Lillene
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Chapter 81 - An Apology or Two (Stage 3)
🕑 Added 2021-09-05 23:00:03 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
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The goat path led to a crevasse in the ice. The path led down one side and directly to another tunnel entrance. This tunnel seemed larger than the ones they’d explored at the entrance to the level, but it was even more regular. The sides were smooth, and looked partially melted.
Serenity was more than half convinced that the damaged ship at the beginning had been stage dressing, and was very much hoping that the tunnel walls were as well. They reminded him somewhat of a ‘lava worm’ tunnel he’d traveled through … somewhere. He could remember the tunnel and the eventual fight with the ‘worm,’ but not where it was or why he’d been there.
The ‘lava worm’ had been a larval stage of a Lava Devourer. He remembered running away from that very well indeed.
He’d killed many of them later, but the memory that stuck in his head was the first encounter, when he’d been far too low Tier to fight it.
This couldn’t be a lava worm. That thing would melt through the ice with its body, if the ice wasn’t cold enough to kill it. It might be something similar, though.
The tunnels didn’t have many branches, and when they did find a branch, one always seemed to end in a large oval room or a pile of rubble fairly quickly, so there was no question as to whether or not they were going the “right way” for the tunnels. The only question was if this was a set of tunnels they were “supposed” to be in or not. They weren’t expecting to find a hidden boss, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.
After an hour of wandering, the tunnel itself turned into one of the large oval rooms. At the back of the room, there was a pair of large, shaggy, white-furred creatures digging through some icy rubble at the bar end of the oval. Serenity thought they were polar bears until they turned to face the group.
They had faces that looked almost human. The faces were too large, oddly distorted, and a pale ice-blue, but still too human for comfort.
Someone - Serenity thought it might have been Moira - muttered “Wampa?”
“Yeti.” Serenity said with authority. “Not one of the nice variety either, I think.”
His assumption was proven correct moments later as one of the yeti picked up an irregular block of ice and threw it at him. Serenity moved out of the way and it smashed into small pieces against the wall.
Lancaster went to draw his sword, but Serenity stopped him. “Shoot them instead. We’re far enough away that we can avoid the ice, and I’d rather not get too close to them.” Serenity tapped his belt to retrieve his bow from storage, then loosed a lightning arrow at the Yeti who threw the ice block.
I should get some normal arrows for this thing. Fire arrows might work or they might be useless but it’d be interesting to see.
The lightning arrow seemed to do well. The yeti roared and picked up another ice block to throw at Serenity. As he dodged, he saw everyone else attacking.
Everyone hit except Rissa. She was better with the crossbow than she was with a gun, but that only meant she wasn’t a danger to her own side with the crossbow. Serenity reminded himself to talk to her about it; she was fairly accurate against a stationary target, but once she got into combat, she seemed to just barely miss a lot more than she should. Serenity was starting to wonder if there was a reason. Was she unhappy about hitting creatures, or was there more to it?
Serenity wasn’t able to fire again before the first yeti fell to the ground; avoiding the thrown ice while keeping the attention of both yetis was hard enough. Once it fell, the second yeti roared and charged the group.
It was a good thing Serenity wasn’t expecting an epic combat, because he didn’t get one. With everyone concentrating on the second yeti, it fell a bit over halfway to the group.
Rissa was even able to hit it more than once, once it started moving in a straight line.
The yeti had been farther away then Serenity had realized. Examining the yeti revealed that they were even larger than they’d looked. Each was over ten feet tall; the taller of the two was probably a little under twelve feet in height. Serenity was glad he’d made the call to turn it into a ranged fight; the yeti’s strength would have been much harder to handle if they’d also had reach on Lancaster and Serenity.
Both of the yeti had monster cores. They were tiny things, but they contained a fair bit of power.
The ice rubble the yeti had been examining partially blocked a smaller passage. It was plenty big enough for anyone in the group, but the yeti would not have fit. It continued for about ten feet, turned left, then continued for another six feet before opening into another small ice cave.
This ice cave contained a pedestal with a crystal floating above it and two chests. Each chest held a Cloak of Elemental Protection and 12 Etherium.
Lancaster told Echo to put the first cloak on. “I’m tired of seeing you shiver.”
The second was harder to distribute, but Moira pointed out that she’d gotten something on the last level and it was Rissa’s turn, so it went to Rissa.
Cloak of Elemental Protection
This cloak is woven from Inithari Spider Silk and provides exceptional temperature retention and water resistance without trapping moisture next to the body.
Enchantments: Temperature Moderation, Minor Elemental Protection
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It wasn’t until they left the dungeon that Serenity realized just how terrible he felt. He was hungry, yet all of the food he could see or smell was not at all appetizing, and he knew it would just make him ill.
He headed outside the camp to avoid the smells (and the people asking him how he was doing; apparently, others had noticed that he was thinner than he had been).
He wanted to be alone and watch the sun set and the stars come out. It was something he’d done with Rissa several times. He hoped there would be fireflies; Rissa always loved the fireflies.
Serenity was lost in his memories when he heard someone approach. He turned, only to find that it was Rissa.
