Museum Core Chapter 86: Curses and Mummies Oh My

Jaclyn hadn’t been to the British Museum in over a decade. Well, she’d visited six months ago with her daughter, but they’d left after ten minutes because Eve had seen the cat mummy and started bawling.

Technically, she could have stayed and inflicted her inconsolable child on everyone else the way she’d seen others do, but people who did that were assholes and terrible parents, two groups she did her best to disqualify herself from.

So she’d left, planning to come back and studiously avoid the room with the mummies the next time. That hadn’t wound up happening, for obvious reasons.

But even so, she knew the museum was supposed to have a wholly different layout; there wasn’t supposed to be a wall right there in the middle of the main entrance … right?

Either way, they had a bit of an unusual lineup here.

She was there, obviously, and so was Henderson, for them to form the front line together, alternating as tanks as needed, since they were both suited to the role in very different ways.

Jaclyn was tougher, especially when her opponent was far larger than herself, but she was also light as a feather compared to most monsters. In order to play the tank, she needed to keep an enemy’s attention, because physically interposing herself would usually result in her getting brushed aside.

Henderson, meanwhile, was as unmoving as a mountain when struck, but, at the same time, it wasn’t that he didn’t use her trick of letting herself get moved to bled off the force of a blow, he outright couldn’t. He needed to survive the impact, or he needed to dodge, with comparatively little space in between.

Perhaps, the ultimate tank combination would be the one she’d thought about but discarded upon hitting D-Rank, one that used the Honey Badger as a base, with its ability to minimize damage and land devastating counterattacks, carrying one through the early ranks and earning the right to choose Ancient Bond as a power.

It would certainly be easier than how Henderson had done it, as a grizzly bear. Having a bond at the top of the food chain was nice and all, but having powers meant to be used from a position of strength could be tricky when that wasn’t where you were at.

The honey badger, on the other hand? It fought off jaguars, hyenas, lions, and all the other “monsters” of the savannah so successfully that cheetah cubs even copied the coloration of baby badgers to gain the same protection the offspring of Africa’s most disrespectful menace enjoyed.

And then, when you’d hit D-Rank, you picked ankylosaurus, the herbivore who could not give two shits who or what wanted to eat them, because they were just. That. Tough.

As for the E-Rank ability, that was honestly up to the individual. Projection synergized with the honey badger, transformation with the ankylosaurus.

In addition, being able to transform might further add mass and armor, but it would also turn you into a massive obstacle between your allies and your enemy, which could easily wind up fouling their attacks as thoroughly as it did the same to the foe.

Granted, with Henderson’s mastery of rapid shifting, it was much less of an issue than it might otherwise have been, but the point still stood.

Granger was there too, of course; he was still their best mage by a long shot, though that was only if you focused on the human citizens of the United Kingdom.

Because Gula Worldstrider, leader and shaman of all orcs on Earth, was far older and more powerful. Well, to be honest, it was mostly a difference of ten years and ten levels, but her experience blew him out of the water.

Oh, and she’d also considerably grown with easy access to a dungeon.

And then, finally, you had the last member of the group, Samuel Harper, who was normally in charge of all things medical within the BPA. He was even bigger than Henderson, at least when the former marine was in his human form, and presently sporting a glorious head of shoulder-length hair, courtesy of a slight mishap with a hair growth tonic.

As if he didn’t already look like enough of a hippy/druid with all the pouches overflowing with herbs that covered his current outfit.

He really needed to level up directly, fulfilling his Class’ purpose provided very little advancement.

His ability to create magical medicines could be stockpiled, unlike every other healing power they had at their disposal, but it wasn’t strong enough just yet.

Potions, true “swallow and forget” magical healing items, were sadly still out of the question. Even if they’d had the recipes, Harper was the wrong man to make them. Or rather, he wasn’t the right one.

His class worked by enhancing specific properties of herbs and natural remedies to truly supernatural heights while suppressing side effects. Which was all well and good … except his materials were no longer the same afterwards, especially in the alchemical sense. He couldn’t use his abilities and the end result in any kind of traditional alchemy.

So while yes, he could brew something like a potion, he wouldn’t be any better at it than literally anyone else on Earth.

Of course, the Worldstride Tribe had a vast library to use in conjunction with their Healer of Nature Class, which was great … or it would have been, had it covered Earth’s flora.

And so on, and so forth.

