Grim focused on the connection he felt between himself and the dungeon, and pulsed his power again. Almost at once, a monster appeared as before. Ready for it now, Miranda obliterated the ghoul with a mere flick of her fingers. “Okay, so the speed is always the same, no matter how hard you try.”
? “Certainly seems that way,” Grim said thoughtfully. He sat down in the center of the dungeon, running his hands over the stone. “There’s something else. I know I can do something besides spawning monsters, I just don’t know what it is.”
? “Well, I’m guessing it’s the power that’s in your eyes,” Miranda offered, breaking his concentration.
? “Huh?” He asked, looking up and around at her. She pointed to her eyes.e
? “Your eyes haven’t glowed yet. Which means you haven’t found your primary power.”
? “My primary….” he frowned thoughtfully for a second. “I can have more than one?”
? She let out a snort. “Of course. Each bloodline gives us a skill and some passive abilities. Granted, some only give one of each, but it’s more common to have multiple passive abilities. Only one skill, though, sorry.”
? “What’s your skill then?”
? She wiggled her fingers at him, and her eyes flashed a bright ethereal blue as a mist began to descend around her. It fell to the ground and spread faster than he would have expected mist to. When it touched him, he noticed at once that it was colder than anything he’d ever touched, and recoiled. That drew a laugh from her. “Oh, calm down. I don’t use it on people. Well, unless we’re in a mock war. There’s still a lady from Ironwatch who’s terrified to go near me.”
? Shivering slightly even though the mist had already faded, Grim regarded Miranda in a new light. “That’s… cold.”
? “Well, no shit. My whole aesthetic is cold, ya know.” She inspected her nails for a moment–though they were still perfect–and a second later, ice grew to cover her fingers like claws. “I use the mist in tandem with these claws. The mist slows monsters down, and I slash them to pieces. I’m very good at hand-to-hand combat.”
? He wasn’t going to refute that. Her brief squabble with Gerald had proven it. He’d found later that he was actually a very strong delver, with a few physical reinforcement skills that let him frequently win contests of strength. The fact that the willow girl in front of him had pinned him so quickly was… terrifying.
? “So,” she said, stepping closer. He actually had to resist the urge to step back, reminding himself that she was an ally. “My greatness aside, let’s focus on your skills. I feel like your bloodline relates either to monsters or dungeons. Those are two very different options.”
? “Are they?”
? “Well, yes. If you were linked to the dungeons, your power would really only be useful in a dungeon. I suppose it could go the same in the wilds, but nobody else has tested that. If your power were linked to monsters–say, from some kind of hypnotizing monster–you could have a huge range of use out of that. Taming monsters, sharing their senses, mental domination… the list goes on. There are a few monster-related bloodlines out there.”
? “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s dungeon-related,” Grim offered. It was a guess, but one backed up by a lot of what Granden had said. “How do I test to be sure, though?”?
? She nodded slowly, beginning to pace back and forth. “It’s very easy to tell when its your own cores, far better than anyone else could. Even if you’ve never tapped into it, your bloodline is a part of you, after all. So you would know what it relates to. As for how to test it, that’s actually quite simple. It’s the control over the skill–and identifying it–that’s the trickiest part.
? “What you have to do is focus on your connection to the thing that your bloodline ties you to. For me, I conjure a sense of cold. It was very hard to do in anything that wasn’t a tundra or snowy forest biome, which is almost all of them. But I’m getting off-topic. Focus on the dungeon. Put as much of your delver sense as you can into that, and then think about using a skill.”
? He did as she suggested, and almost at once, felt as if his mind had expanded past its normal limits. The dungeon around him, even Miranda, was suddenly covered in a fine, wispy mist. It didn’t block his vision in the slightest, but he… had a sense of where everything was. Including a monster tucked into a corner nearby that she’d missed. It was napping, a thin bar of metal clutched in its skeletal hands.
? “You missed a monster over there,” he said, pointing. She didn’t reply. “Miranda? Can you kill it before it wakes up? That thing will gut me, you know.”
? Again, no reply. She turned around in her pacing to look at him, then froze, a small frown on her face. “Grim? Grim? Where the hell did you go!”
? A look of minor panic replaced the confusion, and she quickly looked around. That was… strange. Then it hit him. She couldn’t see him. He was invisible. He quickly ended the focus on the skill, and–to her senses at least–reappeared right in front of her. She gave a yelp of surprise and jumped back, her ice claws appearing in an instant. He quickly put up both of his hands, hoping she didn’t cut him to ribbons.
? “Oh, fuck,” she said, going to put a hand to her chest, then, realizing she had the claws out, quickly dismissed them. Still, she regarded him warily for a moment, clearly unnerved. After a second or two of silence, she let out a sigh of exasperation. “Of course, you get such a lucky fucking skill. Unbelievable.”
? “Uh, sorry?” He wasn’t sure why, but the apology felt appropriate. “Why is it bad that I got that skill?”
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? “Because invisibility is possible from both Light and Shadow affinities,” she said, pointing at him. She almost looked… jealous. “But not until at least level eleven! Some geniuses figure it out by level nine or ten, like Veyra did, but not at level three!”
? “Ah,” he said. Again, he wasn’t sure what else he could say. Then he remembered the monster. “Before you continue with that lecture, can you kill the monster in the corner over there?”
? He pointed again, and, properly looking this time, he saw only a flat wall. She glanced over as well, frowning. “A monster? I don’t see one.”
