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“Hey,” Mr. Skelly said as he nudged Alice and Tafel. The two women were lying on the ground with blankets wrapped around them, sleeping next to a campfire. They were in a hall: one end was a dead end, the other end extended into darkness. “It’s been eight hours.”

Tafel groaned as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Did anything happen?” she asked as she stuck her hand into a portal and groped around. She pulled out two bottles of water, lobbing one towards Alice who was just getting up. The wooden container hit Alice’s forehead, causing her to fall back down with a yelp. Tafel took a few gulps before screwing the lid of her bottle back on. “Well?”

“There was just one chimera,” Mr. Skelly said, gesturing towards a dismembered bloody beast lying beside him. “There seem to be less and less of them.”

“What about the shaking?” Alice asked as she rubbed her forehead, shooting a dirty look at Tafel. She grabbed the water bottle and unscrewed the lid.

“That stopped,” Mr. Skelly said. “The last tremor occurred around three hours ago. Whatever was causing it must’ve left the area or went to sleep.”

Tafel nodded as Alice tilted the water bottle all the way up, finishing it in one go. “This marks the start of our seventh day in this maze,” Tafel said with a scowl. “If we don’t find a way out fast or reunite with Vur, we’ll miss Mary’s birthday party.”

“Do we really have to unite with Vur though?” Mr. Skelly asked, his skull contorting as he raised his brow. “Mary specifically told you not to bring Vur. It’s not like he needs to go. Besides, I bet he’s having fun conquering the dungeon.”

“Without us,” Tafel said, catching the empty water bottle that Alice threw at her head. The demon dunked it into a portal with a flick of her wrist. “I wonder if he found the maze’s exit. I did tell him the trick of placing his right hand against the wall and walking forward without breaking contact, but seeing as we’ve encountered so many chimeras and no corpses, he went on a completely different path from us.”

“You know, he probably was the cause of all that shaking,” Alice said as she climbed to her feet and folded the blanket before passing it to Tafel. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the cause of that chimera flood too.”

Tafel sighed as she thought back on the last week. Their group had been attacked by chimera after chimera without pause for the first few days. It was almost as if the chimeras were running away from something, like deer running from a forest fire. Most of the chimera were small, but a few big ones were problematic to deal with, having both high physical strength and the ability to block spells. If it weren’t for Vur’s elementals providing the group with buffs, they probably would’ve had to retreat through a portal. “Well, even if he was, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Tafel said and shook her head. “On the bright side, I’ve gotten really good at quick-casting ice spells.”

“I don’t feel like I’ve improved at all,” Alice said with a sigh. “Compared to a magician, a warrior’s growth rate is much slower and less noticeable. It’s not fair.”

“Then why don’t you learn some magic?” Mr. Skelly asked. “I’m sure Tafel would teach you if you asked.”

“No, that’s okay,” Alice said and made a face. “I tried to learn a simple spell once back when I was little. I burnt off all my hair, and it took two years to grow back to how long it was before. I was teased so much by my schoolmates…. There was one boy in particular who was relentless with his bullying. I remember using my small chalkboard as a weapon and breaking it over his head. That moment probably influenced my weapon choice.”

“…What happened to the boy?” Tafel asked, raising an eyebrow as she packed away the campfire with her bare hands, picking it up and dropping it into a portal.

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know. Never saw him again. I don’t even remember his name.”

***

Vur stared down at the dead creature beneath his scaled feet. He was in his dragon form, but the chimera underneath him was twice his size. It had nine heads, but those were scattered all about the chamber’s ground. The cave he had entered with the little chimeras turned out to be their spawning place, and a ramp had led downwards into an egg-shaped chamber with hundreds of chimeras milling about, feeding larval chimera which were growing in the walls like baby bees in a hive. That’s where he found the monstrosity he was standing on. When the fight between him and the chimera queen started, the chimeras in the spawning chamber had fled.

“That was a tough but boring fight, huh?” Stella asked as she poked her head out from in between Vur’s eyes. “It couldn’t even pierce your scales, but it took you six whole days to make it bleed to death. That must be a record, right? That’s totally a record. I’m recording this.”

Vur exhaled out a breath of frost as he collapsed onto his belly, splaying his limbs atop the dead chimera queen. It had the body of an elephant, the tail of a scorpion, hundreds of legs like a centipede, and nine snakelike heads. “I’m tired,” Vur said as his eyelids drooped. His upper and lower jaws spread apart, revealing a row of bloody teeth as he yawned. “I don’t think I’ve ever stayed awake for that long before.” The chimera queen corpse bubbled underneath him as his weight pressed down on it, causing it to flatten outwards. “This waterbed is nice. Wake me up when…, actually, don’t wake me up.” He yawned again, fully shutting his eyes. “Good night.”

“Is it just me, or is he absorbing the chimera?” Mervin asked as he flew out of Vur’s body. Vur was sinking further and further into the chimera, pressing it out as if it were a blob of jelly. The blood near Vur’s scales were rippling and trickling into the gaps between his scales. A few hair-like tendrils could be seen waving about the blood, hanging off from his scales.

“Don’t be silly,” Stella said. “That’s me. A growing plant needs a lot of nutrients! And whatever I can’t finish will go to Vur. You can’t have any.”

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