Chapter 34:Shared Sorrows
The tension grew thicker with each descending floor. By the time they reached the 21st floor—a transitional zone of massive, smooth-flowstone tunnels and echoing, empty chambers—a tangible fatigue had settled over the Hands of Scouting. Their breaths came heavier, their movements a fraction less crisp. The constant pressure of the dungeon's deeper mana, the vigilance against ambush, and the residual strain of their earlier, flawless fight were cumulative weights.
Reginleif called a halt near a defensible nook where a collapsed wall created a shallow overhang. "Alright, everyone. We should make camp here. Rest, eat, let your minds settle. The next five floors will not be forgiving."
Kael leaned on his shield with a grateful grunt. Rin immediately began unpacking her kit to set perimeter wires. Tarin's hands, usually so steady, showed a slight tremor as he checked his bowstring. Joren sat with his back against the stone, closing his eyes, his face pale with mental exertion.
Azazel, however, showed no such strain. He stood at the edge of their makeshift camp, his posture unchanged from hours before, his gaze scanning the dark tunnel ahead with unnerving focus. "I'll go and check the area," he announced, his voice a low monotone. "Clear the next few hundred paces. Make sure nothing's nesting close by."
Before anyone could respond, he simply melted into the shadows of the tunnel, his light-drinking gloves and dark leathers making him vanish in moments, the sound of his footsteps swallowed by the cavern's silence.
Joren blinked his eyes open, watching the spot where Azazel had disappeared. "Is he… going to be okay alone? We're deep. And he must be as tired as the rest of us."
Reginleif was unpacking a ration bar from her bracelet. She didn't look up. "He'll be okay. You all should focus on resting so you don't overload." She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and added, "And if you're wondering why he's not tired… even I cannot answer that question."
It was mostly true. But as she sat, listening to the soft, weary sounds of the party settling in, her own thoughts churned. As I suspected from the beginning. Azazel… it feels like he's always racing against a different clock. The party was tired, their Mythic reserves or mental fortitude needing recovery to avoid backlash or mistakes. But Azazel? He seemed to operate on a principle of pure endurance, pushing until something broke—either the enemy, the obstacle, or, on rare and terrifying occasions, himself. He didn't rest to prevent overload; he rested only after the work was done, or when his body physically gave out. And as for me, she thought with a flicker of dark humor, I feel like I'm cheating. I can reset my lungs, purge my fatigue with a controlled surge of wind… but I do pay a price for it. The spectral wings, the breath suppression—they were a ledger, and the debt was always collected.
To distract herself, and to build the camaraderie they'd need for the brutal fight ahead, she turned to the group. "So. Childhood friends, right? From the same village. That's rare to see in a guild."
The atmosphere shifted. The weariness remained, but a softer, melancholic warmth suffused it. Kael gave a tired smile, patting the spot on the stone next to him where Rin was now sitting.
"Aye," Kael said, his booming voice softened. "Sunridge Hollow. Tiny place, tucked in a valley nobody bothers to map. We were all born within two years of each other. Drove our parents mad."
Rin picked up the thread, her fingers unconsciously tying a complex knot in her tripwire. "I was the one always getting stuck in trees or falling into badger setts. Tarin would have to climb up to talk me down, or Kael would have to dig me out."
Tarin offered a small, quiet smile, sharpening a broadhead arrow with a whetstone. "Joren was already buried in books, even then. Town elder's son. He'd try to explain to us why the sky was blue while we were trying to steal apples."
Joren chuckled, a dry, scholarly sound. "And you'd all ignore me. Until you needed someone to forge a permission slip or calculate the exact trajectory needed to hit the mayor's outhouse with a water balloon."
They laughed, the sound bouncing softly in the cavern. But the laughter faded, leaving a heavier silence.
"It was a good life," Kael said, his gaze distant. "Simple. Then… the Grey Flux came."
The name hung in the air, cold and final. Reginleif knew of it. A magical plague that had swept through remote regions a decade ago. Not a sickness of the body, but of the spirit and mana. It left despair, lethargy, and a slow, fading death in its wake.
"It hit Sunridge hard," Rin whispered, her voice losing its usual sharp edge. "No healers nearby. No real mages except Joren's dad, and he… he burned himself out trying to find a cure in his books. It wasn't enough."
Tarin's hands stilled on the arrow. "We lost… so many. My little sister. Kael's father. Rin's grandparents. The village just… emptied out. The silence was worse than the crying had been."
Joren adjusted his glasses, a habitual gesture when grappling with difficult memories. "My father, in his final days, told me the Flux wasn't natural. He believed it was a byproduct, a waste from some large-scale ritual or dungeon collapse far away. That our home was just… collateral damage in someone else's story." Bitterness seeped into his tone. "We were erased by an afterthought."
Kael's fist clenched on his knee. "After the burials, we were just… lost. Four kids in a ghost town. That's when Lira decided."
All eyes turned to the quietest member of their party—the one who hadn't spoken yet. Lira, their quiet support, a young woman with healing magic woven into her songs, who carried a small, hopeful lute on her back. Her eyes were downcast, tracing the patterns in the stone floor.