“Oooh … I wonder what’s in there,” Granger asked out loud, gleefully rubbing his hands as he tried to peer into the depths of the museum.

“Just remember that curiosity killed the cat,” Henderson commented, giving the young mage a knowing look.

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Granger shot back.

“What?”

“That’s the full, original quote: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,” Granger grinned.

“Did you eat a book of idioms or something?” Hendreson asked with mock suspicion.

“What quote do you think gets thrown at my head the most?” Granger replied. “Also, I think I have a better quote for the delve: leave the blocking to the blockhead.”

Jaclyn tensed, ready to step in and tear a strip from both of them if this escalated, and perhaps even separate them after all this was over, since they clearly couldn’t be civil … but Henderson just started laughing uproariously.

When had that happened? Since when were those two friends?

But apparently they were, however that had come about.

Either way, there was a task at hand, and it was time to focus.

“We’ve all been through this before, so I’m not going to spend too long talking about this,” Jaclyn began. “Henderson and I will be in the lead, intercepting whatever enemies we’re best suited to fight, Granger, take out anything we can’t easily beat but save your mana, Gula, you do the same but keep enough mana in reserve that you’ll be able to summon the Caladrius in case of an emergency, Harper, you’re our healer. Keep yourself safe, all else is secondary, you can’t heal anyone if you’re dead.”

Of course, they were still operating under “treaty rules,” but relying on that to save them in all situations was a bad idea even before considering how getting used to that protection might bite them in the ass in all other situations.

The others gave their ascent and, well, in they went.

Slowly, cautiously, but they still went inside, marching into the bowels of a monster lair, something that would have been unthinkable even a few months ago. Certainly not for “power.” To save someone, sure, but not for personal gain.

Jaclyn did her best to dismiss the innane thoughts invading at the worst possible times. It might have worked, but she wasn’t sure if she’d fully managed it. But when did you get to entirely control your own mindset? She was as free of distractions as she could reliably make herself outside of combat.

Since the entrance to the museum’s central room, which used to be a courtyard before the roof had been put in, was closed, and the corridor to the left wasn’t present either, Jaclyn turned to the right, into an area that used to hold several miscalaneous items in glass cases, including a reliquary said to contain a fragment of the crown of thorns that was placed upon the head of Jesus Christ … and, in fact, it was all still there. Nothing had changed here, but that didn’t have to mean anything.

Step by step, she advanced, head on a swivel, concentrating on every change, every little sound, even any new smells that tickled her nose, which had recently reached the point where she could put a bloodhound to shame.

But there was nothing. The first room was clear. Had Daedalus simply not bothered to trap this place, or was it meant to ratchet up the paranoia of the delvers?

Silently cursing the dungeon core, Jaclyn waved the rest of her group in, then stepped into the next room.

The library.

Long, lined with shelves containing not just books but also countless other small items such as taxidermied pheasants, and not-so-small objects such as a not-so-small set of medieval plate armor.

But what really caught her eye were the things that were decidedly not supposed to be there.

Several suits of armor were where there’d originally just been the one, and they were squarely in the middle of the room, completely in the way, and the dozens of vases were supposed to be in the pottery section in the back of the museum. Not to mention that every single vase was entirely identical, for some reason that seemed important.

But she didn’t have enough time to puzzle that out as the first several vases immediately proceeded to fly at the, hurled by invisible hands.

Jaclyn punched the nearest one, shattering it to pieces while twisting her head away to cover as many of her vitals as possible. Though as she was, taking a ceramic shard to the eye or jugular would not exactly be pleasant.

The ceramic gave way easily beneath her spectral badger paw and slashed across the side of her head and tearing into her jacket, leaving behind numerous small and shallow scratches that wouldn’t bother her at all.

Henderson did something similar, body-checking his way through the projectiles with his broad, shelled back as he partially transformed into a dinosaur, then spun to intercept whatever came next … which turned out to be a second salvo of vases.

Jaclyn thought to respond the same way, but then … then the damn thing detonated like a damn frag grenade before her fist ever made contact, barely giving her enough time to close her eyes and twist to ensure her injuries were neither crippling, nor lethal.

And when she opened her eyes, the movement causing ceramic shards to fall from her forehead, she saw the first salvo of vases was already reforming upon the shelves. Not to mention that the third salvo was already in the air.

