Soul Merger

Akari spent most of the break apologizing for Ibaraki's screwup, but Alissa thought the woman had finally accepted they didn't blame her by the end. Other than that it had been a pleasant break, after a grim reminder they couldn't take this trip for granted.

Soon though they were back on the trails, heading deeper into the labyrinth. As expected that cluster had been most of the monsters in this area, though a few rose thorns and traps were along the way. It was simple cleanup until they reached the ladder down.

Alissa looked down and saw charred dryad bodies, but in addition to the scent of burnt wood and syrup, there was a metallic twinge in the air. "Something's wrong," she said quietly. "Can you smell blood Clara?"

"Yes," the minotaur merge replied. "But it's not from anyone still alive."

She looked at the others who shared her grim expression. It seemed the group that had gone in earlier had run into problems.

"Guess that means I gotta jump in first," Ibaraki said. The oni was back now that trouble was brewing. "Mage next?"

"Me next," Alissa said. "I'll play defense." Ibaraki would hit the enemies first, which meant someone else was going to need to keep extras off Fili.

Clara shifted uneasily. "Second to last I guess. Best to get more killing power down."

Rosalina sighed but nodded. "Not the best starting place for a priestess. I'll have to let you all have the limelight for now."

Ibaraki stretched, then hopped down the trapdoor. The possessed catgirl hit the ground with a slam, and several shrieks rang out. With a quick push off the ground Ibaraki rushed forwards into the room below.

Alissa took that as her cue. She hopped down, hitting the ground with a roll to bleed off momentum. Her legs still rang with the impact, but she was up and had her weapons ready.

Two dryads were running towards her, vines adorning their arms like claws. Wonderful. She twirled both blades in a half assed move, trying to keep them back. The one facing the sword retreated, but the one on her left continued on. Alissa barely had time to reverse the swing into a stab before it hit her.

Pain erupted in her arm, while the dryad screamed as well. They slammed into each other and staggered backwards. She forced herself to stay upright and regain her stance. Alissa had lost her knife and was bleeding, but the dryad was still twitching in agony.

Then a flash of light blinded her and when the stars cleared the dryad's head was missing. She prepared to fight the monster that had backed up earlier, but another bolt of fire smashed through its center, dropping it. She looked back and saw Fili had skipped dropping down and instead stuck herself to the side of the ladder in order to rain firebolts from above.

Allissa watched as Fili proceeded to snipe down the three remaining dryads before Clara could even get to the ground.

"Well," Rosalina commented as she looked over the battlefield. "I think I underestimated how important 'weak to fire' was."

Fili looked embarrassed for some reason as she oozed down to the ground. "It helped that they were all focusing on other people. And there weren't any stronger variants."

"You could have left one for me," Ibaraki complained as she walked back. "Anyway I'm gonna check out. You're gonna want the person who cares to figure out what went on here I bet."

As Akari took control again Alissa took account of her injury. Light punctures, and the bleeding wasn't that bad. She waited for Rosalina to get down before moving to the priestess' side. "Hi. Bleeding again. Please fix it."

The woman raised her rod and concentrated. Almost immediately the pain faded and the injury sealed up. Rosalina sighed as she opened her eyes. "How is it you keep getting cut up?"

"I think it's because someone keeps taking us into dungeons where I have to fight on the front lines instead of hiding in the shadows," Alissa replied sweetly. Rosalina snorted and shrugged.

Truth was this was almost expected for group combat. Someone was likely to get stabbed, and it was most likely to be the thief unless things went very wrong. The fact that Ibaraki shrugged off most weapons just made the imbalance more obvious. But these trips had racked up more injuries than Alissa was used to.

On that note Alissa turned to the remnants of the battles that had been fought here. The rest of her group were already looking around, but the big picture was pretty easy to see. There were three dead treants, twenty one dryads, and four human bodies here. Given they'd only killed seven, that meant the previous group had faced a serious horde. But how had the group gotten stuck in that fight?

Two of the human bodies were next to each other, so Alissa figured that was a good place to start. Even from this distance the ash grey complexion of a dead fire elemental merge was obvious, which suggested how the group had gotten wiped out. Without a mage to help it was easy to get overwhelmed.

As she got closer a few more things became obvious. The fire mage and the other adventurer, a dwarf, were both next to a dryad who'd been bound in chains. And both had suffocated, from the bulging eyes and blue lips. The dryad meanwhile had been killed by a flame engraved arrow to the eye. "They caught it but it managed to kill them anyway?"

"That's what it appears like," Akari said. She'd been checking the adventurer's pouches. "I believe it used the same trick that one dryad used on me earlier. But without a priestess they couldn't be saved. There's empty antidote bottles in their packs, and the guild cards are missing."

"Proof of death," Alissa agreed. "And then as they were figuring out what to do next a second group ambushed the survivors?" She took a look around, both to try to confirm and to make sure the same wasn't about to happen to them. "Another reason not to get involved in that disgusting business. Way too many chances to get surprised."

Akari gave Alissa a curious glance. "I thought you didn't care about the lives of monsters? You seem rather hostile towards them."

"I don't care. But I also don't want anything to do with this kind of work. Keeping animal monsters as fodder is fine but ones that look and sometimes act like humans?" Alissa shook her head to clear it. "Can't be good for your brain."

"I think I understand," Akari said with a nod.

