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  [colpse]Chapter y - up

  The girls were busy staring off iy air with vat expressions. I wondered if I looked as dumb while looking at Mister Menu. I would ask, but Amaryllis would just tell me that I looked dumb regardless, and Awen was too sweet to tell the truth if it might hurt my feelings. “I’m gonna look for my stuff,” I said.

  I had to find my backpack, what was left of my spade, and my khe tter had disappeared at some point during the fight with the wyvern but I couldn’t remember when.

  Walking around the pilrs was a little strange when there wasn’t a big dragon-like monster waiting to chow o gave me more time to stare at all the pretty ways the light bounced off of the gss a little rainbows all over.

  I found my knife first. There was a chip in the bde, but it robably still serviceable. Then I found my spade.

  Sighing, I picked up the beal head by the half-dozeimeters of haill stuck to it. It was rather finished. I rubbed a thumb over the J embossed on its surface. It had served me well. Maybe I could get someoo repair it?

  Then I wandered over to the entrand found my backpaceremoniously dumped to the side. e was guarding it. Or maybe she was using it as a pillow. It was hard to tell when the spirit cat was slumped on her side over the sack, her sides moving up and down with gentle breathing.

  I stared at her for a moment. Had she gotten bigger?

  “Heya e,” I said as I ed my hands around her waist and lifted her up. Her body slinked down like the liquid it was. “Yetting bigger!” I decred.

  e stared at me, her little legs stig out ahead of her like someone who had just watched Thriller and was doing the zombie danaybe someohat wanted a hug?

  I pressed her against my chest until she started g and squirming.

  Setting the kitty down with a giggle, I picked up my backpack, tossed my spade into it, then shrugged it on. “Let’s go see the others,” I said.

  I skipped ba time to find Amaryllis staring at her talons which were sparking with magic. She had a strange look on her face, a cross between curiosity and smugness. “Ah, you’re back,” she said.

  Awen smiled wide at me. “I have a new css!” she said. “T-two of them.”

  “Two of them?” I wondered.

  She nodded. “I reached level ten. Um. I decided to take the Gss on css as my sed. It seems nice!”

  “Oh,” I said. “I have that oht?” I asked.

  Amaryllis nodded. “It should be avaible for you once you hit your tenth level, yes. I’m going to wait until we reach the Pace of Strings. Gss o seem like a css that will mesh well with my current, evolved css.”

  “Oh, so what are your new csses?” I asked. It was really easy to get swept up in the excitement. It was like learning that your friends had gotten cool oys.

  “Awa, I’m a Wyrmgineer now,” Awen said with obvious pride. “I, I never heard of the css, but it’s an offshoot of Meic. I... the description for it is not very precise, but it sounds strong.”

  “Anything with something drai its title will probably be formidable,” Amaryllis said. “Did it ge any of your skills?”

  I blinked. “Skills ge when your css evolves?”

  Amaryllis nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “Awa, my Book Smart skill ged to Bookwyrm. Ah, the descriptioo be about it helping me read and remember things I read, but now it, ah, lets me sniff out the value of books? And... If I sleep on a pile of books I absorb some of the knowledge?”

  Amaryllis tilted her head to the side. “I’ll admit, I’m not sure if that’s an improvement or not.”

  Awen shrugged.

  “I have some books you , ah, sleep on,” I said. That was a bit strange, but maybe it would e in handy? “What about you, Amaryllis?”

  Amaryllis’ chest puffed out and she pced her hands on her hips. “I’ve unlocked the exceptionally rare Thundere css.”

  My teeth ccked as I shut my mouth, tightened my jaw, and tried hard not to ugh.

  I suspect my eyes betrayed me because Amaryllis gred right back at me. “What are you smiling about, you idiot?”

  A snort escaped and I spped a hand over my mouth to keep it in. “Nothing!” I lied.

  “You moron. You have no idea how rare that css is. It lets me branch out into more offensive spells. My Thunder Cp skill, which was mostly a sound based distra and stun, has turo Thunder Sp, aro Stimulus has turo Electro-Cement.”

  I giggled.

  Amaryllis snapped her talons together and a tiny spark zapped me in the forehead.

  “Oww!” I pined as I rubbed the spot in the middle of my head she had buzzed. It didn’t hurt much more than lig a battery did, but it was still very rude.

  “Serves yht for being such a fool,” Amaryllis said. She brushed her wings off and o herself. “If we’re all done looking at our numbers going up, I think we should get going.”

  I pouted, but she was essentially right. “Yeah. Did the Wyvern drop any loot?”

  “Awa, I didn’t look,” Awen said.

  We started heading towards the middle of the room, taking our time as we went to scour the ground for anything valuable. Personally I was looking for a rept to my spade.

  Instead, we found a pair of goggles.

  Awehem up by their leather straps and looked into the mirrss eyepieces.

  Ented Prismatic Goggles of Magic Seeing, of rare quality, new.

  “Now those are nice,” Amaryllis said as she gestured for the goggles. Awen hahem over without protest.

  The harpy slid them on and looked around, then she frowned a bit before a grin crossed her features. “Ah, you o push mana into them. It’s not a passive entment.”

  “What’s it do?” I asked.

  She took them off and hahem over instead of answering.

