"I'm wondering how long the bubble can last," Mical said. "Arachne must be continuing to buy shirts. What is she even doing with them?"
"I hope the Council starts doing something about this," Elise said and tapped the patches in her shirt. "This is getting ridiculous."
"Sixth Amendment to the Law," Xavier said. "Can't treat delvers unequally."
"Sure, sure," Elise said.
I could sense another argument starting, so I asked Xavier, "What'd you finally get with your new spell slot?"
"Quicken Spell," Xavier said. "It's the safest choice at my level, build-wise."
"And cheap," Mical said.
"And cheap," Xavier confirmed. "It was on sale."
* * *
The Soulsmith was our last stop before the Public Entrance. Evidently we weren't the only ones who had this thought for there was a special on soulbinding clothing. I was more fascinated by the long board on the wall of bizarre things the guy refused to soulbind. Or that they were common enough that he had to make a list. (Trees? Really?)
But then it was my turn. "This will take one moment," he said and made a pattern with a wand, ending it by pressing it against my shirt.
Soulbound was indeed the word. I felt as if my very self extended into that shirt. Not that I could feel or see out of it, but... I mean, you call your hair part of you, right? It's about as close.
He spoke the next few words so quickly as if a rote repetition of a ritual. "Enjoy your item, please be warned it can no longer be equipped by anyone other than you. Have a nice day. Next!"
* * *
I thought that thirty green quest was over as I couldn't find it, but that was my mistake. They had moved it to a different section.
"Sheesh," Elise said. "Someone really cares about that heartstone. Three hundred green for a 3rd level search?"
"To be fair," Xavier said. "We don't care, except that they're paying us."
"No," Andy insisted. "Care. We do."
"It's unlikely we'll find whomever it is, to be honest," I said. "But let's at least try." I set the page down and pulled the lever.
Elise was right: the contract that plopped down contained an NDA.
Which I just realized is still in effect. One moment—I'll have to ask.
Chapter Eight:
The Third Floor
"Where to?" the Elevatarch asked us.
"Third floor, 58-CC," I said.
"A popular destination today," he said. The Elevator shuddered more quickly than it usually did. "Enjoy!"
He wasn't kidding. The moment we stepped out I heard a nearby scream. Then a handful of Spellflares burst in the distance.
* * *
"I'm starting to wonder if there are enough monsters down here to go 'round," I said, "considering how much fighting is going on." In the distance, someone cast Sonic Blast. It sounded and felt through the tiles beneath, like someone was tearing the Dungeon apart.
"Don't worry," Elise said. "The Dungeon compensates."
"That's never been proven," Xavier said.
"Not this again," Mical said.
"Doesn't matter, it's the case whether it's proven or not," Elise insisted.
"How do you know, then?" Xavier asked.
Elise didn't answer. Xavier frowned.
It was many monsters later—there were many of them—that Elise spoke again.
"Ever notice how friendly the Dungeon is?"
"What do you mean?" Mical asked. "It's perfectly lethal to everyone."
"No, it's just so nice down here," Elise said. "Think about it. You don't have to eat or drink or use the restroom down here. It's always just the right temperature. The only thing you'd have to worry about is sleep, if you stay too long. And the monsters, none of them are like humans. So you don't feel bad about killing them. They don't even leave blood; it dries up just for us."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Tengu Bushi, Goblins, Orcs..."
"Are humanoid," Elise said. "And look how evil or ugly they look. Name me one beautiful monster."
"Some of them look cool," Sampson said.
"Sure. And look at us. Don't you look yourself in the mirror in full gear and say 'This looks awesome'?"
"All the time," Sampson said. We laughed.
"So there," Elise said with satisfaction. "The Dungeon makes us feel awesome. All the more reason to go down."
"I don't see it," Xavier said. "It's just that way. I don't think it means anything."
"Then where did the Dungeon come from?" Elise asked with a sudden hardness in her voice.
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
I heard scurrying. One brown rat passed the corridor ahead—then another, then two more.
One turned and looked at us.
"Rat Horde!" I shouted, and they were on us.
One rat is bad enough, worse if it's a Giant Rat. These rats weren't giant, but there were just too many. Each time Sampson sliced one or Elise threw another dagger, two more were down the corridor. Four more appeared, then hundreds. They swarmed over top of each other chittering, a tide of small hateful animals.
And I found I couldn't speak, only scream.
"Get to a room!" Xavier shouted from a distance. "I'll fry them all!"
I had the presence of mind to run with them as they ran. Elise ran out of daggers and shouted some strange epithet. We ran harder, but the Horde was just as fast. I knew it was intelligent. The Horde thinned only to spread across corridors to surround us.
"Here!" Andy called out, bashing through a door with her pick. I have never been so glad to see a room without a chest—no chest, no monsters.
