NOVEL NEXT Interlude: In The Thick Of It
Zanasha Jones is in her element.
They have been fighting for two days now without a break; she is now Level 90, and has unlocked the Skill Nerves of Adamantine, though she does not know what it does. The initial promise of being promoted to a Bronze-rank Adventurer was forgotten perhaps fifteen battles into the dungeon, because Guildmaster Iolin Ferrin is one of her party members and has already promoted her twice (and, she suspects, will promote her a third time to Gold-rank Adventurer if this particular mission is completed successfully). She does not care at all; she has already attained more than she ever hoped dream in the last forty-eight hours.
Four hours ago, she unlocked the Battlemaster Class; doing so transformed her from a mighty force upon the battlefield into its ruler, and they have made truly remarkable progress since. This is very good, because their mission -- to assault the Vault of Bones and Ashes while its Guardian is still forming -- is both extremely important and hilariously improbable, and she suspects the initial objective was merely a scouting foray. But her party -- Master Spellthief Piersym Anwyr, Arch Spirit Healer Seriel Eilawel, and Guildmaster Ferrin himself (whose Class she does not know, but appears to be some manner of fighter-mage-thief hybrid with an aversion to wearing shirts) is competent and powerful in the extreme, and they operate as a unit much more seamlessly than any she has ever experienced. Already they have cleared fifteen floors of the dungeon, and they show no sign of slowing down; Arch Spirit Healer Eilawel is capable of restoring the HP, Fatigue, and SP of others, and Guildmaster Ferrin has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of MP-restoring items. Twice, they have felled legendary creatures -- a Flame Bodach and a Guilt Keeper -- which she has only heard of in whispered tales without so much as a serious injury, and this has almost entirely been due to her particular specialty.
She feels immortal. She cleaves through deadly enemies in a single blow, dancing between impossibly rapid flurries of razor-sharp attacks, and she cannot keep the smile from her face. Everything is so clear -- a feint here, a step there, a flashing thrust -- and her allies capitalize upon the openings she gives them flawlessly. And so when it occurs, it takes everyone by surprise.
Dispatching a feral pack of slavering Icebone Devourers, she rounds a corner and nearly plummets to her death -- it is only by the timely intervention of Guildmaster Ferrin, who grabs her sword belt in the barest instant before she falls, that she is preserved. Before them lies a vast, echoing nothingness -- a great pit, miles across and impossibly deep, with tunnels and corridors crawling in the barely visible distance across its ceiling.
"We've reached the threshold," breathes Seriel. "The first to see...!"
Zanasha keeps silent as she cautiously steps back to solid ground, because this is not the first time she has seen such a thing (it looks precisely like the void in which Vashyarl the Black's prison hung) but she does not want to cheapen the experience for everyone else. Instead, she looks to the Guildmaster. "Thank you. I am in your debt."
"Nonsense," he returns, looking shy. "You've saved my life several hundred times since we began this expedition; I have a long way to go to catch up." Crossing his arms, he stares down at the abyss. "But we are at a crossroads. Should we return? Wait for the tunnels to grow us a path downwards?"
"There's another option, actually," mutters Piersym Anwyr, who wears his hood up at all times and scuttles about between shadows like a red-cloaked crab; he gestures, and a vast floating disk of crimson energy appears just past the edge, with crackling black lightning around its circumference. "Courtesy of Vacalgon the Infernal Shaman; I've been saving it for a rainy day."
Arch Spirit Healer Eilawel recoils, afraid, but Guildmaster Ferrin nods. "It is a rare opportunity." He turns to Zanasha, his expression grim. "It may be foolhardy; we risk all that we have learned. What say you?"
Zanasha's smile is untarnished; she shakes the sweat from her hair and sheathes Nethersbane and the Kiku-no-Tsurugi. "I will abide by your decision, Guildmaster," she responds, bowing deeply, because she is perfectly content either way; conquering the greatest dungeon in the world on one's first try is indeed a tempting prospect, but so is returning home to her husband a day early.
Iolin Ferrin ponders the situation for a long few minutes, running his thick-fingered hands contemplatively through his shaggy blond beard; but, eventually, the temptation proves too great, and he sighs. "I should have brought more cowardly party members."