still a day behind, but almost done reviewing the editors work on book 6. Could use a better title for this chapter

Chapter 581:

The five of us reached the bottom of the long stairs and entered the safe room. Castile hesitated. “Maybe we should clear the bear room above before proceeding.” Castile’s voice was uncertain as she was not our mage commander, and it was more of a request.

“There is no need, as there is a fire bear room on our path,” I replied. At least I hoped the apple orchard was still there and the fire bear as well. I am sure Ginger would appreciate a restocking of dungeon apples.

“A fire bear?” Lexi asked.

Konstantin replied to her. “A bear that is immune to fire all types of fire—except dragon fire. It is rumored to have a pelt that mimics fire as it moves. They do not exist in the empire and are known as one of the few predators of fire drakes.”

I wished I had my fire bear cape to show her, but I left it in the cache for Marcus. Seeing the real thing would be more impactful for the young woman anyway. “The next room has cockatrices,” I said. “They are truly dangerous creatures as their saliva calcifies flesh.”

“I can cure that!” Lexi shouted, breaking her decorum, and then calmed with a glance from Castile. “I mean, I have already reversed petrification on a person.”

I was suitably impressed as that was high tier magic. It was easier to find a potion to reverse it than a mage powerful enough to do so. “Still, we shouldn’t be reckless when we attack them,” I advised, but acknowledged Lexi’s magic with an appreciative nod.

“I am ready, and we don’t want Eryk to have to do all the work.” Konstantin was already walking, and Alhur followed. They were probably headed for another sword-measuring contest. The rest of us followed. The cockatrices offered earth essences and aether tolerance essences the last time I harvested them. The earth essences were a prize I definitely wanted. We caught up to the pair scanning the room.

It looked just as I remembered, and I could see the blue crest of one of the deadly chimera birds. The cockatrice room was one of the most spectacular rooms in the dungeon. A large expanse of grassy plains in a domed room. The center of the room featured a waterfall that filled a central pond. It felt more like a zoo exhibit than a deadly dungeon room.

“I can take the three on the left,” Konstantin volunteered.

“That only leaves me two,” Alhur said despondently.

“There are eight total,” I informed them. “They are hard to spot in the grass.” For Lexi’s benefit, I enlightened the group on the differences between the males and females. “The ones with the blue crests are males, and the females have brown. There were four of each the last time we were here.”

The ugly bird-like creatures hadn’t spotted us yet. Alhur glanced at Konstantin and stepped into the room first. He pushed off the sod and moved left, toward the cockatrices Konstantin had claimed. “Pixie prick,” Konstantin hissed and moved right.

A warning call went up from one of the males, and three heads far to the right looked above the grass, giving five cockatrices on Konstantin’s side. “Are you going to help them?” Lexi asked.

“I am ready to aid either if they need it,” I said, tracking the fight. I was already tying off a teleport to aid Konstantin if needed since he had five to Alhur’s three. The battle was too far away for Castile’s shadow chains, but she had entered the room with me and was also prepared to lend aid. I remembered how fearful Maveith was of being turned into stone by these creatures. Now that I had some alchemy recipes for cockatrice saliva, I planned to collect the heads.

Alhur reached his flock first, two of the cocks had taken to the air, while the third was running at him on the ground. I remembered the flow of adrenaline Maveith and I had when we faced these creatures. Alhur looked so composed as a flick of each wrist had two throwing daggers leave his hands. Both struck true on the charging female cockatrice and it tumbled to the ground squawking in pain. Knowing Alhur, those blades were poisoned and it was as good as dead.

The two males were flying in to pinch him between them. Alhur drew his short blade and sprinted to engage. Both beasts opened their bat-like wings to slow and extended their talons at the elf. In a blink, Alhur passed them, and both crashed out of the air with large slashes in their wings. I was confident Alhur had enough throwing daggers to finish them at range.

Konstantin’s fight was just beginning as he had further to travel. He had both his runic blades drawn, and the reach advantage was on his side. He also had the benefit of the five cockatrices attacking in a slightly staggered formation. Still, the old man made a mistake. Shockwave hacked the first cockatrice, cutting deep into the neck, and the paralyzing discharge would make sure the abomination would bleed out. His second attack pierced the cockatrice on his Death Hunter blade. Konstantin hadn’t foreseen what happened next.

The beast slid far enough down the blade to peck at his exposed hand, and Konstantin couldn’t react quickly enough to prevent it. I couldn’t tell whether the cockatrice succeeded, but I didn’t wait. I ported to the location I had tied off and rushed the last ten feet to Konstantin’s side. Blood was dripping from the wound on his hand and the flesh was already graying.

“Retreat and get healing from Lexi!” I yelled at him. There was a danger that the poison could diffuse through his body and kill him but stopping his heart. “Lexi go to Konstantin!” I yelled so she could meet him halfway.

Konstantin looked angry, probably at himself, but retreated. I sidestepped a cockatrice and decapitated it with magebane as it passed. The last two were struggling to move through the thickened air, and I moved to meet them and finished both quickly. It felt too easy, and I think I could have killed all eight with just my water spell form. Alhur had been rushing to help, but I finished off the cockatrices before he reached the envelope of thickened air.

