Chapter 343: Unraveling The Dungeon

Our second apex channeling essence was a positive sign. It had been just over two days since we had cleared the manticore room. The next question we needed answered was whether we could wait two days in the safe room and then return to obtain an apex essence from the beast, or if we would have to completely exit the dungeon and come back to get the apex essence. Maybe we wouldn’t even get another apex. I vaguely knew it all depended on how strong the dungeon was and how long it needed to recover.

As my mind pondered the possibilities, Raelia dropped the chest into my lap, grinning. She was clearly hoping for another shaping essence and planned to claim it. At least she hadn’t opened it yet. Maveith and Konstantin moved closer, curious about the reward as well. I sighed and popped the clasp.

“Huh,” I said, pulling out a spellbook bound in rich brown leather. Like the other spellbook, it had no writing on the cover or binding. Raelia eagerly took it from my hands, showing no disappointment that the reward wasn’t an essence.

Chewing on her lip, she said, “A complex water magic spell. Similar to the air spellbook—something to do with manipulating weather. Maybe the two spells could be overlaid to cast a more powerful spell?” She shook her head. “We need an archmage or high mage to look at them, as dungeon spellbooks only have the spell forms and no details on what the spells do.” After paging to the end, she closed the tome and handed it to me to carry. The book disappeared into my space.

Konstantin grunted in thought. It was weird that I knew that particular grunt meant he was puzzling something out. “Two spellbooks and a rare essence for a magic attribute.”

Raelia’s eyes widened, and something unspoken passed between them. Raelia muttered, “I should have realized it myself.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?” I asked, vexed by their epiphany.

“It is rare, but some rooms in dungeons have reward chests tailored to certain occupations. A reward chest that always gives armor or a weapon is the most common. This room”—she indicated the large stony chamber—“has only given items helpful for mages.”

Maveith hovered over the manticore with his runic skinning knife in hand. “My people do not have strong mages. These advanced spellbooks wouldn’t hold much value for them.” I met Konstantin's gaze; it was clear that Maveith still supported destroying the dungeon. Manticores had plagued his people for centuries. There was no point in pressing Maveith right now to spare the dungeon.

“I’m going to give fishing a try,” I announced. I walked to the central pool and gazed into the crystal-clear water. The scales of the large fish glimmered against the glowing backdrop. Maybe I will try fishing after a bath. I stripped and cautiously slid into the warm water. The fish swam sluggishly away from me as I floated and soaped myself. Once I was clean, I submerged and kicked to the bottom of the pool.

Placing my hand on the warm, off-color glowstone at the bottom, I sent out an earth pulse. I closed my eyes to examine the feedback and was disappointed—no signs of dungeon core. A piece of bait on a hook floated by, and I surfaced to find Raelia fishing.

“Look what I caught!” Raelia laughed merrily. I rolled my eyes at her.

As I exited the pool, I noticed Konstantin gathering tea leaves since I told him I would not harvest anymore, preferring to save any space for the golden figs. Maveith was crafting a few arrows from the manticore quills. Raelia seized my moment of distraction to push me back into the water. I wasn’t expecting it, but I still had the reflexes to grab her wrist as I fell backward. Her eyes widened in shock as she was yanked forward, tumbling into the pool after me. My face wore a smirk as I splashed down first, her on top of me.

Raelia’s leather armor and Ranger’s cloak had her quickly struggling to swim. I assisted her out of the pool to Konstantin’s amusement. She was panting and laughing on her back on the rocky ground. “Argh, you are just too fast. Now I have to dry my clothes.”

Konstantin paused in stripping the branches of leaves. “We have twenty hours before the dungeon restores the rooms. Maveith and I will remain here—for at least eight hours—and you two can head back to the safe room.” Konstantin gave me a knowing nod.

“I don’t think we should split the party,” I said doubtfully.

“Idiot,” Raelia groused, slapping me lightly with a wet hand. “Grab your armor and escort me back to our room. I think I need to lie down for a while.” Raelia’s hips swayed as she walked into the corridor.

