Chapter 29: Ninth Floor Sweep

  “Keep pushing down this corridor!” Reingard shouted, his twin blades flashing orange just a little way up ahead of the main party, “Break right past the junction, and watch out for those wings!”

  Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of Blychert’s face, his breath slightly hampered amidst the seemingly perpetual fighting, not to mention all the moving around.

  The ninth floor of the Silver Vault was as difficult as he’d been expecting it to be. Such was the nature of any dungeon’s deeper floors, especially so for a B-rated dungeon. Even with what were essentially two full parties acting as one cohesive unit, totaling nine delvers strong, the endless stream of spawns taught a valuable lesson in volatility rating, which the last Bly checked was hovering around twenty-five percent. As a result, they were subject to a non-stop, full action sweep-and-clear effort.

  Frankly, it was no wonder the dungeon was closed until further notice.

  Stepping to his right, Bly channeled a modicum of mana, and the familiar warming sensation coalesced at the center of his palm. Shortly, he deployed several instances of the Icicle spell in quick succession. Blasts of cold, elemental magic radiated forth upwards into the air above, piercing the shadow of the cavernous halls until each found purchase in the dark, gangly bodies of those spawns fluttering above him.

  He'd never encountered a cloaked horror until this delve, supposing they were long for deepest, most wretched places. Several of them flung themselves through the air, each one roughly half the size of Blychert, like an imp, though covered in dark hair and possessing wings that resembled a cave bat. Even still, their eyes flashed red as the ice found their marks, and they proved little real threat from distance.

  It was mainly their overwhelming numbers that proved difficult, but so far the party was handling them well.

  “Good shots, there’s more inbound on the left flank. Can you cover that Trelen?” the concerted voice of the half-elven archer next to him said bluntly. Glancing to his left, Bly regarded the black-haired woman, Tyshili, for a moment, before nodding quickly in response.

  The flying spawns, both the zephyrs and the cloaked horrors, were among the more annoying to deal with, only such that their ability to avoid ground-based combat gave the battlefield a more vertical challenge than perhaps the party might have liked. Thankfully, between Bly, Tyshili, and Merlind, there wasn’t too much to worry about. Which was just the same, because the others certainly had their hands full with living armors, vault guardians, among other more dangerous spawns down here on the ninth floor.

  Blychert continued to pump ice spell after ice spell, doing his part to the best of his ability, all while wondering in the moment just how many spells he’d cast tonight alone?

  As a group, they must have been delving for the better part of four, or maybe even five hours by now. Surely? For most of that time, Bly had been focusing his magical efforts on buffing his damage-dealing counterparts, as well as chipping in with an assortment of elemental spells himself when needed. He wasn’t too worried about his mana pool, although it did occur to him that burning through resources on such a precarious delve was more than likely if they weren’t careful.

  Perhaps the others didn’t have to worry like he and Skaldan did, at least as far as resources went. Hell, the rest of the rotation party was packed full of seasoned, moderately high-leveled adventurers from the Glumgully Ghouls and from another party he wasn’t familiar with. Which meant that even though they were deep inside the dungeon, the goings were still probably fairly straightforward for the likes of them.

  There was no mistaking it, Bly and Skaldan were in the thick of it now.

  At the very least, Reingard and Merlind kept things simple enough as far as party tactics went, and it was clear from the get-go that the two of them had been adventuring for a while together, because their synergy was an almost unspoken kind. Reingard had an eye for more of the flashy style of combat, sort of like Bredic was, but he was still reserved in how much he was allowed to exhaust himself. Blychert was familiar with Merlind’s style, given their last misadventure together down in the dungeon, who deployed his earth magic brilliantly, keeping the battlefield as much in the party’s favor as possible while dishing out his own array of high-level damage.

  They had two healers in their ranks too: Maernera from the Ghouls, and a half-giant rune caster named Farobolg, who was here from another party. The other two were support casters, one from the Ghouls and one who was from Farobolg’s party as well. Each of them focused on a different area of buffing, debuffing, and field control, which altogether brought the rotation party together quite nicely.

  In many ways, this was nothing like the sixth floor had been during that dungeon anomaly, a few weeks ago. Sure, the ratings of many of the spawns they faced down here were a few degrees greater than Bly was used to dealing with, and there seemed to always be the constant threat of at least one ‘expert’ leveled spawn amongst them, but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and the team synergized well enough to make what might have been major problems for Bold Arrow seemingly insignificant.

  Flashes of light, of magic and class skills, coalesced amidst the gritty, white-washed halls of the Annex of Scions, the ninth floor of the dungeon. Long, expansive corridors stretched for an impossible length as they pushed towards the eighth floor, rising to a cavernous sort of darkness beyond which nothing could be seen at all.

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  Down here, Bly couldn’t help but notice how very small in comparison to everything else they really were.

  Was that why Cynric chose to hide out down here? Or was it something else?

  “On your left—” Merlind pushed his way past where Bly stood in the center of the crop of spellcasters, repositioning himself in such a way so as to both block an incoming unit of living armors with an Earth Wall spell, but to also force their movements into Reingard’s and Skaldan’s direction.

  Turning, Bly studied the crimson flashes of light emanating off the young prince’s forearms, themselves seemingly warped into claw-like devices imbued with what must have surely been blood magic, or at least a blood-based class skill. The prince gave a good account of himself, dashing around the battlefield as his “claws” cut through spawns with ease.

  Blychert wasn’t sure why, but he was just a little surprised to discover that Skaldan was holding his own.

