A Dungeon’s Survival

Lance

She just had to go rushing in ahead, didn't she?

Flur had been like this for as long as I'd known her. She was impulsive, prone to tunnel visioning, and, to put it simply, a battle junkie. Over the course of the near year I'd been adventuring with her, I'd found myself questioning the same thing over and over again.

How has she survived for this long?

It was almost impressive how bad her self-preservation instincts could be at times, yet she always seemed to come out of whatever trouble she got herself into just fine. I suddenly felt a deep sympathy for Randy. I had no clue how he had managed to keep her in check for so long, and now, without him here, I was the only one left who could. That was a sobering thought.

I can't lose her too.

I hadn't known her for as long as I had the other members of our party, but she was all that was left of it, so I moved. My own speed couldn't compare to hers, but I wasn't slow. Agility was my second highest stat.

I rushed forward, and as a vine swung toward me, I raised my blade to parry the attack. My arms hurt from the action, and I was pushed back, but through a combination of my apparently higher strength stat and my Brace ability, it was enough to redirect the blow. I wasted no time in hurrying ahead.

As I ran, I called back, “Dan, keep the others safe!”

We were the only two front liners left standing, and I needed to get to Flur. That meant that the others would have to hold their own. Since they were at the entrance and two of them were ranged combatants, I figured that wouldn't be too hard for them.

As I moved, I saw another vine rise from the ground in front of me. Like the one that had gotten the better of Flur, it had a Crystal Puffer attached to the end. It was a bizarre sight, but that was the least of my concerns as the plant monster erupted with pitch-black flames. They clung to me and burned. A moment later, I swung my sword at the enemy that had appeared so suddenly.

Slash! I thought as I activated one of my abilities.

It wasn't anything flashy, but it made my strike do more damage at the cost of stamina.

[Crystal Puffer (Level 1) slain! No experience gained.]

A moment later, my surroundings lit up as a bright light shone from behind me. Lawrence had come through, and the flames that clung to me were chased away by one of his strange, magical beads.

I should probably stop teasing him so much, I found myself thinking before dismissing the idea.

No, I wouldn't. It was too much fun and far too easy. Also, it was good for group morale.

I resolved myself to instead do something nice for the boy and charged forward. Maybe I could find an opportunity to help him to show off to the beastkin girl he was so clearly head over heels for, but that was a matter for later. I chased those useless thoughts away as I moved. For now, Flur was what was most important.

“Roll to your right!” I called out.

The incapacitated rogue lying on the ground did as told and barely dodged a stony vine crashing down where she had been only a moment prior. I closed in, and as I reached her and the tendril, I activated both of my active abilities at once. Slash, without a cooldown for me to worry about, enhanced my attacks whenever I needed it to, and Piercing Strikes, despite not being much flashier, paired perfectly with it. The second ability empowered my attacks for a time, causing them to ignore some of my target's defenses. Together, they allowed me to rip through the vine and the attached Crystal Puffer.

[Crystal Puffer (Level 1) slain! No experience gained.]

As soon as the tip of the vine was severed, I reached down and grabbed Flur. Throwing her over my shoulder, I made my way back toward the entrance. A few more vines erupted from the ground ahead of me, cutting off my path of retreat. As I came to a stop, I heard something splash from behind me. On instinct, I turned, but the only thing to be seen was a black mist.

“It's just me,” Flur clarified as I realized what the noise had been.

Lawrence, for as awkward as he was, was impressively capable in terms of alchemy. He had prepared countermeasures for some of the more troublesome Crystal Puffers we had encountered. One such precaution was a solvent that dissolved the shadowy fluid. Flur had just splashed it over herself.

“This stuff burns!” she complained from her position on my shoulder.

“Not the time,” I told her.

“You splash strange concoctions into your eyes and try not to complain!”

I could see her point, but it really wasn't the time.

“Stop retreating,” she ordered, “we need to take out the flower. My guess is its in, around, or on top of the tree.”

It wasn't like we could turn back anyway, so I moved. Heading for the tree, another vine erupted from the ground, this one carrying another puffer. It burst into a blindingly bright light that disoriented me. I lost my senses.

Unable to properly perceive the world around me, I had no clue what was going on. All I did know was that, after a few seconds, I could feel something tugging on my arm. It took me longer than it should have to realize that had to have been Flur. Once that realization set it, I allowed myself to be pulled by her. As I did so, I felt something scratch across my face.

“Your Brace ability can be a serious pain, you know!” were the words that grounded me as the world began to swim back into view.

Flur was dragging me in a direction, but I couldn't make out any distinct shapes as we moved. I just let her guide me.

“First shadow, then light, and now fog? What is with this thing!?”

