The Outlands

The fog turned out to be no great hinderance to Tess. She was worried it might mess with her tremorsense like the snow, but it actually enhanced it, at least compared to air. Since fog was mostly just…a lot of water droplets in the air, her tremorsense was able to see a bit further through it. Not as much as regular water, of course, but enough to be noticeable.

It seemed Ellie and Maven preferred the fog to the snow as well. Normal visibility was higher, and there was no snow to build up on their clothing. Furthermore, there was no wind pushing against them and making their climb harder.

That being said, the floor wasn’t all good news. It wasn’t actively snowing, but there was about a foot of snow on the ground, making movement much more difficult. And then, when you added that to the fact that the slope was only getting steeper, moving forward was about as hard as it had been before.

Or it would have been, were it not for Phoenix Fire. By turning its heat up, Tess was able to effectively melt any snow within ten feet of her and burn away some of the fog. She was fortunate that, by using Purifying Flames and Phoenix Fire together, she was able to effectively negate the heat of the flames for her allies and their possessions – otherwise the rope would have burnt away long ago. Perhaps the others’ equipment would have too, but Tess doubted it. Their equipment was enchanted to resist extreme temperature, after all.

But that was irrelevant to the situation. What was important was that they had an easy, dry hike up the slope. The melting and subsequent evaporation of the snow was still making a lot of noise and there was some steam that hindered vision, but the three of them had collectively decided it was worth it to potentially reveal themselves to monsters to make their trek faster and easier.

The monsters supposedly weren’t anything special without environmental factors making them dangerous, and Tess would be able to spot any monsters well before they would be an immediate threat to the trio. And the steam, while annoying, really was just an extension of the fog, so the visibility detriment wasn’t that bad either.

“This is really something.” Maven said, watching the snow melt in fascination. “I can tell how hot it is by how fast the snow is melting, but I can’t feel a thing, even through my clothes’ temperature monitor function. Not the cold, not heat, it’s just…nice.”

“Is that why I can tell it was supposed to be cold?” Ellie asked curiously. “I was wondering what that was.”

“Yeah, most stuff that grants resistance to extreme temperatures comes with some sort of a gauge that will let you know what it’s supposed to be like outside. Usually, if you’re outside, you can guess, but with places like dungeons, it can be really hard to tell, so it’s a handy feature.” Alice explained. “That being said, I have to agree with Maven here. I’m pretty sure temperature isn’t supposed to work like that.”

Tess shrugged. “Don’t look at me.” She said. “The Skill just says the heat of my flames doesn’t affect allies or our belongings. I don’t decide what’s what.”

“What are they doing?” Maven whispered, having fallen back as much as the rope would let her, so she could better talk with the instructors. “They’re just staring into space.”

“They’re talking with the gods.” Ker whispered back. “They apparently have some sort of…godly group chat that they use to keep in touch, and it works via status windows. The gods will offer commentary from time to time, especially when it comes to Tess’s abilities.”

“It wasn’t like that at the lunch we were at.” Maven argued. “They just…said it happened, they didn’t…zone out entirely.”

“That must have been a short message, then.” Ava replied quietly. “They’re probably replying to the gods right now, which takes a bit more effort.”

“Is that safe? I mean, again, we’re in a dungeon.”

“If it wasn’t, the gods wouldn’t have contacted them like this.” Ava said. “Tess still is keeping track of everything. Aren’t you, Tess?”

“Hm?” Tess stopped, turning her attention away from the window and back to the others. She had only been paying a bit of attention to their conversation, so it took her a moment to process the question. “Yeah, I’m paying attention.” She said. “There’s nothing around for a while, we’re still in the clear.”

Maven blinked, though she kept walking with the others, catching up to Tess. “How did you…”

“Enhanced hearing, remember?”

“Yeah, but I was like fifty feet behind you and we were whispering! There’s supposed to be a limit to how enhanced something can be!”

“I got this hearing from an emperor lion.” Tess replied. “It’s really, really good. At times it feels like it’s only a step below like…echolocation. You’d probably need to be twice as far away before I really would struggle to hear you.”