? “I sensed it while I was using my skill,” he said. “It’s napping… and holding some kind of metal bar in its hands.”
? She spared one quick glance at him as if he’d lost his mind, then paced over to the indicated corner. She hesitated for a moment, then stuck her hand through the wall, letting out a gasp of surprise as it evidently encountered the corner. “Oh, hell yeah!”
? She yanked the monster out of the illusion and threw it to the ground, its metal bar skittering noisily across the stone floor before killing it with a quick ice spear. “Okay, that is awesome. A lot of delvers have been getting a point or two from perfect on this dungeon, and it’s been pissing a lot of the perfectionists off. Nobody has found that secret.”
? Grim stooped to pick up the bar of metal, noting with surprise how heavy it felt. It looked like normal steel, but felt about one and a half times the weight of a typical bar of metal. Which told him it was level four, as weight generally increased with the material’s level. “I don’t know what type of metal this is, but it’s gotta be worth something.”
? She made her way over and plucked it from his hands, frowning as she tilted it left and right. “Yeah, me neither. You’re right about it being level four. We’ll have to have someone at the guild identify it later. But forget about that for now. I wanna check my score!”
? She put the metal bar back in his hand, then seized his wrist, dragging him towards the entrance. He was surprised at her strength, then wondered why he was surprised, if she was more than twice his level. He blinked away the mist as they left the dungeon properly, feeling a trickle of essence enter his spirit, and shivered. “What was that?”
? “I think I know,” she said, a broad grin stretching across her face. “Only one way to check!”
? Letting go of his wrist, she hurried over to the board placed near the entrance. “Come on, come on… Yes! I knew it!”
? He made his way over to the board as well. It held the usual array of scores. Something about an emissary’s magic–or more accurately, the dungeon itself–allowed them to leave a permanent public marking of the success rates of previous delvers. Everyone called them leaderboards, and he knew that some delvers cared about how highly they placed, like each delve was a final examination from their Starter Guild. And there, at the top, were two very familiar names. Miranda Foxgrove and Grim Kestrel. Their time was horrendous, of course, but they’d earned a perfect score.
? “Fuck yes, we’re going to make so much money off of this secret!” She said. Before he knew it, she had an arm around his head and was ruffling his hair. “You’re a damn divining rod, Grim! You have to tell me everything about your skill. Everyone, actually. Wait, no, not here!”
? At that exact point, she looked over at a group of delvers who had arrived, clearly waiting on their delve slot. “Don’t mind us, just celebrating!”
? That, of course, got their curiosity at once, and the leader of the group came over to the board with a frown. When he saw their score, his eyes widened. “No way! You found the last secret? What is it?”
? Grim opened his mouth to tell them, but Miranda quickly cut him off with a high-pitched, superior laugh. “Oh, don’t think we’ll tell you that for free!”
? The delver scowled at that. He looked as if he had half a mind to tell them to fuck themselves and move away, but the greed was winning over. Finally, he relented. “Fine. Name your price.”
? “Two hundred gold,” she said, looking like a cat that had just eaten the most glorious meal. “Each.”
? The delver spluttered indignantly. “That’s too much! I’ll pay two hundred, and you tell the entire party!”
? “Really?” She asked, leaning forward. “You’re all from Ironwatch, aren’t you? Don’t you think eight hundred is a worthy cost? Apart from the perfect run bonus, you can lord this over all of your comrades. Just imagine how eager they’ll be to learn where the last secret is!”?
? That put a stop to the other party’s protests, and they all looked thoughtful. Finally, what looked like their healer moved forward. “Agreed. But you can’t just tell us. You have to show us where it is.”
? “I’m okay with that,” Miranda said. “But you also have to let Grim get in there with you for the entire run. He deserves to double dip, since he’s the one who found the secret.”
? And so a deal was struck. Grim looked at her in some concern as the others converged to excitedly discuss the change to their morning. “What are you doing? What if they kill me for that secret?”
? She looked at him in some surprise. “Oh, come on. We’re not savages, Grim. Besides, once it gets out that you can find secrets others miss, you’re going to be famous. Nobody wants you to disappear. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if, this time next week, you’ve got a flood of requests for you to lead dungeon expeditions to find secrets.”
? “Why aren’t you coming with me?” He asked. “Orren did tell you to keep an eye on me.”
? “That was for our lesson,” she said, waving dismissively at him. “Which is now over. This isn’t Beastwick, Grim. There’s no backstabbing here. Well, not physically, at least. Now shut up, and go double dip. I’ll give you your half of the money, so don’t worry!”
? “Half?” He glowered at her. “I’m the reason you even know about the secret. You can keep a hundred.”
? She laughed at that and ruffled his hair again, bouncing on the spot with excitement. “I was actually going to give you all of it. I was just teasing. But keep that generous spirit! It’ll make it easier to mess with you in the future!”
? After confirming that the money was transferred from the Ironwatch delvers’ bracelets to his, Miranda accepted her share of the spoils–though Grim was tempted to renege on his deal–and he prepared to run through the dungeon again with the new party. They were mostly level four, with their tank being level five. One round of introductions later, they were grinning in anticipation.
? “Nice to meet ya, Grim,” their leader said, grinning from ear to ear as if he hadn’t just had to hand over a small fortune. “Best stay back and away from the monsters. We don’t want our golden goose dying just yet.”
