The stillness of Floor 230 settled over the group like a heavy blanket, the only sounds the rhythmic breathing of the exhausted trio and the soft scrape of Takara's tools as she worked a dent out of Andri's greave. Eryndra sat near the entryway, picking bits of chimera shell from her armor with methodical care, her expression one of bored intensity.
Roy unrolled his sleeping bag against the far wall, smoothing the fabric with a reverence usually reserved for holy relics.
"Finally," he muttered, syncing his bones to the cold, hard reality of the stone floor. "Safe. Quiet. Boring."
Lynder moved around the perimeter, the tip of his staff dragging through the dust to trace complex sigils. "Triple-layered proximity ward," he announced, his voice raspy, the age showing in the stoop of his shoulders. "Nothing crosses this threshold without triggering an alarm loud enough to wake the dead."
"Good. Don't wake me unless it is the dead," Roy grunted, turning onto his side. "Or food. Actually, only for food."
Minutes ticked by in blessed silence. Orin's soft snoring began to echo, a peaceful rhythm in the dark.
Then a puff of cold air, damp and smelling of mildew, exhaled directly against the back of Roy's neck. It was focused. Intentional.
Roy rolled, scrambling to his feet, sidearm leveled at the empty space where his head had been seconds before.
"Show yourself!"
"Roy?" Eryndra was up, her relaxed posture vanishing into a coil of violence. "What is it?"
"Something breathed on me," Roy hissed, eyes darting. "Right there."
"My wards are silent," Lynder said, checking the glowing lines. "There is nothing physical in that space."
Across the room, Rava yelped, slapping a hand to his ear. Blood welled between his fingers. "Something cut me!" he shouted, stumbling back.
"Where?" Orin yelled, sword in hand, sleep banished. "I don't see it!"
"Behind me!"
"I am looking behind you! There is only a wall!"
Takara gasped, pitching forward as if shoved hard from the back. She caught herself on a knee, whipping around with a blast of runic light that illuminated nothing but dust motes.
"It's here!" she shouted, backing up until she collided with JFK. "It's right on top of us!"
Eryndra snarled, a low, vibrating sound of pure aggression. She lashed out with a backhand strike, the movement blurring the air. Her fist connected with the solid stone pillar, pulverizing the masonry with a deafening crack. Dust rained down on her as her anger grew.
"Stop hiding!" she roared, spinning, seeking a target that refused to exist. She swung again, a hook at empty air, her momentum carrying her into a frustration-fueled spin.
Sparks erupted from Lynder's perimeter. A rune flared brilliant blue, triggering a binding chain that shot upward to wrap an intruder's leg. The chain snapped shut on vacuum, rattling uselessly before dissolving.
Lynder stared at the void. "It triggered the trap!" he shouted, then paused. "Yet... the trap is empty?"
"It keeps pecking at us, a monster this weak is this deep in the dungeon?" Takara whispered, touching a new, shallow scratch on her bracer.
"A Neversaught," Lynder breathed, the realization leeching color from his face. "The combination of weak attacks and overwhelming speed, it must be. Though I admit that I've have never once fought one myself."
"Never-what?" Roy demanded, spinning in a circle.
"A 'curse-beast,'" Lynder stated, tapping his ring to punctuate his explanation. "Legends say it is the fastest creature in existence, faster than thought. It remains just beyond your peripheral vision. But, the instant you try to face it with purpose, it has already moved to your blind spot. While its attack power is negligible, its speed is unparalleled."
"Fast?" Roy yelled. "Great. How do we kill it?"
"We engulf the entire space," Lynder declared, desperation creeping into his voice. "If speed is its weapon, we deny it room to run."
He planted his feet and dark veins of corruption magic pulsed beneath his pale skin as he drew on the deepest reserves of his mana. "Arcane Shadow Magic: The Devourer's Net!"
