Chapter 69: Sixty Seven

As I watched Kip and Pia sift through the charred remains that belonged to one of Eternia’s hunting teams, a feeling of discontent filled me. It hadn’t been until after I’d started the fire that my mind finally decided to remind me why the names I’d heard were so familiar. 

Personally, I had nothing against the other team, and despite asking my own teammates multiple times why there was bad blood between the two teams, they’d not given me a proper answer. If I’d realized they were Eternia guild members before setting the hall on fire, I probably wouldn’t have done it. 

“I really don’t feel comfortable with you looting their possessions,” I complained as Kip let out a happy whistle, before pouring a small pile of mana crystals onto the floor beside one of the corpses.

“They’d be doing the same to us if things were reversed.” Pia said, not even looking up at me as she continued digging through Freya's burnt robes.

“Trust us Foxy, they deserved this.” Kip added, tossing one of the larger crystals to Victoria. 

“How can I trust you, when you won’t tell me why?” I snapped in response. “As far as I’m concerned all you're doing right now is stealing from your own guild mates. You’ve given no reason or justification for your dislike.” 

“Devon and I were together for about three weeks,” Rainy said softly, brushing a loose strand of pink hair behind a pointed ear. “When Karim was dismissed from the guild after his probationary period ended, Devon’s team was short a ranged attacker and I suggested Freya join his team temporarily.” 

“Long story short, Freya screwed Rainy’s boyfriend.” Pia drawled, when Rainy’s voice trailed off and it didn’t seem like she was going to continue speaking. 

 “And we aren’t looting them all, just the bitch and bastard.” Victoria said, giving Kip a scolding glare as he went to search the body of a short man from Devon's team who’d been the only one to escape the fire, though he hadn’t escaped from the dwarf's daggers. 

“Aw, come on Vicky, it’s Gregor, the smarmy prick deserves it.” Kip pleaded, but Victoria shook her head. 

“We’ll already be on a reprimand for killing them if they were able to recognize it was us. I don’t want to deal with allegations of theft as well. It is hard to prove the theft of mana crystals, but personal items will be easily identified with a search of our possessions.” 

“Gregor definitely saw me, they’ll be running to Commander Corvus the moment they respawn.” Kip said, brushing soot off his hands and clothes as he moved away from the bodies. 

“And I’ll tell Corvus I didn’t know who was coming, only that a group was headed our way so I attacked out of self preservation. Which is the truth, I’ve never met Devon or his team, and have only briefly seen Freya once. You killed the one rushing out of the fire on reflex, as he would have attacked us.” I explained, getting a chuckle from the dwarf in response. 

“I doubt he’ll believe it, even coming from you.” 

“It’s the truth, and he’ll not side with them over me.” I said confidently as I eased around the bodies.     

Knowing what I did now, I wished I’d killed them in a more painful manner. Though, from the screaming I suspected burning to death wasn’t exactly a pleasant thing to endure. Infidelity was one of the few things I could not, and would not tolerate. The idea of even being in the same room as the pair of adulterers, let alone the same guild left a sour taste in my mouth. Rainy and Devon may have only been together for three weeks, but that didn’t make what they did any less of a betrayal. 

There was also the matter of their lack of integrity to consider. If they were so willing to betray someone they had a personal relationship with, then I didn’t trust them not to betray the guild. 

Even with the extra mana crystals looted from Devon and Freya, it wasn’t enough to fully reform Victoria’s first shield. Though, the captain estimated it would only take three more low-grade crystals. 

“If we check for signs for where Devon’s group already searched, we should be able to skip those areas ourselves.” Rainy suggested as we headed in the direction the group had come from. 

Finding signs of the other group's movements through the dungeon wasn’t difficult, as they’d been using the same method of marking traps with chalk that Kip used. 

“Well, that explains why there were only four bodies earlier.” Pia said as we gazed down at the impaled corpse of a man at the bottom of an activated pit trap. 