Maven shook her head in wonder. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll…keep that in mind, I suppose.”

“For what it’s worth, I try to keep it off in town.” Tess said. “For privacy’s sake. It’s only on when necessary and…well, I guess sometimes it’s on for a little bit after I’m done using it, when I forget to turn it off. I try and turn it off the moment I notice it’s on, though.”

“Oh. That…is actually reassuring, thank you.”

The conversation faded away, after that, and the floor traversal went smoothly. The traps had increased in variety from just pitfalls to pitfalls, trees that dropped large pockets of snow that contained monsters, and traps that would cave you in under large pockets of snow, forcing you to find a way out or slowly die.

The snakes had gone away and were replaced with white fox monsters that focused on stealth and harrying attacks, meant to strike once and then disappear back into the snow only to come back later and continue whittling down anyone raiding the dungeon.

That, of course, didn’t work as well when there was no snow whatsoever in a wide area near their targets. Any foxes that showed up were quickly taken care of by Ellie and Maven, and their cores didn’t hold that much of interest, either.

Snow Walker looked like it could be handy, but she didn’t need any snow mobility right now thanks to Phoenix Fire, so she decided to just keep that one in the back of her mind as she continued through the dungeon.

The next five or so floors were much the same, though each was ever so slightly more difficult than the last. The difficulty increase mostly came in the form of monsters and traps coming more often and the monsters becoming tougher, but that was something Tess’s party was more than equipped to deal with.

And then, Tess opened the dungeon door and stepped through to find that the ground in front of her rose sharply upwards. There was no snow or fog, and no snow on the ground, but there was only one narrow, treacherous-looking path upwards.

“Ah, the first climb floor.” Alice said. “At least it’s one of the ones with a path, not one where it’s just a cliff. Don’t get complacent, though, these ones have nastier traps and enemies to make up for the less physically demanding travel.”

Tess nodded, then turned to Ellie and Maven. “Should we untie ourselves from the rope?” She asked. “I think it might get in our way, especially now that I can scout ahead more.”

Ellie hesitated, then nodded. “I think it might be best. If one of us falls, we won’t bring the others with us that way.”

“Agreed.” Maven said. “It is unnecessary in this situation. We all have methods to catch ourselves, right?”

“Yeah.” Ellie said. “I can move the swords fast enough to do that.”

Tess untied her rope, handing it to Ellie once she was done. Once Ellie and Maven had also finished, Tess began her climb up the trail. It was…odd, a lot easier than she had expected. Spiderclimb made the path feel much flatter than it was, with only large deviations in the path’s slope feeling like actual hills.

So, she scouted forward until she reached the first bend in the path, a small cave cut into the side of the mountain. She paused, then made her way back to Ellie and Maven.

“What’s the matter?” Maven asked. “Something come up?”

Tess shook her head. “No. The path is just going to take me out of sight of you two. Usually, at times like this, I leave Silky with the rest of the party and just have her tap someone when I want them to stop. So…who wants her?”

Ellie frowned. “Can’t you just message me via the chat?”

Tess blinked. “Oh. Right, I…kinda forgot about that. I’ll just…do that, then. Does that sound OK to you, Maven?”

“I have no objections.” Maven replied.

“Right. Then I’ll just…keep going, then.” Tess said, and made her way back to the cave. Within it was a rather simple trap, a pressure plate that would open a chute underneath whoever stepped on it, which in turn would funnel them out of the cave and drop them on the unforgiving slope below.

Alice was right, that was nasty. If someone fell through and didn’t have a way of recovering from that fall, it was almost certain death. Luckily, the trap was simple to disarm, there weren’t any magical components according to Reverse Engineer. All she had to do was remove the pressure plate, and the trap was as good as disarmed.

She sent a quick message to Ellie warning her not to come into the cave until Tess had cleared away the trap, and got to work removing the pressure plate. It was a relatively simple task, all she needed to do was cut into the surrounding rock with her claws, then pop the pressure plate off like she would a lid.

