Chương 210: Keeper Topaz

The last Labyrinth run before our second phase of training ended was a bit of a waste in terms of gathering Presences and loot, but we needed to scope out our next target. I only wanted to waste one week, and then we could get planning.

"We're looking for something that will help us improve our armour," I said as we descended down the elevator into the bottom level.

"I'm not settling for anything less than Gold."" 'Something' is awfully vague, Sarge," Anchor told me.

"Drywsone needs a mineral to give one last final effect to the armour, as well as to imbue it with a Skill," I explained.

"We should be able to observe the effect in the monster, just in its general behaviour. Once we do observe it, we'll know exactly what we're getting." I glanced at Sage.

"There was something you mentioned. A certain monster we'd need to kill…one that could manipulate Labyrinth Keepers?"

"What do you want to do with the Keepers, brother?" Brawl asked.

"Call it a hunch, but I think I can convince them to automatically repair our armour," I said.

"I never said that," Sage said. She folded her fingers together. Morph's leaves twitched with irritation.

"I did, however, suggest that you could use the dust to help repair Shatter's leys. Once."

"Well, we'll see. We're going to test out the hypothesis today," I said.

"Can you lead us to the monster?" The elevator thudded to a halt at the bottom, and we jumped off, then ran through the halls, heading in the direction Sage indicated. As usual, we fought our way through anything that tried to stand in our way. The skeletons didn't pose much of an issue, and with our tactics training over the past weeks, we kept in a tight formation. We didn't talk about changing anything. Still, we stayed closer together, moving as a unit.

Even though we hadn't trained together, we'd gotten much more practice fighting in groups, drilled by excellent instructors. When we encountered our next flameknuckle, we moved without hesitation, splitting up with deftly practiced movement. We switched from a tight pack into two groups, with Brawl and I at the front and Anchor and Sage at the back. Brawl and I covered each other with our shields when the monster flung magma at each other, we timed our Arts, and we held off its attacks.

Brawl had reached Silver as well, and when the beast tried to backhand him away, he mostly held his ground. Skidding backward a few feet, he stayed perfectly upright. In only a few moves, and without me having to deploy my Art, we'd dealt enough damage to scatter its debris across the canal-side promenade. As we worked, I even had enough time to work on my memory palace. I was so close to envisioning the full sphere. Once I did, I could start sorting and un-jumbling my mind.

Then we continued on, rushing farther across the city, and following a spoke out to the edge of the chamber. Sage told us where to turn, though I mostly remembered the direction we needed to travel. I smelled the monster before I even saw it. Down here, where everything was unpleasant, the relatively neutral scent of our foe was unusual. It was like dryer lint, but without any of the perfume. We rounded one last corner and stopped at the edge of its plaza. A dragon faced us.

It was made entirely of amber-coloured crystal. Every crystal had a dusty white coating, and hundreds of different rippling faces as the four-legged beast rumbled across the ground. It was the height of a house. Maybe higher, if it stretched up its skeletal wings. Without a membrane, it couldn't fly, but the wings were massive, and would make deadly weapons. A row of orange spikes ran down the beast's back, each with a slight hook to them. Its eye sockets were empty, but its head flicked toward us anyway.

Its mouth opened, revealing a maw of perfectly polished, dustless teeth. Tendrils of red fur hung from the inside of its mouth like a whale's baleen, which seemed to act as some kind of protection for its esophagus. It was also the only hair I could see on the entire beast. Whenever the air brushed past it, the tips of the hair sparked. But above all, a reflective sheen rippled over its armour, moving in steady lines.

With my enhanced Perception, I could make out individual Labyrinth Keepers crawling across the surface of its skin.

"There it is," Sage said.

"A—""Wait, let Levi sense the tier," Anchor said.

"We don't have time for this," I countered.

"It sees us." The dragon already turned to us, and unlike the quarter golems of the upper level, it was more than willing to leave its plaza to attack unwelcome guests.

"Besides," I added, "I've already gotten my Perception Skill to Novice. I can make it stronger, sure, but it's not as critical." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"What's the formation, then, Sarge?" Anchor asked.

"We use our usual formation," I said.

"We need to see what it's capable of, but I also want to cleave a spike off its back for our own purposes. We need to test if our hunch will work, otherwise there's no point in using this for our armour. Now go, with me!" The dragon charged, racing toward us. Though it didn't have eyes, it knew where we were. I saw no sign of any Presence receptors like the Flameknuckles had, so maybe it used sound to hunt.

We darted into the plaza before it could cut off, then jumped to the side, rolling away from the explosion of dust it created as it smashed into the buildings at the edge of the plaza. It turned to face us, creating clouds of dust. Brawl and I stepped forward, and Anchor and Sage moved back, ready to support.

"Sage, what did you say this guy was called again?" I shouted over the crumbling, cracking rock.

