A Dungeon’s Survival

Pee

The last of the black flames were slowly dying out. Wherever my Shadow Blasts had impacted, regardless of the surface, dark blazes had sprung up and remained for a short while. No matter how many times I tested out our new ability, the results were still shocking to me. So much had happened in such a short time.

You really are amazing, Vie! I complimented my sister yet again.

“I failed,” was her response.

No, sister, you didn't.

I nuzzled the side of her head with my own as I tried to reassure her. If anyone had failed, it had been me, but I was starting to get used to the feeling by now. We never seemed to succeed when it really counted, but that wasn't the case this time. While my strength may have faltered, hers hadn't. She had done it. Even if it had also cost her her life in the end, she had taken down the strongest enemy we had yet to face.

I'm so proud of you.

“Don't be. I failed!” she hissed in protest, but try as she might, she was unable to shake me off.

You won!

“I died before the real threat even showed up.”

I died first!

“That was also my fault!”

Vie, look, burning shadows! You did this! I know I couldn't have. It's your accomplishment, your success!

“It was your work that enabled me to. I just used the skills you worked so hard to hone. I still don't even understand how it happened.”

That doesn't matter. What matters is that you did!

Finally, she gave in and accepted my affectionate nuzzles.

You're more amazing than you know.

“It's not enough.”

Then, all we need to do is get stronger! Come, look, shadows burning with our magic! We have so many extra stats, too! Is that not a start?

“The beast who is extorting our queen, though, how could we ever hope to match such a thing?”

No clue!

She deflated at my words, sinking back into the despair her worries and insecurities brought with them. I made sure not to let that last.

But! I stressed the word, I know someone who's smart and is sure to figure it out, just like you always do!

It was then that she finally relented and started nuzzling me back. We indulged in each other's comforting presences for a while. While we did still have training to do if we ever wanted to grow strong enough to protect mother, it could wait for a short time, and Vie needed that time to calm down. Eventually, however, we found ourselves being interrupted by an unlikely visitor.

“Snakes!” a familiar voice squeaked out.

Oh, hi, I greeted Adraugon who was sauntering into the arena.

“Lizard,” my sister acknowledged.

He stamped his foot in response, a clear display of displeasure.

“Fight me!”

I tilted my head at his bold demand. My sister just stared at him.

“You? Fight us?” she finally asked.

His mouth opened and closed several times before he started angrily clawing at the ground. A few moments later, he growled out, “Fight me,” once more, but this time, it lacked the fury of the first, and in its place was a firm resolve.

“Very well,” my sister answered.

Huh?

I, however, still had no clue what was going on. Also there was another issue.

Even if we were to fight, I've already used up most of my mana. Also, wouldn't it be bad if we died?

“Pee, it's fine,” Vie assured me.

Okay, I slowly agreed, still confused.

“What are the terms of this battle?” she asked.

“First strike wins.”

“That is acceptable. Shall we begin?”

Instead of a verbal response, our apparent opponent took to the air. It looked like that was the sign to start.

* * *

Vie

I wasn't entirely sure what the lizard was thinking, but I wasn't going to turn down his challenge either. I knew Pee and I weren't strong enough to protect our queen, but she wasn't wrong either. We were far stronger now than we were before. By exactly how much, I didn't know, but that was why, even if our mana reserves weren't full, I readily accepted his challenge. It also didn't hurt that the fight was only until the first strike, not that I thought either side had enough durability to last much longer than that if we were to take real hits anyway.

I did also momentarily consider asking our queen to distribute our unallocated stat points before we began. We'd been thinking about how to use them first, but using them now would give us a better benchmark. In the end, I'd decided against it, though. I knew she was busy and didn't want to bother her. Besides, the battle was at hand.

Our opponent moved, and the moment he did, I put a halt to the useless thoughts still running across my mind and leaped into action. We were fast, but his speed put ours to shame. In many ways it was a bad matchup for us, but in many others, it was a good one.

Venom, something that was responsible for half of the damage we could do, was effectively useless against an opponent that couldn't survive getting bitten in the first place, and his speed made landing physical attacks an unreasonable feat in the first place. Then, even if we did manage it, his Velocity Transference could perfectly counter any attack we could make with our body. We'd be the ones taken out from such an exchange. That made beating him in melee combat an impossibility.

Long-ranged combat was also a bad idea. Shadow Blast, for as good as it was, wouldn't be hitting the agile flier. Mid-range, however, was the perfect distance to take him on at. From there, our attacks had the best chance of connecting, and at the same time, since our opponent had no ranged attacks, we'd be safe. Also, though we had yet to try using it in actual combat, we also had area denial now.

“Pee,” I called out as I moved our body, “don't aim for him unless it's a distraction. Aim for surfaces in front of him if you get a chance. Also, try to only use your mana on shadow fire blasts unless it's an emergency.”

“Got it!” she agreed to my suggestions cheerfully.

I was going to leave the use of Shadow Blasts to her if I could. We had spent the hours since our queen returned us to life training, and while we had made sure to conserve mana in case of an emergency, we had been interested in trying out our new ability and practicing with it. As a result, both of us only had about half of our maximum mana available, a little more than that for me.