  Holding the goggles to my face, I stared at... a pletely normal world. There wasn’t any difference from looking around normally. Then I pushed a bit of mana into the goggles. Amaryllis and Awen both started glowing, most of all, some of their equipment started to glow. Amaryllis’ ring and dagger especially, each with a swirl of different colours I couldn’t guess at.

  Pushing some mana into my hand made it glow too, not that it didn’t already glow a bit.

  “,” I said. “I guess this one is for Amaryllis, she’s our caster.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to it,” Amaryllis said.

  “Awa, I got a crossbow and a knife. I think Amaryllis should have it too.”

  My harpy friend slid the goggles on, thehem fall to rest around her neck. “Well, let’s get out of this pce.”

  I hen remembered ere here in the first pce.

  Pruning the EvilYou have heard of the location of a corrupted dungeon. Explore it, find any signs of great Evil. Eradicate them!

  We hadn’t seen any signs of evil, great or otherwise. But, if this dungeon was anything like the Wondernd dungeon in Threewells, then there was a good ce that the trouble would be tred around the dungeon’s core. “We o find the access thing to the dungeon core,” I said.

  Amaryllis stopped and eyed me. “Broccoli, it’s... kind of a faux-pas to enter a dungeon’s core room.”

  I shrugged. “It’s for my quest? And besides, dungeons are made by the world, right?”

  “That’s the prevailing theory, yes.”

  “And the wave me a quest to check out this dungeon, yeah?”

  She nodded. “That’s fair, I suppose.”

  Grinning, I skipped ahead of her and made for the middle of the boss room. Just as in the Wondernd dungeon, there was a circle of pilrs here, eae equidistant with an open spa the tre. Two of the pilrs had portals floating within them. One showed a hazy image of the outside world. I could see Moon Moon sprawled out on a rock, fast asleep with owitg as if he was chasing something in his dreams. The moon’s light bathed the gssy valley in soft blues and pale whites.

  The other portal...

  My heart sank.

  There was the familiar egg-shaped core, all shiny and glo a gssy plinth. The core room was brightly lit, and quite pretty, with mirrored walls and cy bits of gss running across the ground. But there were cracks in those walls, the ceiling was ed, and worst of all, a long, tentacle-like root was stig out of the wall and ed around the core.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  Quest Update!Pruning the EvilYou have found an Evil Root. Destroy it to se the Land!

  “That’s strange,” Amaryllis said.

  I swallowed. “It’s an Evil Root. My quest updated. It wants me to destroy it.”

  Amaryllis stared at me. “Seriously? It’s right o the core.”

  “I know,” I said. “ing magic might work on it?”

  She frowned. “As long as you don’t so much as scratch the core, I don’t suppose it’s that bad,” she said.

  I nodded. “I guess we try.” I took off my backpad ha to Awen who hugged it close. “Watch over my stuff, please?” I asked before stepping up to the portal.

  As with the st one, walking through it was as easy as... well, walking through a normal doorway. If it was some sort of teleportation, then it was really smooth.

  The core room was suffused with magic. I could feel it in the air, taste it, almost. My affinity fic had definitely improved sihe st time I’d been in a room like that.

  The core itself was bright and shiny and it felt... nio, not nice. I had the impression that it ushing off this sense of calm serenity, almost a physical emotion that tihe air like a perfume. It was a bit strange, but not unpleasant.

  The root, oher hand, looked wrong. There was an indescribable sehat it didn’t belong, that it was in a pce it shouldn’t be. The dimensions of it were also... off. One moment it seemed like the sort of thin root that occasionally poked out of the ground, the it looked as if there was so much weight to it, that it should have been taking up more room than was avaible in the room. It made my tummy queasy.

  I reached out to the root and carefully pced a hand against it.

  I had a lot more ranks to my ing magiow, and I was stronger besides.

  I fired a small burst of ing magito the root. Nothing happehat was to be expected. My hit was stroill. Nothing again.

  Frowning, I looked at my stats in a hurry.

  Mana 272/115

  I focused on my ing skill and tried to imagine a sort of... bde of ing magiething that could cut through the root’s defences.

  More and more mana poured into a powerful ing spell until I was almost running out.

  I fired.

  A burst of brilliant light shot out of my hand and rammed into the root hard enough to make the room tremble.

  Nothing.

  “Dang it!”

  gratutions! Through repeated as your ing skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank A Costs 3 Css Skill Points!

  “Oh,” I said.

  Well, ing had beey close to ranking up for a while. And I had been saving up my skill points for just that occasion.

  ingRank A -00%The ability to . You are exceptionally good at tidying up and washing off. Effectiveness of ing is marginally increased. You may now use mana to things you see. You are so that the world around you shifts to match your liness.

  I paused for a moment, w what that st bit meant. Did I have an aura of now? That was . Pun marginally intended.

  “How is it going?” Amaryllis asked as she stepped into the room. Her voice itched low and almost... reverent. It was very mulike her self-assured, snobby drawl. Awen followed after her, still hugging my pack close to her chest. She stared around with open-mouth-wonder.

  “It’s... going,” I said. “I want to try again. Then maybe we try cutting at this thing with a knife or something.”

  Amaryllis eyed the root with lips that curled up. “That won’t work. The knife idea. That thing, whatever it is, is a mana struct of some sort. It’s going to be fairly resistant to physical blows. More so than magic.”

  I hummed. “Well, we try anyway.”

  Raising my hand up, I prepared to give it my all.