We were finally a week away from the competition we had come here for. Our spirits weren't nearly as high though. For the Estellé's a little down meant nothing because we still needed to make money to sleep and were way too close to poverty at the moment to have valid opinions on this nightmare.
Using the status skill, a visual of how I was so far popped up in my head. I had used my magic points like I normally did. A little boost to agility and speed instead of increasing any more magic strength for the time being. The goblin slash skill I had gotten was strengthened and both my fire and gravity were growing stronger.
"Weapon of Paukena…"
"What?"
"Oh, I just forgot that I picked this. Last night was kinda hectic."
"Does that mean we completed our trip to Fayha?"
"No. Not till we deal with everything here."
"I was thinking that too, but we are homeless by tonight."
"Yeah…"
"We have to tell Paukena about the loved and Delusion."
"What if delusion is still, you know, delusional?"
"We…" Stella stood still for a second. "We can find the loved first, gather clues from them, then return to talk to Paukena."
"Ok. They might all be dead though."
"Either way, we need to gain money first, we can't help that much if we're starving or taking hours to get from place to place."
That's really annoying. "We need a quest then."
A quest is going to make us take longer to do something about Delusion. My brows wrinkled and my fists bawled up helplessly.
"One to supply us for a decent amount." Stella said while checking her bank on her phone.
"Let's head to the guild and see what we can do." I sighed and uncurled my fists.
We stepped into the guild. The smell of burgers and fries hit me immediately. Restaurants, mainly fast food, would buy up room in the guild to sell food to adventures. The guild in the capital of Fayha had room bought up by a fancy restaurant. Most adventurers still went with a classic burger though.
Even though we've been in here multiple times, and today at that, the man at the counter was already reaching for registration papers. We both scanned the wall looking for something quick enough.
"Heo, how about this one? We go and contribute some magic for a few hours so they can study magic? Or this one to go teach a classroom of kids the importance of environmental protection to prevent weather eaters?"
"I was thinking of this one." I held up a paper I had already ripped off a clip.
"Thats far."
"Yeah it is, we can just take the train straight to Tober though."
"I think you might just want to go to one of the big dungeons."
"Of course I do, look at them. They're so large and packed full of monsters constantly."
Stella sighed and took the paper from me. "It's just clearing a couple of floors to make it easier for a group of people to race up. Those people are really weird."
"Who cares. Getting paid really well to clear lower floors."
Stella started walking towards the counter, the employee grabbing registration papers. I sent a message to both Herika and Ezree. Ezree was fine with us taking a trip while we are still in this crude king business, and Herika said she'd try to meet us as soon as she could. I even texted Jace for the first time. I told him we'd like to talk to the queen and if he could let us know when we could.
We had enough to pay for the train. We traveled from Festival all the way down West Fayha. This is my first time ever really being in another country, let alone exploring this area. I guess I am finally legally an adult but I should of had this freedom sooner.
We passed fields of hay and smaller cities that were built next to the railroad. There were lots of dense forests and hilly mountains that were visible from the train. I'd say it was beautiful but you can't not see beauty while traversing an entire continent. The train's speed didn't allow me to see smaller details, only the giant things we passed.
It was around six pm when we got there. The city was full of white bricked buildings. In an eerie way they looked like little ghosts hiding. They were brick castle shaped. This town was specifically rich and beautiful because of the giant spiraling tower that stretched high on the edge of the city. There were only three other dungeons that stretched into the sky like this one. There was the one here, the one in west and east Mila, and then one in the Kalmic kingdom. Like Festival, Tober was a port city, just not a port next to an ocean of frozen black ice.
People really didn't like these dungeons because of how they affected their towns. The one in Fayha is the strongest out of all of them apparently. It stretches the highest and looms over Tober scarily, like it wants to crush the town but it's holding out. All of the dungeons that stretch into the sky continue to grow in the same spiraling pattern. Except for the one in Kalmic's It hasn't grown recently.
Normally the strongest in the world would go and concur a dungeon like this, but the strongest in the world Flamé works for Mila and is fighting King in their stupid war. Even the president of Mila is busy dealing with the war so they haven't been able to deal with them. Since Kalmic's isn't growing it isn't as big of a problem.
For these, there are multiple dungeon keepers for each floor. Since the tower keeps climbing and the monsters are getting stronger, no one has been able to kill the dungeon keeper of this one. A dungeon keeper who practically has multiple dungeons under his control from the other keepers is terrifyingly strong and might be stronger than a weather eater.
People crowded outside the dungeon. Me and Stella recognized someone familiar, It was Kilie from our first quest. We met her in yet another group quest. Her sheathed jagged curved sword sticking out. When we walked up she turned around, her hand not leaving the sword.