For Pee, who specialized in magic, that meant she could still cast a number of Shadow Blasts, even with their costs being being doubled by Flaming Shadows. I didn't specialize in magic, though. In fact, despite me having a higher percentage of total mana left than she did, I still had a significant amount less than her, and I intended to spend it on other things, things like the spell I wasted no time in casting.

Shadow Enhancement!

The way the spell normally worked was that it coated a part of our body of our choosing with shadows that increased our damage. When enhanced with Flaming Shadows, it worked similarly, but from the small amount of testing I had done with it so far, I had discovered another way to use the spell. By targeting our belly with it, we could leave behind a trail of the hard-to-extinguish flames in our wake.

A while back, after we'd failed to be present for an army attacking our queen, we had trained against a giant Plated Gator. At that time, I had come up with the idea of using mud flung up by us when moving at high speeds as cover and to obstruct an opponent's vision. I had never gotten a chance to try that tactic out in actual combat, however, but by using the shadow fire that was now at our command in place of mud, I now found myself in the perfect position to test out something similar. In fact, a lot of new tactics available to me. It was only a matter of testing their viability, and as it turned out, the enhanced spell was perfect of controlling a battlefield.

I weaved back and forth across the arena's floor as I kept an eye on our opponent, and my sister fired off a Shadow Blast. If he needed to close the distance between us, I wasn't going to make that easy for him. He didn't let that go on for long, though. After only a dozen or so seconds of me igniting the battlefield, he dove toward us at a speed that would have been difficult if not impossible for us to dodge.

Is he really going to make it this easy for us? I wondered as I took note of his approach.

The thought crossed my mind in an instant, and I reacted a moment later. Even as Pee launched a Shadow Blast at him and he narrowly dodged it, I was tracing his trajectory with my eyes. For as bad of an idea as fighting him at a close range was thanks to his Velocity Transference, there was a single exception to that rule. I would only be able to use it once, but by all means, I believed that would be enough to end the fight before it could even begin in earnest, so I used it.

Shadow Surge.

Enhanced by Flaming Shadows, it was a risky move, but it was also a powerful tool. When paired with shadow flames and a shadow-flame-enhanced Shadow Cloak, it seemed to negate some of the spell's normal limitations, namely the limited nature of our control over where we were going with it active and our inability to use it in bright places. Those were the upsides of our new method of casting it, but the downsides were steep. The moment I activated the spell, pain filled me.

Just like the first time I'd used it, back before Flaming Shadows was a System-recognized ability, sinking into the shadowed inferno made me feel like my very existence was slowly burning away. The pain was incredible, and I knew using it carelessly would result in us killing ourselves, but it also meant that we were now a shadowy fireball shooting directly toward that flying lizard as he flew directly toward us. That wasn't the kind of thing he could just dodge.

Then, the world around us lurched. Not being able to see while the spell was active, I had no clue what was happening. After hesitating for no more than a second, I ended its effect. We were upside down and flying away from the tiny dragon as we were being swept away by a powerful gust of wind. Meanwhile, our opponent was rushing straight toward us.

“Eep!” my sister made a shocked noise before darkness consumed us once more; she had pulled us into a normal Shadow Surge.

A second or two later, we were back on the ground, the lizard still rapidly approaching. I wasted no time in casting a shadow-fire-enhanced Shadow Blast to keep him at bay. To my horror, our opponent narrowly dodged it, though, his rapid shifts in direction nearly being too much for me to keep track of, but I didn't let that keep me from acting.

My first instinct was to use Shadow Enhancement to put a wall of shadow fire between us, but I'd ended the spell when I'd pulled us into Shadow Surge, and the five seconds the spell's cooldown required in order to be used again had yet to elapse. Instead, I did something I had wanted to avoid if at all possible. I used Mutant Surge.

With the added twenty percent to all of our stats, it was just enough for me to throw us out of the dragon's immediate path. We were now on a timer, though. Unless we wrapped the fight up in the next thirty seconds, we were going to be stuck fighting him with a significant reduction to all of those same stats. We couldn't allow that to happen.

Pee, I whispered, when I nudge you, cast a shadow fire blast at the ground directly in front of us.

“Okay!” she answered without hesitation.

I only had a couple dozen seconds worth of Shadow Enhancement left at most. It might have been enough for a Flaming-Shadows-empowered Shadow Blast instead, but I certainly didn't have enough for both. I was better suited to using Shadow Enhancement anyway, though, so that just meant I needed to rely on my sister to carry out the plan that was quickly forming in my mind. That was fine. I trusted her fully and without exception.

Moving through the room, I changed course and repeated turned sporadically, making sure my path remained unpredictable. As I did so, I waited. We were on a timer, but I needed my execution to be perfect if my idea had any chance of working. Then, it happened. Adraugon made his move. It was time to see if my mud idea was ever viable.

