A Pained Reunion

Kantan woke with a start, his body full of energy and his wounds only a mere memory. He was unsure how long he had been out, but he was glad to not be woken up to another dungeon monster. If he had slept too long, the dungeon would have sent along another demon to finish him off for taking too long. His hand instinctively reached for where he had been wounded on his side, and found it wrapped tightly with gauze. It was wet with blood, but the raised bump of a scar could be felt through the material.

It took him a moment to remember everything leading up until he passed out, but once he did remember his eyes snapped open. He was nervous that something had happened to Lyra, but he found her next to him with an energy conversion artifact held close to her chest. A fine white mist was leaking out of the relic and flying toward her with each of her breaths. As he saw the pure essence, he also saw the dark hanging fog of demonic essence that permeated the space around him. With a grunt, he willed the essence away from his general location. It still wasn't easy to manipulate the chi outside of his body, but he was able to shift it away by inverting the flow of chi into his body. he created a very thin layer on his skin, and then used a burst behind that layer to push the surrounding essence away. The dark fog eventually blended back into the rest of the dungeon as it normally would once he stopped affecting it.

When he did this though, it also pushed the pure essence away as well. When Lyra noticed the disturbance her eyes flicked open to stare at him in alarm. Her eyes were filled with caution, and her hand reflexively reached for the remaining blade on her back. They were stuck there for a moment, watching each other while waiting for the other to do or say something. As he realized that she was waiting, he moved to speak.

"Thanks for saving me."

"Thanks for saving my life."

They both spoke at the same time, which made them both stop and examine the other. The oddness of the situation did not match the context, leaving Lyra stunned for more than one reason. Kantan guess almost immediately what was going through her mind as he thought about what she was going through from her perspective. A demon who looks a lot like your best friend just spoke. Firstly, demon's don't speak outside of extremely rare occurrences. Even if you encountered a humanoid demon, it wasn't likely to be able to speak. They weren't educated and no creature was born with the ability to speak.

Lyra's hand tensed on the handle of her blade even more, her fears being proven true by his ability to talk. "Whats my mothers name?" She asked a simple question, but the meaning behind it made his heart feel both heavy and relieved. He could tell that she was testing his knowledge, ensuring beyond a doubt that he was who she thought he was. It made his heart hurt to see the way she was looking at him, but he was relieved because he knew the answer.

With a sigh, he answered."Elaine"

When he said the name, Lyra's lips quivered slightly and her eyes began to water. "What happened, Kantan."He could see that she was overwhelmed, but her hand fell from the handle of her blade slowly before coming to rest on the artifact alongside her other hand. She was gripping it tightly, the knuckles of her fingers discoloring slightly under the pressure.

Kantan slowly shuffled closer to her spot on the wall, making sure to appear non-threatening. "It is quite the story but before I tell it though, I need to know how bad you are hurt." He couldn't help but scan her for injuries, especially after her fall at the beginning of the spider fight.

Lyra seemed confused for a moment, not having anticipated his question. "I.. I am mostly fine. I think my leg is broken, and I only have a few cuts on my arm." She pointed to each place, but her eyes never stopped watching Kantan. He knew she was still wary of him, but he slowly approached and went through the steps of first aid.

There wasn't much he could do for the broken leg, so he inspected the wound on her arm. As soon as he began to move the gauze away, Lyra's hand quickly brushed his away and tightened the gauze. "It's nothing to worry about, just a few scraped from the fall."

Kantan didn't believe her, but he also knew how stubborn she was. If she didn't want him to look at it, there was no point in forcing the issue. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He moved back to sit against the wall again, and looked over at her. "Do you remember that stone ranker that your dad tried to set you up with?"

A shiver seemed to pass through Lyra, as her eyes hardened at the mention of Bamor. "Did he do this to you? How is that even possible, human's can't be turned into demons. Even if they could, we wouldn't be allowed to go into the dungeon due to the risk." Kantan could see her mind processing at a million miles a minute, but he raised a hand to interrupt her.

"He didn't turn me into a demon, at least I don't think he had anything to do with that part." Kantan spent the next few minutes walking back through the past couple days, recounting everything he had been through up until they had met in the dungeon. "Once I saw you enter the trial through the dungeon control gem, I thought it would be best to seek you out."

Lyra had listened patiently, only stopping to ask a few clarifying questions here and there. She had the most questions when it came to why he looked the way he did, and why his body had undergone a demonic evolution. She seemed unsatisfied with his lack of answer though. "So you really don't know why you… changed?" She seemed to struggle with the last word, as if she wanted to say something else but stopped herself.

