Misadventures Incorporated

Chapter 393 - The Frozen Flame VI

Claire made short work of the second floor’s supposed boss. Like the skeletal knights that had come before it, it had a strange ability that functioned by way of negation. But rather than outright disabling her magic, it invalidated every other spell to affect it instead. It was certainly an infuriating ability, but its pitiful attempt at defence barely stalled its demise. Her vectors were practically costless. All she did was throw a few more into the mix to rip the boss’ body to pieces.

According to the system, it was a powerful foe. It was apparently over a thousand, and it awarded a full racial level’s worth of experience. But Claire didn’t feel like it was worth it. The monster had spent all its energy on fleeing. It hadn’t even tried to fight back.

And yet, the door was opened regardless. The empty space between the parts of its frame suddenly gave way to a vector-based portal. It wasn’t the sort of spatial tear that Claire typically created, but rather, a more mysterious spell closer in function to Alfred’s frozen door. None of the water in their surroundings was stolen away; it only activated when she touched the portal directly. Her whole body was sucked in all at once and she became a stream of data that was rapidly reconstructed on the other side.

The dark ocean was replaced by an irritatingly familiar scene. It was a brightly lit corridor featuring fiery grates beneath her feet and a straight-line path that ended in a set of glimmering double doors. Unsurprisingly, the room was filled with mimics. She could feel their eyes upon her, watching carefully as would a pack of hungry wolves. It was the exact same setup that had accompanied the dungeon’s first floor. If not for the sudden change in scale, she likely would have assumed that she had somehow lost her progress.

The elephantine differentiator was about as clear as the room it stood in. The first floor had certainly been on the more spacious end—there had been enough room for her to fight without having to consider her surroundings—but the third took the concept to a whole new level. It wasn’t just her own size that influenced her perception. Being in her tiniest form certainly contributed, but the feeling would have persisted even if she was in her largest.

So wide was the hallway that its width was best measured in kilometers. The metal bars that made up the upscaled grates were large enough that one could perform a stage play upon a single column. They felt more like bridges, guardless, metal bridges built to serve as a major city’s centre of transport.

Taking a few lazy steps, she found that the mimics had emulated the environment’s gigantification. The first one that sprang out of the ground and attacked her was a giant floorboard roughly fifty meters in each direction. Its teeth, which suddenly emerged from all four of its sides, were even more disproportionate, with each a third of its total length. They all closed in at once, transforming into a spiral that made for her tiny form whilst blocking her with the rest of its body to prevent an untimely escape.

Had its flesh been made of another material, it might have served as a half-decent plan. But as a being of simple stone, it stood no chance of ensnaring her.

She clawed her way through its stomach and emerged from the resulting hole. The assault was followed immediately by a magical bombardment. She crafted a series of vectors that pointed to the gap in its body and called to attention its structural flaws. Unable to resist the pulling forces, its core collapsed into a mess of rock and stone.

Log Entry 855883
You have slain a level 984 Phantasm Floor Mimic.

Log Entry 855884
You have slain a level 847 Goblin Overlord of Defiance.

This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:

- 43 points of wisdom

Log Entry 855885
You have slain a level 766 Kryddarian Highlord Curseweaver.

This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:

- 259 points of wisdom

Only after the entries went through her head did the caldriess stop in her tracks. Blinking rapidly, she turned around and observed the results of her attack.

But no matter where she looked, she found no goblins or Kryddarians. She quickly thought back on the past few hours, but she couldn’t recall setting off any traps or otherwise doing something that might have induced harm in a passerby. The kills made no sense, at least not before she realised that the mimic’s newfound core, the bits of rock she had turned into a gravitational anomaly, were glistening with a sickly red.

Mimics were not organic. And yet, the liquid was present. It wasn’t quite dripping, thanks to the vectors still in motion, but there was enough of it to be unmistakable.

Blinking, she undid her magic and inspected the corpse again. Her nose caught very little at first, but a flick of the tongue revealed a terribly foul scent. Looking into its stomach, she found that it was stuffed with corpses. There were seven of them in all, with two freshly destroyed, one long rotted, and another four mostly intact.

Somehow, an entire party had been eaten by a single individual, and a party that had overcome the previous two floors at that. She couldn’t even begin to fathom the ridiculous circumstance required to manifest the scenario before her.

She assumed them all dead at first—her ears weren’t picking up any heartbeats—but it was only because of the mimic’s magical stomach. Though ruptured by her vectors, the translucent, rubbery sack kept its contents dead silent until it was peeled away. Only then did she hear the heartbeats that accompanied the apparent corpses.

Claire paused for a moment to stare. There were two clear options ahead. She could either harvest the unconscious fools for experience or continue with the rescue in which she had accidentally engaged.

A quick glance at her log confirmed that they were worth less experience than the floor’s mimics—frankly, it was a forgone conclusion given the state in which she found them—but at the same time, they had been offered up on a silver platter. It wasn’t like she knew them; she was unconcerned with their continued existence, and it wasn’t like there was anyone to bear witness.

