Dual Wielding

The day after the summer festival, Corrin woke up feeling better than he had in years. It was as if he’d been carrying around a heavy weight for so long, he’d gotten used to it, and only now was he truly feeling himself again. He practically leapt out of bed, throwing on his clothes and grabbing his sword before rushing to the tomb.

By the time he got to the dungeon Wyn was already there stretching. As he saw Corrin approach he smirked, “Took you long enough.”

Ah, there’s the catch, he thought as he remembered the results of their chat last night. Corrin didn’t regret it, and he would go to Taravast. But well, he supposed he couldn’t have everything in life.

“Yeah yeah, I’m not used to getting up as early as you are,” he retorted as Orm watched the whole thing with an amused look on his face.

“My, aren’t we early today?” The older man mused, “I figured you’d be tired after the festival last night.”

Corrin shrugged, “It just got us fired up I guess.”

“Alrighty, well have fun I suppose.” He laughed a little to himself and walked away, waving as he went.

***

“So, let’s get down to business.” Wyn unrolled a large map of Aeora on the ground in front of them. “The easiest route to Taravast would be along The Veldias Highway. You can pretty much take it the whole way if you can go through The Grass Sea.”

“Right. Harv once mentioned that enrollment in academies in the east starts in the spring at age 18. If that’s true, then it gives me a little over a year and a half to get there.”

“I know that sounds like a long time, but this is a long trip. Do you remember what Elder Irym said? The trip is going to take around a year at minimum, and if you have to go around The Grass Sea, it’s going to take even longer.”

Corrin sucked in air sharply, “Not a lot of time then.”

“Exactly, and before that, there’s a much bigger problem to get past.”

“I know I know,” Corrin looked down the twisting corridors and chambers of the dungeon, deep into the darkness which lay ahead. “We should clear the dungeon before I go.”

Wyn smiled confidently, “Looks like you were right after all. This task of ours? We were supposed to be at it our whole lives… We’ve got until winter. If we fail, well I won’t stop you from leaving…”

Corrin placed his hand on Wyn’s shoulder, “It’s not going to come to that, we’ll take care of this place easy enough. We’ve got plenty of time to figure out the rest as we go. For now…” He stood up, hoisting his sword, “Let’s find the second floor.”

Wyn grinned and stood up as well, rolling up the map and placing it in his pack. “Stay within earshot until we clear the first one. Once we map the entrance, we’ll be able to go faster.”

“Try not to die, this would be harder without you,” Corrin smirked, as the two walked down separate corridors.

The first floor of the dungeon was a sprawling labyrinth of narrow passageways and small rooms. Over the years, the entire area around the entrance had been carefully mapped by their predecessors, however the entrance to the second floor had never been found, mostly because no one had ventured deep enough to discover it.

That said, they knew it almost certainly existed, common knowledge dictated that dungeons had multiple floors, rooms, or levels to them across the continent. On top of this, occasionally rarer, stronger monsters would appear on the first floor and cause problems. It was commonly thought among guardians that they were actually second floor creatures who had wandered up to the first floor by mistake. Over the last few months, he and Wyn had run across only one, a humanoid skeleton with black, metal bones. It had been a bit of a pain to kill, but still hadn’t posed much threat to them.

Splitting up was risky in theory, as the whole reason for having two guards was to be able to assist in case one became injured or overpowered, but the monsters on the first floor were weak enough, that for Corrin and Wyn, it was no more difficult than hunting common wildlife like deer. There was always the slight chance one of them would get injured on the first floor, but even then the danger would be low, and it was a risk they would have to take to clear the dungeon in time. The second floors and any below would take much longer to clear with any degree of safety, and there was no guarantee they would even succeed. Dungeons were meant to be cleared by groups of at least 5-6, so they were banking on the fact that the one in Straetum was supposedly less dangerous than most.

***

Two days later, they found it. Deep in the mountain, the path sharply declined, just enough to force them to be careful about their footing.

“If we get into a fight, we’ll need to take it up or down,” Corrin noted, “This slope is terrible.”

Wyn nodded, “Yeah I’d rather not fall on my ass just before dying… you’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“Why are you assuming I’d die too?”

“You’d better hope we’d both die, otherwise I’d haunt you. We’re stuck in this together.”

Corrin shrugged, “Fine fine, but that goes both ways. Do you have the firestones?”

“Of course,” Wyn said, “You know I never leave home without them. It was one of the first things Elder Terris taught me.”

“Just checking, you never know what we might run into down here.”

“Believe me, after the incident–”

Corrin’s ears twitched as a scraping sound echoed faintly from up ahead. He held out a hand, silencing Wyn as he listened closely. They crept closer, the sound getting slightly louder until it abruptly cut off.

Carefully, they turned a bend to find a large cavern, larger than the church. Hundreds of twisted stalactites hung above them, many longer than a person.

“I didn’t catch whatever you heard,” Wyn whispered. “Any idea what it was?”

“No idea…” Corrin looked around carefully, his sword held out. “It stopped before–”

There was a shimmering in the air behind Wyn as a section of the wall seemed to peel off from the rest and reach out towards him. Corrin leapt towards it, pushing Wyn out of the way as he brought his blade up to meet the object.

The sword bit into flesh as a blood curdling screech echoed throughout the cave, the shape’s pattern distorting wildly before revealing shimmering black scales. The creature was about the size of a dog, with large beady eyes and several long tentacles. In the center of its body was a lipless ring of black teeth and what appeared to be two small claws just outside the entrance.

