Project Seraphina [LitRPG, Magitech, GL]
2.42 Sky Island Dungeon II

Once the Spawn of Pazuzu’s corpse has disintegrated and Chloe has a chance to fill me with the fresh, minty sensation of her healing, the four of us get to work surveying the rest of the chamber. Most notably, rather than the single loot chest that I expect, four in total spawn. Each of them is marked with logographs corresponding to one of our four classes. A bow and arrow for Lindsey, a wrench for me, an angel’s feather for Chloe, and a wizard’s hat with a lightning glyph emblazoned on it for Kristil.

A pedestal appears, followed by symbols glowing upon them. I’m expecting to see more glyphs to decipher, so I’m shocked when they morph into English text, glowing a bright teal for all to read.

“Take one, take none, take some, or take all. The choice is yours and yours alone. Within each chest contains an item worthy of your chosen class. But be warned, for there is no such thing as a free lunch. A curse shall befall each person who claims an item, until such time as they have cleared the dungeon.”

“Well, this is problematic,” I say.

“More so than what we read before?” Chloe asks.

“Yeah. I was originally thinking that the curse would be placed on the gear. In other words, we’d have equipment that would literally weigh us down, but we could get rid of the curse by getting rid of the gear. But it seems we’re not going to get off that easily.”

Chloe snickers, apparently at my choice of words.

“And we’re cursed until we clear the dungeon,” Lindsey adds. “Not until we remove the gear or until we leave the dungeon through other means. In short, it’s the ultimate risk. Once we commit to taking an item, we’re committing to one or more curses until we’re able to beat the dungeon. And should we retreat and let someone else finish the dungeon in the interim, we could be waiting weeks or longer until we even get a chance to do so.”

“Can we at least see what’s inside before we make our decision?” Kristil asks.

“Honestly, probably not,” I say. “I’d be willing to bet the twenty bucks I don’t actually have that we’ll be hit with the curse the moment we open the chest, regardless of whether we keep the items.”

“Well, screw that!” Kristil says. “What a crock of shit, making us commit to being cursed before we even find out what’s inside.” She hesitates for a moment. “But what the hell,” she continues. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s what you said, right? I’m taking the treasure. Caroline demands revenge and if this might help me get back at those Order assholes, I’m in all the way.”

“I’m out,” Lindsey says. “I’ve got the highest level. I’m well-equipped and our primary defensive backbone. I crumple, none of us make it through this.”

“Me too,” Chloe says. “Losing our healer is the first step to losing our lives.”

I hesitate. Chloe cuts through my hesitation with her hand on the small of my back, guiding me forward.

“You should take yours,” she adds. “You have such flexibility with what you can do, I think we should be looking to expand that strength further.”

“But–”

“I agree with her,” Lindsey says. “Besides, I’m willing to bet the twenty bucks I actually do have that you’ll have at least one insight relating to Ethertech from every item you collect here.”

I pause for another three seconds to mull over the decision that little bit longer. In that time, Kristil opens her chest and immediately becomes covered by a thick black fog. It coats her body and seeps into her, turning her skin dark for a second before her normal light-tan complexion reasserts itself. She’s short of breath for a few seconds, and she’s briefly overcome by a cold sweat that she soon shakes off.

I open my loot chest. Much like Kristil, I am immediately assailed by black fog that saps my strength and steals my breath. In the corner of my eye, I see a System notification alerting me to the extent of the curse placed upon me.

[You are afflicted by [Curse of the Forgotten Kings]. All Stats reduced by 10% while in effect. Maximum [Health] and [Ether] reduced by 10% while in effect. Multiple instances of this curse stack multiplicatively.]

It takes a few moments for me to adjust to my weakened state, but like Kristil, the nauseous sensation fades relatively quickly. Much more interesting is the contraption contained within. It looks like a pair of wings, along with a harness that allows a person to wear them. Although they look like mere cosplay decorations, I suspect they wouldn’t be here without good reason. Give and take in equal measure. That was the principle of this dungeon.

I take my backpack off and slip the wings on. With Chloe’s help, of course, as she volunteered herself well before I could even think to ask her. The harness is a damn fine fit, the marvels of the System enabling our armor and weapons to perfectly mold to our bodies as we put them on. I probably look even sillier than I did before, even including the hot pink [Bandana of Swiftness] I’ve been wearing the whole time.

And sure enough, I get another System notification alerting me to the nature of the accessory I’ve just equipped.

[You have equipped [Wings of Icarus]. [Wings of Icarus]: A facsimile of the original mechanical marvel crafted by an ancient artisan who coveted the gods and their flight, and wished to soar among them. Be sure that you do not meet his ill-timed fate. Enables its wearer to fly; flight speed and maneuverability scale with both [Speed] and [Mind]. Costs 15 [Ether] per second to operate. When [Ether] expires, wings immediately stop working.]

