Chương 36: Chapter 35: Understandable caution

Torch took the lead out of the crypt of course, stepping first into the daylight with some caution, crossbow loaded and at the ready. His eyes swept the little patch of quiet at the top of the stairs, and he dipped out of sight as we stood at the bottom, cautious of the unknown dungeon as could be. Nobody had run it yet - not ever - and that was concerning to Roxala, exciting to Felorikaan (who was officially a nerd and a master of lore about dungeons and monsters, he could hardly keep still!), and nervewracking to both Gelidia and the scout Torch. I could feel Roxala's tension and guard, and sense how worked up Gelidia was. How strange it must be, exploring this place you'd grown up in! I didn't suppose Gelidia spent much time in the crypt... but I figured she'd have seen it before, right? If that mattered - I doubted there was a huge chasm like that in the real crypt, or ghouls shambling about. But what do I know?

"This is definitely a special instance of this dungeon." Felorikaan said. Roxala nodded at that.

"I was thinking that." she said"It's probably because this is the first run, and..." the shieldmaiden looked directly at Gelidia, her mouth a thin line. It was a look of concern on an unaccustomed land, and I got the impression she didn't make that face too often. She clearly felt awkward. I squeezed Gelidia's hand, still holding tight as the Shade pretended not to notice Roxala's regard.

"It must be so. Having a scion of the house is clearly having an effect - a named miniboss like that, a rare drop first thing, it's very interesting." Fel gushed, practically bouncing! It really was adorable - sure he was a dignified man of a regal bearing, but that didn't stop him from nerding out, it would seem. I felt a smile tug at my lips, and pulled Gelidia into an embrace while we waited for Torch to give the all clear.

It came as a sharp a whistle, and Roxala relaxed a bit as my human-shaped ears twitched at the noise! It must have been a good signal, because we calmly trudged up the stairs and made our way into the daylight. No... not daylight. Twilight. Had we been in there for hours and hours?

"Ah, the time seems to advance when we complete a portion of the dungeon!" Fel said, and only now did I notice how... strange I felt. Part of me was nervous? Not nervous, it was that feeling I got close to the time before I changed. A kind of nervy energy surged in my breast, a sense of creeping doom, but it didn't... stop. It simply persisted, making me flush and making my heart race. I hadn't felt like this in the crypt, and I said so.

"Interesting... it seems the state change has an effect upon you as well. We have only been in the dungeon for four hours so far at my estimate. We can assume you will transform either at the start of this next floor, or at its completion and should plan accordingly." Fel said, and pat my arm. I huffed a sigh, but nodded.

"Alright." I said, and squirmed out of my tunic immediately to stand nude in the evening light, my body steaming a bit and muscles visible. Man... I hadn't actually and truly noticed but... I was looking more fit than I ever had before. My skin was pale and tight over visible tone on my belly and thighs. Roxala turned darker green and stared at me a moment, before ripping her eyes away and COUGHING, but didn't otherwise complain.

Gelidia squeaked and turned her back on me, taking her hand from mine, and Fel merely gave me a businesslike nod while not looking lower than my chin.

"Emily!!" Gelidia said and I chuckled. Roxala joined in the laugh a bit, and even Fel smiled.

"What? I'm not going to actually destroy my tunic or ruin my shoes because I wolfed out when we unlocked a door. I don't get a lot of warning I'm going to change!" I said, and to my surprise, didn't feel the least bit self conscious. BECAUSE THATS STUPID my wolf said, amused! WHY EVEN WEAR CLOTHES? Was I becoming a nudist? It's a social thing, my friend, there are social expectations to being human-shaped, some things you show and don't show.

I think it's probably okay in this company, but if someone shows too much skin they might get in trouble or worse! It's dumb, but that's how things are - at least where I'm from. It's not proper. Wolf didn't seem to know what to think about that explanation, and sighed. THIS IS WHY I AM GLAD WE WORK TOGETHER. she said I WOULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT. That was a weirdly abstract thought for my wolf, but... we were at rank C in transformation, and my Lycanthrope core was getting stronger by the day.