I waited until the last second, moving forward but also toward our opponent ever so slightly. Then, when he was nearly on top of us, I used Shadow Enhancement and raised the side of my body, turning away from the incoming dragon all the while. Shadow flames erupted underneath me, and they shot up at a perfect angle, creating a wall of black fire that provided us with cover.

As I expected, he was more than capable of shifting the air currents that he relied on for his movement in time. He rode them up and over us. I could only imagine the frustration he must have been feeling in that moment. I could picture him screaming in his mind perfectly. Then again, I could also imagine complete silence in that brain of his as he continuously acted on instinct and without thought. In fact, wasn't sure which scenario was more likely.

None of that mattered, though. I had completed my goal. I'd established a precedent for him. As little as I may have thought of his intelligence, I also knew that he was incredibly opportunistic and capable. He wouldn't recklessly charge back in until he saw an opening, not unless he thought he needed to. That was why I needed to make him think he did.

Because of that, I didn't cancel Shadow Enhancement. Soon, it was going to end on its own, and I would be out of mana. Not long after, Mutant Surge would end, and our chances of victory would slip away. I needed him to attack again before that, so I slowed down slightly and began putting more purpose into my changes of direction. He didn't know the duration of our skills, how much mana I had, or that the opening I was about to create was fake. It was time to put those levels I'd gotten in the Bluffing skill to work.

The seconds ticked by. He remained aloft and circling. I was beginning to wonder if I'd made a mistake. Then, the moment I'd been waiting for arrived. He made his move.

I waited until he got close and mirrored my movements from before. A wall of fire cut him off, and he evaded it. I'd accounted for that much. That was why the precedent from before had been so important to establish. He knew what to expect, and just like I expected him to, he changed his strategy to account for it.

My turn this time was sharper than before as I practically threw us backward. As I did so, I slammed my head against the side of Pee's neck. That was the signal. Adraugon had already corrected his course and was coming in from the side opposite his initial charge. Then, the series of events I'd been betting our victory on played out.

The dragon, outside of my calculations, picked up a lot of speed. Pee fired the Shadow Blast at around the same time. Our opponent pulled up, but he remained on course enough to reach us after dodging my sister's attack.

Then, the Shadow Blast exploded into a burst of flames. That was enough. While the mighty dragon wasn't caught in the blast itself, the flames reached up and licked at his tiny body. A moment later he was on top of us, but before landing his would-be-winning blow, he changed course and roared out a scream of outrage.

“Argh! That's it? That's it!? That didn't set off Unnatural Survival even!”

Slowly, I turned my head to face our now-defeated opponent. He was stomping his foot repeatedly, swishing his tale back and forth erratically, and screaming his lungs off.

Well fought, I called out to him after a moment.

“Yeah, that was close! I really thought you had us!” my sister added.

Our opponent stopped his outraged tantrum and slowly turned to face us. He was breathing heavily and baring his teeth, but still, he met our gazes. There were a few elongated seconds of silence that seemed to stretch out forever, but then, he spat, “Well fought, snakes.”

After that, he turned on the spot and stormed off.

“Huh,” my sister spoke up after he was gone, “I was expecting him to get angry and attack us!”

He couldn't, not even if he wanted to, I assured her.

“Huh? He couldn't? Why?”

Do you remember when our queen told us of the pact he is under?

“Yeah! Mother assured us he wasn't a threat, so we wouldn't attack him after hearing about how he threatened her!”

Do you remember the specifics of that pact?

“Hmm, no?”

Unlike invaders who he either needs permission to fight or needs to be attacked by first, he cannot hurt us no matter the situation. It's why I was so confused when he challenged us and likely why he proposed the battle only last until first strike instead of until death. He would never be able to kill us, so he would have had no win condition.

“Huh.”

I wasn't expecting the compliment, though.

“Yeah, that was weird! It felt wrong.”

We sat there for a short while in silence. Then, eventually, Pee broke it, “So, are we going to acknowledge that achievement?”

The achievement in question was the one we received at the end of our fight.

[Achievement gained: Naturally Meaningless!]

Unfortunately, I believe we should.

We already knew of this achievement, but I brought up the details anyway.

[Achievement: Naturally Meaningless

Description: One of your monsters has reached level 5 in a leisure skill through their own merits alone.

Reward: The monster has gained the Sound Resting ability!]

[Ability: Sound Resting

Description: While relaxing you heal and restore mana faster.

Effect: Whenever you are not doing anything physically or mentally exhausting, your health and mana regenerate +20% faster.]

How distasteful, I commented.

It seemed that last play of ours had been enough to push our Gambling skill up to level five, and from the looks of our status, it also got Bluffing to four and Tactics to eight. That was unfortunate. I didn't like the sound of an ability that rewarded wasting time, and the achievement's name was downright insulting.

“Ooh, Adraugon's going to be mad, isn't he? He's been wanting that for a while!”

Yes. Yes he has, and yes he will.

“Do we tell him?”

He'll … He'll find out eventually.

At least the other achievement we got was better.

[Achievement gained: One Monster Army!]

We definitely weren't telling him about that one.