"Oh hey. Estellés." She nodded towards us before we could walk up to her.
"Hi." Stella said.
"What are you guys doing all the way here? Weren't you just in Festival?"
"A quest, isn't that why you're all the way out here?" Stella said.
"No, I'm competing in the race, in a few days."
"Oh."
"Its a tradition before the fighting competition within the last few years."
"How'd it start?" I asked.
"Someone who lost in the first round of the competition a in fourty-one twenty-three had yelled about how'd he'd win next year. He proceeded to sprint all the way from Festival, and I kid you not, to Tober and climb the tower."
"Holy. That's like four thousand miles."
"It takes a long time even with how fast the train is." Stella added.
"Yeah, to honor that run, we line up at the bottom of this tower and run as far up as we can. We also try to set records with how high up we go."
"That sounds incredibly fun."
"You should spend some time in Tober to compete with us."
"It sounds nice…"
"We won't." I said.
"Wow. Makes sense, you Milans have a rep for being sleepy."
"You mean lazy?"
"No." She waved her hands and her face started burning up.
"Ok, well we are going up now." We started walking towards the entrance.
"Wait!" Kilie yelled, and quickly glanced at her phone. "How about I come with you two? I'm not too fond of waiting for a fight."
Kilie followed us into the dungeon. From the outside, it looked like a spiral of white road, but when you stepped in a giant world spawns inside. Me and Stella both stood still, taking in the sight of a different world.
"First one huh?"
"Yeah. Even the air feels different." Stella dropped her staff to her side and breathed in the air.
"It's strange. Other strong dungeons have this same sort of effect."
"I want to go into the ones that are completely different from our world."
"They'll be fun. Now hop to it." Kilie shooed us forward.
My skin crawled. The magic and non magic feeling of the inside and outside of this dungeon. The split was disgusting for some reason. I couldn't tell which one was the bad one between them. I shook the feeling and followed a path Kilie pointed out.
We walked into the dungeon and I summoned Paukena's charm. As it spawned Kilie looked over at us.
"How'd you get yourself one of those?"
"Paukena gave it to us randomly when Jace was paying off your guy's debt." I said jokingly.
"Just waltz up?"
"Yeah."
"Makes sense. The boost would be nice"
I finally summoned the weapon of Paukena. Again, as it spawned Kilie looked over at me.
"Two?" She asked casually.
"Got it for completing a riddle."
"Ah, I see."
The weapon manifested, when it did a fancy long sword dropped into my hands. It was a dark blue long sword with accents of dark red and gold. The helt of the sword had a guard over it for your hand. I placed the charm alongside a similar striped ribbon. The pommel was pumpkin shaped. The guard of the sword went towards the blade. The blade itself was intricately carved with enhancements. In the middle of the blade was a pumpkin that was pierced through by the blade. It didn't look alive nor could I feel the weight on the sword as I swung it. For the first time I felt the weight of a real sword.
The first monsters didn't take long to attack us. They crawled out a tall grass that covered the entire floor and the spiralling part of the tower. Above us about one hundred and fifty feet was a floating island that you couldn't see from outside.
I hurled towards them. Stella's staff trailed my movements. The first skeleton swung down five seconds early and got stuck in an awkward position. I swung my sword at its ribs. The sword barely went through, and the pumpkin acted as if it wasn't there and went through. The impact threw the skeleton on the ground.
A gleaming ball of magic shined underneath its ribs, where the heart should be. I angled my sword perfectly straight and shattered the ball. A small puff of magic came out with the shattering sound of glass. The bones fell down in a rattling anthem.
Another skeleton threw its sword my way without much intent. I didn't even need to react, before I aimed my sword straight and shattered the next orb of magic.
This continued up the spiralling tower, even Stella came and smashed the orbs with the end of her staff. They were so weak it was laughable. Eventually though, intent grew behind their attacks, starting to feel more like the strength of the goblins we fought.
Every now and then, they were even stronger than the goblins or maybe even the dungeon keeper. Kilie helped with those fights. The stronger ones normally had armor on, they must have been adventurers before. If we didn't destroy the cores they'd form together to make stronger skeletons that were annoying to fight, but we didn't break a big enough sweat climbing the first floor.
Kilie danced flawlessly between the skeletons slashing them and predicting where the cores would fall and seamlessly cutting them before they'd ever hit the ground. Her sword gleamed white and flashed purple and gold.
It was less challenging fighting on the first floor and more climbing all the way up. The keep for this floor had adapted to being hunted since it was the weakest one in the tall dungeon. Once you'd find it and take it out the dungeon keeper doesn't drop anything, it just hides within a chest and dies.
