Dran continued to complain the entire time Vee and I were experimenting with the new rift. He was not happy with a "giant hole" being in his dungeon and kept pestering me to hurry up and close it as soon as possible. He was also unhappy about how it was siphoning ambient Mana from his dungeon for its upkeep, but when we pressed for details, he admitted that it was actually a minuscule amount in the grand scheme of things.
His incessant whining even annoyed Juniper enough for her to intervene and get him to stop. "You're the one who agreed to this whole thing, even agreeing on my behalf to help out. As soon as they are done, they will close it up."
On our end, we made some pleasant discoveries; the dimensional "rules" were much more flexible inside the spatial rift, and even Vee could benefit from it. The downside was that my own dominance over it was noticeably reduced, but it was a small price to pay to give Vee some benefits. Of course, if the enemies also had a Riftmancer, then we'd be in trouble as we'd be giving him or her the same benefit, but the odds of that happening seemed impossibly slim.
"Okay, let's go set up for real," Vee declared happily.
We left, and I closed the door, bringing momentary satisfaction to the quite childish treeman. We then took the express route down to the ground floor and back to the familiar entrance hall. This was where we'd lay our trap.
"Just remember to keep your promise of keeping the fighting contained within the rift," Juniper pointed out as she emerged from a wall.
"Of course, why would we give up our homefield advantage?" I asked.
"Yeah, you have no idea how much better it is inside there for us. I'm honestly itching to learn [Rift Door] myself as soon as we are done dealing with these thugs."
Juniper shrugged, "I thought you might try to forcibly drag us into this to do the dirty work for you. I have no idea who exactly your assailants are, but we are supposed to remain impartial among the elves. However, assuming you reveal the slimy truth, they could try to call out to Dran to help them."
"Wait, you'd turn on us? Remember, Syl is an elf princess currently," Vee pointed out.
"I'm not saying we would. But our hand could be forced in some sort of way. Although the gods' orders regarding you [Experiments] certainly trump our agreement with the elves, we don't want to end up in a lousy situation ourselves. We've had a centuries-long agreement with them."
"Sounds messy," I replied.
"Exactly. So, for all our sakes, do not let them escape your trap so we can all avoid any and all potential nonsense."
"Oh, trust me, we plan to teleport them all away from the door as soon as they set foot into the rift," Vee replied before giving off a menacing chuckle.
I then spent the necessary time to create a [Rift Door] at the dungeon entrance, ensuring that I didn't skip any steps and that it was both fully stable and wide enough to block the entire doorway.
Dran once again started whining, but Juniper sent him away to "play with his fruits," and so the treeman departed.
"It's better if he doesn't get involved at all in this, just in case. I don't currently have a working dungeon, so if I'm exposed, it's not the entire end of the world," she explained.
"Hey, if I ever see the dragon [Experiment], I'll be sure to get revenge for you," I offered with a friendly thumbs-up.
"You just want to fight a dragon," Vee snorted.
"And eat one," I added.
"You're both crazy… I can't believe the gods agreed to all this."
Once the [Rift Door] was complete, we split up, Vee and I going inside to talk strategy and so she could lay her network of webs, while Juniper would be creating an illusion to hide the giant spatial hole.
Her method for creating illusions differed from Trixie's, who seemed to be able to make them at will from nothing. Instead, her illusions were all based on flowers and "attacked" based on visual recognition and scent.
Patterns on the flowers that mesmerized you, spores and pollen that could compromise your mental faculties, and so forth. She explained that while it was more limiting in some regards than other forms of illusion magic, it came with the benefit of being a lot harder to resist.
"Since you're delving into custom spells and such, you can take that as a small tip—the more restrictions you put on something, the more powerful the effect," she said before she began her work, spawning her array of flowers both inside and outside the dungeon.
Huh, nice tip. Although I don't know if it even applies to my power set, except for [Poison Slime] lowering the potency if I mix poisons,
I tucked that nugget of information away, and we got to work. The first thing Vee did was create a large cage of [Rift Thread], in the same ominous purple that she used during the duel. This would be where we teleport our unlucky individual designated for capture and torture by the creepy elf butler.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Then she started laying out the real traps, nearly invisible unless you had [Spatial Sense] or an array of other skills. She still made sure to set out a few trip wires and snares out of the purple thread, just to keep up appearances.
Meanwhile, I started manufacturing a few different spell orbs, in a variety of magical flavors and only really avoiding Dimensional Mana for obvious reasons. I also created a small array of tools infused with [Sanguine Dream] so we could achieve our capture target.
"If these enemies are super hardcore, then they might have like suicide pacts or something," Vee warned. "If our captive sees the situation becoming pear-shaped, they might try to remove themself from the equation. Dead elves tell no tales."
Vee had suggested I use a lesser poison, but I didn't want to take any chances if they had [Poison Resistance] or something similar. I was sure Llewel could mix up an antidote, or we could even get something from the Carren elves, which was ideal since we still had to conclude our deal with Aimon for Vee.
Damn… I kind of can't wait to leave this place and all the people. Our beach vacation is sounding better and better by the minute.