Even as it was struck, the creature grabbed onto his sword with its tentacles, climbing its way up it with frightening speed. Corrin smashed the creature’s head into a wall, but its grip was unrelenting as its tentacles reached his hands and began wrapping around his wrists, squeezing hard enough he was concerned they might break.

Wyn had gotten his bearings by now though, and quickly chopped the tentacle off and swung for its head. The creature fell off the sword, avoiding the strike as it slithered towards Corrin, a trail of blue blood left behind. The loss of one of its limbs seemed a mere inconvenience as it hungrily grasped for his legs.

Sensing he shouldn’t let it touch him again, Corrin jumped back, weakly stabbing at the creature while doing so. It dodged before its scales flashed again, mirroring the ground underneath it.

“Nice trick,” Corrin grunted, “But you already revealed your trump card.”

His eyes tracked the shimmering on the ground as the creature came closer. It was moving less erratically now that it was camouflaged again, which proved to be its downfall as Corrin stepped forward and drove his sword through its head.

Even after death, its limbs still wriggled lazily as blue ichor gushed from its body.

“Spirits! That thing was disgusting!” Corrin said, pretending to vomit.

Wyn kicked its body testingly, “Are we sure it’s even dead? It’s still wriggling.”

“I think so, I stabbed him real good.”

“Good thing you noticed; I don’t know what would’ve happened if it’d actually gotten a hold of one of us for real.”

Corrin rubbed his wrist tenderly, “Yeah… that thing had a grip like steel.”

“Let’s keep our eyes open for more of them. This is the second floor, it’s uncharted territory at this point. Who knows what kind of creatures we’ll run into down here?”

“Probably for the best. I’ll lead the way; my senses are a little better.”

Wyn clicked his tongue in annoyance “Yeah I guess, by a little bit.”

They continued further into the cave, taking care to map each turn they took so they could find their way back out. Unlike the first floor, which mostly consisted of winding corridors and small passageways, the second floor was much more spacious, with large caverns and rooms of varying sizes.

They encountered a few more of the camouflaging creatures, which they had dubbed “stalkers”, but after becoming aware of their abilities, which apparently also included being able to regenerate severed limbs, they were able to deal with them effectively. Their camouflage wasn’t perfect, and the trained eyes of the two were usually able to pick them out before they became a threat.

After hours of searching though, they seemed no closer to finding the third floor, and they’d been left relatively unchallenged by the dangers of the second floor. Besides the stalkers, none of the other creatures were too dangerous, most relying on brute strength or natural weapons to hunt. Fields in which Corrin and Wyn far outclassed anything on this floor.

Despite this, Corrin felt amazing. With every step he took he could practically feel himself getting closer to his goals. Each monster they killed was a sign that it was possible, and they were making incredible progress.

Eventually, they were forced to call it for the day, and made their way back to the surface. Their haul was lower than usual, as they’d not been nearly as thorough in collecting stones from the monsters, but it would be easy enough to explain away, and their harvests had been exceptionally high to begin with. With a convenient lie about there not being as many monsters today–

“So, if there were so few monsters to begin with, then what took you so long to get back out?” Orm asked.

Corrin froze. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.

Wyn however, stepped forward and responded coolly, “One of those black metal skeletons showed up later in the day, honored elder. It took a while to kill, let alone harvest.” He reached into his pack and handed him a bone they’d collected earlier. It wasn’t a complete lie, but they’d dispatched it much quicker than he was letting on. It turned out that although the bones were tough to cut through, the creature was susceptible to blunt force. Kicking them against the walls of the cave with the kind of force Corrin could generate proved more than capable of scattering the bones in a single strike.

It was actually quite easy to harvest as well. The magic stones for the skeletons just sat in their mouths and would drop to the ground once they’d shattered its body. But Orm didn’t know that.

“Again? That’s some omen for you two, a second-floor creature wandering up twice in your first few months. Well, you seem uninjured so I guess it can’t be that bad.”

Corrin laughed, “Yes it wasn’t that bad, it was hard to kill but it didn’t hurt either of us. By the way Elder, is that a new spear?”

He had been looking for an opportunity to change the subject, but it really was a nice spear. The handle was painted a deep blue and it seemed to be hand crafted.

“Yes! My son actually made it for me. He doesn’t seem to have much interest in being a warrior, instead he’ll probably end up a craftsman,” Orm said proudly.

“Well, nothing wrong with that, especially if he’s already making such quality works. He must be quite talented,” Wyn said.

“He gets it from his mother.”

“Oh, that’s right, she’s a seamstress, right?” Corrin said, “She donates clothes to the orphanage regularly, seriously I can’t thank her enough.”

Orm chuckled, “I’ll be sure to let her know you said that. She’ll be very happy to hear it.”

He tossed the bone back and took his post. “Well, it sounds like you two had a busy day, so rest up. One of the other guards will be here tomorrow morning, but I’ll let them know you may be late.”

Wyn pressed his fists together, bowing slightly, “Thank you elder, though I’m sure we’ll be back again early tomorrow. Don’t concern yourself on our behalf.”

Orm grunted at that, “Whatever you say, well you’d better head back then, I suppose I’ll see you two tomorrow evening then.” He waved them off.

The walk back to town was filled with discussions on the monsters they’d encountered during the day: Which ones were dangerous, which ones they needed to learn more about, their weapons, the dangers. They had no idea how many floors were left, but especially after the first and second, Corrin was feeling confident. All things considered, the second wasn’t too different from the first. If all the floors were like this, they could keep going as deep as they needed.

But life was never that easy.