Dissonance a litrpg adve.., p.66
Dissonance: A LitRPG Adventure, page 66
part #1 of Unbound Series
Felix and Pit traversed the wide crevasses with ease, Felix using his new Body to effortlessly clear the five to six foot gaps while carrying the still injured Pit. Magda, however, took pains to make it across each one and had to rest every couple of jumps. They were resting now, about halfway through the chamber.
"Yeah, he likes ‘em. Makes him stronger." Felix gestured to Pit, who had started to glow slightly as a small amount of orange vapor escaped between his feathers.
"Huh," Magda grunted. She shook her head. "Expensive taste."
"Hm? What do you mean?" Felix asked.
"Elemental cores. Used by nearly every profession. You just put about six hundred silver worth of cores in that chimera," Magda said, taking a swig of water from their dwindling supply.
What? Felix looked at Pit, who tilted his head curiously. That sounds like a lot of money...maybe I should start saving some of these. Pit nudged his thigh, hard enough to make Felix sway, and he laughed as he batted the tenku away from him. Ok, ok! You get all the cores.
"You're not what I expected, Felix," she said, interrupting his thoughts.
He looked at her askance. Felix had been enjoying Magda's change of attitude since getting stuck with him, so he was hesitant as he replied. "And what did you expect?"
"A spy," she said. There it was. Suspicious Magda.
Felix's laugh had an edge to it. "A spy? For who?"
Magda grunted and shook her head. "I don't know. The Guild, maybe. We stepped on a lot of toes to get out here, and plenty of Elders didn't want us out here. For official reasons, of course. No one would admit to the lost operation and squandered Guilders, so they couldn't block us outright." She frowned and growled. "I thought you were a plant. Someone who came out here to either stop us or report on us."
"What? Why? I didn't even know what the Guild was when I met you," Felix said.
"Yeah, and that's part of it. You’re an enigma, kid. You've got too many Skills, stats that are through the roof for your level, a fog-touched chimera as a pet that you feed precious cores to like they’re biscuits." She scoffed. "You don't know half the stuff all of us were taught in childhood."
"But I'm not a spy. I'm just...lost, I guess," Felix countered, still nervous to admit anything to the warrior. "You folks have taught me a lot, and I appreciate it. What I don't appreciate is the constant suspicion that you bombard me with; it's exhausting."
Magda held up her hands, her script seal starting to flake. "I know, I know. And I'm sorry, for what it's worth. The last few months, I haven't...I've been in a bad place."
Felix was silent a moment, chewing over his thoughts. There was more to say, but he didn't know how to approach it. So he just settled for: "Well, apology accepted, I guess."
The silence after was uncomfortable to say the least. Moreover, it was interspersed with the undulating song in his head, an intermittent urge to keep going and leave everyone else behind. Shoving that drive away, Felix turned to Magda, who seemed to be contemplating the darkness above them.
"So...you and Callie, huh? She seems...intense." Oh my god, what are you doing? Felix's internal social critic railed at him even before he finished the sentence, causing him to stumble on the dismount. Magda was quiet for several minutes after that, which led to even more self-condemnation. Ahh, why did you say anything? Just sit in silence. Or go find a monster. Yes, that's better. Let's go fight. Felix almost stood up when the Shieldwitch spoke.
"Once we were something. I don't know if that means anything now." She sighed, a big one she dredged from her core.
"What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"
Magda looked at him and smirked. "No. It's fine. I've interrogated you enough." She adjusted her seat, leaning once again on her uninjured arm. "We worked together for years, even before Harn joined up. Before that, we were friends, back at the Academy."
Academy? Felix wanted to ask, but now that she started, he was loath to interrupt.
"We did a few harrowing trips into the interior of the Continent, gained some levels and renown, and during all that we grew closer. It was nothing we ever said, not out loud, but before we knew it, we were together. It was...it was nice." Magda's smile turned wistful. "Those were the good days, shortly after we were promoted to Bronze Rank and formed our own team. Harn joined up, and off we went. Hotspot to hotspot. There wasn't a contract we didn't take if it was within our rank. We were a perfect team."