With no further preparations needed, all that was left was to bait the trap. We exited and were met by Juniper, who was tending to her flower garden.
"Um… do I need to hold my breath?" Vee asked cautiously.
Juniper shook her head, "The effects are mostly dormant until I activate them. Also, the effect is only to hide your portal and make it appear as the normal doorway, so it's not even a harmful effect anyway."
"I feel like I should still hold my breath, just in case.
"Suit yourself. I've done my part," Juniper said and began taking her leave. She walked into the tree and merged with it, leaving Vee and me alone.
"Right. Moment of truth," she said, trying to sound confident.
"You can always wait inside?" I offered.
"No, I think it's better if I come. What if they try to encircle you or something? Then you can at least use me as an excuse for why you can teleport. If you start doing [Dimensional Magic], or worse, slime things, then they might suspect our trap."
"Right… speaking of which, I wonder if they will have anti classes for us. The last people who tried to hunt me brought a Spellbreaker."
"I guess it depends on how much of a threat they think you are? They definitely know the assassin failed to get you, and also the Outeatus Knights. Although officially, you came back with Llewel, so they might think that he took them out."
"It's great that my most potent powerset is entirely unknown to them. If they only bring something to counter my elemental magic, then they are in for a rude awakening."
"Do you think they are going to bring anything anti-spider?"
"No, like… more direct. Like bird monsters, or giant lizards, or worse…" Vee trailed off.
"Wasps!" Vee exclaimed.
"How are wasps worse than birds or lizards for you?"
"They inject their eggs into spiders! And then their babies eat us from the inside out! They're parasites that need to be purged from the world."
"Okay… assuming all of that is true, couldn't you just use your [Phase Out] trait to expel the eggs from inside you?"
Vee paused. "Maybe. But they could be classified as 'part of me' and phase with me, so I don't want to take any chances."
"If there are any wasps, you have my full permission to run away."
"Good. Nice pep talk. Now let's go bait the trap before I think of something even more dreadful."
I couldn't resist, I had to poke her. "Maybe they will have brainworms," I teased.
Vee visibly shuddered, her little legs vibrating on the spot. "I forgot about the brainworms."
I laughed my head off before activating [Blink] to exit the dungeon, as my [Rift Door] was occupying the entire entrance. I then began my slow walk towards Caelthal, with Vee using [Warp] to eventually catch up to me after she finished her freak out.
It was late afternoon, judging by the sky's appearance, and the forest itself seemed entirely tranquil, as if an ambush wasn't even possible in such a majestic locale.
On the outside, there were many new flowers in bloom that expanded to quite a range away from the dungeon. Evidently, Juniper had been busy and had wanted to ensure she caught everyone in her illusion.
"You know… we didn't even consider that they might not attack us," Vee suddenly pointed out. "What if they went home after we spent almost a week inside the dungeon?"
"I hope not. I'm sort of hoping that this might resolve the whole Feirelle situation if we catch one of their goons," I replied telepathically. I didn't want to say anything verbally for now.
"Not to mention the experience points."
"Definitely that too," I agreed. "Just keep all your eyes open, I imagine they might try to just stab me in the back again like the last one."
"Screw using eyes, I'm using [Spatial Sense] on full blast!"
I really wasn't happy walking into what felt like an ambush, and I ordered my [Sub-Cores] to all be on the lookout as well. I also activated [Roleplay] again, putting on the full "elf princess mode" and hiding my wariness. At the same time, I was ensuring I was remaining in a straight line, so the run back to the dungeon would be swift.
"Actually, I think they are definitely around," Vee suddenly said, breaking the silence.
"What makes you say that?"
"Haven't you noticed? There's not even a single animal in the area," Vee pointed out. "Not even a bird or a squirrel."
"Oh, that's definitely suspicious. But that should make it easier for us to spot something approaching."
We continued our march forward, with Vee on my shoulder, guarding my back from any stabbing attempts. Then, suddenly, one of my [Sub-Cores] spotted something far off in the distance in the sky.
It was a massive bird flying so high up in the air that it was outside of pretty much every standard type of sense. And it was circling us. I tried to throw out an [Identify], but clearly it was out of range for even that. However, I was rewarded for my [Sub-Cores] discovery, and an often-neglected trait received a timely upgrade.
The newfound range expansion gave me just enough room to get a better look at whatever was flying above us. It loomed overhead with tattered wings stretched wide, feathers patchy and rotting like old sails. Bone showed through in places where flesh had peeled away. Its eyes held no light, just two dark pits that didn't blink.
"Okay. Don't panic—" I began to inform Vee.
"What!? Where are they!?" She immediately panicked.
It took all my mental fortitude, combined with [Roleplay], to not immediately sigh and facepalm.
"There's a giant bird over us. Like, super big. Maybe even worm-sized."
"Shit! Did I manifest their anti-spider measures?" Vee cried out.
"Look. It's not doing anything but observing us for now. But something's wrong with it… It looks dead."
"Zombie bird?" Vee suggested.
"Zombie bird," I agreed.