Uh-oh …

This time, she threw herself flat at the last possible moment, the vases detonating at just far enough that she wasn’t seriously hurt, then she rolled to her feet and punched the chestplate of the nearest suit of animated armor.

“Protect them,” Jaclyn ordered Henderson, trusting his massive size to provide a physical obstacle to the projectiles.

And then her projection shattered against the breastplate of the nearest animated suit of armor, but the sheer momentum of her blow carried her hand straight into the solid wall of metal.

The suit of armor was the hardest thing she’d ever punched, and Jaclyn could tell that she’d come within an inch of breaking her own bones. Only the fact that her hand had somewhat slowed when the projection had made contact had saved her from a painful injury. And the thing was also somehow entirely resistant to being knocked back, despite the fact that she could rip her way through a main battle tank with ease by now.

It was at this point that the suit of armor did something other than “walk” for the first time, lashing out at her head with a speed she’d never have expected.

Jaclyn ducked under the massive gauntlet, then slammed her claws up through its armpit and tore sideways, ripping off the arm to reveal … nothing. The armor was as empty as the vases had been, and all she’d managed to achieve was removing a limb without hurting it in the slightest.

The surprise slowed her reaction enough for its knee to catch her in the ribs, and this time, she went flying … where the vases promptly proceeded to target her, detonating like old-school AA shells, forcing her to curl into a ball. Which, in turn, made landing properly frustratingly hard, leaving her to bounce across the floor and slide almost all the way back to the entrance.

Cursing, Jaclyn rolled to her feet and charged right back into the fray, cursing internally. These things were her worst nightmare. She still had no idea as to what to target with those darn vases, and even targeting the weaknesses of the armor failed to make an impact.

Would they have to resort to having the magic users burn through their mana just to clear the first room?

Jaclyn lunged at the armor again, but she switched to a palm strike. Less damaging and worse and concentrating the force of her blows, but also near certain to not leave her with broken fingers.

The leopard fist had been great against foes of flesh and blood even before she’d gained the ability to add actual claws like some phantasmal knuckle duster. But she’d been targetting weak points or, at the very least, flesh. Slamming her hand against a solid, unyielding surface was an entirely different beast.

So she began to pummel the suit of armor, leaving shallow but wide dents, as well as ripping into the joints, tearing off pieces of armor bit by bit, until she realized the pieces were flying back into place after a brief period.

And then the next vase flew at her, but this time, she prematurely shattered it by hurling a pauldron through it, then unleashed her magic.

Would “cleaning” it work to counter the reconstitution? Would it go far enough?

Her mana level plummeted like a stone, bottoming out almost instantly, while her focus on the ceramic shards littering the floor around her forced her to abandon her efforts against the walking plate armor.

But by the time she was done, there was nothing left of the projectile, not even dust. The ceramic debris had been “cleaned” into non-existence, and it did not reform on the shelf, yet the effort was not repeatable, not with her tiny mana pool.

***

Thomas grinned internally as he watched.

So there was something the Deputy Director was not good against. Her build, her defense, her mobility, and her reflexes were powerful, borderline overpowered against most of the creatures in his dungeon. Even those that didn’t rely on the toxins, she was immune to.

But things without easy weaknesses to counterattack into? Those seemed to be able to beat on her like a rented mule. And since she was so tough, he didn’t even have to pull his punches in accordance with the treaty.

Unfortunately, that was when the whole affair seemed to have been taken a little bit too far, and the magic users cut loose. Or maybe the next attack had taken a while to charge.

Dozens of small magic missiles shot across the room, shattering every single vase at once, whether they were in flight, on the shelves, or presently reforming themselves after pulling themselves out of Henderson’s back. It was complete and utter overkill; the Shattering Poltergeists would be killed the instant the specific bonded vase they were inhabiting at a given time was destroyed, but smashing them all at the same time was merely a way to make sure that happened, he supposed.

Not to mention that suddenly, ethereal strings began to connect the wreckage to one of the orc shaman’s outstretched hands, coalescing into a spectral vase that multiplied after another moment, with the second one leaping across the battlefield to detonate against the chest of a still-standing armor.

A solid bar of heat punched through the chest of a second armor, which immediately died as the magical attack killed the animating spirit.

Apparently, that was when everyone put together that while physical attacks could damage the shell, as evidenced by the fact that Henderson had been able to flatten one simply by sitting on it in dino-form without killing it, magic was required to destroy the spirit itself.

