Chapter 38 - Warning

Yarrow waited until she was done and resting to speak up, "I hope the two of you are plotting getting Ash out of here safely," his normally calm and gentle voice held the barest edge of a growl to it, "I doubt Lord Sidus wants her experiencing death even if it isn't permanent."

"We're plotting getting you out of here, Ro," Ash said flatly, "Hopefully all of us."

He turned his gaze to her, risking tearing his attention from the dungeon itself, "I took an oath to protect Redwood Stars. Once this morph finishes, we could have as little as hours before a break occurs. I must stay to protect the town, even if it costs my life."

Ash shook her head slightly but didn't speak, her color-shifting eyes seeing a concerning number of locations where mana was building. She filled all of her spell storages with instances of Starsoak save the one where she'd stubbornly kept the shield spell and started launching and replacing the spells swiftly as dozens of monsters appeared. As she'd feared, the mana restoration was too low for prolonged spellcasting but with a little help from Luna and even Yarrow they mowed all of them down before her mana completely bottomed out.

Kneeling on the ground, dizziness assaulting her, Ash scanned the dungeon once more. The field was turning into a graveyard, slowly and surely. Twisted trees grew from the ground, pale blue flames catching in their crowns in place of leaves. A structure was forming in the distance and the flow of magic told her that the dungeon was expanding downwards with the morph. There would be no defeating it today, not with their small little band, nor would there be a break so long as they culled the entrance well.

As soon as she had enough mana to control the skill, Ash used mana absorption and watched as Yarrow's face grew pale. Even passively restoring mana during a dungeon morph was hard on the body, actively taking the morphing mana was all but asking to die of mana-poisoning. She could feel the tainted mana settling into her horns and wondered for a brief second if she could use her cleansing ritual to slow or even temporarily halt the morph of the dungeon if not rip it apart entirely.

Two separate magics bore down on her, taking care not to harm her with their warning. She could feel them at odds with each other, could practically hear them arguing. Sidus' magic held a slight hesitance to it, a tremble that told her he'd never sanctioned one of his Starborn before and had no desire to do so. Lucrum's magic was steady, as if to say he knew how to sanction her in ways to make her regret her actions severely. The sparking between them indicated that Sidus had not yet forgiven Lucrum for his earlier missteps though Lucrum's magic did not spark back, he would earn forgiveness, not beg for it.

"My, my, but you grow more interesting as I let more time pass," Lucrum's voice spoke into her mind.

"Ashterra, you cannot use cleansing magic right now. It is beyond your current ability here," Sidus sounded terrified, as if he might lose her entirely if she tried.

Responding to the thought in her head, Lucrum answered, "We might, actually. This world has the Star Ash to do your job, there are no cleansing rituals. Neither I nor he can strip you of that ability without altering what you are somewhere within you and so it remains. You will defy the very laws this world is governed by if you use that particular spell here. If it doesn't kill you, we'll have to sanction you heavily for it."

Her eyes moved to Yarrow, watching the growing concern on his face. Her mana was restored, so she dropped the mana absorption and merely sat and scanned their surroundings as she placed more spells into her spell storage. She almost missed the slight haze that appeared at Yarrow's back, blocked from her view by his shield.

Her nose, though, didn't miss the fetid scent of the undead behind him and she lunged to her feet even as she cast the barrier on him just a little too late. The creature hit him hard, aiming not for his shield but for his arm with a decayed blade. Thankfully, he took little damage and before he could whirl to deal with it Ash had destroyed it with spells while Luna had taken care of the status effects she assumed it had caused on him. Ash's magic worked just as the passive ability said it would and his wound was healed by the time the creature dropped to the ground.

Ash grumbled slightly at the fact that the two gods were still warning her, though it was more a sign that she hadn't yet let go of the idea of cleansing the dungeon than it was them being stubborn. She needed to be able to concentrate, though, to be able to keep watch for the monsters forming. She didn't have time to argue with them and she wouldn't let Yarrow die even if it meant being sanctioned.

He was here because he had been tasked to guard her, he wouldn't have been here otherwise and it likely would've just been Godsborn in the dungeon. Death wasn't permanent for them and the city would have been alerted of the morph without any permanent losses. Because of her, they could lose a powerful defender.

Sidus' power against her gentled just a little, "Ashterra, trust in Lunarilia's power and in Yarrow's. Here, you are not the strongest among them right now. You cannot do what you once would have to save lives."

Ash had a lot more access to magic in her own world, freely using the magic of the very world around her in her spellcasting. Here, she was limited to her own suddenly meager stores and found it deeply frustrating. She would have detonated the entire dungeon, morph or no, back in her own world and brought it crumbling to ruins.

Lucrum's voice in her mind laughed slightly, "Oh, I've no doubt you'll gain that power all over again. I wouldn't even hold the destruction of this dungeon against you if you had the strength to do it. This morph is not entertaining. The loss of the resources the meadow once housed is not a small one and I will have to intervene quite a bit to balance things to make this place worth keeping around. I may well put out the call to cull the connection to this dungeon entirely."

She turned her gaze once more to Yarrow and Luna, watching as they scanned for undead to appear though both also looked at her often with worry on their features. They weren't wounded. They had supplies. Yarrow had only recently felt the need to even begin dipping into his magic stores, so they weren't pressed yet.

"Ro, be honest, what are our odds of surviving this?"

He glanced back to her once more, a soft smile touching his lips, "We'll be fine, Ash. The monsters appearing are stronger than the ones that were supposed to be here but still far weaker than most I've faced in recent days. We will get through this safely."

She nodded, forcing herself to relax just a little and let go of the idea of cleansing the dungeon. The power of both gods disappeared almost immediately, Lucrum's seeming to wish her luck while Sidus' power curled close to her in an embrace.