He knew that it was difficult for her to wrap her head around everything, but he shrugged at her question. "As far as Veri can tell, I started to change as soon as I entered. We don't know if its because I had a broken core, whether I would have always changed, or some mixture of the two." At the mention of his broken core, her eyes seemed to clarify and a small gleam filled them. Her eyebrows narrowed and an expression of anger donned her face like a mask. It was unusual to see Lyra angry, as she was generally in a happy mood.

The only times she had been mad around him were after she had fought with her dad, or something had really frustrated her. Even then, she was more of the type of person to forcibly overcome anything that would try to be an obstacle in her path.

Seeing that she was getting lost in her thoughts, he posed her a question instead. "I know you have a lot more questions, so do I. We don't have forever though. The dungeon will send along another monster if we don't change rooms before too long. Veri says that any demon's that the dungeon is forced to bring to you are generally more unpleasant to deal with than whatever was in the room originally. That spider was almost good enough to be on the second floor, so we may end up over our heads if we stay too long."

Lyra seemed confused for a moment before she questioned him, "Can't you and Veri control the dungeon? Just have it not send anymore monsters until were ready to move." He realized then that he had left out something important, but there was only so much he could say at any given point. Story telling had never been his strong suit.

"While we can manipulate things from the dungeon control gem, its limited in scope. My body can only handle so much energy, and that means no big changes to its behavior. The most we can do is manipulate some doors, and change the settings to impact future behavior."

"That sucks, my leg isn't able to carry any weight at the moment. Unless we get really lucky, I won't be able to help you in the next few rooms." Frustration flashed across her face, but he was quick to console her.

"That shouldn't be too much of an issue. When I am using my chi, I am almost considered a rank 2 warrior in strength and speed. As long as I don't use too much chi, I can at least keep up with anything that should appear on this floor." While he said that with confidence, he sent a mental query to Veri for reassurance.

"You should be alright. Its basically like a giant wolf, most of its power is in its claws and teeth. It's fur and skin is still rank 1, while its claws and teeth are rank 2. Essentially, as long as you don't get hit it should fall under your claws just like the imp or erthi would." Veri was very informative, and the breakdown on its strengths and weaknesses made him relax the pressure he was feeling a bit.

Kantan got to his feet and reached a hand out to help her up. "If what Veri told me is correct, the next door should lead to the guardian's room." Lyra hesitantly grabbed his hand, being extra careful around his clawed fingertips.

"Are you going to be fine facing the guardian alone? Its not like you can dodge through the portal if it gets too dangerous. If the clan were to see you come out of the portal, I don't think even your grandfather could save you from the clan." She seemed genuinely worried, and he could tell that she was nervous about the upcoming fight.

"It should be fine, Veri gave me the info about it ahead of time. Its good that you brought up my grandfather though. Once I get you through the portal, you need to find him. He'll know what to do about all this. Maybe he has a way to change the way I look so I can come out of the dungeon." Now that he could see the opportunity to get a hold of his grandfather, he felt a type of relief he didn't know he had needed.

"I didn't see him at the trial's opening ceremony, though now that makes sense. He is probably looking for you. I can talk to him, tell him what happened. If anyone can do something about Bamor its your grandfather." She seemed to also find direction in the possibility, and Kantan saw a hard glint in her eye when she brought up his assailant. After a moment of thought, she looked up at him. Before his evolution they were similar in height, him being neither tall nor short, and her being on the taller side. Now that he had evolved his body, he stood half a foot over her.

"Kantan, I am so sorry that I put you through all this. If I had known what he was capable of, and what he would do when I rejected him, I would have just gone along with my father's plans." A tear seemed to have welled up in one of her eyes, and he could tell that it was really affecting her. He knew it wasn't her fault, even in his rage he had known that.

With a knuckle, he slowly wiped away the tear, "You shouldn't blame yourself for this. The odds that a man capable of this has only ever done this one wrong deed are minuscule. Even as I thought I was dying…" the words seemed to make her wince slightly. "I did not blame you."

Lyra nodded at his words, but he could tell it would take more than that to erase her perceived guilt. Just as he went to say some more, an ear piercing wail echoed throughout the dungeon. The floor seemed to shake while dust fell from the stone roof. Veri spoke up with a slightly worried tone after the sound of the roar quieted enough. "That is not a good sign, we need to move or all three of us are going to die."