ALL NOVEL Advent – Chapter 49: Delving Deep
The monsters on the third floor had only increased in strength by a few levels, proving Aperio's assumption to be correct: it was just as boring here as it was on the two floors above. The tiny boost to her 'enemies' was nowhere near sufficient to offer a change to their abilities, nor was it able to let them survive a single swing from her sword or the most tentative of mental queries.
Out of her lack of enthusiasm came different methods of testing her opponents: she allowed them to attack her unopposed, to see what they would do. Their greatest threat seemed to be to her dress, as the most they ever managed to do was to make a few tears. This, however, lead to an unexpected discovery. The areas of her clothing that she had personally mended seemed to be less prone to tearing, seemingly sturdier than the normal cloth that comprised her outfit. Thinking on it, it made a certain amount of sense to her. She had essentially willed the dress back together with the intent of it not breaking again, so she should have expected this sort of result. The only thing stopping her from making herself an entire battle-ready outfit on the spot was a lack of knowledge on exactly how she had made the cloth sturdier. Is it only because it's my mana?
The thought led naturally to experiments she wanted to try and, for a brief moment, she considered toying with some magical sewing techniques. Then she discarded the notion. She had an important goal in sight right now, and she would not allow her boredom to get in the way of that. Not that that helps things get any more interesting along the way.
There was nothing between them and the next guardian but monsters that posed no challenge whatsoever. As they approached the door that barred their way into the area, Aperio sensed a duo of adventurers battling the monster within, as well as the by-now expected guild staff calmly stationed behind their booth.
A light kick sent the door flying off of its hinges and right into the unprepared monster, sending both flying into the wall and painting it in various shades of red. Taking what might have been a good fight from the two adventurers did not sit quite right with her, but Aperio did not want to wait until they had killed it on their own. That would have taken an eternity.
The pair, an Elf and a Human, took a step back as she went past, seemingly not wanting to confront her even though she had prematurely ended their fight. Instead, they turned to follow the pair in front of them with a respectful distance. Aperio could hear their whispers, the Elven woman seemingly recognising Ferio — or at least her attire — and telling her companion to leave them alone. It was just a door. The crucial detail missed by the adventurer, however, was that neither Aperio nor Ferio herself were warriors in the service of the Goddess of Life and Light, but the actual Goddess herself and her mother.
Aperio saw no reason to correct their assumption and simply presented the token to the slightly shocked guild official. Maybe I should not kick the doors? Like their colleagues before, they quickly checked the metal card before allowing them to go further inside.
She started to descend the stairs, ignoring the frantic discussion that had started between the guild official and the two adventurers. Another boring layer awaits, she mentally grumbled as she observed the floor below through her aura. Then, she spotted the entry to the next layer and gave up on the stairs. She brute-forced her way in the direction of the next guardian fight, walls be damned.
Ferio gave an amused laugh as her mother simply waltzed through the enchanted stone, completely ignoring the monsters and other adventurers they found with increasing frequency. Aperio herself used the time to try and convey her thoughts to the monsters and her daughter in a way that would not cause undue pain. Or kill people. Her attempts were less than fruitful, however. Another floor down and the monster still died at her attempts at communication.
I can't use less mana than this, she thought. It was true, the amount of mana she used to send her mental message was already so small that she barely registered it. A quick query directed at her daughter revealed that the amount was not even the problem, as it was already far lower than what Ferio herself used to convey her thoughts. Mortal creatures — And deities — seemingly could not handle the intense purity of her mana.
Soon, Aperio fell into a monotonous rhythm of half-hearted sword swings and intermittent attempt at mental communication with the resident monsters. The feeling of hostility the dungeon still projected her way had long been relegated to the back of her mind, the monsters it possessed not even worth the thought it took to kill them. Why is everything so weak?
The answer to that was as simple as looking at one of her titles, a thing she loathed to do. Aperio did not want to believe what the System told her the [Demiurge] title meant — even if a part of her knew it to be true. How could anything that draws its power from me be stronger than myself? She pushed the thought from her mind as she pierced the crystal heart of yet another floor guardian. The kill notifications had long stopped coming, the System itself seemingly not wanting to bother its creator with meaningless messages. Or it somehow figured out I did not want them.