"Lira's family wasn't from Sunridge," Rin explained gently. "They were traveling minstrels who'd settled there just before the Flux. Her parents, her older brother. When the Flux came, they… they left. Promised they'd find a cure, or find help. They left Lira with us, for her safety. Said they'd send word. They never did."
Lira finally spoke, her voice a soft, melodic thread. "The last thing my brother gave me was this lute. He said, 'Keep practicing, little spark. We'll have a grand concert when we return.'" She touched the instrument's neck. "For years, there was nothing. Then, about two years ago, a trader came through. He'd heard a rumor. A minstrel with my father's description, playing in a tavern far to the east, near the Scarred Wastes. He was alone. And he wasn't playing happy songs. He was singing about loss… and about a 'caged songbird' in a place called the Weeping Citadel."
The name sent a chill down Reginleif's spine. Weeping Citadel. From the ruined scroll. The terrain past the Sentinel.
"We pieced it together," Joren said, his analytical mind taking over. "The 'caged songbird' could be a metaphor, or a literal creature. But the Weeping Citadel is a known, if elusive, dungeon formation. If my father's theory was right—if the Grey Flux was magical waste—its source could be tied to a powerful, corrupted dungeon heart. And if Lira's family was chasing leads on the Flux…"
"They might have gone into a dungeon," Kael finished, his voice gruff. "We became adventurers for two reasons. To survive. And to get strong enough, and learn enough, to find which dungeon, which citadel, holds that 'caged songbird.' To find out what happened to Lira's family."
Lira looked up, her eyes glistening but fierce. "They left to save me. To save everyone. I have to know. Even if… even if the news is bad. I have to know if they're still singing somewhere."
The camp was silent, save for the distant drip of water. The simple story of childhood friends had deepened into a saga of plague, abandonment, and a desperate quest driven by loyalty and love.
Reginleif felt the weight of their shared purpose. It was no longer just about proving themselves or clearing a dungeon floor. They were following a thread of their own, a thread that might tragically intertwine with the very depths they were descending into.
"We're going to the 26th floor," Reginleif said softly. "And the guild maps say the terrain shifts towards 'citadel-like' structures around there." She met each of their eyes. "Your mission and ours… they might be closer than we thought."
Just then, a shadow detached itself from the wall. Azazel stood at the edge of the firelight, having returned as silently as he'd left. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes held a sharp, analytical glint. He had heard most, if not all, of it.
"Perimeter's clear for half a league," he stated. Then, after a beat, he added, his gaze lingering on Lira's lute, "A caged songbird in the Weeping Citadel. That's a solid lead. Better than most have."
It was the closest thing to empathy they would get from him. But in that moment, for the Hands of Scouting, it was enough. Their secret was out, and the two formidable strangers they'd teamed up with hadn't dismissed it. They had, in their own ways, acknowledged it.
The rest period ended not with a spoken command, but with a renewed, solemn determination. They packed up quietly. The descent continued, but now they weren't just a guild party on an extermination quest. They were a group of orphans and a lost daughter, walking together into the weeping dark, hoping to find a long-lost song.
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Azazel moved through the silent, glittering corridors of the 21st floor like a wisp of smoke. The distant, muffled sounds of the camping party faded behind him, replaced by the oppressive, mineral-heavy silence of the deep dungeon. His senses, both mundane and mystical, stretched out into the gloom.
Qliphoth Sight. The world didn't brighten, but its underlying structures clarified. The magical essence of the living crystals pulsed with a faint, sickly light. The still air held no heat signatures, but his Shadow Sense traced the faintest vibrations through the stone—the skittering of tiny, mindless vermin, the slow drip of petrifying water.
He wasn't just scouting. He was stretching a different kind of muscle. The careful restraint around the Hands of Scouting was necessary, but it was a cage. Power unused atrophied. Judgment dulled.
"Finally," he murmured to the empty tunnel, his voice a dry whisper. "Can't fight something in this world if you don't find you'll get rusty. Rusty makes mistakes." He flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling the latent, cold energy coiled in his Mythic, the inverted tree in his mind's eye shimmering with potential paths. "Anyways, I'm fighting mindless monsters. Compared to fighting people… it's very different. But let's get the show on the road."
As if summoned by his desire for a test, a new pattern of vibrations reached him. Not the slow grind of crystal or the blind scuttle of insects. This was a rapid, skittering tick-tick-tick of hard points on stone. Multiple sources. Converging.
He rounded a bend into a wider chamber, its walls studded with jagged, rainbow-hued crystals. And there they were.
Shardscale Lizards. Three of them. Each the size of a large coyote, their bodies sleek and low to the ground, armored in overlapping plates of sharp, faceted crystal that refracted Joren's distant light into dazzling, disorienting prismatic bursts. They moved with unsettling, jerky speed, their eyes like black beads behind their natural, shimmering armor.
