Rafe froze when Devila's question finally registered. His eyes widened a little but he was quick to bounce back.

"I have an upgraded version of appraisal," he lied.

"You hesitated," Devila said. "I wonder why?"

Her voice was teasing, a little friendly even. Maybe flirtatious? Rafe was sure he wasn't just trying to find clues were there were none.

"It's fine anyway," she continued. "You can keep your secrets all you want."

Rafe looked at her with a thoughtful frown.

"What? Is there something on my face? Anyway, should we take a dip in the pond?"

Rafe was going to agree as it was an objective anyway, but then he froze as he considered something. A dip in a pond meant they'd have to…bare at least a little of their bodies. This was a dark cave they were in. Almost an outdoorsy feel but not quite. It wasn't like going to the beach. It was more like taking a bath together.

"Do you…do you not want to?" she said, probably not intentionally widening her eyes and pouting her lips.

Rafe's resolve firmed in an instant.

"What could possibly give you that idea? I'd love to take a dip," he said with a big smile.

He kept the smile on, his cheeks puffed out and his teeth exposed so that he could close his eyes without appearing suspicious. He took off his robe and jumped into the pond before Devila could do the same.

He heard the rustling of garments as she took her time. He wondered why she didn't just have her clothes go straight into her storage ability. He felt the ripples when she started to dip her toes in.

"Ouch! That stings," she said. "How are you okay right now?"

"Who said anything about being okay?" Rafe mumbled softly.

Now that she had mentioned it though, Rafe was feeling slightly twitchy, slightly uncomfortable. He had just prioritised his discomfort with this new experience over the slight annoyance.

Then the cold spread into his body and he tensed. He wanted to tell Devila about the sharp pain but it disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving a very satisfying feeling in its place.

"Shit!" Devila cried once she was fully settled.

Rafe waited for the contentment.

"Argh, argh…yeah that hits the spot," she cried not three seconds later.

"Doesn't it though?" Rafe asked, forgetting about his sudden shyness in his new exuberance. "It's like, there is pain but it's nice. It's like…"

"...sweet pain?" Devila queried.

"Yes that! It's really satisfying. Like…"

Devila let out a moan. "Oh, by the void!" she cried.

Rafe fell back into his shell faster than a snail. He looked away from the girl who only had a cloth wrapping for her chest and very modest undergarments below. Devila didn't seem to notice, continuing to moan her pleasure.

"...I was just going to say it's like the feeling I get after a good workout…" Rafe mumbled to himself.

'Ding' You have gained +3 stat points to vitality, + 1 stat point to endurance, + 1 stat point to strength.

****

They only had four hours left when they returned to their hide out.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Devila commented.

"Yeah?" Rafe asked.

"About my talisman style. You are right I think. I am sacrificing a lot of potential by focusing on explosions and just that. I may need a little more."

"That's good, I guess?" Rafe answered, unsure where the conversation was going.

"Yeah. I'm going to try and make a gravity array for Quin. That way you can carry her more easily up the cliff."

Rafe found himself smiling at her. "Hey is it for Quin or for me. Be honest."

He expected a burb or something, as Devila was wont to do, but instead she turned beet red and looked away.

"It's for the team," she said resolutely. "Hey Aska, wake up!"

Devila was a scary genius. Rafe knew this. He sometimes forgot it though. It took her no more than ten minutes of tinkering with a few glyphs and runes, but suddenly Quin weighed no more than a mildly heavy rack sack.

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"I think I can do something to the knives. Using a bit of force and pressure magic in a kind of reverse pattern, maybe I can create suction of some kind. Could help with the climb," she said.

Rafe agreed it was worth delaying their ascension if it could be made easier. They did not have any rope, and even if they did, the top of the high rise was so far beyond their lines of sight.

"Hey, Devi," Rafe whispered when he was sure Aska wasn't listening. "Did you also get an improvement to your vitality from the pond?"

"Hmmm," she said, seeming distracted by the climb ahead of them. "Oh, yeah. Barely two points though. But that's to be expected. The gods have been refining our vessels all these years in the void after all."

Rafe nodded in acquiescence. They had been doing that all these years, at least according to Liam. Still, Rafe had received a full five stat points. And even if he had received only three to vitality, that would have been a lot more than he was personally planning to fit in there any time soon. Getting other sources for stats he had no intention of focusing on was a good idea, as far as he was concerned.

"Pond of near perfection, huh?"

****

Rafe should have known the trial wasn't just about climbing to the top. This was his experience with the tower so far. He supposed all dungeons would end up this way in the end.

The essence was a fire. A fire that instead of burning its fuel forced more fuel to grow. It wanted to grow, the essence did. It might not be alive but it had instincts, just like the lost weapon did.

Dungeons made life. Dungeons forced that life to grow, to evolve.

