World Sphere - 202 - Gift Exchange (Patreon)

Chapter 202:

Heat emanated from the steamy pools, causing us all to sweat—no, Relik was not sweating even though he wore more clothes and armor than us. I activated my thermostatic aura spell as it would not take much aether to sustain. The most disconcerting point was you couldn’t see any threats in the expanse before us. There used to be fire lizards and fire wasps on this floor. They were modest-sized lizards with short-range naphtha spit that ignited into intense flame when it impacted. It was oily and challenging to get off as it burned.

Relik surveyed the floor from the safe area. “This floor used to be three miles wide and nine miles long with rocky, crazy terrain with small lava pools. I assume the size has not been altered since the preceding floors remained the same.”

“What is in the pools?” Hyperion asked as he cautiously edged closer to the nearest one.

I sent one of my lightning elementals to scout the pool for him. The elemental approached and looked down into the steam rising from what seemed like a hot spring. It tilted its head curiously, then a black tentacle lashed out and wrapped around its neck. The owner of the tentacle was not strong enough to pull my elemental in, and the tentacle was hissing where it contacted the neck of the elemental. A second and a third lashed out, trying to restrain and draw the powerful elemental in. “An amorphous slime,” Relik stated as we evaluated the threat.

The elemental had finally had enough games and blasted the pool with its lightning breath in an explosion of light and sound. The steam was instantly dispersed, revealing a black mass floating in the water. Relik huffed, somewhat impressed, “Well, it was a big amorphous slime. They can shape their bodies to form long whips to pull prey into themselves. They don’t usually live in water, but could be using these pools to drown their victims. The range of the whips depends on the size of the slime. This one looked to have a range of about ten feet.” Relik surveyed the pools in front of us. “There is a possible path to avoid the pools and slimes.”

I studied the landscape and saw a winding path among the pools. “We don’t have time to figure out a safe route,” I ordered my elementals to start blasting the pools straight toward the fire giant. Where would the dungeon core be?” If the shifter was looking for the core, then we should get there first. As the elementals took to the air, Relik pulled out a sapphire sphere.

“This will get brighter the closer we get core, but it is not always—accurate. Dungeons get creative when they hide their cores. The question is, where is the shifter, and what other creatures are on this floor.” Relik said calmly. “We should head to the fire giant, kill it, and then find the core’s location. When you get close to finding the dungeon core, the dungeon pulls everything it can to protect itself. All the creatures on this floor would do their best to prevent its destruction or abduction.”

“The shifter is probably hiding in one of the pools, afraid to face me,” Hyperion said in jest. Relik grunted at the golden-haired elf as he began to follow the path the elementals were clearing for us. Hyperion said aloud, “Maybe the pools are all connected to an underground cave network.” Relik stopped walking and looked back at Hyperion, his eyebrow cocked in surprise.

Relik walked over to a pool with the floating sludge of the black amorphous slime that an elemental had already cooked. “Storme, got a light?” I walked up next to Relik and dropped some bright light stones into the water from my dimensional closet. We watched as they disappeared into the murky water. The odd shadows did show tunnels in the well as the light stones settled about twenty feet down. Hyperion was correct, and the pools were all connected by a network. Relik seethed a bit, “That is going to make it hard to corner the shifter.” I think his anger was partially due to the fact that Hyperion realized it before him.

A short time later, Hyperion was fishing the aether crystal from the black slime goo on the water's surface. It was a small tier-two crystal worth about twenty gold at a glance. There were hundreds of pools, and if each one had one of these slimes, this dungeon would be a gold mine.

The water suddenly erupted in a spray of murky water. Large, sharp jaws tried to close around Hyperion, but the creature froze in mid-breach. Thinking it was the shifter, I called for the lightning elementals and went into overdrive with lightning reflexes. As I moved, I raised my falchion to attack. I noted I was faster than Relik as I passed him.

Closing in, the wash of black water gave way to reveal a giant dark blue lizard, its throat swollen and ready to spew its payload. The dungeon had greatly upgraded the previous lizards on this floor in size. I glanced at Hyperion as I brought down my blade. He had an amused expression on his face. His ability to contain creatures with his ability was extremely powerful, and I think he had intentionally tried to lure this thing out—but that was just a guess.

