19. Chapter 19 The Succubus #4
“Level 13,” Sif said from across the chamber. She was looking at her hands like they belonged to someone else. “I’ve never gained two levels at once.”
Nott had gone quiet in the way she went quiet when she was processing something significant. “Level 11,” she said after a moment. “The experience distribution from a boss-tier kill at this depth is substantial. Two levels for each of us is consistent with the mana density we absorbed.”
“Nott,” Liv said, bouncing on her feet. “Just say it felt good.”
“It felt adequate.”
“Liar.”
Sif stood where she'd made the kill. Her daggers hung at her sides. Her chest was heaving and the [Bolster] was fading, the magic receding from her body like a tide going out. She looked at her hands, then at me.
"What did you do to me?" she said. Her voice had gone soft, stripped of the sharpness and the teasing, down to something new.
"I don't know exactly. Something new. The System gave me a new skill."
"I was faster than I've ever been. Faster than the boots alone. Faster than anything I've ever felt." She swallowed. "I could feel you in it. In the gold. It wasn't like healing. It was like you reached inside me and turned everything up."
"That's about what it felt like on my end too."
Her blue eyes held mine across the scorch mark where the boss had been. The chamber was quiet except for the lava and the breathing.
"That's two things you've done to my body in the past twenty-four hours that I need to process," she said.
Bjorna was checking the chamber's perimeter. She turned back to us with the same steady assessment she gave everything.
"We're done," she said. "Eight depths. Boss down. Everyone alive." She pulled a scroll from her ring and cracked the seal. The portal opened, clean and bright against the red glow. Cool air flowed through.
We stepped through.
***
Late afternoon light covered the staging area, orange and gold at the horizon, fading to deep blue above. Our campsite sat right where we'd left it, the fire pit cold, the bedrolls still stacked.
Bjorna rebuilt the fire. Nobody talked for a few minutes. We sat in the silence of people who had done something big and weren't ready to say it out loud yet.
Sif sat across from me with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She was looking at the fire but I could tell she wasn't seeing it.
I sat down next to Bjorna. She was feeding sticks into the flame, methodical and unhurried, the breastplate still on. I reached for her arm, the same arm that had taken hits all day.
"You already healed everything," she said.
"I'm checking. Let me check."
She held out her arm. I ran my hands along it, checking for anything the earlier heals might have missed. The skin was clean and whole under my fingers, her fur soft where it had grown back from yesterday's burn.
"You're good," I said. "All the way through."
She let her arm stay in my hands. "Eight depths," she said. "A boss. No casualties. Daniel, we cleared The Splits."
"We cleared The Splits," I repeated. It sounded different when I said it out loud.
Liv settled against my other side, her ears relaxed, her body small and warm against my arm. "The demon lady was very into you."
"The demon lady tried to kill all of you so she could keep me."
"She had good taste," Sif said from across the fire. "Bad strategy, but good taste."
"I can't believe she told us to leave," Liv said. "She looked at me and said I could leave. I've never been so insulted by a dungeon monster."
"She called us decorations," Nott said. She'd settled beside the fire with her cloak around her, hands in her lap, her voice bone-dry. "I've been called many things. Decoration is not one I expected."
Sif turned to me. "Daniel. The skill. The new one. What was it again?"
"The System called it [Bolster]. Rise beyond." I looked at my hands. "I felt it when I looked at you and knew you needed to be faster. I wanted you to be fast enough to end it, and the System responded."
"You wanted me to be enough," she repeated.
"You were already fast. The boots made you faster. I just turned it up."
Sif was quiet for a moment. The fire crackled and popped. When she spoke, she wasn't teasing anymore.
"Nobody has ever done that for me before," she said. "Nobody has ever looked at me and said 'I want you to be more.'"
"I didn't say that."
"You did. You just said it with magic instead of words."
The fire burned. The stars came out. Bjorna sat beside me with her arm against mine, solid and warm.
Liv slept against my other side, her breathing even.
Nott had pulled out a piece of parchment and was making notes, probably cataloging the loot in the rings.
Across the dying fire, Sif watched me with eyes that had changed since this morning.
Something had shifted, and she wasn't bothering to cover it.
The robe was torn. The ash was still on my hands. I had six skills now. [Mend], [Mercy], [Smite], [Sustain], [Bubble], and [Bolster].
We'd cleared The Splits. Eight depths and a boss. The biggest thing we'd ever done.
I was looking forward to going home.