“Really? In a dungeon?” I called after her.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but it’s always more fun with two.” Her voice echoed from the corridor.

Konstantin called to me, “You can leave the collector with me.” So that was his game: fish and collect the essences for himself. I shrugged and handed him the collector. He nodded in anticipation. “We will give you eight hours. It is the only chance I will give you on this delve—use it productively or not.” He turned his back on me, and I hustled to follow Raelia.

As I passed through the jungle room, Raelia surprised me, having hidden with her Ranger’s cloak, which was perfectly dry. She was in a particularly amorous mood today. We teased each other as we made our way to the safe room. The weasel pelts soon made a soft, silky bed for us on the stone benches. I felt my mind fortress being brushed by the dungeon’s presence. It was disconcerting knowing the dungeon was watching us. It didn’t affect Raelia, and her eagerness soon had me ignoring the dungeon as an ever-present observer.

Konstantin kept his promise. Just over ten hours later, Maveith and Konstantin arrived in the safe room. They had a dozen fillets and began cooking them, acting as if nothing unusual had occurred in the safe room.

I didn’t ask how many minor essences Konstantin had amassed—it was a fair payment for half a day of privacy. I sent the extra fillets to my space to keep them fresh. We ate and rested, then talked and decided to return to the manticore room once it repopulated.

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When we approached the jungle room half a day later, we couldn’t find the panthers, but the carcasses of the previous ones were gone. Everyone was tense. “Maybe the dungeon is cheating again,” Raelia stated apprehensively.

“Maybe it has not repopulated the room yet,” I speculated.

“It has been almost thirty hours,” Maveith said confidently.

We waited as a group for another hour before I entered the room with others behind me. I walked into the foliage and was confronted by a shadow hunter’s jaws. The lone beast wasn't much of a challenge with four of us, but it managed to activate my aether shield amulet with one of its strikes.

“Reward chest,” I announced after a brief, ferocious fight. We all relaxed. We still scoured the room before approaching the chest, making sure it was not a trap. “I believe the dungeon thinks one shadow panther is equal to two large panthers in difficulty. Maybe it is playing by the rules,” I guessed.

“That is not unheard of. Variations of a room, but maintaining the relative difficulty,” Raelia replied, opening the chest in everyone’s view. Two potions were within: the precious healing potion and a lesser aether restorative potion. After a short discussion, both potions went into my belt. My dimensional belt was the safest place to store them after my dimensional space, but others could access it if I was incapacitated.

After Maveith harvested the shadow hunter pelt, and I collected an apex nature essence, we moved anxiously to the manticore chamber. I stored both items as I was the designated pack mule of the group. A single manticore was visible in the room. It appeared somewhat confused and stalked the room. When it noticed us, it charged. Even though I was confident it could not attack us as in the corridor, I still set three layers of air shields in front of me.

The manticore crashed into an invisible wall, and its body started convulsing from some unseen attack. Was this what happened when a creature attempted to leave a room? I seized the opportunity to dash into the room and stab Heartseeker beneath the manticore's jaw, driving it up into its brain. I moved away immediately, yanking the spear free, wary of a possible second manticore.

The others followed me into the room, and we all surveyed it even after confirming that the chest had appeared. We slowly relaxed. “It’s a female,” Maveith’s voice rumbled from over the body. Blood had pooled under the head, soaking its fur. Looking up, he said, “The last manticore was a bull.”

“Why was it agitated?” Raelia asked, baffled. “It looked like it was panicking.”

A lot of thoughts were racing through my mind. The doppelg?ngers in the Shimmering Labyrinth, for one. The possibility that this room could spawn either a male or female manticore. These intelligent creatures were respawned continuously—perhaps the female didn’t thrive in confinement without the male present. “Next time the female appears, maybe she will be willing to talk with us,” I thought aloud.

“Why would you want to talk with a dungeon spawn?” Konstantin barked incredulously.