Shadows exploded from Lynder's position, a tidal wave of ink-black darkness surging outward to fill every cubic inch of the room. It washed over the party, over the walls, sealing the space in a suffocating void meant to entrap anything with physical form aside from his allies. The darkness held for three crushing heartbeats.
With a wheezing gasp, Lynder released the spell. The shadows drained away, revealing the room exactly as it had been. Empty.
Collapsing to one knee and gasping for air, Lynder clutched his chest. "I missed," he choked out. He continued, "Molding mana for over two hundred floors at my age was unwise; I've been a bit overzealous. My reserves are now critical."
"You missed even though you hit the whole room?" Orin asked, confused.
"It moved!" Lynder snapped, his patience fraying under the weight of exhaustion. "It must have been above me when I cast... then it moved again... its speed is impossible to track!"
Roy slid down the wall, burying his face in his hands. The adrenaline crashed, leaving him with a fatigue so profound his bones felt made of lead. He didn't care anymore. Let the ghost-chicken peck him. He just wanted to sleep.
"I'm done," he mumbled, staring blankly across the room. His mind went slack until he saw it. Standing directly behind Eryndra, three feet away, was a creature.
It was a biological joke. It looked like a raw, plucked chicken that had been stretched on a torture rack. Loose, gray skin hung in folds off a skeletal frame that trembled under its own weight. Its bulbous head swiveled on a spindly neck, massive, milky eyes rolling independently. It vibrated with nervous energy, its long, wet tongue flicking out to taste the air near Eryndra's tense shoulders.
"Uh," Roy said, his voice flat. "I can see it just fine, guys."
Every head swiveled toward him.
"Where?" Eryndra hissed, muscles bunching to strike.
"Don't look!" JFK ordered sharply. "Do not turn, Lady Eryndra." He looked at Roy. "Captain, your heart rate is near sleep levels. You have no combat readiness."
"Yeah, I'm beat," Roy admitted. "It's… kind of pathetic looking."
"The force behind its speed isn't really speed at all. It must be based on hostility," JFK reasoned, his voice calm amidst the tension. "Hostile intent forces the relocation via teleportation. You are the only neutral observer now, so it remains visible to you."
"So what do I do? It's just standing there, looking like a wet sock."
"Intimidate it," JFK advised. "You must herd it, corner it, and effectively trap it. Show dominance, but never even think of violence. It is crucial not to launch an attack, as this will prevent it from triggering its teleportation. I have a plan."
Roy sighed, long and bitter, a sound dragged over rusted metal. He pushed himself from the wall, shrugged his coat into place, and tilted his chin upward, face twisting into the arrogant boredom of a ringleader about to humiliate an unruly beast. Every step toward the Neversaught carried the slow rhythm of contempt, deliberate and dripping disdain.
The creature's milky eyes snapped wide, head jerking violently toward Roy, sensing the approach of a predator who had forgotten fear long ago. Its limbs twitched, poised for a flinch, waiting for hostility, for the warning flash of mana, the tightening coil of muscles, but found nothing. Roy's pulse stayed low, cold as a surgeon's blade, radiating only empty scorn.
"Scary, is it?" Roy murmured, voice heavy as velvet curtains sliding shut, amusement flickering dark behind lazy eyelids. "You? I've performed for darker dreams than you."
A thin hiss escaped the creature's throat, one nervous leg shifting beneath it, weight trembling from side to side. It cast its milky gaze toward Eryndra, pleading silently for violence, a strike that would allow escape, but Eryndra, fists at her sides, offered only silence and stubborn indifference.
Roy stepped closer, slow enough to feel each hesitation ripple through the creature's frame. "Look around, little thing. There's no spotlight for your cowardice tonight. No gasps from the gallery."
He leaned in, eyes half-lidded, voice a whisper soaked in poison and velvet. "Run. Go on, run. No one's coming to help you. All that's left in this life for you is that corner."