Still, it took a minute or so to do it carefully, and by the time she had finished, the rest of the group had arrived at the mouth of the cave.

“It’s all good now.” Tess said, holding up the pressure plate. “Be super careful, though, these traps will just dump you off of the mountain wholesale, it’s kind of brutal.”

“Sounds like it.” Ellie said. “Have you seen any monsters yet?”

“No, have you?”

“There were a couple of birds circling above us.” Maven said. “I’m willing to bet those are monsters.”

“Seems likely.” Tess said. “How high above you were they?”

“Hard to tell, they were just dots in the sky.” Maven replied. “That being said, I’m not sure why they didn’t attack immediately, they were clearly following us.”

“Well, you two keep an eye out, then. Let me know if they look like they’re getting closer and I’ll come back to help.”

“Got it.” Ellie replied. “You ready to keep going?”

“Yeah, let me just get rid of this.” Tess said, tossing the pressure plate to the side. “I’ll let you know if something comes up.”

It didn’t, not for a bit. There were a couple more traps, all of which seemed to attempt to push their victims off of the mountain in some way or another, but Tess didn’t encounter a single monster.

But the birds in the sky continued to grow in number. Tess would glance up every once in a while, only to find that they had gone from two to four, then to five, and so on. When the number of birds hit ten, Tess stopped and returned to the main group.

“We need to do something about the birds.” She said. “I don’t like how many of them there are.”

“I could try and attack them with the Blades of Death.” Ellie volunteered. “My control isn’t very fine at that range, but I might be able to take out one or two.”

“They go that far?” Tess asked.

“As far as I can tell, their range is effectively infinite.” Ellie replied. “As long as I can see where I’m putting them, I can move them there. Again, I don’t have fine control at that range, but I do have control.”

“I can fly up.” Maven volunteered. “I don’t think I can take all of them out, but I might be able to lure them back here.”

“I will help too.” Isabella said, floating out of Tess. “May I ride in you, Maven?”

Maven blinked. “Uh…yeah, I guess.”

“Thank you. I will provide covering fire for you.” Isabella replied, then floated into Maven.

I wanna help too! Silky said. I can just fly, though!

“Silky says she’s going to help too.” Tess relayed. “Perhaps I should invest in some wings for myself.” She mused. “I thought Spiderclimb would be mostly sufficient, but that’s clearly not the case. Maybe I’ll just pick them up from these birds, they might come in handy. Hopefully they’ll have an Attribute that improves flying, too, so I don’t have to learn everything on the fly.”

Maven shook her head in wonder. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to you saying things like that.”

“You will.” Alice said helpfully. “Takes a little bit, but you learn to stop questioning it.”

“So, is our plan good?” Maven asked. “What would you recommend?”

Jin hesitated for a moment, then looked to Ava, who shrugged. “I’m going to refrain from commenting.” She said. “We can talk about it after you’ve cleared the floor.”

Ellie nodded. “Alright, shall we do this, then? Just take off when you’re ready, I’ll send my swords after you. I’m going to keep them invisible so the birds can’t see them, but they’ll be there, don’t worry.”

“Got it.” Maven said. She flapped her wings for a few moments, and then began rising into the sky, ascending rapidly towards the flock of birds above. Silky followed, and after half a minute or so of climbing, Maven made contact with the birds. She stayed a fair distance below them, and began to cast some spell.

Tess couldn’t really tell what Isabella and Silky were doing, but the birds swooped down towards Maven, and she responded by turning around and beginning to descend. She finished casting her magic and a sort of barrier appeared between her and the birds, halting several of their attacks.

The others were hit with a sort of large fireball, and several died then and there, their corpses dissolving into nothingness and their cores falling down where they had died. At around that time, another one died for seemingly no reason, so Ellie had presumably gotten it with the swords.

And then, after just ten to fifteen seconds, Maven was making a landing, the remaining few birds screeching and cawing as they tried to attack both Maven and Ellie. Tess spent a bit of her Mana, using Phoenix Fire as a weapon to nail one of the distracted birds in its side as it tried to get at Ellie through her armor.