My blade struck true and decapitated the lizard, but it was more difficult than expected. This was definitely a tier 2 or maybe tier three creature. As the head fell into the water, it burst into flames and ignited the black sludge on the surface of the slime. A thick, caustic, black smoke billowed from the pool. I wrapped Hyperion around the waist and pulled him away from the mild explosion and fumes.

Relik was only a step and a half behind me. He kicked the body back into the water as he passed. We stood together, and I spoke, “Looks like we found the other creature on the floor. It has been upgraded. Well, at least we know the dangers.”

“Don’t assume there are only two threats. That is just the minimum,” Relik lectured. “That was much stronger than the old variant, maybe even lower tier three.”

“We should check on its aether crystal them,” Hyperion said enthusiastically.

“Feel free to swing down and retrieve it,” Relik said, smirking.

“Maybe the next one, then,” Hyperion said, sighing.

The next giant lizard was just four pools later. This time, Hyperion let the creature clear the water before seizing its movement. Its eyes were furious as it tried to open its maw and release its flaming load. Relik walked around the creature while Hyperion held it in place, “This consumes my aether, you know. Can you just kill it already so I have something for the shifter?”

Relik didn’t rush as he studied the creature, testing its abrasive hide with his blade. He seemed to be torturing the creature but was also probably checking if it had the same weaknesses as before. Finished, he beheaded the creature in a blink. The head and then body fall to the dark, rocky ground. Hyperion gave a brief, annoyed look at Relik for taking his time.

“The hide is much tougher. Some lesser artificed weapons would have a hard time damaging it. We will have to get samples to the tanners to see if it is worth harvesting.” With four rapid swings of his massive blade, he cut a meat square patch and peeled it away from the flesh with his hands. The aether crystal I harvested was magnificent as well. A yellow tier-three crystal of about 100 units. That was five hundred gold on the market, and before the dungeon evolution, the only tier three crystal in the dungeon was from the fire giant on this level.

I know Sana wanted to evolve the dungeon again immediately after it opened, but the loot was almost too much to risk having it closed again. Maybe a slower seeding to give us time to benefit from the dungeon. But I was thinking too far ahead. We needed to purge the shifter.

We walked for a time, and I warned the others I was down to just one-sixth of my aether reserves. I had been using the lightning elementals to clear our path, and we had killed three more of the large fire lizards. Relik decided to risk waiting a few hours for me to recover aether. Each of us had complementary skills for the team. I was the proxy attack with my elementals, Hyperion was our control expert, and Relik was our brains and hammer.

Three hours later, we resumed our trek across the dungeon floor. “I think the shifter is hiding in the network of pools,” Hyperion said off-handily. That actually made a weird kind of sense, and maybe the core was in the tunnels. Relik’s core detection ball hadn’t glowed at all so far.

“How long could it hide in one of the pools before the dungeon took action against it?” I asked, walking just behind the dark elf.

“Team dungeons like this usually allow delvers a day without making progress outside of a safe area. Solo dungeons it is usually three days. At that time, the dungeon will respawn creatures and attempt to engage the delvers.” He spoke while studying the distant mound where the fire giant would be. I used my telescopic eye to zoom in, but there was too much steam from the pools in the air to see anything.

“You should teach at my Dungeon Academy. You know a lot of obscure facts and hard-to-find knowledge.” I said conversationally.

“I am not a very good teacher,” Relik hedged. “Sana has already tried to convince me as well.”

“How about one lecture a month?” I probed. “A thousand gold for a three-hour lecture,” I offered a fee I thought appropriate. Maybe I was a little too free with gold after seeing how profitable this dungeon was going to be.

Relik didn’t say no immediately as we waited for Hyperion to fish out another aether crystal for the remains of the amorphous black slime. Relik finally replied, “Perhaps we could have six different lectures, one given by each of my delve team. That way, we could cover different topics.”

