Chapter 148:

  Maveith’s question oher I would also use the reader hung in the air. Maveith’s physical attributes were impressive for an elf, I guess. I wao build trust with the goliath but was worried about him seeing my high magic affinities. He may not be able to read Elvish, but he could probably figure out numbers fairly quickly, and there were just too many non-zeros in my affinity.

  I decided in a distra, “I don’t think so, at least nht now anyway. I wao show you this.” I pced the obsidian stone on the floor. I could still feel the heat emanating from it. “I found it my first time in the dungeon.” That was sort of true, as I hadn’t realized I had been carrying it until then.

  Maveith approached the stone, his hand just inches away. His brow furrowed, “A fire starter? This would have been useful, but perhaps we use it to cook ihe dungeon. Brutus had most of our firewood in his pack.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. But I just thought it was thermal stone for heating a room,” I replied, feeling the heat for myself. The air in the dungeon was cool but not cold.

  Maveith apparently knew a little bit about thermal stones, “There are different grades of thermal stones. It depends on how fast they vert aether into heat. The material they are made from is mined and shaped on Stone Mountain Isnd, and artificers from around the world purchase it from goliath miners and crafters,” he said proudly.

  He touched the stone and drew his hand back. “This is a high-quality fire starter. The more aether you el into it, the hotter it will get. To cook, just el the aether until it turns red.” The gray-skinned goliath sidered the stone, “It should remain hot for an hour or so before cooling off slowly based on its size.”

  “How long do they st? How many times I charge it?” I asked the goliath.

  Maveith shrugged, going to his paaterials to cook. “As long as the stone is not damaged, it should st forever. My father,” he paused, “my father had one passed down from my great grandfather. We should cook something,” Maveith said excitedly.

  He had a lot of weight to put ba, so I was not surprised. He went to his pad pulled out the mostly frozen fillet. He soon hummed to himself as he charged the stoo red color and carefully bahe pot oone. He meticulously watched and cooked the fish. Without oil, the skin stuck to the pan, but Maveith didn’t seem to care about the lost nutrition. He was happy about the normalcy of cooking and reminisg about cooking with the thermal stone.

  The smell of the cooking fish soon permeated the room, and as Maveith focused on that task, I figured out how to clear the tablet reader. The surface was bnk, and without Maveith seeing it, I activated it, cleared it, aur to my dimensional space. I took a pce to sit along the wall to puzzle out my reading.

  I had to think way bay st reading to calcute the ges in my head. None of my affinities fic had ged.

  Elemental Magics (on)

  Fire

  0

  Air

  0

  Water

  0

  Earth

  6

  Lightning (Energy)

  8

  Spirit (Healing)

  23

  Nature (Pnt)

  0

  Unaffiliated Magics (Unon)

  Charm (Mind)

  5

  Illusion

  0

  Cirvoyance

  0

  Prote (Guardian)

  30

  Neancy

  0

  Celestial

  0

  Abyssal

  0

  Rare Magics

  Space

  98

  Time

  90

  Dispt

  61

  Materialism

  9

  Worlds

  88

  Void

  22

  vergence

  74

  My physical, mental, and magical attributes had ged; some of them had even decreased.

  Physical

  Mental

  Magical

  Strength (-7/+0)

  45/80

  Intellect (-2/+0)

  29/54

  Aether Pool (+0/+0)

  16/22

  Power (-2/+1)

  46/84

  Reasoning (-5/+0)

  44/61

  eling (+7/+2)

  21/57

  Quiess (-5/+0)

  30/49

  Perception (-4/+1)

  50/61

  Aether Shaping (+2/+0)

  8/8

  Dexterity (+0/+0)

  39/60

  Insight (-3/+0)

  32/49

  Aether Tolerance (+8/+0)

  32/50

  Endurance (-3/+0)

  64/95

  Resilience (-2/+0)

  45/71

  Aether Resistance (+1/+0)

  8/19

  stitution (-8/+1)

  42/69

  Empathy (+0/+1)

  12/22

  Prime Aether Affinity

  Space

  Coordination (-4/+0)

  42/63

  Fortitude (-5/+0)

  48/89

  Minor Aether Affinity

  Time

  The first thing I tried to puzzle out was with the essences I had ed, my potentials seemed right in lih expectations. But if this tablet reader were made for the elven physiology, wouldn’t my potentials be different? Some type of sliding scale?

