(Author's Note: Alright guys! Polls are in, the majority wants me to save up the final chapters and publish them all at once so that you all can binge the end of the book. Climax and ending all at once. So that's what we'll do^^ Keep an eye on the book every week on the usual release day for SOME kind of update though! Maybe teasers, maybe Q&A announcement, maybe Q&A aftermath, all the way up until the full release! Be sure to join the discord server and follow The Search for Knowledge's twitter to ask questions for Q&A's and such! See you all around soon <3)
"I believe it would be wise to let me handle the rest of the rooms while you follow behind," Rox said after Feera and Sheeron calmed down. His tone was serious; it was clear that he thought they would only be in his way. "I can't fight the things in this dungeon while also protecting you all." He said the latter while glancing at both Kara and Toley.
"Absolutely not," Kara said, unwavering. "We are not children that need your protection. Whether you like it or not, we are part of the same team. We will go together, for better or worse." She looked at the rest of the party, receiving nods of confirmation from them all. "Maybe this dungeon has stronger creatures than I anticipated, which is my failure as a leader, but none of us are willing to back down. We will not sit back and let you fight our battles for us."
"You will die, Kara! All of you will!" Rox raised his voice at her out of concern.
"Have some faith, huh, Rox? Do you really think I'm that weak?" Feera fired back, "We might have only been in a few fights together, but you've seen me hold my own in them. Besides, how am I supposed to get stronger if you refuse to let me fight? You're not even our leader, Kara is, so stop acting so high-and-mighty!"
"Yeah, the girl's right. You're not my employer, you don't get to decide when I fight." Sheeron said in his usual, spiteful, tone. "I didn't even want to be here in the first place, but I'll be damned if I let some purple, pompous elf decide what I fight."
"I wanna go, too. I need to get stronger." Stated Toley simply.
Rox was silent in thought as he looked at his party. They were right, it was not his decision whether they keep going with him or not. In fact, he was not the one who could decide whether they continued in the first place. Even still, he did not want any of them to die. Sure, they had not known each other long and they were not exactly friends yet, but at the very least he didn't dislike any of them. Not enough to want them dead. Plus, it was in his nature to preserve life.
"Rox, this is part of the contract you and I made. We can't fulfill both of our ends if you stand in the way." She said, reminding him of what he bid her to do in order to get what she wanted. She phrased it in such a way that the others would think she was referring to their original contract regarding the research.
After a few more minutes he nodded, accepting their demands with mixed feelings. "I can't protect any of you, but none of you are allowed to die. I think after this, I'd like to go on some more adventures with you all. Get to know you all more." He said, giving them his usual charming smile. "Except for you, Sheeron. You're allowed to die." His smile soured as he jokingly spoke the final lines.
"You're the worst. I don't want to be protected by someone like you, anyway." He said in exasperation, before smirking.
"How cute!" Feera said, hugging onto Rox excitedly, "You two have a little romance thing going on now! My friend, Roma, would be all over this. After this is all over you two should meet her!"
"Remind me to never meet her." Rox and Sheeron said in sync, before looking at each other with disgust.
Kara clapped loudly to get everyone's attention, while speaking like a mother gathering her children, "Alright, that's enough playing around. Let's clear one more room, then make camp. I'm fairly certain that we're going to have our work cut out for us tomorrow."
Everyone changed gears to a more serious mood and agreed with her. With that, they made a small, makeshift camp in the corner of the dungeon room.
- - - -
Oddly enough, after an hour the body of the mantis disappeared and in its place there was a palm-sized, white orb. The party was enjoying a stew using some of their fresher ingredients, and only Feera noticed the change. She leaped from her seat, and excitedly ran over to the object. She picked it up and examined it with curiosity.
"Feera, what's wrong?" Rox called over to her, finishing the last of his meal and heading over. As his eyes met with what she was holding, a look of surprise came over him, "Oh. We seem to have gotten very lucky, I suppose this dungeon trip wasn't entirely a waste."
"Why? What is it?" Feera asked.
"Come with me, let's show your discovery to everyone else, too." He said, leading her back to everyone. She followed with a joyful smile on her face.
When they approached the party, Kara eyed them inquisitively before speaking, "What did you two find that was so interesting?"
"Oh, nothing, just the reason people risk their lives in the dungeons," Rox said with a wide smile, motioning for Feera to show off the orb.
However, everyone looked at it as though they thought it were merely a ball. Toley was the first to speak out, "So, what is it?"