“I’d make a comment about how only a blind rogue would be fool enough to fall into a pit trap, but considering I was also in one recently, it’d be an insult to myself as well.” Kip said, as he crouched at the edge of the pit. 

“Doesn’t look like they went across to the other side,” he observed. 

“Then that’s where we’ll go.” Victoria declared, gesturing for Rainy to use her vines to form a bridge across the pit. 

One by one we crossed the swaying bridge of vines, with Rainy crossing last. I walked directly behind Kip, Victoria was directly behind me followed by Pia, while Rainy brought up the rear. This allowed Kip to focus on his search for traps whilst I acted as both torch and ranged attacker against any oncoming foes. 

After almost an hour walking, four dead ends, and a room filled with cobras that Pyr swiftly burnt to ash, we found ourselves standing before a cavernous room. Dozens of platforms hung from the ceiling, secured in place by thick rusty chains that attached to the corners of each platform. Below the platforms was a dark pit, and I suspected if we fell we’d find something pointy waiting for us at the bottom. 

“What’s the bet if we stand on the wrong one it falls?” Kip muttered as he craned his head back to look at the roof where the chains holding up the platforms were secured. 

“I’m not in the habit of making bets with such poor odds.” Rainy commented.

Sending some of her vines out to coil around the chains, the Dryad made a yanking motion with her hands, using her vines to test if the platform would fall. The chains gave a metallic groan, but stayed attached to the roof, and after a quick game of rock, paper, scissors Pia was chosen to be the first to jump across to the platform. After securing a vine around the Faun’s waist, we watched with bated breath as she leapt across the two foot wide gap between the end of the hall, and the first platform. 

Rainy was the next to cross, and after tugging on the next platform with her vines resulted in it crashing into the dark pit below, we decided to take a moment to reassess our plan to move forward. The room was too wide for Rainy to bridge her vines across it, as the bridge would be too weak at the center point to support our weight. Swinging across on vines also wasn’t an option, though Pia seemed keen to make the attempt.  

“If we had Vicky’s shields we could just float across.” Pia complained, as we gazed out across the room. 

“I say we continue as is, and use Rainy’s vines to test each platform to find the correct path through.” Kip suggested, and we all agreed. 

“Rainy, and Pia take the lead to cross. Foxy, can you keep a flame over them?” Victoria asked, and I hesitated for a moment. 

“It might be best if I send Pyr with them, and keep a conjured flame as light for us. The further away they get the harder it will be for me to control the flames.” I informed her, getting a nod in response. 

As Pia jumped back to the first platform, I directed Pyr to follow the Faun, keeping him above her head as she and Rainy tested the platforms that hung diagonally from the first. The platform to the left remained in place, and a quick check of the one on the right saw it go crashing to the bottom of the pit where it joined its fallen brethren. 

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Once the pair moved off the first platform, Kip made the jump, and I followed, leaving Victoria behind to wait for us to move forward before moving onto the first platform herself. We’d decided that it would be best to move in pairs, or in Victoria’s case alone, just in case each ‘safe’ platform had a weight limit. 

Waiting for the girls to move forwards, I peered over the edge of the platform Kip and I currently stood on, but was unable to see the bottom of the pit through the darkness. Curious as to what fate might be waiting below, I sent a fist sized ball of fire over the edge of the platform and down into the pit. 

Whoosh. 

With a blast of hot air, the once empty void beneath the hanging platforms became a sea of fire. Which quickly crept across the walls and roof, leaving us standing suspended in the center of a fiery inferno. 

“Oops.” 

“KADIA!” Four angry voices shouted my name, and I lowered my head, ears dropping to lay flat against my hair. 

“I didn’t mean to,” I pleaded, feeling sweat bead across my flesh as the room grew unbearably hot. 

“Keep going.” Victoria shouted from the platform behind us, yelling for Rainy and Pia to continue moving across the platforms. 