Felix smiled. "That sounds nice. So what happened?"
Another sigh, deeper and more meaningful this time. "We got famous, in our own way. We were on track to be promoted to Silver Rank after some harrowing contracts, and things...fell apart. It's my fault, in the end." She closed her eyes and knocked her head against the stone wall. "Callie proposed. And I...I got scared. Silver Rank is a big deal, something fewer than one in a thousand might reach it. She wanted to get away from it. Do our own thing, away from the Guild. I...I couldn't. So she left."
The silence that followed was worse than what came before. Felix felt terrible for bringing it up. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but each time had nothing more than empty platitudes. "I'm sorry, Magda. That's rough."
Magda nodded and with some effort stood up. She looked less pale, though the skin around her eyes was a little red now. "Don't let your mistakes linger, Felix," she said, looking into the foggy distance. "You'll try to bury ‘em, but they come back. Regrets never really leave."
She gestured ahead. "Let's get moving."
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Time was difficult to gauge down in the Labyrinth. The light never changed; there was no sun nor moon nor even stars, just the stones and the fog. If it weren't for his impeccable memory, Felix would have been as lost as Magda seemed to be, but he could at least estimate the amount of time they'd been down there. Technically, as it was within the past thirty days, Felix could count out the seconds and minutes, but that was both exhausting and worthless. It was enough that he could approximate the time: it had been around four hours since they had fallen into the sinkhole.
For much of that time, they were simply running, though battles occurred with increasing frequency. The Labyrinth lived up to its name, folding and moving through space in unpredictable ways. Multiple times, Felix was positive they were rushing down a corridor that seemed to turn and take up the same dimensional space as another. His eyes told him it was just a turn, but his memory said it was exactly the same. More than his Manasight (which was still restricted, somehow), his memory proved to be their greatest boon. He kept leading them back, unerringly remembering the path they had traversed.
The enemies they found ranged the gamut of elemental types, and he found a chance to sample most of their Mana.
Lessons of the Past is level 20!
His Skill increased multiple times, but not once did Felix learn a new Skill or gain a Memory from the elementals' blood and Mana. Ever since his Body Formatio,n his hunger had quieted, only rising up once in a while, as if it was slumbering. Without the engagement of that growling in his core, it seemed his Title and Skill had a far lower chance of activating. It was frustrating, to say the least. To focus that frustration, Felix threw himself into clearing the enemies before them with greater gusto. They had to get out of here, and to do that, Felix needed to be far stronger than he was now...
To that end, Felix had dumped all of his Mana into the Elemental Shard that hung over his left shoulder. He didn't know at first how much Mana Storage was available in the shard, and decided to feed it slowly whenever they weren't fighting. Within the first ten minutes, it was at capacity, holding exactly five hundred Mana and not a drop more. It was a significant bump in his pool, and meant he could be even more cavalier about his spell usage. That thought just led him back around to his annoyance at the lack of new monster spells, though he supposed he had a pretty damn wide repertoire already. No need to be greedy, he admonished himself. I still need to level up what I have.
The song still continued, of course. It was an endless refrain, a track on repeat with only minute changes in pitch and tone as the hours blurred by. It was maddening to listen to, and Felix kept his Bastion of Will engaged nearly all the time, despite the toll it took on his mental fortitude.
Bastion of Will is level 35!
During breaks and those stretches of corridor without enemies, however, Felix attempted to level his Poison Resistance with the sheathed fang. Since the scales held in the poisonous aura, it was safe to hold along the bottom eight inches. The top was tricky, however. He held the crude dagger in one hand while slowly edging that poisonous miasma closer to his left forearm. The skin sizzled and eroded before his eyes, but the pain was no worse than an acid bath; better, perhaps, since his Body Formation. When the tip of the dagger got within six inches of his arm, his skin finally broke and blood poured out. Hissing in pain, he yanked the fang away, letting his natural regeneration repair it.
