Claire was disoriented. Getting taken out of and subsequently put back into her body left her feeling dizzy and lightheaded. The sudden lack of weightlessness felt as foreign as it did familiar, like a slice of pizza at a Chinese buffet. It took the halfbreed a few seconds to shake the sense of malaise, during which she steadied herself with one hand pressed against the ground and the other cradling her skull. Once her proprioception kicked in, she leaned her back against the rune-covered wall. Her guard was down, for the most part, but she still kept her spear at the ready. Just in case.
The first item on her agenda was to test her newest skill. The ability had provided her all the knowhow she needed to activate it, but experimentation was the only way for her to figure out the details pertaining to its use.
"Activate Llystletein Authority."
A pixelated screen popped up in front of her as she spoke the skill's keyphrase.
Llystletein Authority
Spawnable Drinks
- Cosmogoblitan (50MP)
- Mimicosa (50MP)
- Stale Water (25MP)
Spawnable Food
- Hellhog Bolognese (500MP)
- Pulled Orc (150MP)
- Stale Bread (25MP)
Bread and water aside, she had never seen or heard of any of the items listed, but they weren't all that difficult to imagine either. She wasn't familiar enough with the different beverages to deduce their ingredients, but she was able to more or less determine beyond a reasonable doubt that one used mimics in its recipe, while the other contained something at least somewhat related to a goblin. The food items were much easier to picture. Pulled orc was obviously some sort of slow cooked orc dish, while hellhog bolognese was most likely a pasta dish topped with a hellhog-based sauce.
The availability followed two blatant trends. All of them were made of monsters that Claire had personally defeated. And all of them were absolutely revolting.
Hanging her head in disappointment, Claire begrudgingly selected the stale water option. The moss she had eaten earlier hadn't exactly contained enough moisture to stave off her thirst.
A slow, gentle stream of liquid began to flow from the tip of her left index finger. She wasn't confident that her candleholder was sanitary anymore, given that it had both been dunked in poison and thrusted inside of a monster, so she drank directly from the source. The first thought that came to mind as she tasted it was that it was somehow worse than she expected. She immediately wrenched her finger out of her mouth and choked the odd-tasting fluid right back up. Though it looked transparent and clean, it was somehow more disgusting than a drink left unattended for days. And Claire knew exactly what that tasted like. She had once left a cup underneath her bed and forgotten about it for an entire week. Choosing to drink it upon its rediscovery had not exactly been a crowning achievement, but it was one that eventually found its way to her wall of shame. And yet, the fluid that came out of her finger made even that seem delicious by contrast. It was difficult for her to even think of the stuff as water.
With her thirst as quenched as her taste buds would allow and her curiosity sated by revulsion, Claire moved onto the next item on her list, determining the way forward. There were three paths available, left, right, and center. She had, to an extent, explored both the left and right. The left was where she had come from initially, and the right was where she had stalked the hellhog. There was still much to explore in both directions but her curiosity kept her preoccupied with the path in the center.
The old mage-cum-librarian had gone out of his way to advise her not to take it. And that was exactly why it was on her mind, as there were several different ways to interpret his warning. The first was that he genuinely wanted to give her advice. The second was that he was blatantly lying to actively combat her efforts to truly reach the lost library. And the third and most likely possibility was that he had mentioned it just to mess with her and force her through the exact dilemma that she was currently experiencing.
"I'm not going to let that old bat get the better of me."
Claire started walking down the long, winding hallway that was the middle path. It was wide enough to fit five or so fully armoured men standing side by side, or ten Claires. And that made her anxious. There was too much space to keep an eye on. Despite what she had said out loud, the halfbreed was unable to shake her nervousness. She couldn't help but think about the potential dangers or payoffs that awaited her. It didn't help that each step slowly led her further and further downwards, giving her the impression that she was slowly descending into the abyss.
Unlike the other paths she had trodden so far, this one didn't have any particular branches. It remained more or less identical for something in the realm of thirty minutes, save its curvature, which seemed to grow more aggressive as she got further down. She wasn't confident in her measurement of the time elapsed. The lack of missing health made it more difficult for her to keep track of the clock, and the bit of mana she had spent on water had regenerated nearly instantly.
At the end of the spiralling corridor was a particularly large room, wide enough to fit well over a hundred men, shoulder to shoulder, and just as long. The countless pillars that filled the chamber led her eyes towards its ceiling, a large multilayered construct in the shape of a drill. The further its petals got from the walls, the lower they hung, with the lowest point culminating in the exit Claire had just taken.
At the opposite end of the enclosure was a massive set of double doors, in front of which stood an equally massive knight. His helmet was in the shape of a horse's head, with the sides open to reveal a pair of jagged, ivory horns. His cherry red plate armour was marred by countless scratches, each painted over with dried blood. Even more terrifying was his halberd, an axe-spear hybrid whose blade was as long as Claire was tall.
The two locked eyes. Claire found a pair of glowing red dots staring right into her own slit-eyed pupils even though the two were over a hundred meters apart. A moment later, the creature roared. It raised its head and snarled at the top of its lungs in a primal display of dominance. The halfbreed froze like a deer in headlights, regaining control only when she realized that a creaking sound was coming from behind her. She spun around immediately and spotted a gate slowly closing over the door from which she had entered. Without a moment's hesitation, she dove right through it, sprinting back up the way she came.
And not a moment too late.
The gate, which had closed behind her, was nearly blown apart by a halberd-turned-projectile. The spikey tip pierced all the way through, embedding itself into the wall.
Claire kept looking back as she dashed, stopping only a minute or so after she realized it was too large to follow her up. She was on the verge of concluding that it was safe for her to drop her guard when her ears picked up on an odd skittering sound, sourced from the path that lay ahead.
A long yet fat shadow suddenly appeared from around the corner, followed closely by its projector, a beaver-like rodent that stood at half her height on all fours. Its wide, floppy tail was tipped with stone-like armour, and its short incisors sharpened to a point.
She didn't hesitate to attack the creature. Adrenaline still pumping through her veins from the previous encounter, Claire practically flew at her newly discovered target. Head aside, she wasn't able to identify any vitals, so she stabbed at the largest target, its back, for the time being.
And failed.