An Unbound Soul

"This is... kinda nauseating..." commented Cluma, looking around the first room of floor sixteen.

"How does this even work?" I muttered, looking left to right. Or, at least, moving my head from left to right. In response, my vision moved downwards. By looking far enough right, I could see my own feet.

"Look out! Monster!" exclaimed Cluma, interrupting my experimentation, and the ethereal touch to her voice informed me she'd triggered [Non-detection].

ding

Skill [Danger Sense] advanced to level 16

I flung myself backward as I gained my first skill level from this dungeon. Unfortunately, that only resulted in a searing pain in my back as whatever distortion affected this floor misled more than my sight, my skill completely misreporting the direction of the danger.

There hadn't been any monsters in the room. We'd had a full view of the place as we entered, and it had been empty. Had the distortion hidden them?

Stumbling forward, down ten points of health, I spun around. Of course, that didn't result in me seeing behind me, and no matter which direction I looked, I saw no sign of monsters.

[Danger Sense] flared again, and this time I sprung towards the danger. My gamble was rewarded; I felt a burning touch on my arm, but the attack had obviously missed, and I lost only a single point of health.

"Can you see what's attacking us? I've got nothing."

"[Monster Perception] is picking up something, but I can't tell where."

Drat. I'd been too focused on what new spatial liberties this floor would take and hadn't given enough consideration to the monsters. Could I read the information on the maps while under attack?

[Danger Sense] flared again, and thanks to prior experience, I dodged perfectly. This time, [Mana Sight] caught a bullet of compressed mana flying past. That explained how it penetrated my armour, at least; the attacks weren't physical.

[Mana Sight] was omnidirectional, but that didn't mean it was free of distortion. What I could see didn't agree with my eyes, except in one specific way; I saw no monsters. Perhaps their lack of visibility was nothing to do with the sensory distortion, and they had stealth abilities? Or the distortion was caused by them, and wasn't an intrinsic property of the floor.

But, tracing back the direction the bullet had come from, I did pick up hints of spatial affinity.

"Cluma, can you get back to the staircase?"

"Yes, but what about you?"

"I'm going to try something. I just need to make sure you aren't in the way."

"Okay. I'm there."

Once more, [Danger Sense] alerted me to an incoming attack. This time, with a reasonable understanding of how the distortion twisted the skill, I reached out in the direction I believed the attack to be coming from with [Expert Mana Control] and twisted a clump of mana into spatial affinity.

Having sacrificed my chance to dodge, the projectile of mana slammed into my chest, and I crumpled painfully to the floor with another twenty points of health shaved off. Thankfully, some interesting squelching noises suggested the trade-off had been worth it.

ding

Skill [Expert Mana Finesse] advanced to level 17

"You got it!" yelled Cluma. "Nothing more from [Monster Perception]."

"Good. Now let's find out what it was."

I opened my eyes, only to see myself lying on the floor, my field of view completely detached from my body. I pushed down on the brief burst of panic as memories of similar experiences when hit by soul affinity came flooding back. This wasn't soul affinity; just a floor effect that messed up senses. As I pulled myself back to my feet, my vision lowered until it more or less matched my eye level. After that, some random turning and walking around managed to get me a view of our attacker.

It was weird, but that had been true of everything in the dungeon so far. It was a purple ribbon. A metre long, five centimetres high, but only a few millimetres thick. A bulge in the midsection held the monster core, but aside from that, the creature was featureless. I saw no obvious sensory organs or orifices.

Fabric Burrower (Level: 16) [Dead]

Health: 0/15

Stamina: 15/15

Mana: 48/55

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 70

Endurance: 10

Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 50

Charisma: 20

Abilities: [Spatial Burrow 16] [Mana Bolt 16]

These unusual creatures have the ability to fold space around themselves, hiding in an inaccessible spatial pocket and rendering themselves invisible and intangible, while still being able to launch mana-based attacks at their prey.

Wow. No wonder I couldn't see it.

"These things use spatial mana to hide in something like my [Item Box], and attack us from there. It's why we couldn't see it."

"And you smashed up its box with it still inside," said a mildly grumpy Cluma, presumably irritated that the monster had dared hurt me. "Good riddance."

"At least now I know how to deal with them. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do, though; according to their description, they're intangible while hiding."

"It didn't seem to have any way of seeing through [Non-detection]. I can just hide."

"True. Okay, now that this room is clear of monsters, let's take the time to figure out the sensory distortion, then go home for the day."

I'd only taken a touch over thirty points of damage, but injuries were still injuries. I didn't want to fight on less than full health, particularly since I didn't know what my injuries actually were. I hadn't taken any physical hits, and it felt like I'd been burnt, but for all I knew I'd taken damage to my mana circulatory system that would be exacerbated by any attempts at using mana.

"Mmmk," agreed Cluma. "I think we're better off with our eyes closed for this floor. My hearing or sense of smell don't seem to be distorted, and I can sort of see close up through mana. Oh! [Mana Perception] levelled again!"

"You're levelling that far too quickly," I commented. "But yes, I agree."

