This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

Verity could feel the blast wave from the fireburst strike her in the chest, and it felt, for a moment, like her heart had stopped. It was incredibly loud, even with ten-fingered hands clamped down hard on her ears, and she was only thankful that she’d been given a warning, because if not, she’d have been doing the whole rest of the dungeon with ringing ears or, more likely, just gone home.

Bits of flaming vine as thick as Verity’s wrist fell to the ground around them, and she yelped when one of them hit her on the shoulder, which Isra pulled away almost the moment it had touched her. Through this all, Verity had been trying to keep the song going, but it was like a top spinning out of control, wobbling all over the place with the sharpness of the fireburst having practically shaken her head loose. At the last moment, she was able to save it, pulling it back into place, but it was a close thing.

said Mizuki. She seemed quite pleased with herself.

said Alfric. He held up his shield and sword, showing how hard it would have been.

said Hannah.

said Mizuki.

said Alfric.

asked Hannah.

Alfric looked at Verity, who was still holding the song. he said.

There was another tunnel leading away from the room, and as they moved, Verity gave the skeletons a wide berth, just in case they had been saving a surprise for later. She was always at the back of the group, and with the party formed, she could have stayed at the entrance and given them nearly the same effect, but then they’d have had to rely on party chat for her to know who needed what at any given moment, and one of the benefits of a bard was being able to adapt to conditions, boosting whoever needed it when they needed it.

The song Verity had planned was quite the long one, but she’d been through all the prepared verses, so began freewheeling through new lyrics, all of them almost under her breath. The best bards could be completely silent, without need for audible music or vocals, but whenever Verity had tried, it had felt especially draining, too disconnected from the actual song for her to keep it up for very long.

The next trial the cave had for them was quite different and came at Alfric with a sound like whispers. It took some time for Verity to recognize them as a swarm of something resembling a moth, and she shifted her magic to Alfric’s constitution, hardening his skin as best she could and backing up so the swarm wouldn’t get to her. Alfric’s sword was particularly useless against a swarm of insects, so he simply covered his face and curled into a ball.

he called through the chat.

she said.

said Hannah as she placed her hand on her own chest, and at the same time, Verity did her best to shift the song for Mizuki’s needs, providing strength to Alfric in the hopes that the castoffs from the song would translate into something their sorcerer could use.

A moment later, lightning sprang forth from Mizuki’s hands, lighting up the room and the tunnels beyond it, which illuminated an overturned boat. The power Mizuki was using lacked direction or care, and Verity felt some of it hit her too, but it was a mild shock, nothing more. It was, however, quite fatal to the swarm of moths and arced between them, lighting them on fire as it did. Mizuki stopped as soon as most of them had dropped, and Alfric, bloodied about his face, stood up to swat at the last of them, using the electricity from his own sword to try to fry more. It took quite some time to get the rest of the stragglers, but once they had, Hannah rushed forward and laid hands on Alfric again, closing up the wounds on his face.

said Hannah.

said Alfric, touching his bloodied face for a moment, then taking a handkerchief offered by Hannah.

said Mizuki.

said Isra.

Mizuki said again, her voice slightly higher-pitched.

said Alfric.

The pace felt relentless, and Verity felt a moment of unpleasant guilt as she reflected that this was largely for her benefit, so she wouldn’t have to spin up a second song until they were at least halfway through.