This time they appeared inside a pyramid shaped safe room, but instead of the pyramids that they were used to in the old world, this one had 8 sides instead of 4. It wasn’t hot, but it was close, and it was dry, very dry. All of them immediately began smacking their lips as their mouths dried out the instant they opened them, except for Eli who had been slowly working on breathing less. He had only been doing it a short time but he was worried about inhaling poisons or any negative magic really. When your soul is low level your magic regenerates mostly through breathing, but with a level 3 soul, it's pulled in through your skin just as much so you can go a long time without breathing. The down side is it cuts your magic regeneration in half.
They all took out water and drank deeply, after that initial drink though they couldn’t seem to make themselves feel as though the water helped. Bethany stopped drinking and cycled water magic through her body and felt instant relief. This made her think that this was a magical thirst and not a normal one, and drinking water wouldn’t help. She made up her mind that this floor would have to go very fast, especially since she was only to hold the effects at bay for about four or five hours before she ran out of magic. Using water magic would normally regenerate like any other magic but this floor seemed to suck out water, both magical and mundane. Eli gave an explanation a few moments later when he went down a small staircase that was on one side and read the plaque near the door out loud.
“This place will drain you, water, magic, and soul.”
“20 desert beasts must be defeated to summon the floor guardian.”
“Make haste, as your draining has already begun.”
Bethany could feel everyone’s tension since this floor had a clock, and not everyone would last as long as others would. Before panic could set in, Bethany spoke up, “Let’s not panic, I’m sure it will be alright. We will just need Eli to take a larger role and get us through this.”
Bethany put her hands on Eli’s shoulders, looking him dead in the eyes with the most real, loving, trusting, and nurturing smile that Eli had ever experienced in his life. He felt a warmth cover his soul unlike anything he had ever felt in his half remembered life. After she had looked at him like that, he felt like he could make this place bend to his will, like he could make anything bend to his will. A level of control and calm swept over him in the moments that followed that provided clarity and reason. He needed more information if he was going to force this floor to obey him, so with only a returned smile and a wink to Bethany, Eli opened the door and walked outside.
The landscape was a desert in every direction, not with sand dunes or mountains, it was a salt flat as far as the eye could see in every direction. There were rocks and large stones scattered around, but Eli quickly noticed that they were not in the same place every time he looked in the same direction. The ground was about 6 inches of loose rock salt, literal salt, everything was as dry as physically possible and there was no ambient magic in the air. The lack of magic was perplexing but he knew it wasn’t all flavors of magic, just the obvious ones, no air, fire or chaos magic due to no wind or temperature fluctuations. There was no water, life, or death magic that he could feel either, but there was earth magic, and something he could vaguely recognize as order magic. But most of all, there was light magic, a tremendous amount of light magic.
The light magic mixed with the order magic seemed to be what was causing the magical drain effect. There was shadow magic in the environment, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything that he could tell. The best solution he could come up with was to focus his magic regeneration into swallowing up as much light and shadow magic as he could to keep himself full, then share his magic with the others. This would probably defeat the purpose of the floor so it might make things harder so he wouldn’t do it unless he didn’t have any other choice. He motioned for everyone to come out with him and began quickly explaining the plan.
“The direction this door faces is north, Cody and I will go north, you guys go west,” Eli said as he pointed into the distance. “The rocks and stone on the ground move and/or are illusions so you cannot count on them for directions or landmarks.” He took a breath and sighed more to himself than to them. “Do not use magic at all, this floor is designed to drain you to a husk but we need to finish quickly so use your judgement when it comes to combat.”
“We should try to stay within sight of each other at all times, just in case.” Lucy added. She had a very suspicious look on her face as she looked at the nearest large stone. “I cannot tell what is illusion and what is not, we might walk right into the mouth of a beast.”
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“Is there that much illusion at work?” Eli said letting slip a little of his worry.
“As far as I can tell, the salt on the ground is the only thing that isn’t an illusion.” Lucy said with a frown that just kept getting deeper.
“Change of plan we stay together but stay 10 feet apart in a circle, so everyone can see everyone.” Eli said. “We should get moving though, time is not on our side.”