Seeing there was nothing more to look over here they walked over to where the other two bodies were. A catfolk rogue and an elf archer it looked like. Clara stepped aside at their approach. "Looks like the archer girl took a hit to the leg and they fought back to back until getting overwhelmed."

"Tch." Alissa looked over the unlucky duo and confirmed it was claw stab and vine whips that had taken them down. "Yeah. Seems like the best guess." She fished around to get the IDs. Sure enough the rogue had his own, and the cards of the two other members. She was about to pocket them when she noticed something was off.

She ran her finger along the cards again. It was the protective coating on the mage's ID. It felt wrong. Alissa took a closer look and then noticed more issues. "This is a forgery."

Everyone looked over to her. "A forgery?" Clara asked. "Why would someone make a forgery of an adventurer's guild ID? It's not like they're hard to get. They mostly use it to track who goes in and out of a dungeon, so the fake would still be on the record books."

"I don't know why, but it's definitely fake." Alissa showed the card to the others. "It says it was issued in Port Toron, but all cards from there have four one six at the start of their ID. Like mine. Every city's guild uses different starting numbers to avoid duplicates. Well, all the nearby guilds at least."

"You're right. But still..." Fili peered at the card. "Why would they make a forgery?"

Rosalina looked around. "I suppose we could ask. If Akari was willing of course. Don't want to offer necromancy skills I don't have."

"Let's save that until after we're back above ground," Alissa said, pocketing the cards. "Clara you can carry the body up, right?"

"So long as we don't get in a serious scrap," Clara said. "And I agree with Alissa. Let's find the last of their party and then get out. We've cleared enough."

Akari's ears flicked. "The labyrinth will probably recover this many losses in a week. But it does seem like a mystery worth looking into. And we do need to recover what we can of the previous group."

"Maybe one of them was smart and survived," Fili said. There wasn't much hope in her voice, but it was theoretically possible. She'd managed after all.

They looked around for traces on where the group had headed. There wasn't a nice easy blood trail to follow, but the trees were covered in scars from an mage throwing around razor sharp ice shards. After a bit of work they picked the path that looked like it had the most damage and followed it.

As they got to the first turn Alissa looked around. "Any way to mark this?"

Rosalina pulled out a bright orange chalk. "This should work. Something simple you think?"

"Mark the way to the exit. I don't want us staring at the map," Alissa replied, keeping her eyes on the surrounding areas. If the two fleeing delvers had been killed, whatever got to them would still be around.

The dragon priestess put down several large arrows, and they pressed on.

There wasn't much need for additional marking however. The path of damage went in a fairly straight line. The fleeing duo had obviously started to panic, firing blindly while running. There were one or two fallen dryads along the way, but they had been killed by axe blows.

Alissa grimaced as they reached the final battle site. A man in heavy armor was lying face down next to a seed trap similar to the one she'd disarmed earlier. The mage looked like they'd taken only a little bit of damage from the trap, but it had obviously stopped their momentum. The area was covered in frost and puddles lay on the ground where they'd unleashed spells. But they'd obviously been overwhelmed and killed given the puddle of blood around them. What a mess.

"Welp! I'll let you people handle the thinky stuff," Ibaraki said as she casually stepped over the mess to stand guard. It seemed the oni was back in charge. Probably a good idea. There were no signs of the winners of this fight.

Rosalina checked the dead swordsman, so Alissa joined Fili in checking the dead mage. Pine and moss wafted from the mage as they looked over the wounds.

The tiny thorns of the plant trap were here and there, but the rest of the injuries were strange. A couple of vine strikes were obvious, but the lethal blow had been with a jagged shard of something that had been removed or dissolved. Alissa frowned as she checked over it. "It almost looks like she was killed by a frost shard herself."

"Yeah," Fili replied. "She wasn't dematerializing the attacks, so maybe she got stabbed in the chest with her own ice attack?"

"Ironic, but possible." Alissa looked at the fallen dryads to see if either had any telltale signs of one final suicide attack like what Fili had suggested. "Strange the ice has totally melted away, but the frost is still on the tree leaves."

Fili paused. "The blood would have melted the lethal ice shard, but you're right. There should be more icicles around."

Alissa stood and checked over the battle area again. It looked like the usual wide passage on level three. No signs of treants, but that wouldn't matter much. The frost on the leaves was pretty well spread, like a blizzard spell had been cast, but the damage was just from frost spikes and shards. And there was a small chill in the air. Something that shouldn't be around in the fixed climate of the dungeons. "Does anyone else feel cold?"

"Maybe it's your outfit?" Ibaraki added with a 'helpful' smirk.

"No." Clara looked a little concerned, "I'm not even feeling cold touching the frost."

Fili's eyes opened wide. She shot up and ran to one of the puddles. Alissa followed her glance and noticed the frost was spreading. What the hell?

The faint physical chill seemed to spread to her soul as Fili started looking around. "That's right. The bottom area was Eastern themed. Which means... yuki-onna," she said breathlessly, as a faint scent of durian hit Alissa.

"Shit," Ibaraki said casually. They all whirled to see a pale figure with hair like fallen snow had entered the passage further along. Her features were human, but no human walked with that fluid gait. The ground froze where she walked, and ice was forming on all the trees. But all Alissa could feel was a light chill.

The oni turned and said simply, "Run."

They ran.