Only the presence of her daughter and her comments on her apparently still rather proper sword technique stopped Aperio from simply trying to burn the dungeon in its entirety. It would be effortless to simply let her flames devour the crystal and its abominations, but a part of her loathed the idea of using the easy solution, a part she agreed with. Her primary goal for coming here might be the potential retrieval of her memories — Or a part of them at least — but along the way she also wanted to test her skill with the sword. Something the liberal use of magic would make impossible. Not that the monsters pose much of a challenge anyway.
Aperio stopped as she saw a small sign in front of the next flight of stairs leading down towards the next floor. It proclaimed the end of guild-run safety measures past this point and informed her that the next resupply point would be on the fiftieth floor. So they post people on the first, what, five or six floors and then stop?
The only reason she could see for that was that the guardians from here on out would be too strong for a staff member to handle on their own. That was at least what Aperio assumed the primary purpose of those people to be. A quick mental query to Ferio confirmed her assumption, they were indeed there to provide aid to the people fighting the floor guardian should they need it.
In the end it mattered little to the pair of Goddesses, for they would have no need for that specific service. Perhaps the upcoming monsters will actually require more than mindless sword-waving, then. The lack of guild-run booths did raise another question in Aperio's mind. What is the point of the token then? Did we just need them for the first couple of floors?
Sadly, Ferio had no answer for her question as she herself had not delved into this dungeon before, only having personally visited the one near the city that held her main temple. She simply knew what she had been told, and one of the bits of information that had been passed on was the requirement of the tokens. Maybe we need it for whatever is on the fiftieth floor. The thought of the apparently special layer did bring another question to the forefront of her mind.
Which one are we on right now?
Aperio had not kept track, simply heading straight through towards the next arena, quickly disposing of its guardian, and then heading down. A quick skim through her remarkably sharp memory revealed them to be on the twelfth floor, a lot further down than she had anticipated. Breaking through the walls really makes it quite fast. She had considered simply burrowing her way through the floors, but the dungeon did not go straight down and she also did not want to leave a hole that lead to floors with monsters that people could not reasonably be expected to kill on their own. Do the monsters even leave their own layer, though?
So far the individual monsters seemed to stick to the floor they originated on, though most of them being some form of Goblin muddied the waters a little. I hope the dungeon has something else besides these things… And something else besides endless stone halls. Aperio had, perhaps foolishly, assumed that a dungeon would produce more fantastical interiors. Where the idea had come from was something she did not know, as the only dungeon she had been in had been entirely compromised of small stone hallways and a very prison-like appearance.
With a slight shake of her head, she pushed the thoughts out of her mind and continued downwards. Her hopes of the monsters being significantly stronger on the next layer were quickly dashed as she dispatched a very familiar looking dog-like creature. At least they have more than Goblins now… but why is that the same kind of beast I encountered in the first dungeon? ...Do dungeons talk to each other?
It only took her a moment to relay her thought to her daughter, sadly still not completely painlessly. The answer she received was not the one she had hoped for but should have expected. Ferio did not know. She would not put it outside the scope of possibility — the dungeons could, after all, control their monsters over a vast distance, so why would communications between them be such a stretch? Could a dungeon take over another dungeon? How smart is a dungeon?
The one that tried to enslave her had not seemed intelligent, but then, she had also made short work of it. This one had adapted an air of hostility as soon as she had entered and the guardians seemed to be possessed by something else whenever she came close. Does it do that as a kind of reflex because it instinctively knows that I can take back my mana? The thought of the dungeon using her own mana against her made Aperio unconsciously quicken her pace and flare her wings ever so slightly. Just thinking about the fact felt all kinds of wrong.
Like an affront to all of creation.