I hadn't even known there was fog.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Dan moved in to distract. Autumn and Lawrence are setting anything and everything on fire.”

I paused for a moment, trying to figure out how Autumn could be helping with that, but I shook the confusion off after a couple of seconds. Lawrence had made her something that could ignite her arrows. She must have used it.

“Come on,” Flur urged me, and I picked up the pace.

“Down!”

I ducked at her warning.

It was a weird feeling, being dragged around and positioned like a marionette while half blind. Eventually, though, my vision came back enough for me to be able to make out what was going on. It was a horrifying sight.

The fog made it hard to see near us, and smoke made it hard to see at a distance. Blazing tendrils thrashed about throughout the room while lighting patches of grass on fire as they did so, and at the center of everything was a burning tree. That was where we were heading.

I raised my sword once more and began fending off incoming attacks instead of just relying on Flur to help me barely dodge them. She seemed to take that as me being good enough to handle my own because she immediately rushed off. I heaved a deep sigh. This entire situation was a mess.

Left to my own devices, I slashed my way through two vines that seemed dead set on killing me. I tore them to shreds, but no matter how much damage I did, they kept coming. It was like shaving down sticks. My efforts reduced their range and would eventually render them useless, but with how long they were, that wasn't going to be any time soon.

Then, it happened. As a thrashing vine was coming straight toward me, it veered off course, flailed wildly for a second, and fell limp along with the other one. At the same time, a notification appeared in my field of vision.

[Bloodthorn Vines (Level 5) slain! 350 experience gained.]

“I got it!” came Flur's voice a moment later.

Relief filled me, and I could hear the others cheering. Another moment passed and she yelled out again, “Only three hundred and fifty? You've got to be kidding me!”

In contrast, I was pretty sure I heard both of siblings say that they had leveled up. That was good. It meant Autumn would now be at level ten and get her third ability.

Exhausted, I called out, “Flur, that's with a five-way split. It's not much less than we were getting from the two-headed snake.”

“But, this thing almost killed me! Besides, killing five Shadow Vipers from the third room would net us the same amount, and they're far easier to kill!”

I exhaled in exasperation. She wasn't wrong, but back then, it had taken five of us with a minimum level of sixteen to handle that monster. We had accomplished this with a level twenty, a sixteen, an eleven, a ten, and a nine. Also most of the challenge had come from it catching us off guard. Overall, it hadn't been that strong. It was just versatile, and we weren't prepared.

“Come help me with this thing!” she yelled.

I took a deep breath and began making my way toward her. Collecting what we could of the body and getting out sounded like a wonderful idea. I was exhausted and needed a rest. I hadn't taken many hits or been fighting for all that long, but the sheer amount of times I had been forced to use Slash had drained me. Also, the room was on fire. That was a good incentive to hurry up and leave.

It didn't take long for me to reach her. She was struggling with something at the base of the other side of the flaming tree. As I circled around it to get to her, my mouth fell open, and my eyes bulged. I couldn't help but to just stare for a few long moments.

“Well, are you going to help me or not?”

It wasn't the flower that I was staring at. That was there too, but it wasn't much to look at. Visually, it was no different from the ones in the second room. Instead, what had caught me so off guard was the thing Flur was struggling to extract from underneath it.

“You're really complaining about the experience when we get that?” I asked incredulously.

“I've seen bigger.”

I didn't have a response for that. It was the largest mana crystal I'd ever laid eyes on, not that I'd seen too many, but still, it was larger than a person's head, and it glowed brightly.

“How much do you figure that's worth?” I asked as I crouched down and began helping.

“Hmm,” she thought for a moment before answering, “From the color, it's light mana. At this size and with it being perfectly spherical–that's not natural for them, by the way–it's a good sample. It would largely depend on who you're selling to, but this far from an entrance to the Great Caverns, you could probably get at least a gold or two for it, maybe five at most, but that would be a hard sell.”

I stared at her blankly.

“What?”

“How do you know that?”

It wasn't even the large value she had assigned to it that shocked me. It was the confidence in in which she came to it that did. Before coming to this Dungeon, she had never even mentioned the things. I didn't expect her to have an actual answer for me when I asked the question.

“My tribe survived off of mining and exporting these things,” she shrugged, “I was interested to see just how badly the merchants were shortchanging us when I came to the surface, so I looked into it.”

Her answer caught me off guard. In all the time I'd known her, she'd never once mentioned her tribe, and on the rare occasion someone else brought it up or asked about it, she always deflected or ended the conversation outright. I didn't know what to say in response to that, but it seemed I didn't need to.

Shoving the thing into my arms, she said, “Take this. I'll get the flower and follow after you.”

I nodded and did as told without wasting much time. The smoke in the room was getting bad.