The Mother of Monsters

“You want to grind?” Azrael asked, wiping her brow. She was covered in the dusty remains of the skeletons she’d been fighting. She brushed herself off and found a place to sit near the newly formed walls. 

“Why not?” Teyva said, “It’s pretty obvious we can handle the monsters here one-on-one. We lure them up here and fight them in the entry hall, take breaks in between, and rest. That way we can explore the area beyond at our leisure,” She said, sitting down next to her friend and shifting her arm back to its normal shape. She was still a little sad that she couldn’t practice her magic on the undead but at the very least she had a chance to hone other abilities. She glanced over at the thoughtful Azrael who sat staring off into space for a moment.

“Alright, suppose we do this, how do you propose we lure them to us?” Azrael said, “You want one of us to go down there and run back?”

“I will not be volunteering for this,” Nephral added, catching Azrael’s gaze. The Azar laughed and turned her focus to Teyva who called Queenie into her palm. The large coin-shaped creature skittered onto her palm while the others landed in a pile nearby, clambering over one another and tossing about. Queenie’s misplaced eyes opened and stared at Teyva patiently.

“Queenie and the Mockeries can go just about anywhere,” Teyva said, “As far as I’m aware they don’t have a maximum range either. We’ll send them to harass the skeletons below and lure them back up. You can keep the babies on task, can’t you Queenie?” Teyva cooed to the little monster in her hand. She turned her palm over and the creature clambered around it, clinging to Teyva’s starry skin and opening its frightful mouth. An eager thought played through the back of Teyva’s mind. “Such a good girl…”

“Just the initial floor beneath us,” Azrael said. “We clear it out and then make our way to the entrance to the next level. Let’s not make this any more complicated than it has to be.”

“Fair enough,” Teyva said, she turned to Queenie and gave the little horror her instructions. She was to lead the Mockeries down the hall and down into the darkness below, they were to find more skeletons and attack them before fleeing back up the stairs to the hall. The tiny creature stared at her for several seconds as if parsing through the orders before responding with a bloodthirsty affirmative. It sprouted wings and rose up off her palm, hurtling down the hall and toward the stairs at the end that led down into the depths below. The others quickly followed suit, a cloud of gold hurtling through the air before vanishing into the gloom.

“Now we wait for Queenie to come back,” Teyva said, getting to her feet and walking over to the nearest skeleton. “Might as well clear the floor.”

“Looting?” Azrael asked, standing up as well.

“Want to split it fifty fifty?” Teyva asked.

“Works for me,” She said, reaching down to touch one of the skeletons while Teyva interacted with her own.

“Not a bad haul,” Teyva said, pulling the weapon out of her inventory and turning it over in her hand. It was significantly higher in quality than her shortsword. As if reading her thoughts another prompt appeared.

Teyva accepted the prompt and another appeared asking her which weapon she wanted to forget. She did away with her shortsword and the weapon began to dissolve. As it did Azrael looked up from her last skeleton and smiled.

“Seven silver coins. I made more money here than what I made a day as a Warden,” Azrael said, “Lucrative.”

“You’re joking,” Teyva said, turning to face her.

“Nope, the going rate for a warden of my rank is five silver a day and only when I’m on assignment, if I’m not working I don’t get paid,” Azrael said, “Fortunately that is more than enough to live comfortably.”

“So say I had thirty-two copper coins,” Teyva said, considering the money she had started with, “What could I get for that?”

“The bar that the Four frequent charges three copper for an ale,” Azrael said, “Ten copper can feed you and get you a room for a night at an inn,” she scratched her chin, “Some folk see maybe ten copper a day depending on what they do for a living, but those people tend to work on farms and have other ways of getting food and shelter.”

Teyva frowned, “So how much gold is that a year?”

Azrael frowned and crossed her arms but Nephral cut in before she could math it out, “The average farmhand in Osan would likely make around forty gold a year based on what Azrael is saying,” the Sphinx said, “Given the suggestion of what the cost of living is, there would be some little made in the way of savings.”

Azrael gestured to the feline, “Sounds about right.”

Teyva summoned up the silver coins in her hand and stared at them in awe. One of them was about what a farmhand made in a day. “Unreal,” she murmured, turning the coin over and looking at the hound symbol on the opposite side of the star. “Wow, there really is a dog on here.”

“I told you,” Azrael laughed.

Teyva shrugged and looked down at the piles of white dust left behind by the skeletons, “I wonder why they had money on them, any thoughts on that Nephral?”

“I’m afraid not, Mother, they did not appear to be physically carrying the coins, though,” The Sphinx said.

A sudden clamor broke Teyva out of her thoughts. She and Azrael looked down the hall just as Teyva felt an excited hum ripple through the back of her mind. Teyva smiled, “Looks like Queenie is back. I wonder how many she brought-” She trailed off as the cloud of gold hurtled up and out of the stairs leading down into the level below. Behind them, a veritable horde of skeletons followed, their weapons raised in anger and their eyes glowing a ferocious blue. Teyva and Azrael looked at one another wide-eyed.

“Shit!” Teyva cursed, quickly shifting her arm back into a chain just as Azrael rushed to her position at the front. She activated her [Warden of the Front] ability and a barrier formed between her and the enemy. Teyva whipped her arm back and struck at the first one pressing into the funnel, lashing against its head and knocking out a chunk of its health. Azrael went to work with her sword as Queenie landed on Teyva’s shoulder. The creature hummed with an eagerness for praise. Teyva barked out a small laugh, “You overdid it a bit sweetie! Small groups next time, okay?” 

