We’re alive.  Chloe and Alexey and I are all three battered and bruised and pummeled.  My thigh is still bleeding despite my attempts to suture the wound with the same tendril that pierced it moments earlier.  Alexey is struggling just to stand, and I’m not confident in my ability to even that much, though that’s more my leg injury than my overall lack of energy.

But despite how battered we all are, there’s no word that properly describes the situation we’re in right now other than victory.  EMMI’s avatar is a flickering mess of lights and incoherent sounds, and the pulsing of Ether on the ground is erratic and haphazard, with continued leakages spewing out teal gas that dissolves into the air.  I’m not sure how many floors are left before we get to a teleportation point, but the answer can’t be too many now.  At least, it better not be.  I know the three of us can’t handle another fight of that intensity right now, even with the level I gained and the two Alexey and Chloe likely did.

Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be any further sign of attack.  I send a silent prayer to the goddesses, thanking them for that much, before stumbling around the room, looking for treasure.  Which lasts for all of about three seconds before the adrenaline starts to subside in earnest, the endorphins fade, and all the pain from the previous battle starts to build up in full force.  Not overwhelming, in the sense that all I can do is cry in the fetal position.  But, you know, on par with what I’d expect from being stabbed in the thigh.  Less painful than being stabbed in the ass, which, to my chagrin, I still remember as well.

“You should rest, Seraphina,” Alexey says.  “Even if you can tolerate the pain right now, or even if you’re feeling fine, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t injured.  And it doesn’t mean you aren’t aggravating that injury or making the recovery that much longer and more painful.”

I turn to Chloe, still resting, such a peaceful smile on her face.  I can’t help but envy her just a bit.  I mean, I envy her a lot for other reasons as well.  She’s beautiful and resourceful and strong and kind and compassionate and caring and loving and considerate and… I could go on and on.  But right now, I’m envious of how contented she looks as she lies on the hard floor, her chest slowly rising and falling without a care in the world.

And so, with no immediate threats in the room and the Tower Warden not likely to appear in the imminent future, given we just dealt with a boss fight, I sit down cross legged and meditate.  With hardly any [Ether] left in my body, I can’t very effectively perform my [Ether] training exercises, but I figure it’s as good a time as any to focus my mind.  See if I can’t make any progress toward Skill fusion or evolution or… something.  I don’t know.

Alexey’s right.  I should be resting.  And Chloe will have more than a few choice words to say to me for continuing to push myself so hard when I’m beat up this much.  And the spatterings of dried blood on my skin and armor, my haggard, disheveled hair, and the fact that my armor is nowhere close to regenerating itself are testament to this truth.  The problem is, I really, really hate being idle.  The time limit might be measured in decades or even millennia rather than hours or minutes, but the whole universe is on a timer.  And I’d rather not see this one pop just like the last.

“Dammit, Seraphina!” Chloe exclaims as she looks over the injury on my leg.  “Why do you have to be so… goddesses-damned reckless every time there’s a fight?  Like, seriously, you’re one of the smartest women I know, and you mean to tell me that you couldn’t have come up with something better than letting yourself get stabbed in the leg?  Like, one of these times, you’re going to get it hacked off, and in case you’ve somehow forgotten, I don’t have a spell that can regrow lost limbs.  Supposedly I’ll get one early in my next class, but…  That’s beside the point, Sera!”

“But–”

“The next words out of your mouth had better not be ‘But Chloe, I can always build a new one’.  Because, I swear to every goddess you have ever invoked that I will…”  She grits her teeth and takes a deep breath.  “Besides, what’s going to happen once you get something injured that you can’t so easily replace with metal and artifice?”  Her eyes fixate on my own, then trace their way down to between my legs.

“Uh, love, Alexey is still here, and can probably still hear us just fine from across the room.”

“Well, if it will get you to exercise a bit more self-preservation instinct, then I will shout it in front of the entire city!  Have I made myself clear, Seraphina?”

I sigh.  “Yes, Chloe.”

“Good girl.  Now let’s get you patched up, and then, once you are properly healed, we can go looking for all the treasure that we have properly earned.”

Gosh darn it, I think to myself with a smug smile on my face, watching as Chloe kneels down next to me, casting her healing magic over my many, many wounds.  For all the hell the three of us just went through, I just might be the luckiest woman in the entire universe right now.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell as she pulls the rest of the whip out of me…  Still not sure what it’s made of, exactly.  And it’s quite the material as well, capable of being either hard or soft, flexible or incredibly sturdy and resilient to tensile forces.

I pull out the strange piece of metal from way back at the start of the expedition.  At least, I think it’s metal, based on its silvery gray color, heat conductivity, and general weight and resilience.  It’s about as dense as a block of iron or steel, but it seems to have a will of its own.  Or…  No, maybe that’s not it.  It’s a material that is capable of absorbing and transmitting Ether naturally, without needing glyphs and conduits.  In doing so, it shapes itself in accordance with the will of its wielder.  This… intuitively feels right, but I don’t want to rely solely on intuition.