Whether it was communication on a level he was yet to crack or a simple matter of simultaneous realizations, Thomas couldn’t tell, however.

The rest of the armor didn’t last long either. Physically ripping it open, then punching a manifested badger claw through the open chestplate worked for Abrams, Granger’s attacks also worked at a much-reduced level of power if they went through an opening, and Gula’s floating lightning covered halcyon projection obliterated the last armor.

So, that was the first room done, handled reasonably well. But why was the director still looking so apprehensive?

***

And now came the part Jaclyn truly hated about delving with Harper. The over-the-top healing, the point where she’d almost call it “mothering,” wasn’t without reason; the more he healed, the more he leveled, but even she wasn’t this fussy with her own daughter over tiny scratches, so why the hell was he being this intense about it?

The whole affair was fairly simple. he pulled out a small tin with a brown paste and started rubbing a tiny amount on each scratch, then placed a vibrant-looking leaf on the wound, instantly fixing injuries that had already stopped bleeding and would likely be gone in a matter of hours anyway.

She could see Henderson trying not to laugh behind the medic’s back, so she gave him a dark look.

You’re next, jackass.

“And now drink this, please,” Harper said, handing her a small vial the size of one of those bottles found at a supermarket’s checkout line.

She did, and immediately regretted it.

The concoction tasted like mint … but that was underselling it by several orders of magnitude. It reminded her of how she’d reacted menthol scented soap when she herself had been a young child. It had been too sharp, too intense, too … everything. But now she was an adult, with not only a tolerance but a preference for many of the things she’d previously hated, including mint and menthol gum.

This crap, on the other hand, felt so cold it literally burned while the ordinarily refreshing taste scraped across her tongue like a blade.

“Crikey,” She muttered, heroically resisting the urge to spit the whole affair out, instead swallowing while she held the vial in her hand, waiting for Harper to be ready to take it back.

The medic was currently dealing with Henderson, who was looking absolutely miserable, forcing Jaclyn to struggle not to stick her tongue out at him. It would have been juvenile and beneath her, but that was what he got for laughing at her previously.

So instead, she simply asked a question.

“Those leaves wouldn’t happen to come in pink, would they?”

Granger laughed and Henderson glowered, but Gula just looked confused. Eh, they couldn’t all be winners.

But soon enough, Harper was done and they continued, the leaves turning into dust and flaking away to leave unblemished skin as they walked. The next section used to host the African exhibit, if she remembered correctly, as well as hosting the stairs to the basement and a set of restrooms, but Jaclyn wasn’t sure. And whatever had been there wasn’t present anymore, anyway.

No, in its place was an entirely new kind of exhibit.

The right side was a collection of various smaller odds and ends she was familiar with but used to be scattered all across the museum as they belonged in vasty different sections, accompanied by their original information pannels as well as some extra information on where they were from and how they had been acquired. Mostly through conquest.

And a single plate of bronze, one of the Benin Bronzes, had a cheeky little note attached that said “the soldiers who looted these made such a hash of things that it required literal magic from another world to figure out what order they were supposed to go in.”

So apparently, Daedalus’ powers went beyond throwing monsters at them and creating supernatural items.

Meanwhile, on the left-hand wall, where there used to be another entrance into the central area, was a mostly empty display case that was clearly meant to illustrate the way the world had changed, but at present, it was only complete with respect to the local transformation area, holding information on the anchor beast, the most dangerous predators, and the local system. Jaclyn snapped a picture with a Polaroid that was old enough to survive this place, then did the same to the information on the Russian and American systems. She was pretty sure that the BPA had already been given that information, but it never hurt to double-check and make sure that all this reached where it needed to be.

And then they stepped into the next area, the one that used to hold Greek, Babylonian, and Ancient Egyptian stonework, as well as the Rosetta Stone, only to stop dead.

“Holy …” Henderson breathed, summing up everyone’s feelings rather succinctly.

It was as though someone had given Eve’s entire elementary school class access to unlimited markers and spray paint, then let them loose upon the room entirely free of supervision.

Except instead of a mess of paints, the colors came from countless different gemstones that had replaced the statues and other artworks in their entirety. And while it might just be colored glass, material rarity was hardly an issue for Daedalus, and doubling the world’s supply of ruby, sapphire, and every else present on a whim did sound like something he’d do.

