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Double-Blind CH137
🕑 Added 2022-08-05 21:50:13 +0000 UTCI was perched on the overhead rafter of what appeared to be a large, banquet style dining hall. Annoyed, I squinted at my scrawled notes. They were a byproduct of trying to cram preparation for the fifth floor in last night after practicing at the training grounds. Not surprising that they were sloppy, considering I could barely see straight by the time I got back to the room.
“So, for a bow, we’re thinking either light, water, or divine.”
Talia was sitting across from me, dubiously staring down at the hall below us.
“Talia?” I tried again.
“Divine would be best, but from what I understand, such things are rare. And I would not be surprised if the lithid has no weaknesses whatsoever.” Talia finally said. Then glanced back towards the floor. “As much as I understand the purpose of this, are we… sure she’s alright down there?”
I looked down. Sae was surrounded by goblins and, well, bits of goblins. Arms, legs, torsos were all scattered around the banquet hall. One of them jumped on her back and tried ineffectually to sink its teeth into her chitin shoulder. Sae snarled, grabbing it by the neck and slamming it shoulders down onto the nearby table. The goblin shrieked as Sae bashed her knee into its head, over and over. Two more were trying desperately to tear her off the third. In a howl of rage, Sae sunk her claws into its neck.
“Doing great Sae!” I called down.
Covered from head to toe in viscera, Sae spun and shouted. “Eat a bag of dicks!” Then flipped me the bird.
“Don’t forget to use your magic!”
“Fuck you!”
“See? She’s fine.” I went back to my notes.
“Matthias.” Talia admonished.
“Audrey’s down there helping.” Even as I spoke, Audrey had seized one of the larger goblins by its hands and legs, holding it steady while Sae—Jesus—did extremely violent things to it. “If it starts to go sideways, we’ll know immediately.”
“I wanted to be the one to help her.” Talia glowered.
I sighed. “It’s hard to know how she’ll respond to you. As far as she knows, you died. Discovering that you survived could throw her off balance while we’re in the dungeon.” This was about building Sae’s confidence back up. I’d been extremely careful with the first and second floors. When we’d entered the adaptive dungeon as a partied pair, the first floor had reset. But it wasn’t the simple puzzle from before. The first floor was absolutely littered with flowerfangs. Sae and I had worked together to clear it. I’d put it a decent effort at first, and when it was obvious she was holding her own and then some, I’d taken a back seat, saving my strength for the lithid fight later on. Much to my surprise and delight, the system had given Sae the lion’s share. Which meant she was absolutely raking in experience. “More importantly, there’s a visibility issue.”
“Visibility?” Talia asked.
“Don’t get me wrong. Audrey’s fantastic. But you’re my strongest, most reliable summon. Hence, I want to utilize your abilities as much as possible.” Talia perked up at the praise. I chewed my lip. “Unfortunately, if things keep going according to plan, it’s only going to get more difficult to do that.”
Understanding lit in Talia’s eyes. “That’s why you’ve limited my contact with others. Because the nefarious group you’re hunting already saw me.”
“And they’re not the only ones. Thankfully, we’ve mostly been careful, and the overseer kept you out of the recap footage. Hardly anyone knows you exist. Kinsley being the main exception. Still, you could easily be connected to Myrddin if the adventurer’s guild talk to Jake and the rest of region nine, though we hit them so fast and hard it’s possible your presence went over their heads.”
Talia mulled that over. “I see the issue. Our enemies could use me to connect Myrddin to you, while our allies could connect me to Myrddin. It is a complex position you are in.”
“Right. If they were coordinating, we’d be fucked.” I was momentarily distracted as a dismembered goblin head sailed through the air, tongue lolling out, face masked with surprise. “Thankfully, I can’t see the suits working with anyone. Spying, sure. Cooperating is far less likely.”
It was a problem I’d been running up against for a while and hadn’t worked out a solution. Dyeing Talia’s fur was a possibility—if she was amenable, which I doubted—but that wasn’t really viable if the suits stayed as quick on the uptake as they’d been so far.
”Scary!” Audrey’s voice popped into my mind.
I dropped the notebook and drew my bow immediately. The goblins had clustered together. Two larger variants—hobgoblins, unless I missed my guess, were crowding Sae with axes, attacking in tandem, while the smaller goblins took turns stabbing at her back. Another spindly looking goblin was rushing forward with a torch.
I’d tested <Probability Cascade> some earlier. While it was significantly more powerful than spiral, there were some limits that held it back. I couldn’t, for example, reach out towards one of the hobgoblins and give him a heart attack, or disable their lungs, or cause acute kidney failure. When I’d tried on previous targets—pale, almost translucent humanoids that lived in a large cave on the second floor—they experienced severe pain that seemed to fade after a short time, but it hadn’t killed them. Whatever I inflicted seemed limited to the surface or close to the surface—musculature and otherwise. I’d managed to take one down from a neutral standing position to writhing on the floor with a broken leg. But it had taken a significant portion of mana to do so, and considering the numbers, it wasn’t worth it.