Perhaps it is? Sooner or later she would have to come to terms with what she was. One thing at a time. With those thoughts she removed another door barring her way from its hinges and dispatched the overgrown Goblin that was about to squash a lone adventurer with its club. The man started a flood of thank you's and other words of praise, but Aperio simply waved him off and continued down the next flight of stairs, the thought about her very nature still swirling in her mind like an unruly storm.
The monotonous nature of their journey through the dungeon did not help take her mind off of things. In fact, the opposite was true. The further down they went the more practiced Aperio became with the sword, dispatching the monsters with even less effort. It would seem that Ferio had been right and a part of her still knew how to fight with a sword. Aperio herself did not truly know if any of the moves were right or wrong, simply letting instinct guide her hand. The only conscious effort she put into the act was controlling the strength she put into her grip; a few times already she had forgotten what she could do and deformed the hilt of the weapon. At least it's not broken yet.
Another thought surfaced in her mind after they had wandered through even more of the unchanging stone halls. Why do they not drop anything? Didn't Ferio say the dungeon produced things people could take with them? She disposed of yet another monster, but this time she stayed and watched. She saw the by now familiar sight of a soul returning to her Void, as the monster's corpse slowly dissolved into nothingness. But that was it; here was nothing else. Does it use the soul to make the reward?
She turned to walk in the direction of the next guardian but focused her attention towards her daughter and asked her a simple question. She felt awkward posing yet another question wordlessly, as all of her mana-based communication was surely taking its toll, but words were insufficient to convey what she wanted to ask. To describe how a soul felt was a task she felt no verbal language could accomplish.
All she wanted to know was if Ferio had felt something similar from the item that her priestess' group had obtained. Sadly, her daughter could not say for certain. All she knew was that the item was of magical nature; she had not spared it much thought in favour of investigating the splinters of the dungeon core. I will have to look at it myself then, should destroying the crystal not give us anything.
With a shake of her head, Aperio stepped through the doorway to face yet another weak guardian. She did not raise her sword, instead sending the monster a simple hello via a touch of magic. Just like all the other monsters she had tried it on, this one too died the moment her magic took hold. Over level one thousand and it still dies instantly… Perhaps the dungeon is killing them because it thinks I will take control?
Due to boredom and monotony, she had no mental energy left for anything more than a disappointed sigh as she stepped over the corpse. As she started to descend the next flight of stairs, something suddenly shifted in her aura. What? Her mind suddenly wide awake with curiosity, she quickened her pace, eager to see what had brought about this change.
She was forcefully slowed, however, by the presence of a thin veil at the bottom of the stairs. She could not tell if it was physical as well as magical, but it billowed and rippled as it kept her aura from proceeding past its barrier. Aperio, in consideration of the presence of adventurers on the lower levels, had not wanted to push past the obstacle without seeing it in person. Now that she fully knew what it was, she ripped the veil apart with a thought and let the information of her aura flood her mind.
Beyond the veil lay an expanse of green. Gusts of wind sent waves rolling through the tall grass, and gently shook the leaves on the trees dotting the open field. It was vastly different to anything they had seen previously, and if this was the next floor to travel through, then it would perhaps pose at least a little bit of a challenge. The notion was quickly discarded, however. Aperio could not spot a single monster in the lush and verdant area; the only thing of note was a flight of stairs dead center in her field of view.
She took a deep, calming breath of the fresh air that now flowed through the broken veil. So this is where you are supposed to resupply? Reaching out a little further, she could sense a small collection of stone houses out of view, near to the stairs, shrouded by some sort of magic in the same way that the village near the first dungeon had been. Much to her surprise, a person there — a Human in the guild uniform — stiffened, rapidly turning to face towards them. He had, clearly, noticed her unsubtle use of magic, and quickly scribbled down a note that he then pointed at.
Aperio tilted her head at the action before realisation dawned on her and she focused on the piece of paper. Before she started to read what the man had written, an idea formed in her mind. With a flex of her mental muscles, Aperio willed the space in front of her and her daughter to twist itself apart. A second thought did the same to the fabric of reality a few steps away from the man who turned in shock and started to yell.
The winged Goddess paid no mind to his words and stepped through her newly created portal.