Jaclyn reached out and tried to pick up a statue of Osiris, the length of her arm made from emerald that glimmered and shone with the sunlight that fell upon it from the windows high up on the wall, but found it fused to the ground.

But before she could try to break off a part, Gula interjected.

“If something is so thoroughly connected to the Dungeon itself, it will be considered a part of it and share the toughness with the walls, floor, and ceiling.”

Too bad. But perhaps some gemstones would be dropped as loot in a proper delve? And where were the mon- … oh, bugger …

They’d been there the entire time, and it had been entirely obvious too. All identical, the only “exhibits” that stood where people were supposed to walk, and they were the “dullest” things in here, being made from solid, white marble.

Half a dozen hoplites marched towards them, arcs of energy flowing between their shields to reinforce each other and providing a larger disk of energy around the actual stone round shields.

Jaclyn bit back a curse, instead asking, “Anyone see a weakness?”

This was going to be another nightmare fight for her, she could already tell. If they needed to smash these things, they needed raw force, precisely being able to slamm her fists into her enemy would do sod all against an enemy that was simply a solid slab of marble.

In fact, her attacks would likely not even do enough damage to make counterattacking worth it. The fact that they were alive in the first place, and the fact that they were reinforcing each other, those were two powers. Now, if only they knew the third one, they could make a proper plan.

“They’re making columns,” Henderson hissed. “It’s the same power as the sloth!”

Now, Jaclyn hadn’t been present to see him getting his rear end handed to him by the other boss over and over again, but she’d had the story relayed to her via the report.

The key issue here was that she’d spotted the “columns” that were presently only a couple of inches tall and growing, and now …

“I’ll pull them apart, break the formation. Granger, Gula, unsteady any you can get at, Henderson, topple them and destroy them when you get the chance, otherwise, keep them off the casters,” Jaclyn ordered while leaving out Harper, but he knew what to do; it was the same thing as always. Stay put, stay alive, help when possible.

Of course, it wasn’t optimal to have the leader out ahead the way she was planning to be, but them’s the breaks, the combination of her position and skillset necessitating this plan.

And finding another one, perhaps dragging this out and beating their enemies one by one, wasn’t possible. Because with every passing second, those columns were growing out of the walls, floor, and ceiling, and the available space was shrinking. And once this room was reduced to a series of tight corridors, it would be perfect for their enemies, and a pain in the ass for them to maneuver through.

A twitch of Jaclyn’s shoulders unfurled her wings, and she leaped/launched herself over the nearest hoplite, only for it to throw its spear at her. Hurriedly twisting caused it to scrape across her ribs instead of penetrating between them, but she still hissed in pain and landed in a heap, barely managing to rise before the now-weaponless statue managed to bash its shield into her face.

She backstepped a couple of meters, and the monster followed, showing no sign of growing another spear.

Good to know.

She filed that information away and launched herself past it, unfurling her wings once again, attacking the line of statues trying to push their way past Henderson. The quarters were too tight for her to reach anywhere near her full speed, but she still managed to outspeed her ponderous pursuer and stop dead, causing her lower body to swing forward while her wings stayed in place, each of her feet slamming into the backs of a statue’s head.

She didn’t carry enough momentum to topple them, nor had the leverage to use anywhere near her full strength, but she wasn’t trying to push them forward.

Instead, she curled her toes inside her boost, spectral eagle claws wrapped around each statue, and before she could fall to the ground, she began beating her wings furiously, to the point where Henderson would likely have been sent flying by the generated wind if he’d still been human, rather than the unholy offspring of a grizzly bear and the toughest dinosaur in all of prehistory.

Suddenly getting dragged in a way they hadn’t expected to have to brace themselves was far too much for the two hoplites to stay standing, and Henderson jumped on the opportunity in an instant.

Literally.

He shifted back into his human form and his leap casually carried him just under the ceiling, and at the apex of his leap, he transformed right back into his biggest, heaviest, form that came back down on the monsters with enough force to shatter them both, all before anyone could think to place their spear in a way that would leave him impaling himself.

This left Henderson fighting with one enemy on each side, but they were no longer reinforcing each other, and this gave Granger a chance to hammer the unshielded side of one of the hoplites, while Gula threw her tatzelwyrm spirit at the furthest statue, which was presently unengaged.

Of course, the little dragon was cut right out of the air and exploded into a spray of toxic blood. Which was, of course, entirely useless against an inorganic living statue, but that wasn’t the point.

