This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

When Isra looked back to the bear, she saw Hannah and Alfric there. Hannah was on the thing’s ruined right side, and Alfric was on its left. That Hannah was going to touch the creature was both obvious and insane because it had sharp shovel-claws that were each the size of a person’s head. Isra fired another arrow, her arm stinging, and watched the creature’s paw go toward Hannah in slow motion as the arrow crept forward. Isra had thoughts of attempting to move Hannah, but it was too hard to affect the world when time was slowed, and she had too little time to do anything about it. She watched in horror as Hannah was hit, lifted up off her feet and sent careening into one of the trees. She struggled to her feet, but the creature had turned its attention to Alfric, and he was without backup.

The bear hit him with its claw, a slow, lumbering hit, and his shield was ripped from his hand, leaving only his sword, which he gripped with two hands as he backed up. Isra fired another arrow, this time at the leech-like appendage dangling from its face, which was swinging up to Alfric. She struck it, twice in quick succession, but the beast still had its claws. Slowed-down time was giving Isra time to think, and that was giving rise to fear, which Verity wasn’t there to tamp down.

“Stop!” shouted Isra at the top of her lungs, as the bear raised a paw to bring down on Alfric.

To her surprise, the bear stopped what it was doing and looked at Isra. It had arrows sticking into its face and a giant cavity on the right side of its body, but there was still, somehow, a dull curiosity, all of it directed at her. It wasn’t going to listen, that was clear, but it had felt the words. She, in return, had felt a wave of sickness.

The left half of its head vanished, replaced by a mirror of the same charred damage. For a moment, Isra thought even that might not be enough, but the monster collapsed to the ground after a moment of swaying.

commanded Alfric.

They all moved back, with Alfric and Hannah both limping, until they got to where Mizuki had, somehow, dragged Verity out of harm’s way.

“She sucked the magic out of me,” said Verity, lolling her head. “I didn’t know a sorc could do that.”

“Well I didn’t either!” said Mizuki. “One minute it felt like I was the most powerful sorcerer in the world, the next you were collapsing and somehow that stupid bear wasn’t dead.”

said Alfric, looking at the giant corpse. There was enough meat there to feed a village for an entire winter, a body so big that it would take a week just to dress it, if not more. It was good meat too, Isra could tell. She’d eaten bear only once before, hunted by someone else, and it had taken some effort to get rid of the gamy taste, but it had been fatty and delicious.

“I’m fine,” said Verity, getting to her feet with a groan. Her lute had been left on the ground, and she went to go pick it up. “I’ve never experienced something like that, to have the song snuffed out like that.”

“More than snuffed out,” said Mizuki. “I used it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, you just expanded what I was capable of, and I wanted to take that thing out with a single hit, and I didn’t realize how much I was taking from all over.”

“We share blame,” said Verity, stretching out and then looking her lute over for damage.

“You share credit, more like,” said Hannah, gesturing in the direction of the beast. “Not our best decision, to take on a thing like that, but we did it, together.”

Isra opened her mouth to protest that she’d done nothing, that her arrows had been useless, but the beast had stopped when she’d told it to, and that had probably saved Alfric’s life.

“We’ll take a break,” said Alfric. He had stopped using party chat, perhaps because everyone else had too. “But we still have half the work ahead of us because we need to collect our winnings and then get to Liberfell. The storage book is nearly empty, and we’re going to fill it up with as much as we possibly can.”

“Less in this one than the one before,” said Hannah. “Fewer worked goods to take, and unless we’re choppin’ those trees, less in the way of ectad things.”

“Which means less work,” Alfric said with a nod. He looked past the corpse of the bear. “And it’s possible there are more rooms left.”

“I’ll need a longer break, if you want me to sing,” said Verity.

“I’m really, really sorry,” said Mizuki. “If I’d realized what I was doing—”

“It’s okay, little boy,” said Verity with a sigh. She reached a hand up to touch Mizuki’s face. “You did your best.”