Soul Merger

Alissa looked over the rest of her comrades. Clara, Fili, and Rosalina were all fine, but Ibaraki was leaking blood from several scratches on her back and a puncture wound above her breastplate. "Don't wanna whine, but Ms Worrywart in my head is complaining about blood loss, so I suppose I gotta ask for healing."

Rosalina let out a deep sigh. The flame protection that had been keeping Alissa cool snuffed out. "Right. Let me gather my focus." The dragon woman closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before putting a hand on Ibaraki's shoulder. After a moment the priestess started the spell and the blood slowed then stopped. A tiny bit later the wounds were closed though the gore remained.

Alissa held up her hand as Rosalina turned towards her. "Get some rest first. I can ignore shallow wounds like these." Truthfully light pain made her feel more focused, but that was an aspect of her merge she didn't like leaning on.

"Thanks." The dragon woman went and sat down on the slain drake's tail. "Just need a moment to clear my head. Too many spells at once." Priestesses quickly built up mental fatigue if they didn't sit quietly on the back lines.

After taking a look around to make sure something horrible hadn't decided to pick on the survivors of their fight, Alissa turned to the drake's corpse. Not only had they taken down a powerful monster, but drakes were full of useful materials. Fili and Clara were already looking over the body.

"Can't take it all, so we've gotta aim for the good stuff," Clara was saying. "Think gizzard is the best money. After that is blood and the heart. After that the magic high scales and teeth."

"We can't butcher it fast enough to get the heart and gizzard," Fili replied. "Can we use the scales instead of Greater Flame Lizard scale? The fact that it was a group effort to kill it means the intent is weakened, but the quality has to be higher. That means we could focus purely on getting out of here."

Clara nodded. "Be a waste of money, but you can't spend cash if you're dead. It'll take some time though. I can wrench out those teeth and carry them, but you're gonna need a careful hand to pick out the everburning scales on a magma drake."

"I can do that," Alissa said. "It should be easy to tell which scales are still pumping out heat."

Fili winced as she looked over. "Are you sure you're okay? It looks like it hurts."

"It does but I can ignore it." Alissa glossed over the details. "We should grab those slime essences too. Didn't you need some?"

"Ah sorry." They looked over to see Akari next to one of the slime remains. "I forgot to say I'd take that. Ibaraki is out for the moment."

"Thanks." Made sense that the oni wouldn't help with the boring part. "Anyway I'll let you two handle the blood and fangs." She never really liked working with liquids, and ripping out a tooth seemed hard.

Alissa followed the drake's spine, down from where the neck started. The scales each felt different to her enhanced touch. Some were rough like armor, others jagged to cut up people like her who got too close, and the last were smooth with only the tiniest hint where one stopped and the next began. Each held the heat differently but none of them were the ones she was looking for.

Finally she found one about a third of the way down. A scale with whorls and eddies on its top like a fingerprint. One that she could only touch for a few moments before the heat forced her away. It didn't look that different from the other black and red scales, but this was where the magic within the drake had pooled.

She took out a knife and cut under the scale, working away the connections to the flesh. Carefully she pulled at the scale bit by bit until it popped out. She put it into a pouch and started to move further down to find the next scale.

"One second." She felt Rosalina put a hand on her shoulder, so she turned to the priestess and nodded. The dragon woman closed her eyes, and the pain lingering at the edge of Alissa's mind fell away.

"Thanks." Alissa rubbed off the dried blood. "You okay?"

Rosalina grinned. "Getting better. Anyway, I think I can sense where the other four scales are, based on the one you pulled out. The energy is different from the rest of the corpse. You'll have to pick out which is the one we want though."

"Lead the way." Alissa followed after the dragon woman. If her hunch was correct they'd shave a lot of time off the materials collection.

Sure enough Alissa found four more scales around the areas Rosalina pointed out. The other woman helped pull the scales as well which meant they were done in less than half the time.

Of course they were still the last group to finish. Looking up from the work Alissa saw Akari, or probably Ibaraki now, was drinking. While Clara and Fili were helping get metal tubes filled with blood into the minotaur merge's pack.

Ibaraki raised her gourd. "Y'all done? Because we probably should start running away. The blood scent's probably reached something nasty by now~."

"Thanks," Alissa replied with a glare. "Clara, which way from here again?" They could see the stairs up but blindly rushing towards it was a great way to find a lava dead end.

