<~> Chapter 145

"So, like before, we're looking for anything we can take back that might be valuable," Maxwell said as he led us through a path between the reflective pillars. "Any of the magic-infused rocks Jol'ket mentioned, any plants you can find, and any monsters we kill. That sort of thing."

"We didn't do a lot of that when we were coming back from the Fallow Dungeon," I mentioned from the rear of our group.

Maxwell nodded without taking his eyes off the surroundings. "The Fallow Dungeon was fairly well explored, and our group specialized in bringing back monster parts."

"Monster parts are usually the most lucrative by weight since they're often the most dangerous to collect," Piper added.

"Right," Maxwell continued. "So, since we were independent and doing longer delves past the Lost Halls anyway, it made more sense for us to almost exclusively go after monster parts rather than the groups who would mine for crystals or forage for magical plants on the floors we passed. We also wanted to get stronger, which is why we had gone after goblins. The problem with Goblins is their potential to swarm rather than their individual difficulty. As long as you don't get overwhelmed, they make good enemies to further progress your empowerment since each individual kill gives you a share of their released magic."

"Wait," Iris said, cutting in. "Doesn't that make the crabs on the first floor really good for the same reason?"

Maxwell chuckled. "It does. You've already experienced that yourself firsthand a few days ago. The goblins we were hunting were still better because they were deeper in the dungeon, but as long as the snake monster can be taken out safely each time, the number of swarming crabs is going to do a lot to empower the soldiers trained here. But, generally speaking, the deeper monsters are in the dungeon, the more magic they have. There are exceptions, but that's usually the case."

I frowned. "If that's true, that means the monsters in this dungeon are going to quickly become ridiculous, won't they? That snake floor boss was already outrageously strong."

Piper hummed. "Most likely. Dungeons can be strange and inconsistent though. Intelligent monsters, like changelings, are a completely different kind of challenge when compared to the monsters we handled on the first floor. They—"

I let out a grunt as I felt a sharp dagger shoved into the back of my knee. The attack barely left any damage once the blade slid back out, but the unexpected thrust that came with it made me stumble. I swung around and grabbed their wrist before the attacker could get away and pulled them off their feet, dragging them in front of me.

Luna let out a scratchy whine of pain as I held her in front of me and my moment of surprise was enough for her to wiggle out of my confused grip. She dropped to her feet and turned to run away, but before she could take more than two steps, a sword speared right through her chest. She let out a pained cry and stared up at me with teary eyes before Piper ripped her sword out of Luna's chest and decapitated the foxkin in a practiced motion.

I stepped back, shaken from the sight, and turned to the Luna at my side shaking my arm to get my attention. (Helena, Helena, it's me! That was a changeling! Please calm down!")

My heart was racing, but I took a deep breath and calmed my flow of mana like I had been trained to do. As I slowed my breathing, I turned back to the bloody corpse on the ground in front of me. The body of a decapitated changeling, back in its original form, was lying dead on the ground in front of me.

Piper was furious. Angrier than I had ever seen her before. I heard the leather of her gloves squeak as she gripped her sword so tightly that I was a little worried she was going to strain something. She was just staring at the body without blinking for a long moment before someone finally broke her trance.

("Piper, are you okay?") Luna asked.

Piper flinched and dropped her sword when she turned to Luna. Her eyes went wide and she started to say something before closing her mouth and looking away. After a long pause, she finally whispered her reply, "They always make me fight you. In the Lost Halls, it always made me kill dozens of copies of you. Now, here too. Why does it always do this to me?" Piper's voice cracked at the end. Tears began to stream down her face as she took a shaky step away from us.

Luna's tail wilted and her ears went back. She quickly ran forward and pulled Piper into a hug. Rather than fighting it, Piper just fell to her knees and sobbed. I turned away and refocused on our surroundings. It felt like a private moment that I didn't want to intrude on, and we were still in a dangerous place. We had just been attacked and there could be more of them out there. A face in one of the crystals smiled at me with a wide uncanny grin. Its pitch black eyes reflected the light of my own as it silently laughed before slipping out of sight before I could even consider chasing it.

"Sneaking into our group and trying to replace one of us isn't the only way the changelings can hurt us. After briefly becoming one myself, I know that this is the kind of thing that they feed on," I said soberly.

"So, what? Next it's going to show up as one of my dead friends just to fuck with us?" Aria bristled with anger too. I hadn't seen her until after she passed out, but I heard a little bit of what happened to her in the Lost Halls.

I looked down at the dead changeling corpse and chose to ignore Aria's question. "Celeste 'donated' the last changeling to me, but that one is female. Don't ask me how I know... Do you think we should take it back for the crafters, or should I eat this one to see if it's any different?"

Aria frowned and glanced over at Piper. "It depends on how Piper is doing after this... It would be good if we brought one back to confirm that the last one wasn't alone on this floor, but I know confirming things would set you at ease, too. Would you... be able to do it? Eat it after it posed as Luna?"

I sighed. "I think it would be fine now. I was... mostly just surprised. Caught off guard." I glanced up at the mirrored pillar I had seen the face in. ("I saw one of them watching us in the reflections. There are probably more of them nearby,") I told Aria with the rings.