  The sed part of my fusion was the decrease in my attributes. With weeks of starvation, it made sense I would lose attributes. I robably twenty-five pounds lighter, if not more. Maybe I would recover quickly with the more food that I ed.

  I thought back to the other men in the pany, and hting effectiveness had definitely dropped, but not as much as you would think for how little we were eating. Konstantin had mentiohat the essences fortified your attributes and made it more difficult to lose ground over time. Maybe my slow aging also pyed an effe helpie my losses? I thought I had fared much better than a lot of the others in the pany.

  Maveith had finished cooking and presented me with half the rge fillet. The fish was fky and tasted buttery except for the tiny strings of cartige, which I had just swallowed. Maveith ate tentedly as well, sav the fish while the fire started slowly ging from red to b its cooling process.

  “Are you healthy enough to fight?” I asked Maveith a while after the meal.

  He nodded slowly, “I swing my hammer. What are we fag?”

  “Two shapeshifters that are masquerading as elven children. They tried to trick me to e into the room. The room is covered in a carpet of green moss. I am not sure if it ceals any danger.” I poi the wall, “Apparently, this room was an unpopur starting point as the elves did not map it.”

  Maveith stood painfully, wing as he stood. “We should also try and find the others.” He pulled his hammer from the loop on his belt and o me. To Maveith’s amazement, I stored both our packs in my dimensional space. Best not to be slowed down by them. Together, we made our way down the corridor, side by side. The width a of the passage were around teo a side. As roached, the two elven children were standing at the entryway, blog our access to the room.

  The boy spoke in elvish, “Look, he has returned and brought a friend.”

  The girl added, “I think they have e to py. It has been so long since we pyed with anyone.”

  Maveith’s hands flexed along the handle of his sledgehammer and questioned me, “What are they saying? Their mannerisms seem unnatural for children.”

  The girl switched to Latin, “Oh, the big one speaks the ongue. I want to py with him first!”

  I couldn’t help my own curiosity and asked the pair, “Are you the dualking through these creatures?”

  “He calls us creatures! You are the creature! ing io kill and loot over and ain,” the girl berated me in Latin. “We are not the dungeon. Just pythings of it. If you are not going to py with us, leave.”

  “I have never heard of creatures in a dualking before,” Maveith said worriedly. “Are you sure we should be fighting them?”

  The boy teased Maveith, “Look, you have scared the big one. He is going to be too afraid to enter now.”

  “Back up to the ter of the room, and we will enter,” I requested of the pair. Could you even reason with these creatures? The two looked at each other creepily, then back at us. They started to take steps back, their bare feet leaving footprints in the mossy ground that quickly disappeared.

  “Maveith, we ot leave the dungeon as there was a rush swarming the tavern, and the summoner’s wyverns may be there. We only have oh to follow in the byrinth, and it leads us here. I will take the girl, and you take the boy?” I said it softly, but it was clear the creatures overheard as they failed to hide a smirk and were anticipating the fight.

  “They have no ons,” Maveith said, assessing our oppos who stood twenty feet apart in the ter of the chamber awaiting us.

  “Shape gers, remember. My guess is once we ehey will ge their form. Ready?” Maveith studied the two children and slowly nodded.

  I rushed forward, prepared to use my ability, a to anything. The ground ongy as I led with my round shield and bck bde iher hand. The two children just smiled, and I risked a g Maveith, who was two steps behind. I had let my adrenalihe better of me.