The next floor we didn't explore the open tall grass lands and just continued to climb higher. The Skeletons grew stronger and stronger. With Kilie with us, and the simple piercing attacks that would kill them, we made short work of all of them.
"Are there only skeletons in this tall dungeon?"
"No, just for the first few floors."
"Whats after them?"
"Ha, that's funny."
"Why?"
"It gains a level of difficulty far outside these first few floors. There is Monastik, Faliv, Chliv, and Brllik just to name a few."
"The giant muscle monster is on the next floor?"
"Yeah. Then the most poisonous monster, the practically intangible one, the tree one is easy but there's a ton. One miss step with a Brllik up there and you'll be a defenseless torture machine of magic."
We grinded out the next floors, because of how large this dungeon is and how many other people there are, we didn't fight some of the skeletons and could see the battles with dungeon keepers for some of the floors. By the time we got to the fourth floor right before the fifth Stella said she was exhausted.
"I know we need to make money, but Heo, my legs feel like noodles. I wish we were in the little goblin dungeon instead."
"I think that's good enough for your strengths. It's late, and I don't think you two brought stuff to sleep?"
"No. We didn't" Stella panted.
"Stella, head down with her. I'll stay a little longer to get us some more money."
"By yourself?" She said quietly.
"Yeah."
Her eyes water and her face was wrecked. "No! Don't go by yourself. I'm not that tired actually."
"It's alright for you to head down. You've seen these guys, they're easy."
"ABSOLUTLY NO!" Stella grabbed onto my tanktop and shook me violently.
"They really aren't too hard and it seems you've been handling them and growing. I'd say you can make it down by yourself."
"KILIE NO! LOOK SHE CAN'T BE LEFT ALONE!"
"Stella, I'm fine. I'll be fine. You don't need to worry so much."
"HEO!" Stella's face burned bright red and swelled up more with tears and fear. "I don't want you to die because of me..."
My hand instinctively went up to my shoulder. "I barely remember how that felt, don't worry you were only four."
I lied, if there was anything I remember so vividly it was getting cut in half and watching two different parts of my body be more than too far away from each other as my world flipped on its head.
"Heo.." Stella looked up and jumped for a hug. "I don't want you too."
"I don't mean to budge in…" Kilie wobbled on her foot. "I would have made really short work of these floors and I've lost the motivation to watch some noobies. I got a hot steaming pie at my house and I don't wanna miss that nice night train ride. So, I will be leaving, don't go up past the last skelly floor."
"You can head down then. Me and Stella will be fine."
Kilie's stomach rumbled and she agreed. She stayed a second if we wanted to come with her, when we didn't, she sprinted at insane speeds down. Her left hand never leaving her sword.
"If you don't mind letting me have this moment?"
"What moment?" Stella asked.
"Just let me see how much I can take." I pointed not up too far to a thicker part of grass.
Stella barely agreed with me still in her sights as she sat on a stone. I wouldn't leave her, I just wanted a bit of freedom. I want to use the rights I have at this age and privileges I spent so much time dreaming of.
The fourth floor was a vast field of grass that was darkened by the floor above it. The dungeon's sides gave way to light from the outside illuminating most of the room. The dungeon was a few miles wide, curving upwards with the spiral at one side for the next floor.
I felt excited, a small rush over this. I hopped a couple of times, spun in a circle and charged forward.
"Hahahah!"
I summoned the pumpkin sword swinging it wildly. The grass shot up around me after being cut. I saw a glint of red to my right and shifted course towards it. A tall skeleton with a wide shabby sword turned. His ribs hid the red glow as a similar glow came from his eyes.
It swung its sword down, it missed. I threw my sword forward, without care or technique, just with as much speed as I could performing the goblin slash in a stabbing motion. Its core exploded and the bones fell apart in front of me.
Another giggle squeaked out. Ten or so more skeletons stood around me. I've finally got to be alone. I dashed towards one, lightened my body weight before I chucked the light sword and increased its weight all at once. A skeleton exploded into bones as its core was shattered. Another skeleton was on me, but I used the goblin slash to dash forward and grab the sword.
When I looked back up, a horde was on me. I laced the sword with fire and carved it around me. They all exploded outwards, cores shattering.
"Hahahha!"
My carefully intricate horns had ragged out with spikes almost protruding back into my skull.
I could feel my magic draining and magic sickness coming on. I closed my eyes hard and shook my head harder. I used my enhancement abilities furthering the pain, but ignoring it. I tried to replace the magic by drawing more in, but wasn't trying that hard. I screamed at the top of my lungs, attracting more skeletons to me.