Evolution of a Healer

Arriving on the second floor of the dungeon came with a splitting headache, not helped by the fact Cyn was now standing directly under the noon sun. Going from just the light of her diadem inside a dark cave, to full sunlight felt awful. When she could open her eyes and squint around, the first thing Cyn noticed was that she was alone. She stood in the center of what looked like a four-way crossroads in a hedge maze, the green flora walls towering over her and stone bricks under her feet, creating paths about ten feet across. Her party was nowhere to be seen.

Well, not totally alone. Remembering her odd encounter between the dungeon floors, she looked down at her chest. Peeking out at her from inside her hood was a bubblegum pink frog, or toad, with three eyes that were reminiscent of the black void. The third eye was embedded directly in the center of the creature's forehead. Without breaking eye contact, Cyn carefully reached into her hood to pick it up.

The frog offered no resistance to being lifted, and seemed content to continue their staring contest. While it could technically fit on one of Cyn’s hands, it was very rotund and if she tried to hold it one handed the poor thing’s stomach would droop off either side of her palm. It was also very heavy for its size. Besides its color and third eye, it could almost pass for a small African Bullfrog. Almost. It was definitely giving Cyn some uncanny valley vibes.

? - Level 13 (?)

'Spam Mail'

This creature has formed a [Familiar Bond].

This creature is bonded to you.

Inspect left Cyn baffled. The first question mark she assumed should have been its race or species. The second one she had no plausible explanation for. She had called whatever was holding her in the void between dungeon floors ‘spam mail’ in her head. Cyn had definitely not said that aloud. The final lines made her open up her menu to take a look at all the notifications.

And boy, were there a lot of unexpected notifications. And a new part of her menu that was previously uninhabited now had stuff in it. With the pounding in her head slowly subsiding, Cyn browsed the notifications first.

New Skill Gained! Familiar Bond (Unique)(Passive) - A magical creature has determined you are friend-shaped, whether you like it or not.

Bond can be strengthened or altered, but never broken.

[Human] - Evolutionary path altered.

[Mage] - Evolutionary path altered.

[Creature Handler] - Evolutionary path altered.

She closed the menu to look at the frog, who was still chilling on her hands. Cyn had lost the staring contest, and now the creature appeared to be cleaning its eyes using a long, black tongue.

“Friend-shaped, huh? You’re lucky you’re kind of cute.” The creature, who Cyn decided she would just call Spam, made a small warbling noise in response to her voice. Cyn had an inkling it understood her, even if she did not understand it. She gave the creature a Pet, which it seemed to greatly enjoy, before setting it back down in her hood and reopening her menu to move on to the next notification. She found it difficult to be mad, even if she wasn’t given a choice in gaining a familiar and altering her evolutionary path. Cyn liked animals, and she liked frogs most of all.

You have successfully survived the first stage of full adaptation.

[Accept System Reward] [Wait]

She wasn’t expecting more loot so soon. Thinking back to where this all started, before she even entered the blue void to pick her class, hadn’t the System mentioned her adaptation before? She felt like it had, but could not remember what exactly the text had said. Since the first step ended with the first floor of the transitional dungeon, Cyn would be working on the assumption that the stages correlated to dungeon floors, at least for now. Not that it made a difference to her. She accepted the reward, and, feeling a strangeness on one of her hands, closed her menu again to look. She now had a simple silver ring on her right hand.

Promising Ring of Holding (Unique)(Soulbound)(Tiny) - A unique storage item given out by the System to Awakened that survive the first stage of adaptation.

This item is capable of evolving and upgrading as its Soulbound Awakened gains power.

You may only have one storage item Soulbound to you at a time. Unbinding a storage item will cause both the item and all items inside to be destroyed.

This item originates from the 242nd dimension.

Enchantments: [Indestructible]

Indestructible Enchantment (Legendary) - Item cannot be destroyed or damaged through normal means.

Oh yes, please and fucking thank you. This was the best item Cyn had seen so far. And frankly, it would be hard to top, ever. She assumed its third label, ‘tiny’ related to the size of the storage. Without a frame of reference though, it meant next to nothing for her. Even if it could only hold a handful of things, that was a handful of things less she would need to physically carry around in bags and pouches that could become damaged or stolen. Sweet legendary enchantment too, although she had a feeling it did not apply to the warning about the ring being destroyed if she tried to use a different storage item. It was probably just to protect against accidental damage while fighting.

The only problem was that she had no idea how to use it. Cyn tried a few things, including infusing mana into the ring, but she discovered that it basically came down to focusing on moving an item between the storage space and outside of it. No mana involved. It wasn’t too tricky, especially for her, since it was similar to how she used Freeform Mana Casting to direct and control her raw mana. One item at a time, she slowly fed everything she was carrying into the Ring of Holding. Cyn also found she had a sort of detached awareness of what was inside the ring at all times, just lingering at the back of her mind. It was kind of uncomfortable at first, but by the time she was done storing all her stuff, including the pouches and almost ruined satchel, she no longer consciously noticed it unless she wanted to.

The only things she now had outside the Ring of Holding was the gear she was wearing, a still-sheathed Blooddrinker on her pouch-less belt, and Spam. That was like, twenty pounds of stuff she was no longer carrying. Food and potions made by Hex, the emergency wafers, a handful of scraps of cloth, a spare dagger, waterskin, and a bedroll all went into the storage. And it still did not seem to be full, although she could not tell how close to full it was. However much space ‘tiny’ was, it was a hell of a lot more than she expected. This was awesome. After checking her surroundings again, and finding no change, and making sure Spam was still hanging out in her hood she returned to notifications.

Objective Tracker now available.

This will keep track of objectives given by the System or city notice boards.