“For answers. Maybe we can talk to the dungeon through it,” I replied.

Konstantin looked dubious. The female manticore did yield the precious apex channeling essence we were after. My mind still wandering, I walked and opened the chest. Inside was a single apex essence on the bed of silver coins. Not the shaping essence I was hoping for, but a clear sphere—aether tolerance. This attribute allowed you to channel more aether in a day without risking burning your aether channels.

Raelia was astonished at the reward. Leaning on my shoulder, she commented, “An archmage would give his first child for that essence.” I snorted as I was sure a powerful mage would value any apex essence that was targeted at a magical attribute.

Aether tolerance was one of my stronger magical attributes, being at 51/56 the last time I checked. “We can save it to sell,” I said, but smirked on seeing Raelia exhale in disappointment. “Oh, do you want it?” I said, with mock surprise. Her longing look told me the truth.

Raelia was a lesser mage, but she was a mage. I tossed her the clear sphere. Of course, if a shaping essence appeared next, it would be my turn. I looked at Konstantin to confirm he didn’t want it. He was already harvesting the fresh tea leaves, indicating his lack of interest. When I turned back to Raelia, the essence was already gone, and her face glowed with euphoria.

When we returned to the safe room after a brief spell of fishing, we decided to continue raiding the manticore room for the reward chest and channeling essences. Over the next week, we cycled through the jungle and the manticore room six times. I even allowed Konstantin to use the dreamscape amulet without my supervision when we rested. In that week, we never encountered another shadow hunter or the female manticore. At least the male manticore was reliable in giving us an apex channeling essence every time we killed it. I had been worried we would need to wait longer between returning to the room.

The reward chest in the jungle room consistently provided us with a healing potion along with another potion. Those other potions were: one lesser aether restoration, two strength potions, one cure disease, and two night vision potions. The reward chest in the manticore room yielded three additional spellbooks, two nature spells, and one healing spell. Additionally, the reward chest awarded us three apex essences for magical attributes: one aether tolerance essence and two aether channeling essences.

Maybe the dungeon realized we were here to gather channeling essences and gave them to us in the chest to get us to leave sooner. We were not complaining. We had collected a total of twelve apex essences, and with the twelve major channeling essences we also had, we probably had enough to heal Castile’s aether channels.

My own aether channeling attribute was 42/61 the last time I used the assessment table, and I wouldn’t mind adding a few extra just in case Castile needed a couple more—and to have a few extra for myself. It was rare for any creature to provide a magical essence, so I wanted to make the most of this opportunity.

On our next cycle, we discovered that the jungle room had been seeded with the shadow hunter again. Our actions had become repetitive, and the creatures in the rooms had not changed their tactics much. I was grateful for the apex nature essence and the healing and stamina potion in the chest. Both potions were given to Konstantin.

We were not surprised to find the agitated female manticore, as it had appeared with the shadow cat last time. It once again attacked us recklessly, going into spasms on hitting the invisible wall to the corridor. This time, we did not enter the room and allowed it to recover from its momentary paralysis after attempting to attack us in the corridor.

Maveith was the one speaking for us. His deep voice echoed as he addressed the female. “Do you want to talk?” he asked in the resonating gravelly language of the stone giants.

Rather than responding, it flicked its tail, sending a shower of spikes at us. The barbs’ momentum either stopped before reaching us or clattered against the stone wall in the room, all eventually clattering to the floor with the sound of hollow pipes echoing.

I nudged Maveith to continue trying. Konstantin seemed amused at the effort to talk with the creature, but Maveith asked another question, trusting in me. “Do you want to leave the dungeon?”

The hideous manticore seemed to calm at the words. Maveith kept talking. “Do you know where you are? Will you speak with us?”

Finally, the manticore spoke in the rough language of the stone giants. “Gray man, release me, or I will consume you and all your young!” I looked back at Konstantin to gloat that my plan had worked, but instead found his jaw unhinged in abject shock. Well, I would take that as well.

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