Duskbound

They paused at the bottom of the lift at Velik's insistence. "I can't do this fast enough to shift in combat yet," he told them.

"Do what?" Torwin asked, but Aria just shushed him and put on an expectant expression.

Rolling his eyes, Velik activated [True Form]. His body rippled, the process as slow as ever. A few seconds later, he stood there in his wolf body. Surprisingly, the injuries he'd suffered felt significantly better. They were still there, of course, just as the ones he'd taken when he'd fought in wolf shape earlier had persisted through his reversion to human form, but the pain was duller.

"What did you do?" Torwin hissed sharply. He cast a glance over his shoulder to ensure the tunnel was still empty before refocusing on Velik.

"I doubt he can communicate in that shape," Aria said. "But the short version is that I found the information he wanted on how to use that class orb. I'll admit, this wasn't the modification I expected him to make to his class, but it's certainly… impressive."

"Damn big wolf. Are you going to fit down here?"

Velik gave the [Ranger] a grin and nodded. If whatever it was that had scraped the lift shaft could fit, then he could, too. And if they did find a spot that was too tight to get there, he could always just shift back. Really, the only downside was that he couldn't quite reach his equipment to benefit from the enchantments placed on it. There had to be a way; he just needed to find it.

"Let's get a look at you then," Torwin said. "Improved stats, I'm assuming? All three? Good, good. No loss of self to monstrous instincts? Good. Can you still use your skills?"

Torwin rattled off a series of questions that Velik nodded along to. The list was concise and comprehensive, so much so that Velik suspected it was a standard set used for anyone whose class gave them the ability to shift forms. It wasn't lost on him that everything could be answered with a yes or a no, which was truthfully about the limit of his ability to communicate at the moment.

Once Torwin was satisfied, they started off again. Velik took the lead, and not just because his senses were sharper or because he'd already been through the area once. His enhanced physical made him by far the most resilient member of their three-man group. If an unexpected attack came at them, he was in the best condition to take it head on, despite his current injuries.

He wasn't sure at first, but after twenty minutes or so, Velik became certain. He hadn't lost the regenerative capabilities he'd wanted from the class orb. They'd just been assigned to his wolf form. Already, the aches were fading from his joints, and some of the smaller cuts he'd taken from the mantis swarm were starting to scab over. He wouldn't be fully recovered by the time [True Form] ended, but he'd have taken a large step in the right direction.

"We're properly in the dungeon now," Aria said. "I'm getting a lot of mana interference with [Horizon Seer], and I don't think [Astral Gateway] could punch through it either. If we need to make a quick retreat, we're going to have to go at least as far back as that busted lift."

"Bottom or top?" Torwin asked.

"Bottom."

"Good. That'll make evacuating Vudra and Lali easier once we've rescued them."

If we rescue them, Velik thought. He still wasn't anything remotely resembling an expert at scent tracking, but he couldn't smell anybody that he couldn't identify. His human scent was there, as were Agora's and Revick's. He could even smell the agents of corruption that had taken control of them. Emberson's scent was faint, something barely in the air and mixed so strongly with the faint whiff of open flames that it almost erased the man's personal smell.

That didn't make much sense to Velik. If nothing else, he should have been able to smell the hunters' trails from when they'd first entered the mine. Though he lacked experience in his wolf shape, he knew that he could track scents that were days old back on the surface, where the weather would work hard to erase them. Down here, he figured he'd be able to smell things from weeks ago.

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Maybe it's a dungeon thing. It recycles bodies back into mana and resets damage to the environment. Why not wipe out scents, too?

Frustratingly, that meant he wouldn't be following the two missing hunters' trails, but that didn't mean the situation was hopeless. There were still some scents to track and every reason to think that they'd lead to what Velik was looking for. He led the group with his nose, stopping briefly to sort things out at the champion's arena where he'd killed the man-bat monster.

The bodies were gone now, but the whole area was still covered in a veneer of monster blood that had yet to be reclaimed. Torwin took a quick look around and shook his head, no doubt picking out the stains of human blood that were a distinctly brighter shade.

