"Wow," Morph breathed. While my reaction was a little more inquisitive. "The spokes of an aegishjalmur, the rings of a Celtic knot, and a banded circle of protection… where did you learn such a complicated arcane array that increases both the algiz rune's output and longevity?"
Liara raised an eyebrow at my analysis, which I knew was a pretty accurate one. Nothing gets by me when it comes to runes.
"I…" she hesitated but eventually relented. "I thought it up myself."
"You are amazing," I said, grinning. Yep, I'd chosen my partner well. Fine, Dwalinn picked Liara to be my guide, I guess, but I got points for recognizing her potential right away.
The elf maiden's cheeks flared as red as apples while Morph did his best to look like something far away had caught his interest.
"Ah, I didn't mean it like…" I was blushing now too. Stupid teenage misunderstandings.
In the awkward silence that followed, we waited for the ink to dry and the telltale glow of a successful enchantment to come and go. Once that was over, Liara passed Morph back his shield, which he hefted easier than when we were fighting sluagh earlier.
"Th-this custom enchantment's making my shield hum!" Morph was staring at his shield with awe. "Um, how much do I owe you?"
Liara raised a single hand. "Two sceattas will do just fine for this first piece, but the next one will cost you more… and I wouldn't say no to you advertising my work."
"R-really?" Morph looked uncomfortable. "But this is good work… the attention to detail and the neatness in the lines, it's so refined and—"
"She knows," I answered for Liara.
Wow, that must have been the most words I'd ever heard spill from the infernal's lips. He was that happy with her work.
"Don't waste her investment, Morph," I added.
A solemn expression flashed on Morph's face when he said, "I won't," and then he was off running back to Team Six while leaving me alone with the she-elf who was now pointedly staring at me.
"Shouldn't I have been the one to tell him that?" Liara frowned.
"Well, I didn't want all those compliments to go to your head or anything," I shrugged. Then I got up and added, "Two sceattas, huh… why the charity?"
As I helped Liara pack her things, I listened to her explain that I'd rubbed off on her a little. "You're not the only one who craves stronger rivals to fight or allies to adventure with, Wisdom. Besides, I'm paying it forward. Now McMorbid owes me one."
"Yeah," I hoisted my bag over my shoulder, "I'm rubbing off on you all right," and then I helped Liara up while thinking that she was a good person deep down regardless of the elven blood flowing in her veins.
Our march deeper into the second floor resumed soon afterward. However, other than our encounter with the sluagh, there wasn't much resistance on our way to the cavern-like hall that led down to the dungeon's next area.
The third floor was a labyrinth of interlocking crypts with walls covered in row upon row of old human skulls. The miasma hovering over the ground was thicker here too, and it worked to impede our sight while also making it hard to breathe.
"Raise those sage lamps high, apprentices!" Mistress Lorelai ordered. "We don't want to get caught with our breeches down this time."
Even with the help of our sage lamps, navigating the third floor's passages remained a challenging endeavor. A foreboding atmosphere clung to our raid group, sending chills up and down our collective backs. Not me though. After that initial shock of my first dungeon battle, my senses had gotten used to a dungeon's atmosphere so that I barely flinched at the first signs of monstrous shadows appearing just within the encroaching miasma's folds.
"Time to go to work, novices!" Mistress Lorelai brandished her spear forward. "Run these shy bastards through!"
No, we didn't charge recklessly like you might have thought. Our raid group fought in the same cautious fashion as with our fight against the sluagh. We used sage lamps to clear out the miasma and then lobbed salt grenades at whatever monster was revealed by the light. Only after these two steps were accomplished did we charge at our enemies with weapons unsheathed.
"Keep up the pressure!" Zen, who was a leader of one of the journeyman teams, ordered. "Push them back, men!"
"And women!" one of his female teammates replied. "We're doing twice as much work as you men, FYI!"
"Ye-yes..." I could almost see Zen's cheeks flush crimson, but there was just too much hair covering his face for me to be sure. "And women... of course!"
The members in our frontlines were mostly comprised of the journeyman class's warriors, so they made short work of our random encounters. Meanwhile, I spent much of this march in the rearguard protecting our supply cart and feeling bored out of my mind.
"We'll get our shot eventually," Dess promised. "They're bound to mess up like before and we'll be up to our necks in monsters once again."
Yes, Dess seemed just as bored as I was. Why else would she hope for such a crazy scenario like a breaking of our frontlines to occur? It didn't happen though, which sucked for us.
Instead, Dess and I found ourselves cheering along with our fellow rearguard as a journeyman warrior cleaved a spiny ghoul in two, or gasped out loud after our fellow apprentice hunter's arrows passed harmlessly through a barrow wight's ghostly form.
"Use cold iron arrows, Elias Driftwood, you satyr fool!" Mistress Lorelai snapped. "What kind of idiot wastes good steel on an incorporeal being?"
Our support team only broke ranks when an injured adventurer called for medical aid. Even then, I was just a bodyguard for Scaredy Cat when we waded into combat range so he could provide some healing to whoever needed it. Luckily for me, one of the red cloaks messed up at just this moment and allowed a barrow wight to fly through his body—freezing him up instantly. This same barrow wight noticed the healing energy emanating from Scaredy Cat's spell and zipped straight for him with kamikaze fury.
I jumped in front of Scaredy Cat and then raised my glaive forward rifle-style with the blue stone pommel aimed at the incoming ghostly figure.
"I call on thee, oh might spirits of fire," I chanted quickly. "Come forth and breathe life into my desire—"
The barrow wright was so damn fast that it was almost close enough to lash out at me with ghostly fingers.
"Burn into a single, sharp—vargr!" I cursed. "Firebolt!"
I had to cut my chant short because long, emaciated fingers were now mere inches from my face. My half-plea for the spirits to empower my magic would have to be enough though—and it was.
Magic vibrated along the handle of my blade to explode outward from its jeweled pommel into a roaring golden blaze reminiscent of a freaking flame thrower.
Yes, I did notice that this haphazard flame wasn't the more refined laser beam I'd used to cut Doomsday's cheek, but I knew how to work with what I got—especially since Flame Heart had given the spell a boost in firepower. A blast of magical flames aimed at its face burned through the barrow wight's incorporeal form, forcing a scream out of it that reverberated around the hall we were in. The barrow wight didn't die from just that though. It flailed around in the air in a vain attempt to put out the fire that clung to its raggy clothes.
"On, no, you don't!" I jumped forward while twirling my glaive around so that its blade was facing forward now. "You're mine!"
With a swing fueled by excitement, I cut the barrow wight in half. And, while I sheathed my glaive, the last vestiges of the barrow wight's otherworldly light sputtered out, earning me my first kill since the little monsters of the second floor ambushed us.
"Hey, why was Will left in the rear all this time?" Zen asked incredulously.
"Because I don't know Mr. Wisdom well enough to trust him at the front," Mistress Lorelai answered. "Take Mr. Rosé back to the rear, Mr. Wisdom."
As I passed her by, Mistress Lorelai offered me an affirmative nod which I assumed was her version of a thumbs-up.
'Well, I'll be showing off some more until you finally accept me, ma'am…'