"To the back of the room!" Elise yelled. We retreated as the tide entered, a flood spreading across the floor. "Get as much of it in as we can."
Speechless, I watched in horror. Tile after tile was covered with rats. Xavier drew a large shape with flaming spirals. His Fireball exploded everywhere, frying rat after rat.
The surviving rats paused, gathered together, and fled out the shattered door.
* * *
"I hate rats," I said. "Well and truly. Sorry guys, I was just freaking out." I cast Minor Heal Party as if in apology.
"That was closer to death than I ever wanted to be," Elise said. "But where are we?"
"Somewhere in the same section," Mical said. "I don't remember crossing a section border."
"Wait," Xavier said, and took out the seekerstone. It flashed, if faintly. "Now what?"
We looked at each other. I thought for some time, and no one interrupted. "We have to," I said.
"We're not obligated to," Elise said. "Legally. Even if we did sign that contract, we haven't actually seen the heartstone—"
"But morally," I said, "would we rather someone wouldn't help us, if they could? We did sign the contract, and we did agree to do this."
"Go," Andy said. "Let's go."
"I'm still not—" Elise began.
The seekerstone flickered again. "No," I said. "We're going. We don't have time to argue this."
* * *
The Ogre wore the heartstone as a necklace, like a violet pendant on a chain.
"Are we going to rush it?" I asked.
"Best to stay ranged," Sampson said. "I'll be in front, but let's try to kite it."
"Shaft," Andy said suddenly.
"There's a shaft in the room," Elise said. "I see it. But it doesn't really matter."
"Discussion question," Xavier said. "If we're in danger, do we take the shaft? I mean, it would be the 4th Floor down there."
"We might live relatively longer," I said. "But it will be our last resort." Something felt wrong about the situation, but I couldn't put my finger on it. But hadn't I already pushed us into this?
The Ogre leered at us.
"On a count of three: One, two, three!"
We ran inside. Xavier fired two Force Bolts from his staff, and the second connected. The Ogre screamed a remarkably human scream. Then it was gone, replaced by a delver with a black and green aura.
Then his comrades burst in through the back. The next moment, the slayers were upon us.
Fighting other humans is far, far more terrifying than any kind of monster. I might have frozen in fear had we not already been in combat. Mical's momentary shock was fatal. A slayer impaled her. She screamed as she died.
Sampson charged the slayer who had been the Ogre. He promptly cut him in two. As Sampson's body fizzled away. Elise charged as well, ripped the heartstone's chain from the slayer's hand, and threw it to me. She died.
Xavier cast Wall of Ice behind us, blocking most the slayers from entering the room. Andy connected her pickaxe with a slayer's helmet. The pickaxe cracked. The slayer grabbed her and she screamed.
A mage sent a Fire Ray through the wall, melting it in a moment. The other slayers broke through.
I knew I had one chance. With one hand, I held the violet heartstone. With the other, I drew a Revive. Xavier recognized what I was doing and cast Quicken Spell. So did the slayer who held Andy, and he tackled Xavier mid spell. But our spells touched and merged. The number burst in my mind, 12%, as the heartstone exploded in my hands.
Everything was utterly black. I was frozen in place.
For an unending moment I thought that I had died, or I had somehow shattered the heartstone. But then I heard screams, one following another, with simultaneous, vast bursts of Experience. Then silence for a time, and the darkness released me.
Standing alone, amidst piles of fallen gear and heartstones, was a figure in black armor, with two wings as black as a crow's. One gauntleted hand held a black-tipped spear. Even if the paralysis had ended, I couldn't bear to move while it watched me. Around, the survivors of my party were equally shaken. The figure looked around for a moment, then removed the helmet.
Beneath was the blond-haired head of the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen.
"Party me?" she said.
It was a moment before I could take my eyes away from her long enough to mentally reach for her. Then she was with us. A 100th Black Archangel. I sensed her health was low—only in the millions out of trillions. She had a number of resistances I didn't recognize, to say nothing of the buffs. I drew Minor Heal Party. While Andy was no longer critical, it affected her only trivially.
I could sense a status effect on the Archangel: Lingering Grasp of Death. Unique to those who were revived with complications, it was one of the worst long-lasting effects. It was always accompanied by serious stat loss. Of course, the success chance had been only 12%, but I felt so... awful. Rather than think about it, I cast more healing spells. It didn't help.
"Sorry about that," she said after I finished, watching me with emerald eyes. Her voice had a musical lilt to it, as if every word was a song. "I didn't know which of you were the slayers, so I just froze everyone and killed anyone with a Chaotic aura. I take it none of you were Chaotic?"
"No, ma'am," I said, struggling not to stutter. I said ma'am, as I felt most sincerely as if I was the in the presence of royalty.