Far better to use it on subjects in motion, queuing actions that could reasonably occur within a given timeframe.
And when it came to that? The results cost far less mana and spoke for themselves.
I started casting.
Sae shrunk back, holding both arms out in front of her with a grimace. One of the hobgoblins roared in bloodlust. Then all of a sudden, his hands went to his throat and his eyes bugged out as he choked on his own tongue.
Letting out a roar of her own, Sae drove her fist into the other hobgoblin’s armored head. I managed to pre-empt the hit, and hobgoblin shrieked, pirouetting in place from the hit, swinging blindly far to Sae’s right.
I wasn’t close enough to confirm, but if it worked as I suspected it had, the hobgoblin would be seeing double for the rest of its very short life.
That was probably enough, but I wanted to test the ability further. I double cast <Probability Cascade> on an arrow—the first to guide the arrow itself, the second an if-then for when it landed—and nocked it. Then, I exhaled and released the arrow. It shredded through a smaller goblin's temple. Its arms immediately went limp and its mouth hung open as it turned to its fellows and staggered to them for help, clinging desperately to whatever appendage was in reach as they frantically tried to shake it off.
When Sae dispatched the choking hobgoblin and advanced on the second, I returned to my notes.
“Your cruelty grows.” Talia observed.
Uncomfortable, I shrugged it off. “I’m being more creative. And they’re just goblins.”
“They will not always be.”
I let that hang, squinting at my chicken-scratched notes. From what Talia had already told me, in terms of physical strength, the lithid wasn’t much more powerful than an average human. What made it dangerous was the psychological attacks and foresight. It was capable of skimming thoughts both on the surface and drilling deeper down, confronting the target with their deepest fears via hallucinations and taunts.
The fact that our methods had several commonalities was not lost on me. Given that disquieting connection, I’d done my best to reverse engineer the methods I would use to take myself down if given the same tools.
The results were grim.
My family was a clear vector of attack. Friends too. Especially if it went after the unresolved cases like Nick and Jinny. Depending on how deep the rabbit hole went, there were numerous instances of despair and desperation in my history that it could call on.
But the real ringer was my father.
I could remember the burning soles of my barefoot feet as I made my way down the sidewalk towards the house his cruiser was parked next to. Seeing people crowded around on their cellphones. Then through the crowd, a door left wide open.
And that was where it stopped. Like a roll of film, sliced in half. Regardless of how much I replayed it.
Textbook repressed memory.
In reality, I’d seen the incident report. I knew what happened. My father made the house call, then died from multiple gunshot wounds. All six shots fired from a revolver over the span of ten seconds. Tragic, but realistically? Not the worst way to go. He was dead before he hit the ground.
His killer was on death row, last time I checked.
I’d made peace with it a long time ago.
However, knowing that and seeing it were two different things. And judging from the memory, I must have seen it. Walked through the door and found him, lying on the floor, bleeding, while some cracked up wife-beater waved a revolver around.
I forced myself to imagine it, along with a plethora of horrific permutations. Uncomfortable as it was, I had to be mentally prepared for the lithid to dig up that memory and throw it in my face.
“Would it help us, if I was able to alter my appearance?” Talia suddenly asked. I looked up to find my summon lost in her thoughts.
“Well… yes.” I answered cautiously. “Is that something you can do?”
Talia slid a paw down the wooden grain of the beam, tracing the grainline. “Not at this time. But I feel as if I am on the cusp of something. Stalled at the precipice of dominion.”
Now that she mentioned it, my summons did level with me. When I conveyed that thought, Talia shook her head. “I have experienced a minor increase in power each time you’ve leveled. This feels different. Like a coiled lash in my mind that I may direct, when it finally comes untethered”
It sounded similar to the threshold I’d crossed at level five, when I’d unlocked the conjuration variant of Ordinator.
“There are two possibilities I’ve been considering based on what happened during the transposition,” I finally said. “Either we find a way to alter your appearance, or I let you go.”
Surprise and hurt showed in Talia’s expression, and I immediately explained. “Not release you as a summon. Unless that’s what you want. Just, I’ve been thinking about that clash with the adventurer’s guild. You took the lux and started racing down the highway. It’s hazy, but from what I understand, you made it pretty far. There doesn’t seem to be a range limit. Or if there is, it’s significant.”
“I see. You’re considering me as a scout.” Talia cocked her head.