The damage was…lower than she was used to. As powerful as the Phoenix Fire was, it didn’t have most of the multipliers her damage usually had. She didn’t have the bonus from using claws, it didn’t trigger any unarmed effects, and she hadn’t hit it in a spot that would cause the damage to be critical, so she only had the bonus from Sneak Attack to work with.

Still, it was usable enough, so she helped mop up the remaining birds before absorbing one of their cores.

Right, well, she didn’t need Greater Levitation or Physical Nullification (Inferior), so she could just swap those out for Wings and Good Flier. “Give me a moment to make the swap here.” Tess said. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“I’ll cover you.” Ellie said, moving up so she was next to Tess. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Got it.” And, after waiting a couple of minutes for the Attributes that she had inside her to come out and be put in a core, she was able to swap in the new ones. As soon as she did, a pair of brown, feathery wings sprouted from her back, her hoodie melting into her as her armor split open holes to allow the wings out.

Now that the hoodie wasn’t “actually” being worn, she should have been able to feel the cold, but Phoenix Fire was keeping the area near her nice and warm, so she wasn’t really bothered.

“I forgot that the hoodie would melt into me like that.” Tess said, flexing her new wings experimentally. “I’m really glad for the fire.”

“Can I touch them?” Ellie asked, eyes gleaming. “They look super soft and I want to see if they’re actually that soft!”

Tess shrugged. “As long as you make it quick. I don’t want to give the birds any more time to build up again.”

Ellie nodded, then reached out, and her hands passed harmlessly through the fire coating the wings, allowing her to gently grab one of Tess’s wings. She rubbed it for a moment, which was a rather odd sensation, then withdrew. “Yup.” She said. “Soft.”

“I…have never seen someone grow wings before.” Maven said. “Curious. The wings look similar to the ones the birds had, but Silky’s seemed to match her body. Do you know why that is?”

“Not really.” Tess said. “They’re both the exact same Attribute. I’m guessing that, if the monster has a specific type of wings that would look good on them, then they get those wings, otherwise it just…I dunno, gives the wings that I think they should get? Hard to say, I haven’t played around with it much.”

“That’s how magic that temporarily gives wings works.” Jin confirmed. “The same probably holds true here.”

Tess nodded, then put away the wings. “I’ll only take them out when I need them, I think.” She said. “Otherwise, I feel like I’ll bump them into things if I’m not careful. But we’ve been waiting for too long, I’m going to get back to scouting.”

The rest of the floor went about the same. They had to cull the birds once more, and Tess had indeed been able to fly well enough to go up and help herself, but other than that, nothing of interest really happened.

“So,” Ava began once they were in the lobby for the next floor, “your plan worked, but it had a few flaws. First, you waited until there were too many birds. You should have done something about them sooner, you would have had a much easier time of it that way. Second, you couldn’t be sure the birds wouldn’t be able to outpace Maven and attack her until you saw them in action. That was risky, and Maven’s barrier worked, but it was unnecessarily dangerous.”

“I understand.” Maven said, a hint of disappointment in her tone. “I will be more careful in the future.”

“Don’t take it too harshly.” Ker said comfortingly. “You can’t be expected to do everything perfectly right away, especially now that you don’t have someone constantly holding your hand. It worked, so as long as you learn from it, there’s no harm done. Making mistakes is a part of learning, it’s entirely normal.”

Maven hesitated, then nodded. “Sorry.” She said. “I’m not used to receiving criticism for things like this. I’m trying my best, but it’s still a new experience for me.”

“We get it.” Ker said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, and we were partially responsible too.” Ellie said. “We thought the plan was good enough as well.”

“It was a team effort, and a team responsibility.” Tess confirmed. “So, let’s just learn from it and keep moving on, together.”

Maven gave them a smile. “Thank you.” She said. “It pleases me to hear that. I…suppose we should continue on our way, then?”