No, Gula was taking a leaf from Daedalus’ book; they’d all fallen over often enough in those damnable greased-floor boss rooms of the Natural History Museum.

And while the Tatzelwyrm’s blood was hardly whatever ungodly lubricant the dungeon core used, it was still liquid on a very smooth marble floor.

The hoplite managed to stay on its feet, but its steps were far slower and more measured now.

Plus, Jaclyn was almost as immune to the toxin as the literal walking rock was. So she leaped at it, delivering a flying kick straight to its head, using the monster as a springboard to leap at the first hoplite she’d attacked. Even as the bloody statue toppled over, she hammered into her target and began pummeling it.

Behind her, the slipping and sliding and crashing of the fallen hoplite sounded out, and she could hear stone crunch from where the others were fighting, indicating the destruction of another enemy.

And she just started pummeling the enemy in front of her. It wasn’t doing much, in fact, it was doing disgustingly little, the tiny cracks caused by her palm strikes barely amounting to anything, but she was keeping abreast of everything that happening here. The others were fine, that one hoplite wasn’t getting up anytime soon, and futile fisticuffs were still a form of training, and punching until her palms ached … well, eventually, something broke, and the statue crumbled to pieces.

Of course, by that point, Granger had obliterated the last monster and used cleaning magic to remove the hazard, which then resulted in yet another round of healing.

And then, they entered the next room, which contained the first set of stairs to the upper floor they’d encountered thus far. They were not only new, but also far wider and flatter than anything previously found here, or even generally in buildings like this.

“Something’s going to come charging down those,” Henderson observed.

And five seconds later, those words proved prophetic.

***

Thomas loved his “mummies.” The System had taken all the various mummies in the Egyptology section of the museum and transformed them into lethal animated beasts that made the traditional horror movie mummies look about as threatening as a drunk frat guy wrapped in toilet paper by comparison.

He had his humanoid Crypt Guardians, Feline Crypt Guardians who were self-explanatory, and Guardian Bulls, massive mummified bulls capable of healing themselves and cursing anyone they crashed into.

So when the monster charged down the stairs, there was a far greater threat here than just its bulk, green light flashing every time a hoof touched down.

Abrams threw herself to the side, wings out, while lashing out with her foot and smashing it into its face, cracking its skull but also getting hurled away and tumbling down the stairs.

Henderson, meanwhile, tried to block it with his body. Something that, given the physics involved, should have been doable, but barely.

Except the massive ursine-ankylosaurus hybrid got hit in the chest by the monster and was toppled backwards, then the bull simply ran across his chest, leaving behind a trail of burning green footprints.

Aaaaaaannnd cursed.

Thomas readied himself to pull the plug on this fight, only for a series of flaming magic missiles to land all over the bull, lighting it on fire all over, leaving it collapse into dust just as it had leaped off Henderson’s chest.

Yeah … nerf Granger. That guy was kinda terrifying.

But not as terrifying as the boss he had prepared for them, the undead bull fused with multiple animated sets of armor.

***

Another fight, another round of “how many scratches can I spot and waste medicine on.”

But Harper had already gained seven levels and hit D-Rank, so it wasn’t like there wasn’t a reason for this all … but Jaclyn was already mentally compiling a list of people who’d annoyed her but were still competent enough to trust with the safety of the BPA’s chief medic.

She’d mostly been fine, save for a tiny scratch to her shit where she’d gotten caught on something, but Henderson was looking, well, terrible, breathing heavily, sweating as though he’d been doing a hard workout for hours accompanied by the sickly palor of someone with a flu so terrible that it bordered on requiring hospitalization.

All despite how long Harper had been working on him. The bull’s footprints on his chest had been fixed right at the start, but he still looked like shit.

“He’s been cursed,” Gula pronounced after looking him over for a long moment, then summoned her Caladrius spirit, the resplendent white bird casting a shining radiance across the nearby area. “I will cure it.”

And just like that, he improved.

“What exactly can I do against curses?” Harper asked.

“Hit C-Rank, choose the ‘Paradisical Garden’ power, and empower your ingredients for a few months,” Gula immediately replied. After all, despite the portion of the Worldstrider Tribe that had made it to Earth being made up mostly of the young orcs, D-Rank at the most, they had much of their parent tribe’s knowledge on the various classes recorded in the village nexus.

“And what does that do in general?” Harper pressed.