"Great. Now which of these heartstones are yours?"
I found Sampson's heartstone, and picked it up—the strangest sensation. Physically, it was only a stone. But intellectually and emotionally, I knew I held his very self in my hand. "Here's Sampson." I walked over to the remains of Mical's gear and picked up her heartstone. "Here's Mical."
"I got Elise," Xavier said, holding the heartstone with some trepidation. "That's everyone."
"Good," she said. She lifted one of the slayer's heartstones and hurled it down the shaft.
"No! Stop!" Andy shouted.
Her words were punctuated by thrown heartstones. "Slayers." Throw. "Do not." Throw. "Deserve." Throw. "Revives." She threw the last heartstone so hard it bounced several times off the walls as it fell. Had I cared, I would have worried that it would break—not that that could be done by hand. "They were probably going to retreat down there if someone powerful came long, anyway. I just assisted the process. You all can have their gear. Won't be of use to me." She took out a black, embroidered bag. Tendrils of shadow emerged from it to collect the slayer's gear from off the floor. "And people say that soulbound Bags of Holding are useless," she mumbled to herself. “Mind picking up their Bags of Holding?”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said and did so. One never sticks a Bag of Holding inside another.
Xavier coughed. "I have Return available."
"No worries," she said. "I'll Return you all. Unless you want to hang down here for some crazy reason?"
"No, ma'am," I said.
"Great." She drew a star shape, not like the one that Xavier used, and we were yanked up.
Chapter Nine:
The High House
Where we arrived was not the Public Entrance, nor was it where each of us had Set Home. After a moment, I realized I had felt the swaying under my feet before: right after I had stepped off the airship.
As awesome as this young woman was, I had trouble imagining she could afford a personal dwelling so large. It had its own teleport chamber—a grand, wide teleport chamber of black marble with multiple gold-inlaid circles. In fact, there was a very good reason to believe it did not belong to her solely: the number of others in the room, delvers in black armor with high spectrum auras.
"Alice?" A violet delver entirely covered in black armor said in a youthful, deep bass, the sort of voice that could command armies. "Alice?"
"Who did you think I am? Your girlfriend? Oh wait, you don't have one," the young woman said, but it was in the voice of relieved teasing. The wings on her back flapped a final time and faded away. Could she have a partial polymorph class?
"Hush," the delver said. He lifted her physically off the floor in one massive bear hug.
"Adam? We do have guests," she said. "And they need a healer."
"Oh, of course," he said, and gently set Alice down. "Healer!" He took off his helmet to show a young man even more handsome than Alice was beautiful. As if the primal warrior that all other warriors must aspire to or betray their dreams. "Adam Black, 106th Black Knight."
"He's a 100th Black Knight Grandmaster, too," Alice explained. "It's a long story."
"No, it isn't. It's just a matter of optimization strategy," Adam said.
A black flash in a nearby circle brought another young woman—taller, older, if no less gorgeous than all of them. At the time I was baffled, but there's a simple explanation. Inevitably, high level delvers will either deliberately or accidentally increase their Charisma until they appear as avatars of beauty.
"What in the depths is going on?" this newest gorgeous lady said. She wore a black gown but no visible armor. I'll correct that: her gown was Black Dragon scale but so finely crafted as to be soft as a gown. At the time, I was just confused she wasn't as heavily armored as everyone else. "Alice? You're back."
"Thanks to these guys," Alice said.
"Really?" she asked with a raised eyebrow in our direction.
"Really. Adrianne, revives please,"
"Oh, sure. Permission to revive your party?" Adrianne asked me.
"Um, sure?" I said.
She drew a number of sigils, plus sign in shape, in the air. The heartstones I held started shaking. I had only a moment to dig them out of the bag and drop them before Mical and Sampson returned to life. Xavier was not quite so quick, and Elise burst out of his pack.
"Ow!" Sampson said. "Thought I was a goner, except I was. Except I wasn't. How's it going, everyone? Glad we got our clothing soulbound."
Elise looked around but didn't say anything.
"Um, who are you people?" I asked. "And where is this?"
They all gave me the look I had so often received as an immigrant. "I'm Alice Black," the girl said. "100th Black Archangel. This is the spire of High House Black."
Oh. Oh.
"And you are?" Alice Black continued.
"Um, Alex Kenderman," I said.
"Sampson Kerryman," Sampson said.
Xavier stuttered, but finally said, "Xavier D'Ambrose."
"This is Andromeda Square," Elise answered for Andy.
"And this is—" I indicated Elise but was stopped.
The old man who entered next had presence, a kind of grandeur that only true leaders possess, no matter how much Charisma gained or skillstones used. He , too, wore Black Dragon scale. "Welcome, all of you. I am Seth Black, Acting Head of High House Black. Thank you for rescuing my niece."
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