I could understand him wanting to help out his delve team, but that was six thousand gold! I needed to keep Relik’s friendship, though, and it was just once a month. It should also be another way to upstage the Guildmaster in the capital. Relik had also proven to be too valuable an ally too many times. “Okay, six thousand gold for your team for one day a month. But we will run paired three-hour lectures, so a nine-hour day.”

Relik laughed, “I wasn’t inferring to pay each of us. A meal at the Shiny Platinum and a thousand gold is sufficient.”

“Six thousand gold is fine, but a full day, three three-hour blocks, two lectures competing for students. Hearing some of the Sphere's top delvers would be priceless for the students, and they may learn something that will save their lives on a delve.”

“They would all agree except maybe Jasper. He hates talking to more than one person at a time. But he does like to tell stories, and maybe he could tell of all of the times he almost died,” Relik said and paused. We had learned that fire lizards could be spotted when the steam in pools rose in waves instead of straight up. Hyperion sighed and went to us himself as bait again. The fire lizards were only mildly affected by the lightning attacks of the elementals. However, with Hyperion, they were not challenging to deal with. 

 We continued all the way to the mound in the distance, no sign of the shifter as we moved. At least the dungeon had not collapsed, and I had not been sent any messages from the Sana that it had tried to escape the dungeon. The outline of the fire giant was visible and I used my telescopic eye to study it.

The fire giant stood just over twenty feet tall, an imposing figure decked out in black plate armor. I knew it was simple runic inscribed steel previously, but it may have changed with evolution. Relik was studying the creature a half mile away, as it was studying us. He exhaled slowly, “We found the shifter.”

Hyperion immediately went on alert, stepping behind Relik. “Where is it? I am ready.”

“Inside the fire giant’s armor. Dungeon creatures have a fixed range of awareness. That suit of armor has been following us as we approached. It also never had a helm before, but that could have changed with the dungeon evolution. But the face in the open-faced helm is why I think it is him. There is no beard; I have never met a giant, inside or outside of a dungeon, without a beard.”

“It could be a she-giant,” Hyperion said, but he could not see the distance like me and Relik. That was definitely a male giant in my sight. He even had a cod piece on his armor.

“Plan?” I asked.

Relik seemed to consider, “The good news is if the dungeon had creatures to support the fire giant, the shifter would have killed them. Expect the armor to negate your elemental attacks. The prior version blunted magical and physical attacks. We pretend we are not aware and be cautious of traps. I don’t like the fact it is clearly waiting for us.”

We continued our approach, killing two more lizards before an expanse of dark stone separated us from the hill where the hill giant stood. The air had gotten much hotter, and the eyes of the giant seemed to glow. I had two lightning drakes ready and prepared to summon a third. “Send them,” Relik said, on guard.

The elementals flew wide left and right to approach from different sides. The fire giant looked left and waited. A spell array activated, and a pillar of radiant light burst from the ground to incinerate the elemental. I didn’t think my protections could have withstood that attack. They must be at least tier-four arrays to have enough power to quickly destroy the elemental. The shifter did have a lot of time to prepare.

The other lightning elemental met the same fate, and the fire giant grinned arrogantly at us. We were still over a hundred yards away as it bellowed in the common tongue of the Sphere, “Come and test your mettle against me, delvers. Be the first to conquer the new dungeon!”

In a soft tone, I addressed Relik, “You can do the talking for us.”

Relik studied the black armored giant for a long moment. “We know you are the shifter. Why have you not fled the islands?”

The grin turned to a frown. “Why would I flee from ants? Killing your teammates was the most fun I have had in a long time.”

Relik whispered to me, “It thinks we are part of the Maven Hunters. He killed a number of them and is trying to anger us into rushing him.” Relik bellowed back at the creature, “You will not leave here alive, Shifter. Your master will never know how you perished.”

The fire giant laughed uproariously, “You think my master cares about my life? I sent her the reports of your insignificant island already. If she wanted to, she could swat all your islands like flies!”

That sent chills down my spine. The shifter was not a rogue element. He was working for someone more powerful. “Find out who he is working for,” I whispered to Relik. Relik nodded slightly and took two steps forward, his large blade before him.