"That passage there." Clara pointed to one slightly off center from the tower. "And yeah let's hurry."

Alissa really did want to rush, but she forced herself to take her time and check for any traps or pitfalls along the way. She could feel the nervousness of her allies, but being paranoid about monsters wouldn't save them from a lava bath.

Finally after five more twists and turns they reached the stairs. She checked all the way to the bottom, step after step on the rocks above. Finally she could put her foot on the stairs themselves. "Clear."

They rushed up out of the fourth layer, ignoring stealth. There were never any traps at the main layer transition, so Alissa didn't bother to look. Instead she forced herself to climb the basalt steps, sucking in air and ignoring the pain in her side as she pushed herself.

She slowed as they passed into the smaller area of the Obsidian caves, where the giant monsters from below couldn't follow. Her body repaid her by starting to really complain about her little stair jaunt. Looking back she saw the others were similarly winded, especially poor Fili whose shorter stature wasn't as up for a quick climb. Even Ibaraki was muttering about 'lazy miko who let their bodies atrophy' as she used her club as a walking stick.

Still they were out of the most deadly section of the labyrinth. And now they could take a break. "We should probably check the map now that we know where we are."

Clara took a few deep breaths before nodding. "My senses tell me the shortest path, not the safest or best. Let's do some actual planning."

"Sure thing," Rosalina managed to cough out before pulling out the map.

Alissa turned her attention to the surroundings as the others plotted out their course. The Obsidian Caverns were pitch black here, the sharp edged glass of the walls dimly reflecting the light at odd angles. The rooms seemed to be large boxes, while the tunnels out were circular tubes of obsidian. She tested the floor and hissed in annoyance as she felt how slippery it was. That'd be a problem while fighting.

A few wet squelches signaled Fili's arrival. The mage was blushing and smelled of violet. "Uh, not gonna be able to sneak, I'm afraid. Sorry."

"It's fine, we're not a sneaky group." Alissa gave the woman a smile. "If you aren't falling down that's good enough."

Fili gave her a skeptical glance. "Are you sure? You always seem to grimace when we make noise."

Alissa nodded sheepishly. "Yeah. I'm still used to working solo, where noise is the enemy. That's my problem not yours. Don't worry about it."

"Alright," Rosalina said. "We've got a route." Alissa and Fili walked over to where the maps had been set down. "Passage up to the third floor is easy. Just straight down South. Then we take the snowflake obsidian passages to the second floor. After that... well it's a mess but we can manage it turn by turn. And that will get us right next to the layer transfer."

The route looked right to Alissa's eye. Avoided some larger rooms but still worked on getting them out fast. "I approve." Fili nodded as well, while Ibaraki shrugged.

Clara packed up the maps, except for their current level. "Then let's go."

They began moving through the labyrinth, Alissa continuing to keep on the lookout for traps and troubles. And there were a few. This layer seemed to like hidden flame vents, which were a special type of annoying, with black iron hiding in black glass.

And then, of course, there were the monsters.

Flame Lizards were small compared to a magma drake. But they were still ten foot long murder beasts with a sharp horn and burning thagomizers on their tail. And right now one was ignoring Alissa's charms and attempting to smash her into paste.

She jumped over the swing, letting the creature's tail hit the wall with a horrid crack. The slippery ground made the landing awkward but she managed to roll outside the lizard's tail arc and slice into its side. The creature's blood splattered her body with little pinpricks of burning pain that quickly cooled.

Then she saw the creature shift into a hip check. She had enough time to get her blades up before the move sent her falling on her ass.

As the flame lizard whirled towards her, she saw Ibaraki stride over and casually swing her club down on the thing's back. There was a crack and the beast fell, front legs scrabbling while the back refused to move. "And one for you dragon girl."

Alissa carefully got to her feet as Rosalina moved forwards to finish off their quarry. "I appreciate saving money, but I prefer saving my skin. We could have finished them faster."

Ibaraki laughed. "Not much faster. Besides, you're fine. Bet your skin can't even bruise."

"It can." Alissa replied. The bruises looked better than they had any right to, but she wasn't going to encourage the oni. The damn things still hurt.

There was a crackle of lightning and the Greater Fire Lizard fell dead at Rosalina's feet. Fili was already harvesting the scale from the other one, while Clara was grabbing a scale off the one she'd got a lucky shot on.

