<~> Chapter 317We stood at the end of the ruins. We had spent quite a while slogging through this pce. It wasn't all that challenging, but there were a lot of shadow demons in the way. Despite the numerous enemies, they hadn't given much experience, at least not for me. I mainly kept to using only my sword and shield to allow my mana time to fully recover. From where we were standing, it didn't seem like there was a lot of the dungeon left, and I wanted my reserves to be full. The tallest isnds in the dungeon were visible from here, and they were physically touching the one we were standing on. I hadn't realized how close we were to nearing the dungeon's end.

  "The st three pilrs look smaller. More like rge ptforms than full floor sized areas," Lori said.

  There was a clear shot from here to the first of the st few pilrs, but there was a problem. Once we left the edge of these ruins, we would be in sight of the banshees completely blotting out the sky. We were close to the source of them now, which appeared to be near the dungeon's core.

  Silva leaned against the wall. "We could use Raya's illusions again, but we would need some way to get up the cliff. We could try flying up using Lilith's flight spell, but the banshees would probably destroy our light constructs and we would fall."

  I scratched the base of my horn. "Bel and I could attempt to fly ahead and distract them. We would be in danger of being overwhelmed, but the banshees aren't all that dangerous to us at this point. That would at least let you guys follow behind. If we got to the st isnd, it wouldn't matter if they broke after that."

  Torien frowned. "Our priority should be to stop whatever is keeping the dungeon in a state of perpetual dungeon break. Either that, or we could just..." She mimed a small explosion with her hand, implying that we could destroy the dungeon crystal directly. "We do that, no more banshees."

  Lori shook her head. "It won't be that simple. There should be one more guardian before the end, probably on the penultimate ptform. Whatever it is, it probably wouldn't let us go past it to get to the core, and I doubt we would be able to beat it with that many banshees attacking us at the same time."

  "So we need to find a way to stop the banshees before we try to finish clearing the dungeon," Sibyl said.

  "Yes," Lori agreed with a nod. "I'm certain the banshees are being released on the next ptform, the dungeon boss is on the penultimate ptform, and the core is on the final ptform. We'll have to deal with them in that order."

  "That doesn't solve the immediate problem, then. How do we get to the next ptform without being overwhelmed?" Kal'daeryn asked with a grunt.

  I frowned and looked down my list of system-granted spells. I think any rituals I could do would cost far too much mana to be useful here. I paused when I got to [Wall of Ice] and pulled up its description.

  [Wall of Ice - Ice Magic Spell]Create a wall of hardened ice magic. Durability and density are affected by Magic Force. Range, height, length, and area of the spell are affected by Magic Control.

  After thinking about it for a moment, I also pulled up [Creeping Frost].

  [Creeping Frost - Ice Magic Spell]Release ice magic in an area around you that moves along the ground with a maximum area of Magic Force x 1 foot. Finer control of the area is affected by Magic Control. Ice magic spells can be cast from anywhere connected to a contiguous patch of ice connected to you. The caster of this ability can walk through the area of Creeping Frost normally, but it may become difficult terrain for others.

  I copied the descriptions to a pane of [Light Ward] so I could show the others. "Do you think we could do something with these?"

  Morrigan tilted her head and skimmed the spells. "Have you attempted to use either of these yet?"

  "No," I said, shaking my head. "But, if these work the way I think they do, I should be able to use [Creeping Frost] to extend the range of [Wall of Ice] to reduce its cost at a distance. I could also create a barrier that would keep the banshees out."

  "I'm not sure you'd have the mana to cast a strong enough barrier for the entire length that we would need," Morrigan said, pursing her lips.

  "Let me see," Raya said.

  I handed her the pane with my spells written on it and she skimmed them before looking up. "There's no reason that I couldn't use my illusions with these spells. It's only your light magic that usually disrupts them. Instead of creating a sturdy structure, why don't you just use it to create stairs or a ramp for us?"

  "It's worth a try. It might cost extra mana to create a structure we could climb, but I think it's a good idea," I replied.

