Chapter 32: Aberrant

Derivan would have frowned, if he could have. The lights in his armor dimmed to show his worry.

Helping Misa was, of course, easier said than done. None of them had any idea how they could get to where she was, and Kestel was frantic through the telepathic connection, telling them to find the delve team.

That telepathy faded into a horrified silence as the flames faded and revealed a corridor full of blackened skeletons in front of them.

Sev, Derivan, and Vex all tensed. The fact that all those skeletons were upright didn't bode particularly well for them, since it meant they were more likely to be monsters, but none of them seemed like they were about to attack — if anything, they looked about as depressed as skeletons could look.

So much so that Derivan couldn't help but speak. "Are you... alright?" He asked, cautiously.

What are you doing? You need to find the delve team, someone on the research team snapped. Kill them and get it over with.

Derivan ignored whoever that was, focusing instead on the skeleton that stepped forward — a lizardkin skeleton, judging by the snout and tail. The defeated slump of its shoulders turned almost angry when he spoke, and it snapped at him. "What do you think? If you'd been just a second faster—"

"They still saved us," another lizardkin skeleton pointed out, putting a hand on the first one's shoulder.

"—We could have survived if we ran back into the room! And if they'd just done it faster—"

"That's not how it works and you know it, Ixiss," the second skeleton said.

Ixiss?A voice came through the telepathic connection, sounding horrified. Was it Kestel speaking? The emotional balance was different, and made it harder to identify.

"Are you the backup?" A third skeleton asked.

There was a short pause as the adventurers — and the research team, really — processed that this was the delve team.

What... happened to them? That was definitely Kestel; still emotionally off-balance, but slightly clearer.

"We are," Derivan replied, looking down the corridor. He was worried. He could hear fighting in the distance.

"How did you get in?" The first lizardkin skeleton — Ixiss, Derivan remembered — asked suspiciously. "That shouldn't be possible. I swear, if you're another dungeon trick—"

"Ixiss," the skeleton that had a hand on the lizardkin's shoulder hissed again. "Give them a chance to explain before you start threatening them!"

"Uh," Vex spoke up, raising a hand. "One of us has a skill that lets us... get through dimensional boundaries like that. But we're still in contact with the research team, so if you need to verify anything—"

"Tell me what our delve team code is," Ixiss immediately said.

AA63, Kestel said over the telepathic link, sounding tired.

"AA63," Vex repeated dutifully. Derivan had no idea what that meant. Some kind of numbering system? Vex seemed to know, though, with the way he sagged slightly.

Ixiss... had eye sockets, and so couldn't narrow his eyes at them. He still managed to give off the impression that he was narrowing his eyes at them, stepping forward and rattling his tail in a threatening sort of way, which was astonishing considering he couldn't have been a skeleton for long. "Fine," the lizardkin hissed at them. "But if I so much as smell a hint of betrayal—"

"You'll have to forgive him," the other lizardkin skeleton finally said, using her grip on Ixiss' shoulder. Her posture was significantly friendlier than his, and she gave them a relaxed, evaluating sort of look. "He's a little on edge. On account of the whole being turned into skeletons because a dungeon monster snuck in and posed as one of us."

"It's better than—" Ixiss started, and the other skeleton smacked him on the snout. He looked stunned.

"Shut up. They can hear us, idiot," she said. "My name's Iliss. This idiot's my brother. We're like this because a half-orc appeared and saved our lives, but there was some sort of skill interaction that messed with it. We have the notification boxes to prove it."

"Who was that half-orc, anyway?" One of the others asked. "She just... showed up. And then..."

They fell silent briefly.

"She's our friend," Sev said quietly. His grip on his staff was tense. "We need to get to her."

"You're going to have to deal with the challenge room first either way. I don't think we'll be replicating the activation conditions for that bonus room, so your best bet is to use one of the dungeon rewards to get there. Our captain is still fighting in the room ahead," Iliss briefed quickly. "There's a monster we can't damage. We were going to try to come back and contact the research team, get them to reapply the scrying and telepathy spells. See if they can figure out why."

What kind of monster is it? Kestel asked, and Derivan relayed the question.

"Level 73 Aberrant. Arcane and Necrotic types," Iliss said.

"What?" Vex frowned at that, and Kestel made almost the same noise over the telepathic connection. "That shouldn't be possible. Those mana types are incompatible."

"Well, we're also all skeletons now, so," Iliss said drily. "I think impossible flew out of the window a while ago."

"You are remarkably calm about this," Derivan observed.

"We're a delve team. We've been through some shit," Iliss said bluntly. She glanced back at one member of the skeletons, though, one that still hadn't said anything and was staring at their own hands, trembling slightly, and she sighed.

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"...Most of us, anyway," she added quietly.

Get to the challenge room. We need to see what we're dealing with, Kestel said. Derivan nodded.

"We are going to check the challenge room," he said out loud, perhaps unnecessarily. Iliss just shrugged and fell into step behind him, and the other delvers did as well; Derivan led the way, with Vex and Sev following close behind him.