Tentatively, until more testing is done, I’ll call the strange substance etherium.

“How are you feeling now, Sera?” Chloe asks, finishing up her treatments.

I take a deep breath, not feeling any pain in my leg or lungs or anywhere else.  I rotate my neck and shoulder a couple of times, still not sensing any pain or discomfort.  With a bit of trepidation, and a little help from Chloe, I stand up and do some more stretches, not feeling anything particularly sore or otherwise out of the ordinary.

“I feel great,” I say.  “Like magic.”

Chloe rolls her eyes at me.  “Oh, love, I assure you.  It wasn’t like magic.”

I wink.  “I know.”

“Alright you two,” Alexey says in a stern tone.  “If the two of you are done flirting and patching yourselves together, I think I found something that might interest you.”

This piques my attention.  The two of us walk over to where the man is standing, though my attention is quickly seized by the large red chest right beside him.  A stereotypical treasure chest, so pristine in appearance that I can’t help but assume that anything this obvious has got to be a trap.  And yet, after the fight against EMMI, this would be the perfect time to give us our just rewards.  Or lure us to our death with a false sense of security. 

However, I still have [Seraphina Overlimit] as a failsafe if it really is the latter.  And so, with a hint of hesitation, followed by reassuring nods from both my comrades, I open the treasure chest.

The mix of items I find inside is eclectic for sure.  A pair of compound eyeglasses, a staff adorned with a brilliant, deep-blue sapphire, a phial containing an odd pink liquid, a diamond-shaped piece of silvery metal, and a golden medallion.  Oh, and, upon closer inspection, there’s a sheet of folded paper underneath the medallion.  It doesn’t look like any Skill Book I’ve ever seen before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be something similar.

“I suppose I’ll take the staff,” Chloe says.  “I’m the only one who can use staves among us.”

I take the glasses.  I’m not sure exactly what they do just yet, but I have something akin to an artificer class and neither Chloe nor Alexey wear glasses, so far as I’ve seen.  Alexey doesn’t make any move to protest, and so I slip them on, astonished and relieved at what I see when I try to equip them.

[[Artificer’s Glasses]: A pair of delicate eyeglasses with multiple lenses providing magnification up to 100x.  In addition, they are embedded with a simple neural core which enables their wearer to use [Inspect] at will, at a cost of 20 [Ether] per use.

[Inspect]: A simple form of identification magic used by artificers, crafters, metallurgists, dungeon delvers, and others who frequently work with unknown substances and items.  When used, the Skill provides a simple layout of the object’s name, function, and, if equippable, general parameters.  Does not work on living beings.]

“About damn time,” I say, turning to a bemused Chloe.  “Glasses cast a weak [Inspect] variant.  No effect on living beings.”

“About damn time indeed.  So, what else do we have?”

I put the glasses on, stowing my [Brooch of Ambition] away in my [Inventory].  Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be any cooldown on swapping between accessories.  Not sure if I’d want to risk doing so in the middle of a fight, so it’d be good to test that out before push comes to shove.

“Ooh,” Chloe says.  “You are really starting to look like an artificer with those glasses on.  Very fancy.”  She giggles a bit.

“Well, I figure if the arm didn’t give that away, then maybe I just need to be a bit less subtle about it.”  I push my glasses up with the index finger of my mechanical left hand.  “Now then, let’s see what we have here.”

[[Potion of Sagacity]: A foul-tasting pink liquid infused with Etheric energy and brewed by a master alchemist.  When the entire dose is consumed, it permanently raises the drinker’s [Mind] by a small amount.]

“Here, Chloe,” I say.  “It won’t taste good, but this potion will make your spells stronger going forward.”

“Wait, shouldn’t you drink it?” she asks.

“No.  I’m a hybrid spellcaster-gunner, while you’re a pure mage.  You’ll get more use out of a higher [Mind] stat than I will.”  I switch to telepathy, not wanting Alexey to hear this next part.  “And you have a far greater [Ether] regeneration rate.  Which means, thanks to our bond’s [Transference], you can donate that regeneration to me in a pinch.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them and nods.  “Fine.”

A moment later, she uncaps the bottle and downs the whole thing like a shot.  She immediately starts gagging, fighting the urge to spit it up.  Just from the smell, I can tell that it must taste absolutely abhorrent, and I don’t envy her one bit.  The least I can offer her is a couple of pieces of chocolate, which she immediately takes out of my hand the moment I summon it forth.

“Disgusting!” she screams out.  “You weren’t kidding when you said it was foul!”  She swallows the chocolate, then takes a long drink of water to wash all the sludge out of her mouth.  “Even made the chocolate taste bad!  But… it worked as you said it would.”

“I’m glad to hear, both that it worked, and that my glasses aren’t a total dud.  Now then, shall we continue on with the rest of our goodies?”