Maybe my Wolf was getting more complicated too? Lost in introspection, I only snapped out of it as Gelidia thew my tunic at me again and demanded that I at least wear this!

"You can just slip it off if you need to! I won't have you walk my ancestral home in... in the... Like that!" she demanded, and I obliged, slipping into it. She was BRIGHT red, and I felt a little bit of shame. I STILL THINK ITS STUPID. Probably is, but, there's social expectations. YOU SAID THAT ALREADY. Wolf's tail was wagging, and she felt amused inside me, so I smiled a bit.

"Better?" I asked, doing a little twirl, the dirty leather tunic flapping against my bare thighs when it stopped, doing little to leave much to the imagination. I really wasn't going to be embarrassed by this, was I?

"I need a... a cute sun dress or something!" I said "These clothes are fine but... they're kind of plain!" I said. Roxala chuckled, and so did Torch as we walked up.

"I'll buy you one, if we make it out of this dungeon." Roxala said.

"Not only is that a good, practical idea - can't believe I'm saying that about something so fragile and useless - but I think you'd look amazing." the Orc-maiden said. Gelidia sputtered a bit, and Torch gave a chuckle. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"I second that motion." He said matter-of-factly.

"I'd pitch for a sundress." he said.

"Mmmmm perhaps in blue!" Fel said, as Gelidia made a little squeeking sound in her throat!

"... No!" She said, waving her hands to cut off the discussion! We stared a little at her, and she turned even redder as her hand found mine again.

"Green. In green." Gelidia said at last, and I blushed. Green... was the Windbinder colors. Would she put me in a fancy dress? Was the sky blue? Of course she would! We made our way towards what I liked to think of as the main door led by Torch, and I saw that one of the birds sitting on the stairs, the statues I'd noticed before we went into the first floor, was different.

There were still four of them, but the one on the bottom left had spread its wings a little, and its eyes were glowing the same green as the lights Gotthardt had emitted when he'd done his boost-dash thing, the same color as the magic I'd seen in the dungeon so far. Was this an ongoing theme? Either way it was pretty awesome looking. Would one open its eyes and look up like this each time?

"The second floor is over here" Torch said, and motioned to the door to the left down a short path. It resembled the big 'main' door, the one with the birds, but it lacked the statues, instead favoring birdlike gargoyle carvings over the metal and wood doorway. The key fit neatly, as Torch demonstrated, but he hadn't turned the lock just yet, looking back to me. It...

might just advance to night on the spot as soon as he did so, so I flinched a little - even if I was sort of used to the pain of transformation, it wasn't something I could actually look forward to.

"You ready?" he asked, and I nodded, taking a couple deep breaths on the spot to summon up my mustard. Inside me, the wolf tensed, already on high alert with night so close. Gelidia let go of my hand after a brief squeeze, and turned her face away. Roxala found some place else to turn her gaze, and Fel coughed nervously, turning his face aside as well - the transformation was not something that was beautiful.

With some ceremony The key twisted, and with a clunk, the sky absolutely failed to change, and a transformation into a monster didn't occur at all. There was a tense moment before the whole group let out a little breath, and I ran my hands through my hair.

"It must happen when we complete a floor." Fel said "You're certain you are close to changing, Emily?" he asked, and I nodded, trembling a little, my guts feeling all watery.

"Yeah... I- yeah. I feel like it could happen anytime, it's... it's like being really scared and really hungry at the same time. My body feels like there's something going to happen, knows there is, and is like... cringing." I explained, wiggling my hands and running them through my, frankly greasy hair. I really, really needed to bathe, I felt... disgusting.

The ghoul's ichor, my own blood, and the sweats and smuts I'd accumulated so far were adding up in a way that a few dips in the fountain just weren't managing to cut.

