments, everyone had their own plans for following Holly and Alex into the Adept Tier. Hunting was by far the most popular choice.

  Alex nodded. “I’ll join that group.”

  “You sure?” Lance asked. “You’re not done punching telephone poles and glowing yet?”

  “Done glowing,” Alex said. “But I could use a fight.” They both smiled at that. Neither was boasting, their smiles contained no ego, no swagger. Just mutual understanding.

  The camp settled as dusk rolled in.

  But out past the farthest edge of the clearing, where the woods grew darkest, something moved, watching. It stayed beyond the treeline, just out of view. Making no sound, and giving off no scent. But it held a presence.

  And it waited.