The group started walking in the direction they were calling north, staying spread out and moving as a unit together. Cody and Beau were talking nervously to each other, at first they had been shushed by Bethany, but Eli told them to talk louder. He explained, also loudly, that it's better that they don't sneak up on anything here, the monster will attack regardless but if they are given time to prepare, he might sense any movements or magic they use in preparation. This would give them away and become an easy kill. After a few minutes of nothing but cautious walking Eli looked back and saw as the eight sided pyramid that was the safe room vanished from behind them, and at the same time he felt the presence of monsters.
It felt to him like they had just walked out of a bubble, one a lot smaller than the distance he had just walked and now they were in the real environment. All five of them were there together but they were not where they used to be, his best guess was a teleport to the real fourth floor. No where to retreat to, getting weaker by the second, and surrounded by monsters, he noticed almost fifteen already, with three slowly moving to them. Eli conjured a cudgel and with a mighty swing, he smashed it into the ground so hard everyone was knocked to their backs. While they were all standing up with confusion on their faces shouting questions and expletives at him, he was too focused to notice them.
His hit into the ground had drawn the attention of all the monsters nearby which turned out to be more than twenty. As far as he could sense there were almost thirty moving toward them, five were closing in fast and would attack in a couple seconds and the rest seemed to be more cautious, they were coming in to fight, but much slower. Bethany seemed to feel the fast ones coming because she already had her spear out and she was swinging right in the direction of the one that would come out behind Cody. All five appeared at once, they were like flying manta rays, with larger wings and bat-like faces but with more teeth. Their skin was the white/tan of the salt on the ground and looked like dried leather.
As they burst out of the loose salt, they flew right to head height with mouths open. Bethany easily dealt with two, Lucy cut the one coming for her in half, and Eli killed one with a swing of his cudgel and grabbed the other one out of the air. The one he was holding was squirming like crazy to try and get free, but with no arms or legs, it wasn’t likely. It faced him and breathed in, drawing in some of his magic, it wasn’t much since Eli had enough will to keep his magic from slipping away for the most part, but some got through. The monster got stronger and flailed even more than before but his hand dug in deep to the monster with his fingers breaking its skin and grabbing onto bone. It tried once again to breathe in his magic but as his magic leaked a bit and was flowing toward the monster Eli got a glint in his eye that would have made the monster wet itself, if that were possible.
Ever since they stepped onto this floor, Eli had been using most of his mind to puzzle out the magic of how it all works. Until they left the bubble, all he could feel was the light effect was pushing magic, and the shadow effect was pulling. At least that's what he thought was happening, until he got his hands on this monster. Originally he had caught one so he could see how it was holding onto its magic in this place, but when it tried to pull on his magic, he felt the trick to it, to the whole floor's magic drain. He almost laughed but he wanted to be sure so he dug his hand into the monster so it would do it again before the other monsters got to them. This time when it pulled at his magic he stopped it in mid air between them, visible for all to see as a bright purple haze or mist, then it pulled back into him.
If that would have been the end of it, it would have been something that slipped their minds moments later and pretty much would have been forgotten by the time they left the raid dungeon. But what happened when he pulled his own magic in gave some of them nightmares, even though he had never done it in front of them again. Bethany seemed the least upset or shocked by it, but she was very comfortable being at the side of the world's strongest anything, almost regardless of his actions. Eli would call it an unhappy, but necessary magic accident. He pulled the magic out of the monster, not some of it, but all of it, not slowly, but instantaneously and violently.
The monster crumbled to dust, with no more magic keeping it alive against the intense draw of the environment. A piece of Eli became empty in that moment, like a corner of his soul had been torn away and he was now, in some way, lesser because of what he had just done. Luckily for him, he felt the monster's soul get pulled back into the dungeon and he hadn’t just devoured a soul, that was not something he could see himself coming back from. However, he had hurt it, in a profound way. It wasn’t damage that would heal properly, nor painlessly. Bethany was looking at him with warm eyes, seemingly knowing that he had just done something that would haunt him. A single tear fell down his cheek as he looked at her, but it evaporated in moments, and just as quickly, the other monsters were upon them and there was more work to do.