  "I'm worried about this 'difficult terrain' bit here," Silva said, pointing to the line in [Creeping Frost].

  Morrigan grinned. "[Creeping Frost] creates difficult terrain, [Wall of Ice] shouldn't. Not any more difficult than ice would ordinarily be to cross."

  "That's what I'm worried about," Silva said with a ft stare. "A ramp or stairs made of ice would be difficult to climb."

  I nodded. "There's that, but there's also the problem of range. I only have a range of two hundred and sixty-four feet." I was sure the measurement would be weirdly converted for them, but I didn't dwell on it, even though I got some weird looks. "I can also only use [Creeping Frost] along floors and walls, so I don't think I could make a ramp from here to the top of the pilr."

  Raya snapped. "I know! Instead of making a ramp all the way from here, we should just use my illusions to get to the wall. Then you can make a staircase going up along the pilr!"

  "That seems more doable. Will you be able to hide the stairs from the banshees too? I don't really want a repeat of the bridge, where I had to attempt to hide us while you changed illusions," I said.

  "Nope!" Raya said excitedly. "I can maintain multiple illusions now! It would take me some time to cast the second rge-scale one, but we could make it to the wall, and I could hide us with a smaller, more contained illusion, before preparing the st one to hide the stairs. At most, it would take some time to pull off."

  "This sounds like a good pn to me," Silva said. Everyone else seemed to agree.

  "Does anyone need to rest or take a break before we give it a shot?" I asked.

  "I think we should just get this over with," Sibyl said with a frown.

  "Are you sure you'll have enough mana to create stairs all the way up?" Morrigan asked.

  I shook my head. "No, I'm not sure. But Mimi can give me a mana potion if I need one. You're not out yet, are you?" I asked, turning to Mimi.

  "No, I still have some left, but we are running out of them. I have six left now," Mimi replied.

  "Considering that we're getting close to the end, that sounds like plenty to get us through," I said.

  Raya nodded. "Okay, sounds like we're going right away then." She paused to make sure everyone was ready before taking a step toward the archway marking the end of the covered ruins.

  Like before, a reflection came to life above us from the edge of the archway, stretching all the way to the wall of the pilr. This one was a little wider than it was on the bridge, and the illusion seemed much more... solid, for ck of a better word. This time, I trusted it a lot more just from how it looked than I had at the bridge.

  Silva was the first to step past Raya into the walkway, but this time, we didn't wait for her to give us the all clear before following her out. We proceeded slowly, careful not to create too much noise. We weren't concerned enough about the noise to silence ourselves with magic, but we didn't want to tempt fate by loudly marching either.

  Once we reached the wall, Raya held up a hand. ("Everyone, hold as still as possible. I'm going to switch illusions now. I'll tell you when it's safe to move.")

  A small dome of magic crawled up around us. Unlike before, this one didn't have a fshy visual to know it was working, but the confidence coming from Raya through the bond reassured us that everything was fine. Once her second illusion was fully manifested, the first rge reflective ribbon faded away and another took its pce, traveling up at an angle alongside the wall.

  ("It should be safe, now,") Raya said through the bond.

  I nodded and pced my hand against the smooth stone of the pilr. My hand began to feel cold as rime formed around it on the pilr wall. I spread the [Creeping Frost] along the side in a fairly organized path. I didn't need to make it the entire way in one go, so I stopped once it was a decent distance before focusing on [Wall of Ice] next. I could tell that I would get better efficiency by creating a contiguous wall along the rime rather than attempting to make each individual step. I hadn't initially been sure which would be better until I was in the process of casting it. This spell felt quite natural to use after so often casting a simir spell in ritual form.