"Looks like you had some fun in here," he said. "How many?"

Velik tapped his front paw against the stone twice, which Torwin seemed to get. "This was as far as you went before having to bring some hunters back to the surface? We'll need to be more careful moving forward then."

It was a good thing Velik couldn't speak at that moment, otherwise he'd have had to bite back a comment about already being careful. Instead, he just shot a look at the little ball of light glowing in the air above them, then turned toward Aria. She shrugged and said, "I'd be blind without some light."

"So would you," Torwin told Velik. "You've got to have at least a little bit, even a candle flame, to see underground."

Velik shook his great, shaggy head, causing Torwin to raise his eyebrows. "Well then," the old hunter said, "you've got some tricks I haven't heard of, then."

The stink of monsters drifted into Velik's nose from the far tunnel. Baring his teeth, he tossed his head in that direction and took a step forward. Torwin swept out to the side, an arrow on the string of his bow, and Aria took up a position behind and to the left. She held no weapon in her hand, but Velik didn't doubt she had some skill ready to deploy.

The sound of scratching against bare stone filled the air, dozens and dozens of feet heading their way. Velik was expecting a horde, but he was surprised to instead find only five massive hairy spiders charging into the cavern. Each one was ten feet wide, including the legs. They crawled on the walls and ceiling, all of them bearing two humanoid creatures on their backs. Saddles were strapped to the spiders to keep their riders in place as they went sideways or upside down.

The riders themselves were barely four feet in height, with thick, gray-green skin and drooping features. They hooted and howled when they spotted the trio of hunters, all of them eager for a fight and urging their mounts forward.

"Oh, hell," Torwin swore. "Trolls."

That confused Velik for a moment. He'd read about trolls, of course. They were a common monster in the wild lands, especially mountainous regions, but they were supposed to be two or three times the size of the monsters riding on the backs of the spiders. Then he remembered pygmy trolls—all the ferocity, strength, and regeneration of their larger cousins, with an unquenchable lust for violence replacing the somewhat lazy personality most trolls sported.

Before the first wave could reach them, Aria struck. A spider skirting across the wall of the cavern was her target, and at first, it looked like it had somehow tripped over its own legs. It sprawled over itself, falling off the wall and throwing both its riders free to skid across the stone in the process.

Then it was lifted fully into the air and flung sideways to slam into the wall several times before it crumpled to the ground. The spider died in just a handful of seconds, well before either of the trolls had regained their feet. Torwin started unloading his quiver into the spiders that took his side of the cavern, leaving Velik to deal with the trolls that were shaken loose.

Unlike normal trolls, pygmy trolls were smart enough to use weapons. These ones were armed with thick clubs and short swords, not that they had much skill in either. Not a species of monster overly concerned with finesse or complexity, they enthusiastically swung their weapons at Velik once they were close enough.

Velik ripped into them, ignoring their too-weak attacks as they failed to penetrate or really even sting, but trolls were famous for their regeneration for a reason. Wounds closed before Velik's eyes, and trolls he left gutted on the floor were climbing back to their feet seconds later.

I'm in the wrong form to win this fight. [Mana Drinker] would help kill their regeneration, but my spear is…

It was just out of reach. He could feel it, right there. Stretching his mind, Velik tried to grab hold of it anyway, to pull it free of the extra dimensional space it was stored in. Even if he didn't have time to take on his human shape, he could hold the spear in his jaws and put the weapon's potent enchantment to work.

Instead of the spear materializing, something gave. One moment, he was straining to pull the spear through; the next, he could feel its power coursing through him. His physical shot up the +15 he was used to feeling when he wielded Harbinger of Dusk, and more than that, he could feel his teeth sharpen.

[True Form has advanced to rank 2.]

He didn't have the physical weapon, but he'd managed to wield it anyway. Baring his newly enchanted teeth, Velik lunged forward and clamped down on the closest troll's face. Its screams took on a decidedly different tone, turning from rage to pain in an instant.