"And this is better than your world still?" Roxala said, teasing me, and I stuck my tongue out at her. She smiled a bit, and shook her head as she took the first step into the new floor. We followed after, entering the darkness of the doorway. The second floor was mostly dark at first, but there was light at the end of the hall - quite literally. It was a strange blue-white light, and glancing backward from my position as the Stinger, I could see we'd already come maybe a hundred feet inside already. It just...

didn't make sense, but, then, it wasn't supposed to - physical space didn't seem to mean anything here. This fact was driven home when the light turned out to be a glowing chasm of sorts! It looked like something had turned the room to liquid, and then struck it with a hell of a lot of force so everything in the room would sway outward in a ripple before crashing inward again and rising up.

There was a floor, but it was made of flagstones in a rough grid pattern, dipping upward into the air over an abyss of green light. When Roxala poked one though, it didn't move at all - just... bonk, proved to be as solid as if it weren't suspended mid-air. As we stepped onto these floating flagstones, another message appeared before us. Second Floor Spiraling upward from this initial landing... was a staircase of floating stones, and in the distance, circling around this pillar of stone... were those birds?

They weren't the only things circling, either - there were flying boulders, desks, chairs, spinning in a whirlwind of paper and green light around which the birds circled and into which our stairway rose in the light of a twilight so pink, no artist would have dared to paint it because no sunset is surgical appliance pink, right? But here it was, and the flames of sunset mixed strangely with the green energy of the rising pillar of stone and wind as the cries of hawks filled the air.

"Okay. This is something" Roxala said"have you... ever seen something like this?" she asked, and it was Fel who responded.

"I've... heard of dungeons with strong elemental leanings behaving a bit metaphysically... and I suspect that is what is happening here. Fire, earth, and water are all represented in that way.. but until now... I'd never heard of an outright wind-aligned dungeon. There's a few that border it, but... this is certain." he said.

"... Those are the hard ones." Torch said, and Fel nodded.

"Always. They are the most strongly-aligned and naturally, leylines flow from them most potently." he said, and he was actually quite cheerful about it! It was a nerdy, academic cheeriness though, somewhat detached from reality.

"And this is a Special instance, too! We are in for a TREAT!" he said, and Roxala carefully did not bite his head off. I could see with my Wolf-Ren as she counted to five before responding, her back to him.

"... Right. Be on your guard, everyone, and step gingerly. I don't like the look of that drop, or those birds." Roxala growled. Torch grunted "They're huge. They're at least a hundred meters away from us right now and I could probably count their feathers from here. They've got to be about the size of a horse each."

"Stormhawks. They're bred, it's said, from Thunderbirds, and tamed by my ancestors. They're all feral now, I bet, but if they're the Stormhawks of my family, they'll be armored, and they'll be armed." Gelidia said, hugging herself with a tiny smile as she stared up at them.

"They're gorgeous! Look at those tail feathers, like the tails of comets" she said, and I stared, taking in the sight beside her. Indeed they did have long tail feathers, ending in broad rounded tips. And... they were glinting in the twilight, too. Armor?

"How the HELL can you arm a bird?" Roxala snarled, but didn't turn around. I could see she was annoyed by this"Why do you sound so excited about it? They're going to try to kill us!" I could understand her feeling, but Fel clearly didn't mind the challenge. Or, it hadn't sunk into him how dangerous this would be as he added "Oh, definitely! The dungeon is giving us a chance to notice the threat before it throws them at us! That'll be a tough one - it's warning us!" he said cheerily!

"If they're descended from Thunderbirds, they'll have natural wind magic, too. Probably the test here is to keep your footing. Perhaps a metaphysical statement, saying that serving the house of Windbinder is a dangerous road with clear opportunity for advancement, and a good deal of danger with high stakes?" Gelidia snorted at that, but smiled a little.

"We have a saying in my House - ambition and peril go hand in hand." she said " Perhaps it represents the idea that in our House, even a humble guardsman could rise to high rank in our service, but he might incur the notice of people who would just as soon ensure he fell to his death." She said.

"In any case... we also say that Caution Be Your Shield. So we should approach this... nice and slow. Take our time." And so we set off to do just that.