I turned to see Konstantin on his knees, and Lexi was holding his hand. Konstantin had dropped the Death Hunter blade halfway to Lexi. “She healed the wound and expunged the toxin,” Castile confirmed he was safe, causing relief to flood me.

I turned back to find Alhur opening the reward chest. These two were letting their private macho game blind their good judgment. I walked over to Alhur. “You need to stop tormenting Konstantin,” I said. He looked up at me blankly. “You two are done rushing into rooms,” I said steely. After looking back at Konstantin, he only gave me a slight nod before shattering the chest. When Maveith and I had conquered this room, the reward had been a Ranger’s cloak that Raelia ended up with.

A darker cloak was rolled up on top of the silver coins. Alhur stood with it and snapped his wrists to unfurl it. “May I?” He asked, but I didn’t think he was asking by the craving in his eyes. Before I could respond, the cloak on his shoulder and the clasp clicked shut. Almost immediately, I could tell it was another Ranger’s Cloak, but maybe the material was from a different animal. Alhur knew what it was too.

The methodology for artificing Ranger’s cloaks had been lost when Caelora fell. They gave the wearer slight protection against high heat and bitter cold, but their true value lay in their ability to blend in with the terrain, making the wearer invisible if they remained motionless.

Alhur couldn’t hide his satisfaction from wearing the artifact. Raelia once told me there were fewer than a hundred of the cloaks remaining in Esenhem, each one treasured. In Bartiradia, there were less than a dozen. I realized once the Telhian Empire started delving into this dungeon, I think there was going to be a lot of interest in this room, even with the risky foes.

I wasn’t sure I liked Alhur claiming the cloak without really asking, but I moved with the collector to each cockatrice, collecting the essence and then storing the head for alchemy. Konstantin had retrieved his weapon and hovered over me as I worked, clearly wanting to say something. “You don’t need to say anything,” I told him. “Go take a bath, the water is great, and a bath always makes me feel better.”

“There are better men to have at your side,” Konstantin muttered, expressing self-doubt.

How the hell did we get to a point where Konstantin needed a pep talk? I finished on the third cockatrice before making eye contact with the old man. “I wouldn’t be the warrior I am today without your guidance. You haven’t lost a step either, old man. In fact, I think you are fitter and faster than the first day we met.”

My words swayed him a little. “You know back then when I saw you walk into the inn in Formica, I thought you were not going to last the year. Benito had a pool that got up to twenty silver.”

“Benito was betting I would die?” I said, suddenly feeling betrayed.

“It was already after we all thought you were dead from the bulette in Formica. The pool would have gone to your family when we found your body,” Konstantin said belatedly.

“I didn’t have any family,” I retorted. “Since I lived, doesn’t that mean the silver was mine?”

Konstantin chuckled. “Well, next time you see Benito, remind him he owes you twenty silver.”

I couldn’t tell if the old man was being serious or not, but his spirits seemed a little better at least. I collected two apex earth essences and two major earth essences. I also collected three apex aether tolerance essences and one major one. The female cockatrices seemed to be a steady source for the magical attribute.

Konstantin refused them and took the silver coins from the reward chest. Lexi deserved a reward for healing Konstantin, so I passed her the two apex aether tolerance essences, and I gave the third apex one to Castile. I would keep all the earth essences and the major aether tolerance essence for myself. No one voiced any objections, and Castile was giving Lexi advice on essences while I walked away.

The last time I was here, I had tried to harvest an essence from the cockatrice food—massive earthworms and failed. As I dug up some wild onions, I managed to collect three large earthworms. Once again, I was met with failure, as the collector failed to draw enough essence to even obtain a minor amount. At least I managed to add a few bundles of onions for later use.

We didn’t spend too long in the chamber, moving deeper into the dungeon’s third floor. I was expecting the dungeon to have shifted the corridors and made our approach to the mithril room more difficult, but the corridor followed a long, arcing curve, eventually reaching an intersection. “If we go right, we should end up in the orchard room with the fire bear, going straight leads to a room with creeping vines. They have flowers that can put you to sleep.”

“Did you defeat the room? What was in the reward chest?” Castile asked.

“The creeping vine room was some silver coin and a potion. The fire bear room was two potions, one a healing potion,” I replied. We quickly decided to bypass the sleeping vine room in favor of fire bear.

The orchard had a mix of flowers and large red delicious-looking apples to pick—hundreds of apples. There was a mound in the center with a cave entrance facing us. The fire bear spotted us, and sauntered unconcerned out of its den. The bear was beefy, maybe even larger than the first time I had killed it so long ago.

“With my shadow chains and your water spell form, I think we can slow it,” Castile suggested.

“My spell form will slow everyone except me,” I informed them. They already knew this and had experienced the thicken air spell themselves.

“Then you better kill it quickly,” Konstantin said encouragingly.

“That I can do,” I said, stepping into the room. The fire bear shook its coat, giving Lexi a chance to see the red pelt ripple before charging. Lexi gasped at the beautiful sight as the bear lumbered toward me. We were definitely skinning the beast, and I wondered who I should give the pelt to.

My thicken air spell didn’t really manage to slow the massive bear’s bulk, but it didn’t matter as the head rolled from its body, bouncing into the wall near the others. I didn’t care if the dungeon was unhappy with my methods. We were only two rooms away now. There was just one room between us and the mithril—the room with the elven children.

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