“Teyva!” Azrael shouted, drawing Teyva back into the fight. Teyva spotted Azrael locked with the latest skeleton, its large frame hanging over her as it pushed down with all its might against her sword. 

“Sorry!” Teyva whipped out her weapon and cracked the monster on the side of the head. It stumbled, giving Azrael room to dip in and drag her blades against its legs. Overhead, the swarm of Mockeries were picking their targets, darting in and latching onto skeletons here and there. Teyva instinctively glanced over at her stats and sighed when she saw that [Hungering Cold] was not building up. She returned her attention to the fight and eyed the hallway. She wished it was a little bigger so she could drop the Behemoth in, but he would just barely scratch his head against the ceiling-or worse.

Just as one fell, another stepped in to take its place. Azrael’s barrier flashed and flickered with each blow aimed in her direction. The skeletal warriors pressed in against each other in a veritable wall of rage and bone. Teyva whipped her arm out again and again, doing everything she could to angle her strikes past Azrael while her friend stood in defiance of the wave of death. Now and then a dark splash of blood would hit the ground behind Azrael, the Warden barely even flinching as she returned the favor tenfold. Another skeleton dropped and a faint red glow stretched its way across Azrael’s skin, stitching wounds even as she took more punishment.

Behind the lead skeletons, gold coins skittered across the undead like insects, their acidic fangs digging into bleached bone and armor, seeking any weakpoint they could find. Around them, Teyva’s chain curled and twisted and struck like a snake, the weapon behaving more like a tentacle than a whip. Teyva tugged again, pulling the leg out from under one skeleton and digging the blades of her chain into its bones, hoping to crush the limb. A bead of sweat ran down the back of her neck while another dripped into her eye. She winced, the droplet stinging and obscuring her vision. Ahead of her, Azrael’s entire back was darkened with effort as another skeleton dropped to the ground beneath her blade.

Teyva felt like it would never end, but eventually, the numbers began to whittle down, some of the skeletons in the rear succumbing to the attention of the Mockeries while the ones in the front were pulverized against the combined might of Teyva and Azrael. The clatter of bones filled the hall. Another skeleton stepped up to an increasingly exhausted Azrael and it collapsed just as quickly. Teyva had wondered once what grinding in a game back at home would feel like if it were real. This was it, an endless repetitive slog, an endurance test.

As the last skeleton collapsed, Teyva felt her knees wobble and give out. She spotted that her stamina had dropped all the way into the single digits. Azrael wasn’t fairing much better, she had some cuts and scrapes and was nursing a bruise on her arm. Teyva fell back onto her back and let out a long breath. “You alright?” She called.

“I’ll live,” Azrael groaned, “My [Predator] ability healed the worst of it as I went.”

“How’d we do?” Teyva asked.

“I lost count at twenty,” Azrael said and paused, her hand moving through the air. “Not long and I’ll hit level seven, you?”

Teyva pulled up her character sheet and focused on her experience bar.

“I’d say another group like that and I’d hit level eight,” Teyva said, “Not bad at all.”

“It can’t possibly be this easy,” Azrael said, her voice sounding a bit grim, “Why does this feel so easy? The Four worked their entire lives to get to where they are, it feels like we’ll catch up with them in no time.”

Teyva thought it over for a while as they went silent, the mockeries scrambling all over her body, affectionately finding places to roost on her person while she twirled Queenie between her fingers. Nephral walked through the fallen skeletons with grim fascination on his face, his wings flaring now and then as he inspected a weapon or a particularly intact skull. Teyva glanced at Azrael and let out a breath, “I have a theory but you aren’t going to like it.”

“Give it to me anyway,” Azrael said, pulling some ointment out of a small kit and applying it to her cuts.

“Well, I came to this world what, just over a month ago?” Teyva said, “You and I both know what I was brought here for,” she said, trying to be tactful on the subject. Azrael looked up at her and frowned, she was clearly curious. 

“Say I ended up actually arriving in Katal,” Teyva said, “Hypothetically, they want me to fight your dad. What level is he? I mean we don’t even know but I’d hazard at least twenty maybe even twenty-five. Maybe even higher given I could see Deshan’s level when I inspected him.”

“Your point?” Azrael asked, wrapping the cuts with a few strips of cloth before turning her full attention on Teyva.

“How long do I really have to get ready to bring the fight to Osan? From what I’ve seen so far the people of Katal are pretty brazen, they want to get rid of the problem as fast as possible. Maybe a year to match his level,” Teyva said, “Maybe, probably less.”

“You’re suggesting this ability to level up has taken that into consideration?” Azrael asked, looking a little alarmed.

“I’m saying it’s possible, but given the evidence, it’s pretty likely,” Teyva said, “I mean. At this rate, we’ll both hit ten in a week if we keep using this place to train and practice.”

Azrael leaned back against the wall behind her and let out a breath, staring at the ceiling. “Just a few away from matching one of the Four. Incredible.”

“So do we have a goal?” Teyva asked.

“While I hate the logic behind your theory,” Azrael began, “It makes sense, and I’m certainly not opposed to growing stronger. Yes. Let’s Aim for Ten by the end of the week and then clear the rest of it the week after that.”

Teyva nodded, “Sounds like a plan to me, once we’re at that level it should be a piece of cake.”