The captain of the delve team — still in skeleton form, with his equipment loosely hanging off a body that it was no longer fit for — was still holding off the Aberrant. To his credit, he didn't seem to be the slightest bit exhausted. "I can do this all day, ya bastard!" He told the Aberrant, who screeched uncomprehendingly at him.

Iliss, somewhere behind Derivan, sighed. The captain seemed to notice, though he didn't look their way or give any indication that they were there. He spoke at the same volume, still shouting as if he was shouting at the Aberrant. "I hope ya got some kind of solution! I can keep this up for a while yet, but not forever!"

Clever. He was even maneuvering the fight so that the Aberrant was focusing on him, and the rest of them wouldn't be in its field of view — though given it didn't really have eyes, it wasn't exactly clear what sort of field of view it had. It certainly didn't seem to notice or care that they were there, though.

"I hope the miss is alright! I saw some notifications but I couldn't check 'em!" He continued yelling. "And if anything happens to me, I want ya to know, my team was great! Ixiss is probably the best fighter I've got—"

"Oh by the gods," Iliss groaned. "He's gonna keep talking. Figure out how to kill that thing quick, please."

Vex was staring ahead, concentrating on the Aberrant. It's weird, he said over the telepathic connection. The necrotic and arcane mana aren't interacting at all. It's just sort of... there. It's like there's an invisible boundary between the two types of mana. Some kind of metastable barrier? Reminds me of...

He trailed off, not elaborating.

There shouldn't be one, Kestel frowned. That's not how that works. Arcane type mana attracts and transforms into most other types of mana on contact.

Yes, well, it looks like there is. Can't tell you why. Vex's eyes glowed slightly as he focused in on his mana sight, but it didn't seem to give him too much more information. It has some type of mana core... I'm assuming that's its weakness. There's a crystal in the center holding its body together. But physical attacks can't seem to get to it.

Yes, it's an Aberrant. But physical attacks are what Aberrants are weak to, Kestel said. It shouldn't be immune to them.

Aberrants are a known type of monster? Derivan asked.

Yes. We've encountered them in a few dungeons. They're always immune to magic and have a physical core that we need to hit for them to take health damage. They have a skill, [Ethereal Body], that makes other hits just whiff through them if you don't hit the core.

"Great," Sev said out loud. "An aberrant Aberrant. Do we need to try magic?"

Bad idea, Kestel said quickly. Aberrants are a problem because of the arcane mana. They're able to absorb and transform most types of magic.

"Don't you have something you can do about that?" Sev said, raising a brow at Vex. "You did it to the Overseer."

"...I might be able to," Vex said, frowning slightly. "But it might not be a good idea. We need to understand why it's immune to attacks, first."

"Do you think it's a system glitch?" Sev asked suddenly. "The system's obviously been more unstable than usual lately. And there's whatever happened with the delvers..."

Vex was silent for a moment, but then his eyes sharpened a bit. "...I think you're right. My spell wouldn't work. Derivan, we're going to need you for this."

It took more time than Misa wanted for her to be able to gather herself, but gather herself she did. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, really. An hour? Maybe two? Probably not nearly that much, but she had no real concept of how much time had passed; she was still trembling slightly when she got to her feet, but she took a breath and tried to let her emotions pass through her.

Meditation. Vex had taught her how to do it not too long ago. She'd thought it was a waste of time; who knew it would be proving itself useful here?

There didn't seem to be any way out of the... bonus room, if it could be called that. The whole place just looked like a perfect replica of her village and the field surrounding it. Which meant that the only way to leave would be to succeed or to fail.

Illusion or not — cruel or not — Misa was not going to let her home be destroyed in front of her a second time.

Part of her did wonder, though, what would happen if she traveled away from the village. There were open skies above her and no walls that she could make out. She knew what direction the monsters had come from the first time around. Would it be the same this time? Could she go there, and see what had happened?

Vex would know. He always knew the little intricacies of how dungeons worked. Misa abruptly realized that her team must be wondering what had happened to her, and, feeling a little frantic, tried to check the message interface through her system.

Time differential is too significant for system-based messages to operate in real-time.

...Huh.

There was a message waiting for her from Sev, blinking in the system; it was just four words. [We're coming to help.]

Her heart still stung a bit from the situation she was in, but she couldn't help but smile slightly anyway. No hint of hesitation, no hint of doubt. They didn't even know how they were going to do it, but they were going to do it anyway.

Well, if anyone would figure out how to join her, it would be them. Hopefully they'd find a way to deal with that Aberrant, too.

Feeling a little better, Misa took one last deep breath, staring fixedly in the direction of her village, before finally heading towards it. She could still hear the sounds of her friends and family — all faces she hadn't seen for what felt like a lifetime. She was bracing herself for it, really. She'd long assumed that she'd never see these faces again...

If nothing else, it would at least be an opportunity to commit them to memory, one last time. It was an opportunity she didn't think she'd ever have.

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