Halfway up the cliff they met a strong wind.

It was a very familiar feeling when a wall of wind smacked him in the face. Quin almost fell off his back but he held on to her. He saw Devila, slightly above him, hang on with all she had. She was light and the sudden wind had almost carried her away. Aska.was shaking like a leaf beside him.

"Are you okay?!" Devila shouted once she had gotten accustomed to the storm.

He knew she meant him and not Aska, somehow. Not Quin. Him. Maybe she was only worried because he was the last member of the team who was still semi-functional but Rafe wanted to believe otherwise.

"I'm fine. Let's keep going."

"It's going to get worse," Aska said from where he was frozen, his body tucked into a slight hollow on the cliff wall. "It's only going to get worse. It's going to get worse!"

"Hey, calm down there buddy," Rafe said, looking the big man over worriedly.

"Come…down?" Aska asked, and then he did the unthinkable.

He looked down. They'd since passed the level the waterfall originated from and that was extremely high.

"Shit!" Rafe shouted as he scrambled sideways with his daggers.

He caught a diving Aska with his left hand, his right holding onto one dagger and his right shoulder supporting Quin against the cliff wall.

"Rafael! Are you alright?!" Devila screamed.

Rafe gritted his teeth, feeling the burden but thinking he could hold on.

"Yeah…I think—"

His left shoulder popped. Aska had been limply hanging there, but the pop seemed to set him off. He started struggling. Rafe ground his teeth together to keep from screaming. This was bad. They did not have a healer anymore. His hand was not elastic, at least not in a literal sense, but it was growing longer the more the heavy oaf struggled.

"Aska!" Devila shouted. "Calm down! You're going to cost us the room!"

"Come down?" the big man looked up with wide eyes brimming with madness. "Come down?! I am trying to come down! But something's got a hold of me. It's the Demon god! The Demon god! I tell you. It's trying to take me to its abyss. No! I have seen the void of Skyholm! I do not wish to see any other god's domain!"

"Hey, Devi, how about you get down here before my arm is completely pulled out of its socket?" Rafe called to girl.

"Just let him go!" she shrieked, but she was already rushing downwards.

She wasn't looking down, the brilliant woman. She knew what she was about better than Rafe, apparently. He was being forced to look back at the struggling giant. He was being pulled toward the fall himself. He could feel Quin loosening from where he'd braced her against the wall.

"You know I can't do that!" he shouted up at Devila.

For a few moments, only the sound of the above average wind and the scrambling woman reached Rafe's ears. He was starting to get accustomed to the burden he was bearing. Then a suspicion made its way into his head.

He looked over at Aska who he had been led to believe had calmed down. The man had a hand raised above his head, and in the hand a sharp knife glinted.

Rafe flinched but did not let go of the man. He started to curse inwardly as the dagger made its descent.

Rafe screamed when the dagger was buried in his forearm. He wanted to let the man go. He really wanted to let the man go but—

"Hold on Rafael, I'm almost there!" Devila shouted, sounding panicked.

The stabber pulled the knife out of Rafe's arm. The pain doubled. Rafe bit his cry back this time. It was just a bit of pain. Rafe could do pain. He'd once done this very thing to himself to complete a dungeon, repeatedly.

And some people thougt masochism was unhealthy. Shows what they knew, as far as Rafe was concerned. Masochism had saved his life.

Aska let out a battle cry as he prepared to stab Rafe again. Rafe watched blood spurt out like his arm was a burst water pipe.

Then a screech filled the air. It came from above. It was definitely a monster. They were definitely not close to the peak yet.

Devila had been so close. Rafe watched her freeze and look up in horror. Then something black fell straight onto Aska.

It was a monstrous reptile, like a black slimy monitor lizard. Only it had no eyes. It had a rounded head, yet somehow its mouth was as long as that of a crocodile. Its teeth were sharper and smaller than what he remembered seeing from crocodiles. They were thin and looked hard, and when it opened its mouth unnaturally wide they shone like metals. It took off Aska's head in one bite.

Rafe let the man go. The beast didn't seem to notice or care. It continued to take big chunks out of him as they fell endlessly down the cliff.

"At least we got rid of him without breaking the rules of the trial," Devila offered.

Rafe wanted to smile at that. It was classic Devila. Just then though, there was another screech. And another, and another. The cliff face started to tremble.

"Shit!" Rafe said as he looked up.

"They can walk on walls!" Devila cried.

"We are going to have to go through them somehow," Rafe said. "Devila, think you can—"

"I will get us through this!" she promised, the resolve clear in her voice.

Rafe just nodded, trusting that if anyone could handle this kind of situation, Devila could. He started to climb towards the approaching pack of beasts, ignoring the pain in his ever worsening shoulder.

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