"A Keeper Topaz Dragon!" she yelled.

"And it's Gold-tier!"

"Wonderful!" I glanced back.

"Find out how it detects us!" I told Anchor. Then I turned to Brawl.

"And keep it distracted! I'm going for the spikes on its back!" With a flick of my hand, I signalled to Brawl to attack. We rushed forward together, going for its nearest leg, probing its defenses. The dragon stepped back, then opened its mouth. The dangling hairs on the roof of its mouth parted, and a stream of wind surged out. It had the same neutral scent—no gas, as far as I could tell—but it was the fastest wind I'd ever felt. Training in the winds on the fields had prepared me for this.

I leaned into it, head down, protecting myself against the surge. I wasn't ready for the crystal chips in the wind. Hundreds of glassy orange shards bounced off my helmet, and others tore into my pauldron. It was basic gear. It wasn't meant to withstand a Gold-tier enemy. One of the chips punctured my helmet and stabbed through my earlobe, and I called out in shock and pain, before rolling to the side and dodging the dragon's crystal shard breath.

"I can't heal you with the shard still stuck in your ear!" Sage yelled.

"You will have to get out of here alive before I can help you!" It could wait until later, then. Still, I had no intention of killing the dragon today. But I did need to see what my Art would do to it. I pulled down on the dragon's mid-back. It flexed slightly, but it resisted most of the Skill. After all, it was a Gold-tier enemy, and Advanced-tier Skills were Silver equivalent. But it did slow it down, and it must've scrambled the beast's insides.

The dragon gagged like a cat presented with broccoli, and it cut off its breath. I used the brief reprieve to launch myself up onto the beast's back, deploying an Art on an angle. It flung me up through the air. As soon as I left the well, I landed gently on the beast's back. When I landed, I gripped onto one of the dragon's swaying spikes to keep my balance. It thrashed. It knew I was here.

Turning to the side, it swept its wings through one of Anchor's arrows, knocking it out of the air, then tried to scrape one of its wings along its back and knock me off. I ducked under it, and it clipped the top of my helmet. The metal rang like a gong had sounded in my ear. While on the beast's back, I had time. Brawl remained on the ground, distracting it and keeping it away from my squishy squad-mates. With it torn between trying to throw me off and trying to crush Brawl, we had time.

But neither of us would last forever. My grip was already slipping. I could hold on a little longer, though, and so could Brawl. I spared a few seconds to once again try forming my mind palace in the presence of the dragon, with the heightened danger it provided. After a few seconds, when it failed, and when my grip amounted to a single finger coiled around the topaz spike's tip, I turned my attention back to my main task. The Labyrinth Keepers weren't hostile to me.

They avoided my hands, and they swarmed over the crystal's surface without a job. There was no damage to repair. With a sharp inhale, I aimed my spear at the crystal's base. Like I was wielding a chisel, I drove it in time and time again, breaking away the outer layer of the crystal. With over a hundred points of Presence remaining, I could trigger as many resonance Skills as I wanted. The crystal shattered, one inch at a time, one hole at a time.

The dragon shrieked, letting out a windy, breathy roar that sounded more like a gale roaring over a field. The Labyrinth Keepers tried to stop me from breaking off the crystal in their own way. Instantly, they surged to action, moving to repair the damage. They scattered across the beast's back and the ground. Millions of them worked in unison to repair the crystal. It wasn't enough. I stabbed fast enough to undo their work. After the thirtieth jab, the crystal broke, and I tumbled off the beast's back.

I landed hard on the ground, then rolled back to my feet.

"Run!" I yelled, holding up the crystal with one hand. It was probably over a hundred pounds, but that didn't matter to my enhanced Strength. The more difficult part was finding a good angle to grip it. I brushed off all the Labyrinth Keepers I could from the crystal's surface. Lines trailed behind us as we sprinted across the plaza, and Sage gathered them up in a cured leather jar, so we'd have something to test our theory with.

"Pass it, Brother!" Brawl yelled. I pulled ahead of Brawl, then tossed the crystal back to him like it was a rugby pass. He caught it in both hands—he'd wrapped his flail around his shoulder—and kept running. We sprinted to the edge of the plaza. As we ran, I asked Sage, "How long will the rest of the Labyrinth Keepers follow us?"

"They should give up once we escape the Labyrinth!" she replied, shaking her jar. Once we reached the city, we wove between the buildings, dodging the rampaging dragon. It tried to catch up, but we were faster and more nimble. After a few minutes of running, the only sign of it was a distant rumble. By the time we returned to the surface, the Labyrinth Keepers stopped trying to crawl up Brawl's pants. The crystal, as best I could tell, was officially ours. I turned to the others with a grin.

"Let's bring this to the smithy and see what they can do with it."