I can see exactly why the wings are called what they are. No inherent [Featherfall] Skill or its equivalent, no ‘gently floating back to the ground’. If I fly too high for too long and run out of [Ether] to power them, I’m going to crash. Violently. If I’m lucky, Chloe will be able to heal me. Probably best not to count on being lucky.

I decided to take them for a test ride. And it’s weird at first. I can’t exactly feel my mechanical arm. I can intuit its motion based on how the glyphs are operating. But I can feel these wings as though they are an extension of my body, and can flap them as easily as I imagine a bird or a dragon or whatever else can. Higher and higher I fly, leaping up toward the skylight. But as soon as I feel the powerful sky island breezes beginning to distort my flight trajectory, I cut my test short and drift back to the surface, deactivating them the instant my toes touch the ground.

“Wow!” Chloe says. “You looked so amazing up there!” She wraps in a hug and whispers. “You will be taking me flying once we get back to the adventurers’ headquarters.”

I nod. I don’t even have two minutes of flight time before my [Ether] expires; maybe a bit more when my regeneration is factored in. But I’d gladly share that time with Chloe if that’s what she wants…

It would be pretty romantic.

“Seems I got a new spell for my trouble,” Kristil says.

She snaps her finger, causing a surge of lightning to flood her hand. She makes a whipping motion, adding a little flourish with her downswing. And as she does, the lightning surge trails behind her like a cheerleader’s streamer. She spins around with all the grace of a dancer, flicking her crackling, violet, whip-like tendril back and forth before retracting it into herself.

“Impressive,” Lindsey says.

Chloe nods in agreement. As the three of them chat about the new ability, I rummage into my backpack for the sword hilt I found way back during our first incursion within the South County Dungeon. I try the same thing that I did back in my recent visions, how I fought with a blade of pure Etheric energy. But it doesn’t work. Not even trying to channel the power of 「The Anomaly」 finds any purchase.

“Can you try channeling your new spell through this?” I ask Kristil. “It’s a powerful artifact Chloe and I found a while back. I’ve been trying to get it to work, but I’ve gotten nothing out of it.”

She takes the hilt and examines it carefully, tracing her fingers along either side of the grip, then along the crossguard of the bladeless sword. After giving me an incredulous look, she does. And just as I’d thought, the blade activates, channeling her lightning into a sword not unlike a falchion. She furrows her brow and grimaces a bit, and the blade changes from a falchion to a broadsword, then to a katana, then to a claymore, before finally settling on a thin, narrow foil often seen in contemporary fencing.

“Thanks, Sera,” she says. “I’ll use it well.”

With our gear in hand, our wounds healed, and our [Ether] at least partially regenerated, we head out of the chamber and down the next hallway. I again take the lead, and am grateful that my wings retract inward to allow me to travel through narrow passageways without having to sidle against the wall and shimmy about like a kid pretending to be a secret agent.

Chloe’s hand never leaves the back of my shoulder, her touch slowly filling me with a trace of additional [Ether] just as we did back in the South County Dungeon months prior. More than that, I feel comfort and love in the way her fingers ease my pain without a single spell having to be cast. Even so, I'm not without tension. Never without tension while in these dungeons, where monsters and traps both lie in wait, eager to strike the moment we drop our guard. Yet still cool, calm, confident, emboldened to face whatever awaits us.

This hallway, unlike the first, is either devoid of traps, or we’re lucky enough to avoid springing them. I suppose with Lady Luck’s human incarnation imbuing me with her touch, maybe it really is the first of those. I doubt it, but it’s within the realm of possibility.

The next chamber is much smaller than the previous one. It has no monster in it that I can see. Nonetheless, the instant I cross out of the hallway and through the threshold, I get a sharp burst of tension crawling up my spine and lodging into my neck. Kristil is playing it off, still admiring my sword. Or maybe it is hers now; if I can’t work the damn thing, no sense in holding onto it.

In either case, I draw my [Mechanical Arm Cannon] and ready it for battle. Lindsey seems to have the same sense of danger, as her weapon is already drawn as well.

A high-pitched hiss fills the room, like that of high-pressure steam being released from a canister. A series of clicking sounds like gears grinding against one another follows. The air fills with the stench of detritus and shit as two of the four doors at the end of the hallway open.

Out of each emerge creatures similar in size to the Spawn of Pazuzu from before, though their shape is serpentine, rather than that of a winged humanoid. Their silhouettes gradually lighten as they step out of the darkness and into the glare of the skylights high above. Their narrow, slender bodies, their forked tongues sensing and sniffing out our presence, their bared fangs and the promise of venom dripping from them.

Kristil draws her sword once more, changing it from a foil into a twin-tailed whip-sword. Her face is snarled and murderous intent seeps from her eyes. “Lindsey, Chloe, Sera? Let’s kill these damned things.”