For a moment, he saw the Rissa he’d known as Thomas. Then he noticed the wary look in her eyes, the crossbow slung over her shoulder, and the spear she carried. This wasn’t the same Rissa he’d known.
But then, he wasn’t Thomas, either.
Serenity didn’t say anything; he just watched as Rissa set down the spear. It was near them, within a moment’s reach of either him or her.
She then pulled her bedroll - the one that she’d used to crush spiders - out of her backpack, unrolled it, and laid it out like a blanket next to Serenity. “Join me?”
Serenity levered himself to his feet, then moved onto the blanket before sitting down again. Rissa sat down next to him on the bedroll, then leaned against him and put her arm around him. He had to move his wing before her arm could reach around his back, but that wasn’t a problem compared to being able to hold each other..
They sat like that, watching the sunset.
Neither said anything. They simply sat together watching the sky as the fireflies came out.
It was peaceful. Serenity felt something in him relax. Perhaps it wasn’t a lost cause. Perhaps it could all work out. He’d missed this, spending time together where neither of them had to say anything.
It was quite a while before Rissa spoke. “I’m sorry.” Her arm tightened around him. “It’s my fault.”
Serenity blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“Your - you had to - the vampires-” Rissa didn’t seem quite coherent. “It’s my fault you had to-to do what you did. To give up-that you can’t even eat-”
“You were in the back and you tripped,” Serenity disagreed. “I’m pretty sure it was a trap one of the vampires set. We all fell for it. We should have had either me or Lancaster in the back, but we didn’t. Even then, I’m not sure there would have been time for anything else. Really, it’s my fault. I was overconfident and approached this like a simple dungeon, not an overrun city. I know better than that, this is a Great Dungeon, not a normal one.”
“You don’t understand.” Rissa had withdrawn her arm from behind Serenity and had wrapped both arms around herself. She looked down, at her lap, not even looking at Serenity as she spoke. “I saw it. I saw it and didn’t tell you.”
There wasn’t any way to answer that without knowing more. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Rissa had told him Macho was coming. This would have been far easier to prepare for; why hadn’t she told him?
Rissa stared at her lap as she spoke. “First was when you came back from that tutorial all covered in the colors of Time. I saw the past but I also saw you return from the Tutorial without me. You were-you were crying.” She stopped and seemed to shake herself.
Serenity didn’t say anything. That wasn’t enough for her to think she’d seen it.
“Then a couple days later I saw my death. I saw myself on the floor in a dark room with my throat torn out.” Rissa stopped for a moment. “If I’d told you, maybe-”
“Did you see what killed you? Or how it happened?” Serenity still wasn’t sure why Rissa was so broken up. He wasn’t sure if knowing what she’d described would have changed anything at all.
“Uh … no? Just my body, laying there. Everything else was dark.” Rissa looked at Serenity’s face. “But-”
“You’re not to blame.” Serenity interrupted her. “Please tell me next time, but if that’s all you saw I don’t think it would have changed anything. We didn’t follow the rules. You shouldn’t have been in the back and we should have made sure we had a secure resting point before nightfall. Either of those could have changed everything.”
Serenity’s arm was still around Rissa’s shoulders, and he used it to pull her closer to him. “You can forgive yourself. It’s not your fault.” He smiled. “Plus, yeah, I’m hungry, but I have a quest that implies all I need to do is finish the Tutorial and I’ll get something to fix it. It’ll all turn out fine. And hey, I get to be a dragon. It’s not like it’s all bad.”
Rissa cautiously smiled back and snuggled against Serenity. “Thanks. I-I knew I should tell you. But I didn’t want it to be true and my visions always are. Always. Until you-”
Rissa’s voice faded until it squeaked at the end. She turned and threw herself across his lap, hugging him as she cried.
Serenity wasn’t sure exactly why she was crying, but he held her anyway. She’d clearly needed to get this out of her system, and he’d wait until she did.
Then they could watch the stars together. That would cheer Rissa up, and Serenity could use the quiet time as well.
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Author's Note: If they'd gone back into the first cave system after the penguins, they'd probably have run into the Ice Eater instead of the Ice Goats. It would've been a tougher battle, but with less chance of a sudden freezing plummet.
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Rissa has a problem with combat that she doesn't have with shooting targets.
Comments
I should probably add an explanation for that somewhere. It doesn't work but I'm not sure I said that anywhere. If they did, it would feed his aura (and help his Death Aspect) really really slowly, but it wouldn't feed Serenity. Also, anything in an attack his aura didn't absorb would actually hurt Serenity. I sort of cover that later when Serenity actually tries some stuff but it's not really mentioned yet... ....with that said, your "or something" is actually pretty close to the eventual solution... the trick is getting the Death-attuned mana to the right place. There's more on this in the next chapter, and the solution is ... two chapters after that, I think. Hopefully that will do it, but let me know if it doesn't.
ShadeByTheSea
you know there's other people with death affinity? why don't they just lob some death balls or something at him. I'm sure it wouldn't be the greatest, but it'd be better than nothing and good training for death magic.