Panic seized the creature, as the hostility it fed on was suddenly gone. For the first time, it had to rely solely on its physical capabilities. It turned to run, but could only manage a clumsy waddle.
The legendary speed Lynder had feared was a lie. Without the curse-teleportation, the Neversaught moved with the grace of an arthritic duck on polished ice. Its knobby knees knocked together, its long arms tangling with its feet as it frantically shuffled away from Roy.
"That..." Lynder stared, dumbfounded. "That is the speed of legend?"
"It's so slow," Orin whispered, watching the terror of the dungeon trip over a pebble.
Roy kept walking, needing only to herd the pathetic retreat until it backed into a dead-end corner of the room. Pressed against the stone, the Neversaught gibbered, swiping its long claws at Roy in a desperate, flailing defense.
"Light Barrier," Roy murmured.
A wall of hard light snapped into place, sealing the corner. The creature shrieked, hammering its claws against the barrier. A sound like breaking china echoed as its brittle nails shattered against the construct. It stared at its broken fingers, trembling.
"So… what now?" Roy yelled out.
"It is contained," JFK stated. "However, a direct attack will still trigger a displacement behind the attacker. We have trapped it, not killed it."
"So we can't kill it?" Takara asked.
Stepping forward, Truman countered, "That is not what he said." His heavy chassis panels shifted, and cooling vents hissed open. A sphere of blinding, chaotic white energy began to coalesce in his palm, causing the air around it to shimmer with sudden, intense heat.
"Truman..." Roy cautioned, his nervous gaze fixed on the nuke. "Launching that at the creature will cause it to teleport behind you, completely nullifying our efforts and wasting my time!"
"Precisely," Truman responded, his optical sensors whirring as they locked onto Roy. "That is why the monster is not my target."
Truman's arm drew back, his optical sensors now aimed squarely at Roy's face. "I am targeting you, Captain."
A look of pure astonishment crossed Roy's face. "Wait, wha—"
"Fission: Fat Lady."
Truman threw the orb. He put his entire mechanical chassis into the pitch, a fastball, screaming through the air straight at Roy's head.
"TRUMAN, WHAT THE F—"
"Shrink the barrier, Captain!" JFK roared.
Terror overrode confusion. Roy collapsed the Light Barrier from a cage around the monster into a skin-tight second skin around his own body. He curled into a ball, squeezing his eyes shut. The Neversaught, suddenly free but ignored, blinked in confusion.
The orb struck Roy's shield a fraction of a second after the monster's cage vanished. The explosion was contained by the heavy stone walls, magnifying the concussion into a bone-rattling slam. A flash of absolute white erased the shadows, the corner, and the monster.
Roy was punted backward like a soccer ball, bouncing violently inside his bubble as the shockwave pulverized the floor. The Neversaught ceased to be physics, its biology unraveling into atomic dust.
Smoke billowed out, heavy with the scent of pulverized rock.
Brushing imaginary dust from his hands, Truman quipped, "Well, it seems the Neversaught got caught in the blast. You're welcome, everyone."
From the smoking crater in the corner, a groan echoed. The dust thinned to reveal Roy, uncurling from his fetal position. His barrier flickered before it fades. He flopped onto the blackened stone, soot smudged across his face, coughing.
"I..." Roy wheezed, pointing a shaking finger at the Presidroid. "I am going to turn you into the Nightshatter's new toaster."
Lynder leaned heavily on his knees, exhaustion etched on his face. "I'm just going to willfully ignore the fact that you took that entire attack without a scratch," he mumbled, sounding incredibly old, "because my mana is gone and I am spent. All that effort for a creature that... waddles. I desperately need a nap."
Takara surveyed the room. The floor was a wasteland of craters, slag, and debris.
"So," she stated, "we still sleeping here?"
Roy stared at the destroyed ceiling before groaning and pulling himself upright. "No. Absolutely not. Pack it up. We're finding a floor that makes sense. Let's move."