It was painful, but effective.
Poison Resistance is level 28!
He was healing faster now, his poison resistance neutralizing a portion of the Rotvein’s potency. Still, he'd yet to even touch himself with the fang.
How'd Magda withstand getting this through her fucking arm? Felix shuddered before capping the fang with an improvised scale plug. He had no way to carry it except in his belt or in his hand all the time, and the last thing Felix wanted was to touch the fang before he was ready. They had encountered a few more of the Greenfyre Serpents, and he had fashioned a casing for the remaining four inches, knocking his Improvisation Skill to level 12.
He was growing by leaps and bounds down here in the dark. Despite the pain and the fear that dogged his every step, Felix felt an exhilaration that was both heady and freeing. Each encounter ended with at least a few Skill gains, and all the while his highest Skills edged closer to Apprentice Tier. The stats he gained during each Tier bump were significant increases to his power, and now he was extremely close to having all of his base stats above the one hundred mark.
STR: 102 PER: 111
VIT: 144 END: 120
INT: 111 WIL: 185
AGL: 105 DEX: 98
Pit was developing rapidly as well. The elementals they faced dropped a core at least twenty percent of the time, and each core was enough for 1-2 points in their favored stat. This led to an odd and scattered allotment of stats, but the results were more than satisfying.
STR: 49 PER: 52
VIT: 60 END: 53
INT: 37 WIL: 51
AGL: 93 DEX: 66
With the greater power, Pit was better able to take on the monsters with Felix, and their teamwork increased by the battle. He had always been fast, but he was lightning-quick now. Wingblades and Frost Spears were the tenku's weapons of choice, allowing Felix to get within melee range and providing support. The support was Pit's idea, strangely enough. Their communication was evolving in a way that Felix found remarkable; it wasn't speech but the bundles of image, senses, and emotions becoming stronger and more concise. Pulses of sensation through their pact were enough for near-instant understanding, and their Skill levels reflected that.
Pit's Wingblade is level 14!
Pit's Frost Spear is level 12!
Pit's Cry is level 24!
Pit's Rake is level 21!
Pit's Bite is level 20!
Companion Pact is level 23!
Frustratingly, Felix wasn't able to get Acid Stream, Shadow Whip, or Stone Shaping to level 25, despite how often he used them. Simple repetition wasn't cutting it anymore, the final jump taking far more effort than others. Felix didn't really understand why, and Magda's advice was to "think about how the Skill works and how it affects you." Which was...not exactly unhelpful, but Felix didn't make headway, not with those spells.
Exploration, on the other hand, had jumped to level 24 fairly quickly. This place was a treasure trove in important, unexplored crannies. That Skill seemed to apply toward places of significance, and Felix couldn't claim that this two-thousand-year-old death maze wasn't significant. They had encountered a wide variety of fascinating structures within the Labyrinth, ranging from the omnipresent carved standing stones to delicately-detailed frescoes painted on the walls and mostly hidden beneath thick moss. They depicted white-furred, robe-wearing creatures standing among a gaggle of elementals. Most were simply ordering the elementals around or using them to build something. A few, however, swarmed around strangely amorphous...blobs. They had no clear size or shape, only a dark discoloration that seemed to seep into whatever pigments were used on the paintings. The white-furred folk (Geist, clearly) were fighting against the blobs with spears and spells, but seemed to be in a stalemate.
Magda thought it curious, but likely irrelevant. "I've seen thousands of these sorts a’ things. All of ‘em have their heroes fighting off monsters or demons, or whatever nonsense you wanna imagine. It's usually just braggin'."
"Then why aren't they winning?" Felix asked. Magda shrugged and kept moving.
Another twenty minutes later, they found the statue chamber. At least, that's what Felix called it.