  Twenty feet from the children, their eyes blio a yellow. The girl’s body started rapidly stretg first, quickly tearing through the rags she wore as she gained girth a. Her skin stretched and became gray and veiny. Her messy hair retracted into her body as her face head became bald and ridged with bones over the eyes. The creature had grown from less than four feet to ht in the short time it took to cover the ground. Long, nky arms sported imposing bck cws. The rags gohe creature appeared genderless. The creature took a defeance as I reached it.

  The creature’s head suddenly disappeared. My aether bottomed out after a brief struggle with its resistance. I ged my dire, pivoting in the moss, and my bck bde slid into the outline of the ribs on the boy that had also grown into the simir horror.

  The surprised creature baded me, and I easily intercepted the strike with my shield. I did not expect its immerength as I was flung back, and my sword hilt was torn from my grasp. I had held it long enough to wrench the bde sideways through the body. I skidded on the carpet of moss, the berry bushes slowing me slightly.

  I caught Maveith swinging his hammer into the knee of the creature. It had turo face me, giving the goliath a wide opening. A satisfying pop resounded in the room as the knee bent at the wrong angle, and the creature fell to its knees. Maveith was already winding up for another swing at the creature’s head. As the blow was ing, the creature’s arm shed out and grabbed the shaft, preventing the goliath from pleting a swing. The creature’s arms were deceptively long even as the seven-foot-plus goliath towered over the kneeling body. The other hand punched out into Maveith’s leather armor, causing him to backpedal while releasing air in a huff.

  These things were just to. The only good sign was my bck bde embedded in the creature was dripping a stream of blue-bck blood. Its ft face had no mouth, but it still mao hiss in pain and anger, but nnizable words came from it. Standing, I realized my shield shoulder was dislocated. Pain fred when I tried to move, and I was uo raise my arm, so I let the shield fall to the mossy ground.

  I drew the elven dagger with my good hand but kept my distance. “Maveith, how are you doing, big guy?”

  Maveith coughed painfully as he supported his weight on his hammer. “Some broken ribs, but I still fight.”

  The creature was looking bad forth between us as we f now. It touched my sword exploratorily, but it decided not to extract it. With the flow of blood ing off the sword, I doubted it could live much longer. Maveith had destroyed one knee, so it should remain immobile. We watched as it struggled to stand and then gave up and y down on the mossy floor.

  “Keep an eye on it,” I said, moving to the other creature’s corpse. The aether-rich dungeon was helping me recover quicker than normal, but it was still going to take some time before I could bring out the colleinutes passed slowly until I finally materialized the collector. I pced it on the corpse, and thick blue smoke ulled from the body and onto the collector.

  “What is that? Do you have a collector?” Maveith asked from the far side of the room.

  “Yes,” was my short reply as the smoke coalesced in an apex essence. A myriad of ever-shifting colors swam ihe sphere as I picked it up. It felt weighty in my hand, dehan previous apex essences I had held. I slipped the essender my armor and into a pocket. I circled wide of the creature and stood o Maveith. He was audibly wheezing. I just hoped the reward for this room tained a healing potion.

  “Give me a few minutes, and I will retrieve your bow for you. You make sure the other one is dead.

  “If you have your own bow in there, perhaps it is best if you shoot it. I think it might be too painful to draw my bow,” he said with difficulty.

  I ughed, “My shoulder is dislocated, but I wait until I heal myself. Go sit down a, Maveith. I will watch it.” Maveith gratefully colpsed onto his ba the mossy floor. I stood over him. “Grab my wrist and pull straight down,” I swung my arm to him, and he reached up. I figured it would save some aether if he got it ba the socket.

  Maveith yanked down, and a soft pop resounded in my body. It had not been too bad. I was able to move the arm but raising it above my head was a burning pain. Mier, I drew the bow and missed from te. Konstantin’s voice echoed in my head, mog me. Truthfully, I almost missed it now. My sed, third, and fourth shots ected without the creature stirring.

  Cautiously, I moved in with the collector and used it to the same effect as the first time. Another swirling prismatic orb. From my experie was definitely a magic essence. I had Castile’s library in the dreamscape, so I should be able to find it. Now, if I were a reward chest, where would I be hiding?

  ? Chted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

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