The first thing Cort took notice of once he walked past the barrier of the labyrinth is that the stairs immediately ended. His next step past the strange black curtain was on the floor of the first room. Craning his head upward, he saw the barrier up the stairs from him. Quite a ways as well. He had heard that the labyrinth messed with spatial distance and distorted time, but had chalked that up to divers trying to make their stories more important. Emile and Lond looked to have a similar reaction to the strange occurrence, Emile doing a full turn and crouching as if that would make the anomaly any more sensible.
The second thing Cort noticed was the sounds of battle.
Before he even registered what he saw, Cort had dashed away from the stairs and into the room. Lanterns fueled by the magic of labyrinth bathed the room in an orange glow, and it was enough for Cort to make out what was happening as he charged in. Someone, a fellow diver in fact, was being attacked by a pack of five feralises.
The feralise would be an unusual animal to anyone who had not been in or near a labyrinth before. In the simplest terms, they were anthropomorphic rabbit men. At full size, they stood up as tall as an adult male, though their bipedal nature and general body shape were their main similarity to men. The rest of their bodies were covered in a coat of fur, usually brown or gray. They had the heads of rabbits, though Cort had only ever seen their long ears stand straight up. They had claws because they were monsters of the labyrinth so of course they had to have something that could kill a man.
Stuck in the middle of five grown feralises was a diver. They were taking swipes at him that he deflected with his wooden staff or dodged. He was outnumbered, though, and Cort knew that the biggest strength of a feralise pack was its numbers. Cort had drawn his sword, and attacked the nearest rabbit monster as soon as he met with the melee.
"You've got help!" Cort shouted to the other diver. One of the other feralises turned to face him, grinding its teeth loudly. It took a step toward Cort, only to be smacked across the face by a fireball of all things.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Emile shouted from somewhere in the room. Even in the middle of the battle, Cort could hear Emile's bare feet galloping across the room. A second and third fireball impacted the same feralise, and Cort finished it off with his sword.
"Behind!" someone hollered from nearby. Cort spun around to be greeted by a rabbit monster swiping both paws down at him. He blocked the blow with his sword, keeping steady even as the creature's unexpected strength weighed against his blade.
"GOT YOU!"
The roar from Emile surprised the feralise long enough for Cort to push its paws away and slash at it thrice in quick succession. Satisfied his new opponent was defeated, Cort turned and saw the other diver standing before him. Whatever monsters he had been fighting against had stopped and moved elsewhere. Cort spotted one racing away on all fours.
The other was hanging limply in Emile's mouth. Sharp teeth were buried deep into its neck, and the shutting of a jaw finished it off. Emile seemed calm though with blood staining his chin and chest, a messy child finished with their meal. The room had grown quiet as well, all the monsters defeated or fled.
"Sorry about the mess," Emile commented. He wiped his chin off with his arm, but all that did was smear the bloodstains. "I thought they would be a bit more of a challenge than that. Hey Cort. Do you know how to cook these things up? I think I'd prefer it that way to raw."
Cort, still a bit shocked by Emile's behavior, was unable to answer his question before the feralises met the same fate as all fallen monsters in the labyrinth. The four dead rabbit men started to be absorbed by the labyrinth. At first it seemed like the air around them distorted and shimmered as the magic warped around them. They became transparent at first, with Cort able to see the ground beneath them. Finally they disappeared.
All that remained in their place were the same things that any monster left behind in the labyrinth. An item based on the monster that had been defeated and a magic stone. A feralise rewarded the one who slayed it with a normal rabbit pelt and a small black magic stone.
Lond was the first of their group to walk up to a set of items on the ground, leaning down and examining them. He picked up the magic stone, weighing the coin-sized black pebble in his palm. "This is what we'll be harvesting, I take it?" Lond asked.
"Yeah," Cort answered. "Every monster gives you one for defeating it."
Lond brought the stone closer to his eyes, examining it closely and even squeezing it. "I feel some magic emanating from it, but it's very weak."
"That fits," the other diver interjected. He had been standing in silence since the monsters disappeared, but he had walked over to where Lond was standing with the gem at some point during the conversation. "The magic stone's size and quality is dictated by the monster's strength. Labyrinths don't consider the feralises strong, so the magic stone they give is pretty crappy."
"Who cares about the stone?" Emile whined. "All of my delicious rabbit meat, gone."
"I'll buy you something to eat when we leave here," Cort stated. He ignored Emile's further pouting and joined Lond and the mystery diver. Looking down at the stone, he had to agree with the others' assessment. "If I had to guess, one of these might get us a single silver piece."
"The pelt is worse," the other diver said. "I think the best price I've ever seen someone get is ten iron pieces." He held out his hand, and Cort finally got a good look at him. He looked a little older than Cort and Lond, likely somewhere in his early twenties. His black hair was held back in a loose braid, and Cort spotted a silver earring shaped like a cross on his left ear. His eyes were a bright green, and they seemed to shimmer in the gentle light of the labyrinth, but that wasn't overly important to Cort. Rather, it was the point that the flesh of the diver's ears came to.
"My name is Leaf Grasswhistle," the diver said, his hand still extended out to Cort.
"Cort," he replied plainly, struggling to only take quick glances at Leaf's ears.
"I'm Lond Bastion," Lond said, shaking Leaf's hand as well. He gestured over to Emile, who was no longer pouting but instead counting on his fingers and mumbling to himself. "The Savorian gentleman is Emile. I'm glad we arrived when we did. You seemed to be in trouble."
"Yeah, I got unlucky and got separated from my group," Leaf said with a jovial smile. "They caught me by surprise and I hadn't put all my gear on quite yet so I was struggling."
"It happens," Cort added. He had finally managed to stop staring at Leaf's ears, then looked around the room again. There was an opening in the wall about the size of a doorway. "I think we should head that way. Leaf, you can come with us. We may run into your group along the way."
"Sounds good to me, then." Leaf was smiling, and Cort felt almost compelled to smile back. Lond even looked like he was smiling from the way that his mask was shifting. The cheer was only increased by Emile sharing his revelation.
"So I did the math," Emile explained, hurrying around and picking up each of the magic stones that the feralises had dropped. "Each of these stones is one silver, and I saw that they were selling meals for eight coppers a plate in one of those tents out there. If I kill twenty of these rabbits, I can get a hundred plates." He turned to face the other three in the room, his sharp tooth smile wide and his pitch black eyes glistening. "What're you waiting for? Let's get hunting!"
Emile had already begun a quick walk over to the doorway, and the others had little choice but to hurry after them. "Is he stupid, or does he not know how money works around here?" Leaf asked.
"Probably both," Cort and Lond replied simultaneously.