Rox deflated and Feera giggled. He then went on to explain, "It's what one might call cheating. People in the past have found two or three of these in each dungeon. They're known as 'ability orbs'. It's the only way for people to acquire abilities that they weren't born with! The second great war was fought over one of these!" Rox became increasingly excited about this unassuming sphere as he spoke about it. "Blue orbs will grant whoever uses it a random magic ability, Red will give a random physical. White and black ones are special though. Black significantly increases one's ability to gather mana. White allows the user to choose what ability they wish to gain." After the explanation of the different types, everyone looked at the orb in awe. "Whatever ability the user gets will become a level according to what the person is capable of. So, for example, if Kara used it and gained space magic, as long as she had the knowledge and mana gathering ability, she could instantly have level 4 or higher space magic."
Everyone was lost for words. Feera, who previously held the orb like a new toy, now held it as if she were holding the most fragile object in all of Chalice. In her hands was an orb that allowed the user to gain any ability they wished for.
"So, who gets to use it then?" Toley asked the question on everyone's mind.
No one answered him and instead looked at Feera, who held the orb. She became nervous under the party's stares and turned red, a surprisingly shy side to her that Rox found cute. "Why are you all looking at me?" She asked timidly.
"Well, you got the kill on it. It's common sense that the one who gets the kill decides what happens to the rarest item in a party." Kara told her, "I might be the leader and it might have been a group effort, but you brought it down with your own skill and without knowing we would get that orb."
"No! I don't do well with pressure, so you decide!" She said and tossed the orb to Kara, immediately hiding behind Rox. Everyone giggled as Kara caught the precious object.
"Alright, with your permission then." She looked around at the party. "What ability would each of you choose, for what reasons, and what level do you think you would get. Sheeron, you first."
As if expecting things to turn out this way, Sheeron stood up from his seat, at attention. "With all due respect, I don't think I should take it. I might have the experience, but I have the least room to grow out of all of us as well as the shortest life-span here. If you want my opinion, I believe that Toley or yourself would put it to best use." He said, speaking formally and with brutal logic. Rox raised an eyebrow, surprised that a former mercenary would pass up a chance to increase his power. Then again, he was also a teacher to several now-great fighters as well as being a bodyguard. To some degree, it made sense for him to grant power to either the one he protected or the fledgling he was raising.
"Understood, Toley, what would you do with it?" She turned to the next person to interrogate.
Like Feera, the young man did not seem to handle pressure well and looked quite nervous. However, Kara was patient and allowed him time to collect himself before answering. After several minutes of stuttering, he finally managed to take a deep breath and speak coherently. "I would use it to gain the reflex ability so I can take better advantage of my speed and strength abilities. I think that I would get it at level two or three and I also think that it would increase my ability in battle a lot. It might even increase my rate of growth."
Kara nodded a few times, thinking to herself. It was impossible to tell by looking at her, but she was thinking through all of this by taking full advantage of her intelligence ability. She spoke to Feera next, "How about you, Feera?"
The nervous elf spoke to everyone from behind Rox's back, still hiding, "I would use it to gain light magic. It would allow me to create more shadows on a battlefield at a moment's notice which would increase my battle capability, as well as be able to support you all with other aspects of it. That, or fire magic, which would also make more shadows. That would increase my attack power rather than my support power, though. I think I would get either ability at level two or three."
"I see." Said Kara, mulling her answer over. "I choose to pass the chance. As tempting as it is, I don't think me gaining another ability would benefit the party very much. Especially since I've put my all into learning about my other magic abilities almost exclusively, I can't imagine my new ability being any higher than two without studying it further first." She quickly gave her own answer to the party and turned an inquisitive eye at Rox. "Would you be able to use it at all?"
Everyone expected her to pass over Rox, since they were under the impression that his magic was sealed. However, Kara knew the truth. That it was not his magic that was sealed, but his natural born abilities. The things he gained from being what he was, rather than having magical abilities like everyone else.
Rox flinched at the question, not having expected it either and everyone waited in silence for his answer. He took a few moments to choose his words carefully, so as not to expose himself while still sounding like he made sense. When he answered, he spoke with hesitation in his voice, "I'm not sure. It's true that my magic itself was not sealed and that my abilities were. If I gained a new one, I don't know if it would be sealed too, or if I would have access to it since the people who sealed me would not have expected me to gain an entirely new ability."
"What if you could, though?" She responded quickly, an idea forming in her head.
Rox thought briefly before answering her question, "I think that I would use it to gain time magic. I think that magic would have the most synergy with my current fighting capabilities."
"What level do you think that you would gain it?" She asked with a serious look.