Ibaraki didn't seem like she'd respond, so Alissa shrugged and let her cloak fall back over her form. She wandered over to the lizard Rosalina was harvesting, idly considering grabbing one of the tail spines. But the damn thing was still white hot. She'd had enough burns for today.

"If you're looking for fire daggers you'd be better off with fire hawk feathers from the next level up," Rosalina said as she finished her work. "These things don't forge well."

"Were you looking into getting a knife yourself?" Alissa asked.

Rosalina shook her head. "Was just seeing what good materials there were to grab. Can't let Clara do all that work. Especially for some of the stuff that's only useful to delvers instead of good for the market."

Made sense. Alissa had done a bit of looking herself, but she had to admit when she wasn't sure what to pay attention to, big lists of items you could get off of monsters just went in one ear and out the other. "Ah well. I know at least one thing that will sell." She wandered over and carefully picked out a few shards of the snowflake obsidian that had been broken off the wall. The volcanic glass always had a use.

As she was picking up a nice shard, she noticed something odd. She'd been tuning out the sounds her fellows had been making, but there were more footsteps than just her friends. She carefully stood and closed her eyes, letting the sounds spin their own stories to her ears. "Another party? Coming from the upper levels."

That got the group's attention. They all stopped and turned towards the passage up, letting the foreign footsteps become even more noticeable. "Was there supposed to be another group here?" Fili asked.

"Dunno. We weren't planning to be here either," Clara pointed out.

"It's a large group so we should be good." Rosalina said. It was a good bet. Rogue delvers and smugglers didn't tend to travel in large units. At least not in labyrinths run by a functioning guild. "We might be able to find a route back that's already been cleared of monsters."

Alissa liked the plan, but she stuck back in the shadows and made sure her cloak was on well. No reason to cause problems. She'd let the others handle talking.

Ibaraki of course just took a seat on one of the dead flame lizards. Poor Akari must be dying of secondhand embarrassment. But her other friends moved so the other party could see them easily.

The group that rounded the corner was another team of five, though it was mixed gender. A good reason for Alissa to be glad she wasn't the center of attention for this meeting. "Hey there!" the man at the front shouted. "Didn't realize there was anyone else down here!"

"Hello," Rosalina replied. "To be fair we didn't expect to be here. Hit a falling trap and ended up in the fourth layer."

"Whoa!" The man looked shocked. "Well good thing you got out of that. Could you point out where the trap was?"

"Well the hole in the ground should be obvious," Clara said. "But if something weird happens in the labyrinth I suppose it'd be good to point it out."

As the two groups hesitantly moved to share info Alissa sized the others up. The man at the front with the shiny armor and a big sword looked like a dragon merge, though his scales were dull red compared to Rosalina's fine silver. Probably the leader and very rich to boot. Might even be one of the local merchant guild leaders. Or a favored son.

The rest of the group was well outfitted but had more common merges. The other large armored man had the green tint to his skin that suggested an orc merge, which probably gave him good heft behind his hammer and shield. Their archer was an elven woman, while the two casters in the back were a male earth elemental merge and a bunny girl.

"So what were you aiming for down here?" Rosalina asked. "We're after Greater Flame Lizards. And we got them," she motioned back to the kills.

"We're after the murderer, Albert." The man snarled out the name. "I want his head."

Clara blinked. "Sounds personal."

"My old man was the first person he killed, and he's been picking off people ever since." He spat on the ground and the obsidian hissed as it heated up. "I'll be the one to kill him, or my name isn't Edward Flam."

Alissa frowned. The man seemed more annoyed than angry. But maybe she was assuming Edward there would hate his father's killer as much as she hated the succubus who'd torn apart her own family.

"We haven't seen any signs of the guy, but we'll definitely leave a message if we run into anything on the way back," Rosalina said.

"Thanks." The man nodded. "Anyway me and my crew will clear out of the tunnel so you can be on your way." He turned and waved the others to move into the chamber and to the side.

Alissa pushed herself off the wall and started walking to join her friends, when the man spun and punched Fili in the gut. Alissa's dagger was in her hands but she froze when she saw Edward had placed a knife to the mage's throat. "None of you move. Unless you want to see how much of the little lady's blood is slime."