Sight was a lost cause. Perhaps I could adapt to the way my field of vision didn't match where my eyes were, but even if I did, I wouldn't be able to rely on it in combat. Turning my back to an enemy to get them in my sight would leave me unable to defend myself from them. [Mana Sight] was the better option, and half an hour of experimenting with it and [Expert Mana Control] to set up a sort of modified active scan was enough for me to get a good grasp on my surroundings. Hopefully, it would also be enough to pick up any fabric burrowers.

"I still have no idea whatsoever how this distortion works," I complained as we retreated halfway up the staircase. This dungeon didn't allow backtracking, and it now ended in a wall where the portal from the previous floor had been.

"Does it matter?"

"Not really, but maybe I could think of a better way to counter it if I knew exactly what it was doing."

"I think relying on mana perception skills is good enough."

"For this floor, yes, but I'm not looking forward to fighting floor twenty monsters under these conditions. According to the maps, the boss rooms are affected too, so that's going to be even harder to deal with. Before we go any deeper, I need to check the maps for the rest of the floors and memorise everything that's coming up. I don't want to be caught out like that again."

"It's kinda boring when we know exactly what's going to happen, but okay, I see your point. It was fine for the earlier floors where the monsters couldn't hurt us even if we screwed up, and even this floor's monsters scored a pair of clean hits on you without doing very much, but if there happened to be more than one of them, things could have ended badly."

I nodded my agreement, coaxed her back into visibility and teleported her back to Dawnhold. An ache in my stomach when I did so suggested I had indeed taken some damage to the bits of me that handled mana. Interesting that it twinged when I cast [Item Box], but hadn't done when I was using [Expert Mana Control]. Another point towards Earth humans being able to acquire [Thaumaturgist].

I followed her back after leaving an unsheltered tooth, the transference back to normal vision almost as nauseating as stepping into the distorted space.

"Umm..." started Cluma, ears tilted slightly forward in what I recognised as a touch of nerves. "Do you have any plans for the rest of the night?"

"Food? Why? Is there something you want?"

Her tail flicked, but she didn't answer.

"More cuddles?" I guessed.

"Maybe?"

"My neck is still sore from falling asleep on the sofa..." I started, and her ears drooped. "... so I'll just need to make sure I stay awake," I quickly added, and they sprung back up, causing me to giggle.

But first, food. I was still after my first [Advanced Cooking] level, and I'd had an incredibly stupid idea I was itching to try out.

"You'll be pleased to know tonight's meal involves zero vegetables," I told Cluma as I made my way to the kitchen and brought a handful of enchanting supplies out of [Item Box].

"Huh? Not that I'm complaining, but you normally disapprove of any meal that contains nothing but meat."

"I never said anything about it being all meat."

A suspicious Cluma entered the kitchen, where I was frying large kobold steaks. They needed to be as big as possible, for what I was planning, given that meat wasn't at all an appropriate material for enchanting.

"Why do you have enchanting stuff out?"

"You'll see."

As the steaks seared, I hurriedly engraved them with one of the simplest magitek components I knew, adding a bunch of mana batteries throughout the meat. With no wiring, the only material I needed was a small amount of powdered monster core, which was, I hoped, not poisonous.

They'd survive maybe twenty minutes, and the efficiency would be horrific, but for the purposes of a meal, it would be enough. As they finished cooking, I used [Expert Mana Control] to charge them up, resulting in mana-dense steaks.

ding

Skill [Advanced Cooking] advanced to level 2

Skill [Advanced Runecrafting] advanced to level 6

Class [Artisan] advanced to level 4

Class level increased dexterity by 1

Class level increased intelligence by 1

Yay! Success! No matter if they were edible, the idea had paid off.

Then again, it was looking very much like they were edible. Cluma was staring at them open-mouthed, and I didn't miss the strand of drool.

"They look tasty?"

"They smell awesome!" Unable to wait any longer, she grabbed a plate, one of the steaks, and rushed out of the kitchen.

I followed more sedately, and by the time I reached the table, hers was half gone.

"It's that good?" I asked, slicing a bite-sized chunk off my own meal.

Cluma made some unintelligible noises in response before shovelling in the next mouthful.

Experiment was a double success, then. I put my own chunk in my mouth, checked that [Danger Sense] wasn't complaining, and bit down.

"Umm... Do you want my steak too?" I asked once I'd finished gagging.

Cluma wordlessly grabbed my plate and started ripping into the second steak with every sign of enjoyment. I left her to it, returning to the kitchen for a far saner bowl of cereal. Humans were not built to eat monster cores. Fact noted. Next time, I'd only enchant Cluma's steak.

To think I was worried about the mana batteries degrading after twenty minutes. It wouldn't have mattered if they'd degraded after five. By the time I returned from the kitchen, Cluma was staring at her empty pair of plates in disappointment.

"I could make more, but it would mean less time for cuddles," I joked, causing her face to screw up with indecision.

"Meanie. But you know I'm going to want you to do that for every meal now, right?"

"It won't be practical to enchant everything like that. It needs to be something large for the enchantment to stick. I suppose I could do a melon or pumpkin."

"Steak for every meal, then! Breakfast, lunch and dinner!"

I was starting to get the impression I'd just made a terrible mistake.

"Oh! And how much better would it be if you used your enchanted dress to make it?!"

Yup, definitely a terrible mistake. When I visit the institute tomorrow, I'll need to get a new item of clothing enchanted. Maybe an apron? That would be more appropriate for cooking in.