It was massive, easily the largest space they had found within the Labyrinth. The dense fog and smothering darkness blocked their senses beyond fifty feet in any direction, but brief flashes of his Manasight convinced Felix the room was easily a mile in all dimensions.
Manasight is level 35!
The tiled and mossy floor extended about thirty feet from the entry before it tilted down into a lake. That was the only way to describe it, as it filled most of the space, dark water that slowly surged and receded with tiny waves yet was absolutely silent. Still, in the corridor just outside the chamber, Felix and Magda shared a look before stepping in. Now beyond the threshold, the sound of the water roared up from nothing, a constant susurration that filled the immense chamber.
"Some sorta seal or something on the door," Magda muttered, briefly looking back at the entryway. "Why bother, though?"
Felix shrugged and knelt down, pushing aside the omnipresent moss. A strip of carved rock was at the base of the archway, the markings in it etched in a familiar script. Felix went over his memories of the script he'd seen up to that point, a relatively short list. The script consisted of four characters, repeated over and over until they formed a dense banner of sigils. Felix considered them each in turn, and while his understanding of sigils was shaky at best, he was able to tease something from them. Uncertain as to why, Felix felt that the largest of the four characters meant "quietude" and that the rest modified that declaration for an unknown purpose.
Sigils of the Primordial Dawn is level 6!
"No clue why, but yeah, some sort of silence sigil is inscribed here." Felix stood up and brushed off his hands. "At least that means any monsters behind us won't hear us?"
Magda snorted before sitting down on a large rock. "That's something. I'm taking thirty seconds. Then we move. We're close, I know it."
Felix nodded, silently agreeing. They were close. The song was louder, more strident, more...insistent...though he still blocked it out with Bastion of Will. His Skill formed a metaphysical castle wall around his mind, dark stone repelling the sinuous notes like ransacking invaders. If he focused on it, Felix could easily picture those soaring walls of stone, each block the size of two men and growing larger and more ornate as the Skill leveled. Was it real?
As real as anything else in this bonkers place, he decided.
Felix walked to the water's edge, careful of his movements and scanning everything around him with a combination of Analyze and an intermittent Manasight. With no obvious traps underfoot, he gazed out into the water and his eyes widened. Closer now, the fog had parted to reveal massive statues partially submerged in the dark water, each of them depicting a wild beast that combined a handful of opposing features.
Chimeras.
There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds placed in the water in a regular pattern. The water sloshed against them, the sunken statuary varying in height from enormous fifty-foot-tall constructions to barely peeking above the surface. They appeared to be all made in the same fashion, a fluted pillar supporting a chimeric beast in some sort of action pose. From his position, Felix could make out Wyverns, Harnoqs, Wendigos, and yes, even a few Tenku. But there were more, beyond the range of his Analyze, things he hadn't encountered before and were startlingly graceful meshes of monstrous creatures.
"What is all this?"
A chill wind blew across the water, the fog swirling in its passage, raising goosebumps on Felix's skin even as he ignored the temperature. His Cold Resistance made it inconsequential. What wasn't to be dismissed was that, when the fog parted, his peripherals caught the shape of something fluttering near the water line.
"Is that..?" Felix's attention pivoted and his mouth widened into a grin. "My stuff!"
There, sitting on the mossy stone was a slew of pages and the splayed open form of his ragged notebook. Felix rushed over, keeping his eyes open for any more traps, and scooped them up. The notebook was more or less intact, though a number of pages in the back were coming loose from the binding. It even still had the few pages he stole from the Archon. Felix only briefly glanced at their fell designs before snapping them shut again. Of the actual satchel there was no sign, nor of his grease pen or the locked box Pit had stolen. It appeared as if the bag had fallen from a great height and scattered, which unfortunately made sense.
We must be closer to our landing point then, right? How would the bag have fallen here if it was really four hours away from where we landed? Felix frowned. We did double back on many of the pathways...this Labyrinth is too strange though. How big is it, exactly?
