Chapter 14

"Erghh-"

I groaned and braced myself against the sandstone wall beside me.

Lightheadedness, migraines, weakness. All the symptoms had begun to appear in full force.

"You alright up there Hale?" Lain called from a few steps behind.

I didn't want to speak, my voice sounded too loud to my own ears. I simply shot him a thumbs up before pushing off the wall and continuing forward.

-

We were now on day 4 of the expedition.

The last few days had passed without major issues.

The dungeon had evolved quickly in complexity and danger, but we had professionals. Through Bern's leadership and Fie's mapmaking, we were able to traverse the mazelike tunnels with relative ease.

Even as the monsters seemed to scale in danger, the party was able to dispatch them without much concern. The only injuries so far belonged to Tarkas and me. The former had been hit by the surprising power of a sphinx tail, and the latter (me) was almost taken out by an arrow trap.

Luckily I was only left with a small gash on my shoulder when the arrow grazed me.

Both of these small injuries were swiftly dealt with by Fie's healing magic.

You'd think that healing magic would be painless, but the process of my wound stitching itself back together almost hurt worse than the gash itself.

It was worth it though, if not just to see magic in action.

It was relatively in line with what I expected, wands, incantations, and the like. Yet, seeing the foggy yellow light extend from her wand and descend onto my shoulder was breathtaking.

The party's mood was mixed. Despite 4 days of successful dungeon diving, we had nothing to show for it. No incredible monster parts, no awe-inspiring treasures, not even the entrance to a boss room.

All we found was more dungeon.

It was easy for me to get lost in the process, admiring the rooms of increasing scale and craftmanship. But for them, it wasn't enough, the pay for this was not only hinged on their rewards but on finding key parts of the dungeon.

If we didn't find something, then the whole expedition may have been for naught.

On the second night, I asked Fie how dungeons worked.

"We don't know much about dungeons. All we know is that they're centered around cores, something that attracts massive amounts of Tal. Often these can be ruins, monsters, or magical items."

She continued to explain.

"These dungeons have such large amounts of Tal built up that monsters, items, and anything else in the area can become infused with Tal. These things become exponentially more powerful or valuable."

"If you can find the source of the Tal accumulation, the dungeon is basically solved. It's just a matter of dealing with whatever it is."

It was with this information that I was able to start leading us toward the core.

The average person is unable to feel the force that latent Tal exerts on their body.

Someone who has trained for years in manipulating Tal is able to become aware of its presence, yet most often is still unable to feel it.

It is the difference between a wall and a window.

While a window may be aware of the air flowing through it, it is nothing compared to how the wall feels.

I began paying close attention to the wind slamming against the wall.

Moment by moment the pressure of the Tal all felt the same, but as I paid attention over time, I was able to start leading us towards the areas with higher concentration.

There was a cost to this progress.

Each step towards the core sped up the progression of my Tal poisoning.

-

I tried to keep my accelerating symptoms quiet.

The situation had become complicated.

The farther we progressed into the pyramid, the more confident our party became in my chances of survival from traps.

Over the past few days, Hallia and Leil had become even more adept at spotting the even dungeon's sneakiest traps. Since I triggers the unfortunate arrow trap on the 3rd day, they had since failed to let me trigger a single trap.

Our party had become closer, too.

We were stopping to make camp a little early each night for the purpose of brainstorming. I felt a bit guilty for it, but I wasn't going to let that interfere with it. They were doing it for my sake, I had to do my best.

In that downtime, we often trained alongside brainstorming. Fie was the one who came up with the idea.

"No matter what solution we come up with, it's likely to require a strong body, or at the very least a strong understanding and control over Tal."

It was as simple as that, each of the party members started taking turns training me in short bursts. There wasn't much time for it, so they tried to give me an idea of the most important fundamentals, things that I could build upon later.

The most useful lessons came from Lail and Hallia. The quiet duo taught me together, teaching me the fundamentals of movement and stealth, alongside tips on staying vigilant.

The brawn's lessons felt more like workouts. It was extremely apparent that I was not in a strong enough physical shape to even begin learning the fundamentals of swordplay.

That wasn't to say they weren't useful, those bodybuilders were more than qualified to help me begin training safely and efficiently.

Then there were Fie's lessons. I didn't know if magic was supposed to be that hard to grasp, or if my lack of a tallo was making it too hard to bridge the gap. I consistently came out of those lessons tired and frustrated.

The act of memorizing incantations and different channels in the body felt useless to me, someone who would likely never be able to touch them.

I pushed through it. It would have been incredibly disrespectful to the party to put in anything other than my 100% when they were making sacrifices for me.

After lessons, we would get together and eat. It was relaxing, like sitting around a campfire with old friends.

The group members were rich in stories.

Bern loved to reminisce about adventuring with Dulmir as a teen, all the while poking fun at him.

Dulmir's stories on the other hand were surprisingly dull. Since becoming a knight in a neighboring kingdom, most of his stories were ripe with foreign politics and references to people I had never heard of. Lain and Tarkas seemed to enjoy them.

While on the topic of those two, holy cow can they bicker. It seems like there is a bit of history between the two of them from their time in some mercenary corp. Lain's past edgy self did not mix well with a young zealot Tarkas.

The two of them had since reconciled, but talking about the past brought out the worst in them.

Only once did we get a story out of Hallia... The lady excitedly told one of the most gruesome tales to ever touch my ears. After seeing our reactions, she became withdrawn again. I felt a bit bad, but not bad enough to risk hearing another story from her.

Then there were Fie and me, the two youngest of the group, we simply sat back and listened. Stories of families, friends, betrayal, and hardship.

I made the mistake of becoming their friends.

-

As I pushed myself off the wall, the world around me spun.

There was only one way I could justify feeling this awful.

We had to be getting close.