Still, she quickly decided to leave them as is. Arciel’s party would likely pass by within the next few hours or days, and if the other adventurers were fortunate enough to survive, there was a chance that they could provide them with a few tidbits of information. The debt of gratitude was likely worth more, given that they were decently high level.

Nodding to herself, Claire turned back around and continued on her way. There was no reason to get all hung up over the bags of meat, when in all likelihood, they would only be eaten again soon after their reawakening. Still, she wasn’t keen on the awkward conversation sure to follow if they woke whilst in her presence. So tucking in her wings, she turned her eyes back on the door and launched herself like an arrow. Some of the mimics still made an attempt to strike her. The grates leapt up from the floors, the ceilings suddenly collapsed, and the walls grew mouths and arms. But try as they might, none proved capable of reaching her.

Her wings weren’t as fast in her tiniest form, but her vectors easily made up the difference. The precise measure of their effect was greatly amplified, boosted almost beyond the point of recognition. That wasn’t to say that the magic itself had grown more powerful. The very same vectors simply provided more speed on account of the change in her size. The missing mass simply made it much easier to move her.

Figuring out the rest came down to simple math—not that she could be bothered to run the numbers. She didn’t even know exactly how much she weighed, just that she was a little bit lighter than Sylvia, who sat somewhere in the ten-pound range.

Perhaps in the past, she might have been able to identify a weight based on how easily she lifted it, but the lifestyle she had acquired, since fleeing her old home, had left her without the function. Her strength stat was at fault. It threw her senses out of whack every single time it grew, and it didn’t help that her main weapon’s weight was in a constant state of flux.

Boris would not only adjust it when he was in the mood, but also when he failed to pay attention. He had a rather rich history of accidentally destroying things in his sleep by way of suddenly gaining a few thousand pounds. Sylvia’s presence meant that his destruction was readily undone, however, so few ever blamed him for the resulting inconvenience.

From what Claire could tell, it was a matter of discipline. She was confident that he could learn to control the ability if he really tried, just as how he had eventually learned to control the precise number of Borises that existed in a given space at a given time.

According to the ikarett himself, it was because the skill was always growing. When its level changed dramatically, following a battle like the one against Pollux, he would often make the mistake of forgetting his new upper bound and setting a percentage that was not quite fine.

Perhaps, Claire too could have understood his pain had her circuits remained undamaged. But as things stood, she could only stare on and swing him with envy.

Porcius would have made for a much easier kill had she only a higher rate of growth. And frankly, there was one well within reach. Accepting Vella’s healing and blessing would have saved her all of the unnecessary pain and humiliation. Even without any extra levels, she likely could have killed him with a snap of the fingers. That was the feeling she got from trying Alfred's serum, from experiencing what it should have been like to live a life unbound.

Sometimes, she wondered if she had really made the right choice. Her instincts screamed that Vella was less friend than foe,and the goddess’ desperate behaviour appeared to imply some sort of scheme or other. There was an argument for charging right through it. The best outcome would be to take advantage of her offer and subsequently overcome whatever it was she had in store. But Claire refused. She refused for the exact same reason she had refused to let the fox speak her mind. 

She was afraid.

She was afraid of her own incompetence. The moment she slipped up would be the moment that everything fell apart. And such a mistake was effectively inevitable. She couldn’t possibly account for everything. Not even the gods accounted for everything, nor did they necessarily demand it. Her father was the only one that did. And even he remained unable to grasp precisely the future he wanted.

One day, she would fail. Just as she had time and time again.

That was why she refused to raise the stakes. To pin herself against the wall and force herself to overcome Vella’s machinations. To melt down her barriers and run the risk of loss. To chase a goal she would only be denied upon being returned to the castle. They were all too risky, options she didn’t dare explore.

Granted, in Vella’s case, it wasn’t just her cowardice that drove her decision. She had always found the goddess offputting and unpleasant, and the very act of even considering her blessing had given the lyrkress a headache. Either that, or the scene that lay beyond the door. As things stood, she was more inclined to put her bets on the latter.

After all, the corridor had given way to exactly what she expected. It was a massive, vertical hall with a large metal grate beneath her and a narrow opening above. Massive pterodactyls filled the sky, their individual wings large enough to completely blot out the sun. They were second only to the space itself, which was frankly sized more like a city than a room in the middle of the dungeon.

A sigh escaped Claire’s lips as she dove between two metal bars and left gravity to work its magic. Again, almost everything was identical in every aspect but size. The only difference she found was that some of the spiders were further ascended; the larger horned variants hadn’t been present on the first floor.

Log Entry 856216
You have slain a level 1010 Sevenflame Sinspinner.

This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:

- 29 points of wisdom

Looking further down, she found that even the bosses at the bottom of the pit seemed to differ in nothing but size and number.

A groan escaped Claire’s lips. She had no desire to challenge the giant frog knights that dwelled within the abyss. Two had proven annoying enough already. Seven just seemed like nothing but blatant harassment.

Still, she summoned her lizard and prepared to engage.

Even if she hated it, even if it annoyed her to no end, it was the only way forward.