And that was what the new section of her menu was. She found the idea of city notice boards interesting. Being separate from the System objectives meant there was probably a way for city officials to give out quests. Or maybe it was more of a help wanted board? Cyn probably would not be finding out anytime soon. Intending to look at it after, she found that the remaining notifications were actually just notifying her of new objectives.

New objective for transitional dungeon floor 2: The Hungering Labyrinth -

Five entrances, many exits, countless secrets.

Objective: Find an exit.

New objective for transitional dungeon floor 2: The Hungering Labyrinth -

You have been separated from your companions. Once you find an exit, you can choose to leave alone or as a party. Anyone left behind will need to find a different exit.

Bonus Objective: Reunite your party 1/5.

New objective for transitional dungeon floor 2: The Hungering Labyrinth -

With great danger comes great rewards.

Bonus Objective: Find the center of the labyrinth.

Good to know her party was out there somewhere, and she could rejoin them. It was kind of rude for the System to separate a healer from her party, though. The premise of these objectives would probably create a rift among her party members as well. If Cyn was being honest, she was inclined to hunt for the center of the labyrinth. Especially since the first objective mentioned secrets, so surely there were more objectives and rewards to be had. She would bet money on Hex having the same inclinations.

But Scott, Sam, and Dana? They would probably want to leave as soon as possible. And while that would be an option, so long as they found an exit, Scott at the very least had shown signs of feeling responsible for the party as a whole, and would probably want them to stick together. And while sticking together was generally good, it became really bad when half the party didn’t even want to be there.

It was kind of moot, since Cyn hadn’t moved from where she entered, but she was considering not actively hunting for the others, especially if she found Hex first. A stab of guilt went through her, but since she was capable of defending herself, she had to admit that maybe she would be better in a smaller party, made up of people with some enthusiasm for the adventure. Or even alone, at least for now. If Cyn still wanted to be a healer, which she did, going totally alone wasn’t a great option.

Well, she was probably never going to be alone again, based on the Familiar Bond Spam had forced on her. She would just have to get moving, hoping she was aiming for the center of the labyrinth, and that anyone who did not want to find the center would find a door out.

Now, what was the key to solving a maze? If Cyn remembered right, it was to keep walking forward, and if you hit a crossroad, go left. If you hit a dead end, turn around and go left at the next crossroad. It might be boring, but ideally it keeps you from taking the same dead-end paths. Of course, that method does not account for starting at a four-way crossroad. She could also try climbing the hedges…they were tall, probably close to fifteen or twenty feet, but they should still be climbable.

As Cyn approached the hedge and reached out, Spam suddenly gave off a croak. Cyn froze, looking down at the pink creature staring up from her hood and wondering how the hell she knew that it sounded alarmed. It was probably a result of the Familiar Bond, but the problem was that she did not see anything to be alarmed about when she looked around. When she continued to move her hand, coming within inches of the hedge, Spam croaked more urgently. The familiar did not want her to touch the hedge. Suspicious, she used Inspect.

Hungering Hedge - Level ?

Cyn would not be touching the hedges. She quickly pulled back, muttering a thank you and using Pet on the pink frog. She was curious about the lack of information, mostly because Cyn was not sure if it was because the Hedge was a high level, or because it was not a creature. If it was a creature, she would probably get a good amount of experience for touching it. As long as it did not kill her outright.

Deciding that was too risky, she just picked one of the four identical paths and started walking, then changing to a light jog. It was faster than her sprint used to be, and took negligible stamina to maintain the speed. As she jogged, it felt like nothing really changed around her. She reached a crossroads, went left, rinse, repeat. Miles of identical hedges. She hadn’t even reached a dead end, which was kind of suspicious. The next time she reached a crossroad, Cyn removed her old, ruined tunic from storage and tore a piece of it off, carefully setting the scrap of cloth in the path she would take from the crossroads, before setting off again.

As it turns out, the idea of sticking left to solve a maze was predicated on the designer not being a dick. And whoever designed this place absolutely fell into the dick category. Because she had been going in circles. Feeling annoyed, after picking up her scrap of cloth Cyn fished Spam out of her hood and set him on the ground in the middle of the crossroad.

“Alright, Spam. What way do I go to get to the center?” Was it silly? Probably. Did she care? Not really. The other option was to just pick at random when she came to a crossroad. The bubblegum-colored amphibian stared up at her a moment, blinking each of its three eyes in turn, before slowly turning itself to look in every direction. It then turned back to one of the paths and flicked out a long black tongue before turning to Cyn and making a leap onto her shoulder.

The weight of the familiar jumping onto her nearly made her fall over, but she managed to maintain her balance and took the path Spam seemed to have indicated.

The process repeated itself for a few hours, although she did not have to set down the familiar again. It would just do a little spin from on her shoulder and choose a direction with a flick of the tongue. And honestly? It seemed to be working. While the midday sun never seemed to move, the color of the surrounding hedges was changing. Slowly, the green shifted to the colors of autumn, the range of warm colors beautiful to watch as Cyn passed them by.

And then, while waiting for Spam to do its little spin at yet another crossroad, she saw something different. On the stones of the path to her right there was an arrow pointing away from the crossroad, drawn in what looked like dried blood. Cyn jogged in that direction without waiting for the familiar to finish choosing a path, causing it to warble in annoyance.

She stopped to point out the arrow to Spam, not sure why she felt the need to explain herself to the strange creature but doing so anyway before continuing on. In response Spam just crawled back into her hood, moving so its front legs and head sticking out like a baby kangaroo. Since she had been maintaining equilibrium with her stamina regeneration, it was still full, so Cyn felt comfortable pushing up her speed in an attempt to catch up to whoever made the arrow marks.

An obnoxious amount of crossroads and bloody arrows later, and running low on stamina, she finally found them.