  My magic ice pushed out of the rime in a solid piece that matched the length of the distance I had spread my [Creeping Frost]. The steps I created formed a rge zigzagging wall about five feet in length away from the pilr. Each step was angled slightly forward to make it harder to slip backward. The wall cost a lot of mana, but much less than I had been expecting. It turned out that [Creeping Frost] did indeed reduce the cost of the magic considerably since I received less of a range penalty from casting [Wall of Ice]. Once I felt confident this was going to work, I took a few steps onto the ice stairs while using the pilr wall on my right to steady myself on the hardened ice. The ice felt solid and wasn't all that slippery yet, but I could tell it wasn't immune to melting. I would have to slowly seep mana into it through the rime as we went up to keep the ice from losing its structure.

  ("We're good, let's continue. Stay a few steps behind me,") I told everyone.

  I received pulses of acknowledgment and continued forward. We took it slow. Even a little ways off the ground, we could feel the wind picking up as we climbed. This wasn't the most dangerous thing we've ever done, but climbing stairs made of ice higher and higher up the pilr, was still nerve-wracking. I tried to focus only on the stairs in front of me. Occasionally, a brief bit of panic would fre through the bond as someone looked down or off to the side, but I was able to keep focused on my task.

  Eventually, I reached the point where my [Wall of Ice] stopped and had to start spreading the rime to create new stairs. The task was a bit more to juggle, since I also had to maintain the mana in the stairs under our feet at all times too. While it was a bit difficult to manage, I was able to handle it, and we continued forward. As we climbed, a kind of tension and anxiety began to collectively build. Our emotions were feeding back on each other and making the feelings intensify.

  ("Everyone, close your bond most of the way until we reach the top. Sharing these emotions is dangerous,") I ordered.

  I received pulses of agreement and then felt my connection to all of them dim. I could still feel them and their emotions, but they were more muted now. It didn't completely stop the building anxiety, but it was enough to make it tolerable and stop feeding back between us. We continued on until we reached the end of the second set of stairs, and I had to prepare for the st set. It really was amazing how far Raya's illusions could travel now. I did the small juggling act of creating the next stretch of wall again, but managed to pull it off smoothly. The st bit of the stairs was a ptform that was even with the top of the isnd.

  It wasn't until we were less than ten steps away from the top that I realized a problem with our pn.

  ("Raya, if anything is level with the ground, they'll see us when we reach the top,") I said to her.

  Raya's eyebrows scrunched as she thought about the problem. ("I'm going to have to go first then. I can recreate the illusion that we used at the base of the pilr, but I'm going to have to get close to the edge to do it.")

  ("If Raya's getting that close, I want to be a step behind her,") Sibyl said.

  Raya gnced back at Sibyl for a moment, worried that there might be another fight, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. ("Fine. The two of us then.")

  I steeled myself and pushed away from the wall as far as I could manage. I didn't let go, but I was tall enough to allow the two to pass under my arms without trouble. They slowly moved past everyone else and slipped under me. It was a relief to return to what felt like retive safety of the pilr wall once they squeezed by. The two of them got only a couple of steps away, and Raya once again began to cast her second illusion. The two illusions overpped in a few pces, but they surprisingly didn't seem to interfere with each other.

  ("Alright, we should all be able to barely fit in the bubble I created at the top of the stairs,") Raya said.

  I licked my lips and climbed the st few steps.

  Saine

  Hello! Boy, Raya's magic sure is coming in handy. It's almost like illusion magic is actually super useful. Lots of fun discussion here, I kind of like when characters make pns rather than just doing random junk. It makes things feel more grounded and real, even if they are still flinging fireballs and creating ice stairs. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

  On another note, December is already here, and the holidays are always super busy. Rather than taking several weeks off, I instead like to reduce my posting schedule to once a week for each story rather than twice a week. This gives me a lot more breathing room without actually having to skip too much time between chapters. So, I'm only going to be posting Lilith on Wednesdays from December 3th until December 31st and posting Umbral Feast only on Mondays from December 1st till December 29th. The schedule will go back to normal on January 4th for both stories. I know it's never fun to receive less chapters, but I need this time to reset and stop myself from burning out. I've been posting nonstop for years now! Hopefully it's not too disappointing, but it's necessary to keep things manageable for me. I hope everyone has happy holidays!

  Check out my other story here: Umbral Feast

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