“This isn’t something I could offer Audrey. Much less the lithid, assuming it drops a core. They’re both a short leash situation. But you’re quick, intelligent, and you can take care of yourself. Assuming you operated at night, you could scout, look for dungeons, maybe even clear them yourself if they’re low enough level. Get in too deep and I could just resummon you. You’d have more freedom. Plenty of room to run.”
Talia broke eye-contact. “There is… considerable trust in your offer. I feel as if I have not earned it, with my actions. With the way that I’ve treated you.”
I snorted. “I don’t give two fucks about attitude. Just actions. How long did it take you to get those health potions open and down my throat while I was unconscious, bleeding out all over the van again?”
“Silence, whelp.” Talia rolled her eyes.
“Point is, it’s your decision. I want your help. But I’m aware that we didn’t get off on the best foot. You’ve earned some autonomy. Don’t waste that power on something you’d hate doing.”
“Maybe I shall use it to develop opposable thumbs.” Talia cocked an eyebrow in challenge.
I chuckled. “Not going to lie, that sounds low-key horrifying.”
<System Notification: Bond with Revenant Wolf, Talia, has increased to 5.>
There was a wet splat as a red dripping organ that looked very much like a liver bounced onto the rafter and splattered red all over my boot. I wrinkled my nose.
“Jesus Christ! Why?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Helpline. Did I get blood on you?” Sae asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
I peeked over the rafter and saw Sae staring straight back up at me, drenched from head to foot in viscera. If this was a Carrie cosplay competition, she would have nailed it.
“Uh. You missed one.” I pointed to a goblin that was crawling away with only its arms, dragging itself across the floor. Sae stalked towards it, catching up easily. Then summarily drop-kicked it into a wall. It hit with an audible hurk and crashed to the ground, utterly still.
“Our pack mate is an excellent huntress.” Talia nodded approvingly.
<Adaptive Dungeon, Third Floor has been cleared.>
<XP Reward: M>
<XP Reward reduced for lacking participation.>
<Your party is currently ranked 1st on the Leaderboard!>
“How was it?” Sae asked. Some of her fire had gone out after the last goblin died. Now, she mostly just looked tired.
I slid down the support beam and kicked off three-quarters of the way down, landing squarely on my feet on top of one of the long dining tables. “Do you even have to ask? Look around.”
Sae surveyed the bodies. “Yeah, we won. There were so fucking many of them, though. Guessing you had to pull plenty of strings for me with that ability.”
I blinked. “I lifted a finger exactly one time. When they finally started coordinating and backed you into a corner. And this dungeon is adaptive. It scales. You took out two-users worth of monsters almost entirely on your own.”
At a higher level, no less.
“Oh.” Sae perked up at that. “So you’re saying I’m better than you.”
“Pretty sure I said nothing of the sort.”
“It was implied.”
“Not on your life.”
“So full of yourself.” Sae sat down on a bench, swiping through an invisible menu. “Hit level nine. Can actually read this shit now that I’ve got the translation feat.” She glanced up at me, warily. “Might be good to stop soon. I’m dead on my feet.”
As much as I wanted her to lock down the augments as soon as possible, it was better that we played it safe. So far, this had been a positive experience. Empowering. And I knew from experience that this was when the dungeon stopped giving a single fuck about fairness. The increase in bullshit from the third floor to the fourth was significant. And if it was particularly harrowing, it could easily leave me too drained to accomplish my primary goal and unsettle Sae’s headspace.
“Yeah. Let’s call it. We’ll stop by the second floor, so you can rinse off in the cave’s mineral pool, then I’ll get Kinsley to door you out when we leave the dungeon.”
”If my service has been acceptable, may I ask for a reward?”Talia’s voice appeared in my head.
I inwardly groaned, guessing what was coming. ”What is it?”
”I understand your position. And how this may complicate things. But if what you are saying is correct, this may be the last opportunity. I wish to speak to our pack mate. To wish her well.”
It was hard why this was so important to my summon. Nevertheless, it was important to her. Whether it was due to pack mentality, imprinting, or whatever else. Which was why it killed me that I had to decline.
”Talia—“
“If I present myself like a spirit guide, as before, it will not jeopardize you.”
I cocked my head. That was a possibility I hadn’t considered. But I questioned whether it was as simple as Talia implied. Audrey had already been subject to some scrutiny, though Sae was willing to accept my very thin explanation that the summon was ranger class related. Considering the circumstances, she was already taking a lot in stride. And I knew from my experience with Kinsley that the trust only went so far, even if I’d effectively saved someone’s life.
But Talia had never asked me for anything. And Sae could probably use another win, even if it was a small one. And Talia was a decent enough actress. If she did this the way she intended? It was enough of a minor risk that I was willing to chance it.
”Fine.”
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