The sun had barely cleared the horizon when Kael felt them.
He stretched his perception to the entrance and then pulled back imdiately, stunned.
"Woah," he muttered. "This is a lot."
A lot was doing very little work as a description. The previous day had been overwhelming by any asure he had, but this was sothing else entirely. Three tis the number, at minimum, and the faces were different, the gear was different, the accents drifting up from their conversations were different. These were not all Raventown adventurers. Word had traveled further and faster than even his most optimistic projection.
He watched them flood in with the particular satisfaction of a plan working beyond its own expectations, and then the system spoke.
[MISSION COMPLETE]
[Objective: Ensure greater visitor numbers the following day]
[Result: Visitor count increased by 312%]
[Reward: New Ability Unlocked]
[WRAITH STEP]
[Allows the dungeon consciousness to temporarily inhabit the body of any dungeon-born monster for up to three hours. Warning: Dungeon consciousness density is incompatible with most monster nervous systems. Prolonged inhabitation will result in host death. Use accordingly.]
Kael read it twice.
Then he read the warning again.
"So you are giving the ability to walk around in my own monsters," he said, "knowing full well that I will kill them just by being inside them." He waited. No response. "You really do have to use death as a footnote for everything, don’t you?"
The system said nothing, as was its custom.
Kael turned the ability over in his mind. It was not an attack. It was not a defense. It would not help him in a direct confrontation with anything, and it ca with a built-in tir and a body count attached to every use. By any practical asure, it was deeply inconvenient.
He was quite pleased with it.
The idea of being able to move through his own dungeon in a body, any body, to actually occupy a physical form and interact with the world rather than feeling it through walls and stone and the weight of perception, that was sothing different. Sothing he had not realized he wanted until it was sitting in front of him.
He filed it away for the right mont and turned his attention deeper.
They were already moving.
Lady Silva had spent the night in the third-floor alcove with her back against the wall and her eyes open, turning the fight over and over with the patience of soone who did not accept a loss as a final answer. By the ti the others stirred, she had what she needed. She was on her feet before Allen fully opened his eyes.
"I have a plan," she said.
Allen sat up and looked at her. "Good morning to you too."
She ignored that. She waited until all five of them were awake and looking at her, and then she laid it out cleanly, the way she did everything.
"We cannot let it reach rage. The mont it crosses that threshold, the fight becos unwinnable at our current level." She looked at Allen, then at Ragna, then at Leo. "The three of you are going to hit it hard and fast from the mont we enter. Rotating, no gaps, keep it occupied and keep it hurting. Do not let it settle."
"And you?" Allen asked.
"Cleo and I will be preparing on the outside of the engagent." She glanced at Cleo. "I need a binding formation. Sothing that can hold it in place long enough for a clean strike. Can you do that?"
Cleo considered it with the careful expression she wore when she was running numbers in her head. "I can. I’ll need ti to build it properly. Two minutes minimum, three to be safe."
"You have two," Lady Silva said. "I’ll need whatever ti remains after that to call the Valkyrie fully. This ti I am not going in at half strength."
The alcove was quiet for a mont.
Ragna looked at Allen. Allen looked at Leo. Leo looked at nothing in particular with the expression of soone who had already accepted the situation and moved on.
"So we keep a boss monster busy for two minutes," Ragna said.
"While it is already angry from last ti," Allen added.
"Yes," Lady Silva said.
Ragna picked up his war hamr and settled it across his shoulders. "Fine."
They moved.
Kael tracked them as they descended, his attention splitting between the flood of new adventurers on the upper floors and the group of five cutting through the third and fourth floors with the clean efficiency of people on a schedule. Other adventurers who crossed their path took one look and found sowhere else to be. The group had that quality about them, the kind of presence that communicated clearly that this was not a good mont to ask questions or request assistance.
They reached the fifth floor, and the air changed the way it always did, heavier, older, the torches burning lower as if the darkness down here had learned to push back.
The treasure room door was where they had left it. The amber light still pulsed from the gap at the base. Slow and steady, like breathing.
Lady Silva put her hand on the door and looked back at the three.
Allen rolled his neck.
Ragna exhaled once, long and slow.
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