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("I saw one too. I also figured out what happened before you did. It was easier to see both of them from my vantage,") she replied.

("How could Piper tell that this one was a fake so quickly?") I asked her.

Aria chuckled. ("Well, she dropped a dagger after just stabbing you. Luna only carries a short knife and it's usually buried at the bottom of her bag because she never uses it. I think the changeling didn't expect you to grab her so quickly, it didn't have a chance to get rid of the weapon and confuse us.")

Aria took the opportunity to pick up the bloody dagger from the ground. It was thin and eight inches long. It had pushed right through the cartilage in the back of my knee, which would have crippled anyone else who had been stabbed like that. Did it not know how strong my regeneration was?

("It's not poisoned. That's something I honestly would have expected from one of those sneaky fucks,") Aria said.

("Don't give them ideas,") I replied.

She gave me a flat stare. ("There's a reason I said this to you using the rings, you know.")

Iris came over to us while Maxwell and Luna continued to comfort Piper. "Is she going to be okay?" Iris asked.

Aria patted the top of Iris's head and sighed. "She went through a lot in a different dungeon. This place reminded her of that."

I lowered my voice. "She wouldn't ever talk about it, but she never broke down like this before."

"I think... it's easier to deal with some things if you're ready for them... I might not have been okay if it were Rodrick instead of Luna who had snuck up on us. But now I know to maybe expect it..." Aria said somberly.

Iris's hand reached out to grab at Aria's pants. "I've never seen Piper like this before. I didn't know someone so strong could cry... like I did when Korr'tak abandoned me..."

Aria sighed before kneeling down and pulling Iris into a hug with one arm. "Even adults can feel sad too, shorty."

"I'm not short..." Iris quietly replied. The petulant tone Iris normally argued with was gone, overwhelmed by the situation.

I sniffed at the air and focused on the air pressure that tickled against my whiskers. We hadn't gone very far from the entrance, and my sensitive whiskers would keep us from getting lost on the way back.

"I think we should collect this corpse and go back for now," I said to everyone.

Piper's eyes were red and puffy, but she had regained a bit of her composure. "I don't want to go back up just because of me."

I shook my head. "We got a corpse, we can break off a sample of one of these smaller mirror pillars, and if we go back now, we should be able to make it back before the flood starts in earnest. Even if you're okay, I'm still shaken by what happened too. We should retreat for now."

Maxwell shared a look with Piper before turning back to me and nodding. "Okay. I also think that would be for the best. I'll collect the corpse."

The small humanoid body slipped into his pack in two pieces. I was still pretty grossed out by how it looked, but I guess it wasn't any different from the goblins. Changelings were a lot smarter, but goblins were still capable of using tools and tactics. They could still communicate with each other. The only real difference was that goblins reveled in hurting others, while it was just a means to an end for the changelings. The ethics of it felt weird. I don't think either have a capacity to change their ways, and humans in my previous world killed each other for less, but they were still intelligent. Maybe it was just because changelings looked humanoid but less... gross than goblins. At least from behind... changelings looked uncanny and evil when they were smiling at you. Do they look any less monstrous than I do?

"I'm finished getting the corpse. Go ahead and try to get some of that rock before we go back," Maxwell told me.

I nodded and pulled my axe from my storage ring. I glanced around real quick, but I didn't see any of the changelings around. I did a few practice swings and then swung my axe into one of the pillars that was less than a fist thick.

The sound it made when my axe met the pillar was awful, and the vibration from the hit painfully traveled up my arms, but the pillar snapped off and clattered to the ground. Everyone in my party looked around warily with their weapons drawn, just in case the dungeon somehow took offence to the action, but after a tense moment, all of us relaxed. I picked up the pole and held it upright with one end touching the ground. The pole went up to my collarbone in this form, which probably made it around 7ish feet long, and was cool to the touch like stone. The mirrored pillar had snapped off at a ninety-degree angle, giving it a flat edge on both ends, and didn't feel so heavy that any of us would have much trouble carrying it. It was more awkward than heavy because of the broken pillar's length.

"Well... that went better than expected," I said as I held up the pole. I glanced at my damaged axe, but I let my magic wash into it, and the blade quickly repaired itself. After all of my mana training with Celeste, I had to consciously activate it now, rather than just loosening my control as I used to do before. "If this ends up being valuable, it might be difficult to find good tools to harvest it."

Aria shrugged. "Sounds like their problem. Let's get out of here before we get stuck on this floor."

The six of us cautiously walked back to the entrance and made a point to pick up every loose stone on our way back. Not all of them were magical, but it was possible something in here could be useful for reasons outside of their magic content. Some minerals were valuable in alchemy for their chemical reactions rather than their magic ones, and none of us knew what to look for, so we grabbed everything we could.

We were worried about another ambush, so we didn't talk much on the way back. After that last encounter, we didn't come across another of the changelings again before making it to the stairs. We didn't even have another sighting of one watching us through the reflections. It was hard to dismiss the feeling of them watching us the entire time, though. Eventually, we made it back to the stairs and began the trek back to the surface.

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