“If you are so confident, come and face us here.” Relik challenged. The Shifter was too smart to leave his defensible position, and he had more array constructed as well. I summoned and sent another elemental straight at him. It was consumed fifty yards from him, and he laughed.

“High Mage, your pets are annoyingly strong, but they will not get close enough to me to drain me again! At least I know how you defeated a dragonblood.” His voice was taunting but had me thinking. The only dragon I had killed was Black Maurader, known as the Sky King.

“Actually, that was me,” Hyperion answered the Shifter. “I was the one who subdued the dragon. Storme took its head, but it was me who technically defeated it. I didn't want the credit; I just wanted to point that out.”

The giant looked confused as he studied Hyperion. I sent another elemental forward to be destroyed. “Foolish, High Mage. The arrays are charged with aether crystals! Waste your aether!”

I shrugged and summoned three more elementals but this time invested a lot less aether into them. They would only last three minutes before exhausting their aether. All three raced directly at the fire giant. Arrays in front of the giant consumed the three, but not long after, another three elementals charged recklessly forward. The closest array to us collapsed this time, causing the fire giant to step back.

Powerful arrays, like a runic script, could be worn out with repeated usage. It was clear this shifter was no artificer. “So, who among the Black Marauders sent you to Skyholme?” I asked. I was probing his aether core to see if I could switch positions with him using my exchange ability. I could lock onto it but was not sure if the creature could resist the tier three ability.

“Who said the Black Marauders sent me,” he said unconvincingly.

I whispered to my companions, “I am going to exchange places with him. Can you lock him down, Hyperion? Can you finish him quickly, Relik?”

“What? You are leaving us?” Hyperion said worriedly. I stepped forward, and all I got from Relik was a very slight nod. A Shifter’s biggest defense was their ability to heal incredibly fast. Relik understood he needed to do a lot of damage to it very quickly to kill it.

I stopped halfway to the shifter, out of range of the arrays. A large black iron sword was lying on the ground at its feet. Would this work? I connected a thread between our aether cores. It was a turbulent connection, and the shifter seemed to realize it, but it was too late. I forced the exchange.

I was trapped inside a mosaic of arrays. On the hill, now in my view, the dead fire giant lay naked and bloodied. Dozens of holes had been excavated in the dark rock, and the exit door for the dungeon was also there. An explosion of combat erupted behind me, and I turned to find Relik battling the giant. What happened to Hyperion? He was rolling on the ground away from the combat. The explosion had knocked him away.

If Hyperion was knocked out, Relik needed my help. I summoned short-lived elementals to drain the arrays as fast as I could. Hyperion was alive and disoriented. Relik was having a titanic fight as the fire giant almost matched his speed. Thunderous crashes of his sword on the armor echoed across the rocky scape.

As I worked to free myself from the array, Hyperion stumbled in the direction of the fight. The shifter posing as the fire giant suddenly froze, and Relik took full advantage, removing a leg in four swings. “Use your elementals to drain it of aether!” Relik yelled as he continued to whittle away the giant’s armor.

My elementals had a path out of the array network and raced to attack the shifter as well. Hyperion looked strained but hadn’t failed us yet. My lightning elementals clawed and scratched rather than use their breath lighting because that would drain their aether quicker.

The armor was slowly peeled away to expose the shifter inside. A pale-skinned imitation of the dead giant was revealed as flesh was torn away and discarded. Each attack from my elementals stole aether from it and empowered themselves. The frenzy lasted minutes until Relik halted. He looked tired from the brief, intense fight. “We need to burn everything.”

And that is what we did. When we finished burning every piece of the shifter, there was a popping sound, and a bunch of items crashed to the ground. “Did the dungeon just give us an extra reward?” Hyperion said excitedly.

“No, those were the contents of the shifter pocket space. If it ruptured, then he has truly been killed,” Relik said. Coins, aether crystals, dungeon essences, and materials for constructing arrays littered the ground in a pile. I could see at least one of those dungeon essences was tier four…

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