  He didn’t believe the young prince was useless by any means—anyone with rare, blood-based skills like he possessed had to be skilled to some degree—but he didn’t actually expect Skaldan to show a high degree of martial prowess. Perhaps he was a little clumsy, though Bly was too at times, but it didn’t slow him down in any way. Sure, all of the teamwide buffs and debuffs also played a huge part, but Skaldan was still expected to do his part, and he was doing it well enough.

  In some ways, it motivated Bly to push himself even harder too. For his party’s sake.

  Bit by bit, corridor after corridor, hall after hall, winding passages, sweeping staircases, long dividing bridges, and oddly shaped plazas… the rotation party fought on for a long while thereafter. Blychert didn’t even realize that he had slipped into a state of mind that seemed only engaged in the task of clearing out spawns. So much so that all his idle thinking had fallen by the wayside completely.

  It was only when a lull in the spawning brought the glorious, and cacophonous sound of combat to an end, that Blychert realized it: he, was exhausted.

  “Let’s set up camp in this chamber over here, it’s got decent cover.” Merlind gestured, his voice echoing loudly against the sounds of people catching their breath, “We ought to take a rest before venturing up to the eighth floor, G. It’ll be another long grind to get to seven.”

  “Yeah… agreed.” Reingard nodded, sheathing his blades a moment later. Stepping back towards the main party, he gestured to the other caster from his party, “Darron, let’s get some defensive wards set up. Yeah? Merl, you can close off the entrance for us too, make it as tough as possible for these bastards.”

  “I’ll get started on meal preparations.” Tyshili replied, setting her bow aside, “Farobolg can assist with sleep magic, should anyone find themselves restless tonight.”

  “It is pretty late…” Reingard rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, “Everyone should try to get some shut eye as soon as possible. I’ll take first, Ty, if you can take second?”

  The half-elven archer nodded wordlessly.

  “Then it’s settled,” Reingard huffed, “We move on in six hours’ time. Good work today everyone.”

  As the party broke apart and prepared for downtime, Blychert stepped aside and approached Skaldan.

  “Hey, how’re you holding up.” he nudged the young prince a moment later.

  “Hm?” Skaldan glanced up at Blychert with a long, weary look in his eyes that spoke of a hard days’ worth of dungeon delving. Grinning belatedly, he chuckled, “Oh, never better! Some of these guys are insane, you know? I’m wiped out, but I feel like I hardly did anything…”

  “Yeah… you and me both.” Bly agreed, more than familiar with how the young prince was feeling. He’d had his fair share of feeling useless compared to the ones around him. However, he felt obliged to add, “You’re only level eight though. That skill you have? The one where that red energy turns into those massive claws and you cut through everything all crazy like—”

  “Blood gauntlets.” Skaldan supplied the answer.

  “Yeah, that one.” Bly snapped his finger in response, “Don’t sell yourself short, I saw you going berserk on everything. A hell of lot more than I’m doing on the backlines.”

  “No way.” Skaldan snorted, dismissing the confession altogether, “You think I’d be doing anything without all those crazy buffs you guys have going on me all the time? Plus, you’re all focusing down other spawns at the same time. I can barely get through one on my own in a reasonable amount of time. Not to mention all of that insane overhealing. I always thought Kagal was a good healer, but this Farobolg guy is no joke…”

  “I guess that’s why they’re here. Huh?” Blychert laughed amusingly, but sobered enough to say, “Let’s just agree that we’re both in good company.”

  The conversation went quiet for a moment, as Bly looked around the chamber at his fellow adventurers. He really was glad for the opportunity to have been involved with this operation. Even without all that stuff involving his own personal goals, this was the sort of thing he and Irvin used to dream about when they were younger. Being a part of something bigger than yourself, getting to see how crazy everything could get, fantasizing about all the ways they’d turn out to be the heroes at the end of the day…

  In that moment, Blychert felt a deep logging for the company of his friends. Annie, Irvin… if only they could see him now, hear about all the things he’d been up to since leaving home, would they still look at him the same way they did on that fateful day? The day his life had turned upside down. He was alone here, in some ways, and he deeply regretted the things he’d said to Bartolo earlier today. The one man who had every bit of faith in him, and here he was going against the very principles that man had tried to instill in him.

  Yet another line being drawn between Blychert and Trelen. How deep would that divide run in the end? Would the void between the two become so vast that neither one nor the other could be seen at the same time. Would he have to choose one while the other was lost to that void?

  Had he already made that choice?

  Bly’s gaze drifted towards Reingard and Merlind, who were still talking tactics but with a seemingly cheery overtone. Darron was hard at work crafting defensive wards, while Tyshili set a pot to boil. The warmth of the fire looked inviting, and Bly realized he was all but ready for a good night’s rest.

  “We should reach the seventh floor by tomorrow.” Blychert said in a hushed tone, turning to face the prince once more, “I’m not too sure what we should be looking for exactly, but we’d better be ready for anything.”

  Skaldan furrowed his brow amusedly, “When you say anything…?”

  “I mean it.” Bly nodded, “I know it’s a big risk, but should we have to go our own separate way from the group…”

  “You two!” Reingard shouted from across the chamber, “If you’re done colluding, get some grub down your gullets and get in your bedrolls. That’s an order.”

  Blychert rolled his eyes, and Skaldan merely chuckled. However, he offered Bly a more serious look that at least seemed to acknowledge what Blychert was trying to say. That alone, was good enough for Bly.

  Whatever happened tomorrow, and with any luck, they’d find their man. And maybe, just maybe, they’d learn the truth of what was really going on in this city.