One, bolder than the rest, let out a chittering hiss and lunged. It was a blur of reflected light and sharp edges, aiming for his legs.
Azazel didn't retreat. He didn't raise his spear in a block. He simply focused.
On the patch of deep shadow cast by a towering crystal cluster to the lizard's immediate left.
Voidfool.
There was no blur of motion. One instant, he was standing in the path of the charge. The next, he was six feet to the left, behind the lunging lizard. The creature shrieked in confusion, its claws scoring grooves in empty stone where he had been.
Azazel's dwarven spear was already in motion. Not a flashy thrust, but a brutal, efficient downward stab, driven by gravity and his shifted momentum. The reinforced tip punched through the softer scales at the base of the lizard's skull with a wet crunch. The creature spasmed and went still.
"Okay," Azazel said aloud, yanking the spear free as the other two lizards recoiled, chittering in alarm. "This is a good start. So," he addressed the remaining monsters, his tone that of a scientist to his lab subjects, "please don't die on me too quickly. Let's test out if the training I did is useful or not."
The lizards fanned out, their crystal scales catching the light, creating a strobing, chaotic field of glare. They were fast, their movements unpredictable. Perfect.
Azazel let his spear dissipate back into his violet storage. He needed precision, not reach.
The lizard on the right feinted forward. Azazel didn't flinch. He focused on a spot two feet in front of it and willed.
Black Ice.
A spike of pure, darkness-forged frost erupted from the shadow at the lizard's feet. It wasn't meant to hit. It was an obstacle. The lizard twisted mid-stride to avoid it, its rhythm broken.
The one on the left seized the opening, darting in low. Azazel pivoted, his kilij flashing from its sheath in a downward arc. The curved blade met the crystalline shoulder plate with a shriek of metal on mineral. It deflected, but Azazel had expected that. He wasn't trying to cut through. He was testing deflection, hardness.
Kinetic Tether.
As his sword arm recoiled from the block, a thin, dark line—like a fishing line of solidified shadow—shot from his left glove and attached to the Black Ice spike he'd created earlier. He pulled.
The spike shattered, but the kinetic energy yanked him sideways, just enough for the second lizard's follow-up snap at his ankle to close on empty air. He landed in a crouch.
"Good. Reflexes are acceptable. Control is… adequate." He was narrating his own performance, analyzing it in real-time. The lizards, enraged and confused by his unpredictable movements, attacked in unison.
This time, Azazel didn't dodge. He stood his ground.
You Shadow.
Tendrils of darkness, thicker and more substantial than the tether, erupted from the pooled shadows around his feet. They didn't strike the lizards. They wove a frantic, swirling net in the air in front of him, a zone of grasping gloom.
The lizards hit the shadow-net. Their incredible speed met sudden, clinging resistance. It was like trying to sprint through deep tar. Their charges faltered, their streamlined forms tangled in the insubstantial yet potent darkness.
Azazel took one calm step forward, kilij in hand.
The first lizard, struggling to free itself from the shadows, received a thrust not at its armored back, but into its open, hissing mouth. The blade pierced the soft palate and found the brain. He wrenched it free.
The second, smarter, managed to back out of the shadow-net. It turned to flee, skittering towards a crack in the wall.
Azazel sighed, a hint of disappointment in the sound. The fun part was over. The experiment was concluding.
He didn't chase it. He simply raised his left hand, palm outward, towards the fleeing creature's path. He focused on the concept of water, of pull, of drowning depth.
Abyssal Vortex Lv².
A sphere of inky, swirling water the size of a grapefruit materialized in the air directly ahead of the lizard. But this water was wrong. It didn't splash; it sucked. The air around it warped, and the lizard, mid-leap for its escape hole, was violently yanked off its trajectory. It was pulled into the sphere with a muffled squelch. For a second, its form was visible inside the dark water, frantically twisting. Then the vortex collapsed in on itself with a deep, final gloop, leaving nothing behind but a few damp crystals on the floor.
Silence returned to the chamber, broken only by Azazel's steady breathing. He flicked the gore from his kilij and sheathed it. He looked at the two dead lizards and the spot where the third had been unmade.
"Results: Voidfool for repositioning and instant kills—highly effective. Chained techniques for control and misdirection—functional, but requires more refinement for faster targets. Abyssal Vortex for cleanup… efficient, but overkill for one. Mana cost versus yield needs calculation."
He knelt, and with practiced efficiency, used a small knife to pry free a few of the largest, most intact Shardscales from the lizards' hides. They might have alchemical or enchanting value. The rest he left. The dungeon would recycle them.
As he stood, he felt it. Not fatigue, but a satisfying, humming readiness. The restraint was still there, the cage of "normalcy" he had to wear around the others. But inside, the machinery of his power had been oiled and tested. The geometry of his dark Mythic was a little clearer, the paths between its nodes a little more familiar.
He turned and began walking soundlessly back toward the camp. The party would be rested soon. The real fight, the one where he had to play a role, was ahead. But for now, the silence and the slaughter had served their purpose.
He wasn't rusty.
End of chapter 34