"I can't answer that." He said, giving her a knowing look.
"So you don't know?! How could we consider giving it to you then? Especially since you don't even know if it would work!" Sheeron burst out, unable to hold his tongue further. Having known Kara the longest, he had a good idea of where her mind was going with this line of questions. "If what you said about this sphere is true, this is far too big of a gamble for questionable results!"
Feera and Toley stayed silent, unsure of their own stance, but unable to deny the truth to Sheeron's words. They both wanted to use the sphere too, but they could not deny that Rox was a major fighting power in their group either. If someone like him became stronger, then it would be a great boon for the party, especially with a time power. Depending on the level he gained it at, the rest of them could become exponentially stronger in a short time too. Sheeron was correct, though, that this gamble was incredibly risky for an unclear gain.
"Feera left this choice to me and no one objected. So you will leave this decision to me. Besides, I have not even decided who will get it yet; you're jumping the gun." She scolded him. Although he was right. She was heavily leaning towards giving it to Rox. If this bet paid off, they could walk out of this with a high-level time user. She looked at Rox once more, "Are you saying you don't know what level it would be?"
"No." Rox said simply. To everyone else, it was a confusing reply that did not answer the question clearly. To Kara, however, it told her all that she needed to know. He had a good idea of what level it would be, it just would not make sense to those that did not know his background.
Wordlessly she nodded once more and tossed the orb to Rox, who caught it.
"No! Kara, this is moronic! I'll be the first to admit that he's far stronger than he seems, but this is too much. You can't do this!" Sheeron said, seething in anger while pleading with her to change her mind.
"Are you sure? I don't know if this will work." Rox asked seriously, looking at her for a response.
"It's not a power we expected to gain while here, anyway. Do it." She said, ignoring the seething Sheeron.
"Alright, here goes nothing." He said, clenching the ball tightly until it burst in his hand. A white light circled his hand, then started to spread across the entirety of his body. After a few seconds he was covered in a shimmering light that grew more opaque over time. Soon, it was impossible to see Rox through the light; he was simply a person-shaped white light standing amongst their group. The light began to grow brighter and everyone was forced to shield their eyes, this continued for several minutes until it disappeared suddenly. Everyone looked up hesitantly to see Rox covered in a faint glimmer that was now slowly disappearing.
"Did it work?" Feera said after a few moments passed in silence.
Everyone looked at Rox in anticipation, tension running through all of them. They were simultaneously excited and afraid of the answer they would receive. Rox looked up at them, then disappeared.
"Yes." They heard Rox from behind them. They spun to face him, as if under attack, "I would say it worked very well."
"What just happened?" Sheeron asked incredulously.
"I stopped time in our camp's location, walked over here, then resumed it." He replied simply.
"Wait, stopped time? You didn't slow it?" Kara said, eyes widening as she realized what this implied. As she finished speaking, everyone else looked to her, then back to Rox.
"Yes." He responded with a cocky smile, "Stopped it."
- - - -
After the huge success of giving Rox the orb, the group took several minutes to calm down. Once they had, however, they finally felt the fatigue of the day. Especially Rox. They all quickly turned in after setting up a watch rotation, and went to sleep. When it was time to move on to the next room, everyone ate a quick breakfast of high-energy rations and packed up camp.
Together they opened the door to the next room and traveled through the repeated transitional hallway that they had seen between each of the others. The group was silent, preparing themselves mentally for the next fight, while also wondering what sort of insane creature they'd face next. However, as they approached the room they realized that they would not have to. It was empty.
After some quick investigation, Kara speculated that they must be catching up to their quarry. They sped up, passing through three more empty rooms before, finally. They caught up. They were just in time to see a cloaked individual finish killing a Chalcite with an enormous fire attack, incinerating it on the spot, and leaving no remains.
Behind the figure was a horrified dragonoid. Clearly a child, it was half the height that his race would be when fully grown. He had pristine white scales, signifying that he had an affinity for sound magic. However, before they could call out to the young dragonoid, the figure noticed them.
"Ah, I see we have guests. Good timing. I was planning to set up and wait here, anyway." A deep male voice echoed from the hood of the cloak as he turned to face them. He hit the back of the neck of his hostage and caught him after it caused him to go unconscious. He then pulled out a magic rune, channeled magic into it, then tossed it and the dragonoid behind him. Both disappeared instantly. However, before anyone could question him, the man spoke, "That rune is a space barrier. The boy is being stored inside a separate dimension that will only allow him to reappear if I die, or if I call it back. So, let's chat, shall we?"