Turning away from where she’d been scowling in my direction, Rainy sent out her vines towards the next platform, before leaping across with Pia. Three more jumps, and both girls were safely on the other side, with the rest of us following quickly behind them. 

“How about keeping your flames out of pits from now on, Foxy?” Kip suggested as Victoria jumped into the hallway from the last platform. 

“I just wanted to see what was beneath us.” 

“Sometimes it’s better not to know.” Victoria said gruffly, pulling out a water flask and pouring its contents over her head. 

After passing around a jar of cooling salve, and taking a moment to rest, we continued moving through the dungeon in search of the elusive mana crystals. 

Which turned out to not be so elusive once Kip set off a pit trap so we could bridge our way safely across it, and revealed clusters of crystals that had formed around the large spikes protruding from the floor of the pit. 

A round of rock, paper, scissors found Kip on the losing end, and thus the one to be lowered into the pit secured by a vine harness. 

“You know, it’d be kind of funny if you dropped him right about now.” Pia goaded as Kip reached the halfway point, which earned the Faun a smack on the head from our captain and a rude hand gesture from the dwarf in response. 

“Wait, wait, stop lowering him.” I shouted out to Rainy from where I knelt, peering over the edge of the pit. 

“What’s wrong? Do you see something?” Victoria asked, rushing to join me at the edge as Rainy brought the dwarf to a jerky stop. 

“Raise him a little higher.” I directed, and Rainy pulled a confused Kip up a few feet before I told her to stop. 

“Now, can you slide him to the left? Keep going, keep going, stop.” As the dwarf came to stop, I leaned further over the edge peering down at Kip who was looking more than a little concerned by now.

“Kip, can you grab those mushrooms please? The ones growing in the corner.” I asked, pointing to the dark gray fungi growing just out of reach from where I was crouched. 

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Victoria stood from where she’d knelt beside me, as Pia and Rainy let out amused laughs. 

“I’m down here for mana crystals, not mushrooms.” Kip yelled up at me. 

“Please? I haven’t seen any like those before,” I pleaded, staring down at him with a wide eyed look that always worked on my brother. 

“Well, I guess I can sell you these here mushrooms. Let's see, how about one gold each.” Kip said, stroking his mustache with a wide grin. 

“How about you pick the mushrooms for me, and I don’t burn away the vines holding you?” I suggested, watching in amusement as the dwarf put on an exaggerated look of contemplation. 

“I suppose that’s a fair deal,” he conceded, and used a knife to pry the mushrooms loose before packing them into a linen bag I tossed down to him. 

Mushrooms harvested, Rainy began lowering Kip once more. As the dwarf set about the task of mining the clusters of mana crystals, I sat with my legs dangling over the edge of the pit, tossing Pyr from hand to hand in boredom. 

All the stories I’d been told about dungeons were lies. They weren’t fun or exciting at all. If not for the mana crystals and high amounts of mana I was absorbing from the few encounters we’d had with various mummified creatures, I’d consider this entire ‘dungeon diving’ endeavor to be a waste of time. 

What was the point? The mummified creatures didn’t drop any loot, and while they did all have strange dark crystals inside their corpses that appeared to be of alchemic value, I had no clue what to use them for. Though according to Kip, the dark crystals were valuable and could be sold to necromancers or Kemet merchants for a few silver depending on the size of the crystal. Apparently they were a component in rituals used to raise the dead, and could be found inside all ‘undead’ beings. 

I’d rather be in my lab, or somewhere there are plants and animals that have more alchemic properties, I thought with a sigh as I watched Kip carefully extract the mana crystals. 

Hopefully, there would be enough crystals down there for Victoria to reform her shields, and we could leave the dungeon. However, even if we did have enough mana crystals, I suspected my team would want to continue through the dungeon to search for the Pharaoh's tomb, despite knowing that such an encounter would most likely result in our deaths. 

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