“Makes plants better at healing, and makes unique magical evolutions,” Gula said. “Useless for anything offensive.”

It did sound good for the guy in charge of the med bay, though.

“Are you good to continue?” Jaclyn asked.

Henderson nodded.

“Alright, we need to be careful about curses going forward,” she announced. “Gula, I think it would be for the best if you save as much mana as possible for dispelling them. And Henderson, I think the two of us in particular should be careful, our durability won’t necessarily protect us going forward.”

The next hallway was the one for the Chinese jade and other antiques from the same geographic area. Once again, there were no obvious enemies, but the low walls that had been there previously still extended towards the center of the long corridor, creating a series of deep nooks that could easily hide monsters.

“I’ll scout,” Jaclyn announced and jumped, wings flicking open to catch her just under the ceiling.

It was there that she saw them, the “monsters.” Three large, billowing orange dresses that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Chinese period piece were already lunging at her team.

Jaclyn dove at the nearest one and punched it center mass.

The thing, quite literally, folded around her fist without tearing, the claws that made such fantastic brass knuckles suddenly finding themselves a little too blunt to cut fabric capable of moving with the blow like that.

It was then that the whole thing collapsed around her, and Jaclyn lost control of her flight with a startled squawk. And then she collided with the ground, or was it a wall? Either way, she found herself trapped inside the damn thing bouncing off unseen obstacles that she could tell weren’t her team but that was all she was aware of, desperately trying to get both her hands into a position where she could leverage both ethereal paws to collectively tear open her cloth prison.

Fuck. This. Thing.

Her lungs were starting to burn by now, but she eventually managed to bring one paw away from herself and her other towards it, each claw passing by another to the point where they acted like a pair of scissors, ripping open the dress and passing through the spirit within.

And after a couple of more seconds, Jaclyn managed to pop her head out the top, feeling as though she were coming up for air from the bottom of the ocean … only to see the others standing over a pair of smouldering piles of ash, the remains of the other dresses.

Bollocks.

Jaclyn realized just how desperately she needed to learn, truly learn, her limits. Not punching something because she’d break her hand was a standard instinct possessed by all humans, adjusting that to match her new capabilities hadn’t exactly been hard.

But trying to figure out how that would play out with more “exotic” foes like this one, who reacted in ways not even remotely possible in a mundane world … that would take some doing. Doing she was yet to do.

She could feel her ears burning as she struggled out of the fabric, muttering curses under her breath.

At least there couldn’t be too much more. The room that used to contain the mummies, the upper corridor left of the main courtyard, and the main courtyard.

Of course, there was also the backside, left of the mummy room, relative to where they were presently standing, but considering how carefully Daedalus had been shielding the courtyard from them, chances were that was where they were supposed to be going. And she hadn’t seen any new changes to the roof to suggest that they might be first led up the back, then down into the courtyard through a previously non-existent pathway.

Or maybe there was something else going on entirely. She might only have experienced one thus far, but in her experience, dungeons didn’t necessarily play fair with … well, any kind of logic or natural laws.

They dropped into their familiar formation once again. Jaclyn in the lead, Hederson behind her at a large enough distance that no matter how he transformed, he wouldn’t knock her over, Granger and Gula on either side of him, and in the rear, Harper followed, one hand already in a pouch that contained … something. It was supposed to act like pepper spray but be potent enough to stop a monster, though he hadn’t seemed overly confident when he’d explained it to everyone.

Not to mention that Jaclyn doubted that it would harm the mummies she expected to be next.

Once again, the room was mostly the same way it had been, lacking King Tut’s sarcophagus but containing far more individual, free-standing mummies, and yes, multiple of the damn linen-wrapped cats.

Jaclyn pointed.

“Most or all of the mummies are going to be monsters.”

Then she briefly glanced over her shoulder towards the spellcasters.

“Can you get at them?”

“No, the glass cases are in the way,” Granger said, likely shaking his head, but she didn’t see if he had since she was already looking ahead again, and Gula echoed the sentiment a moment later.

Unfortunately, the various glass cases had been placed, or rather rearranged, to specifically preclude attacks from the doorway.

Jaclyn raised her fists, manifested her claws, and stepped inside … only to throw herself forward to avoid a mummified cat launching itself straight at her neck from above the doorway. She hadn’t even seen the blasted thing, only her supernaturally enhanced situational awareness saving her.

It was fast, and almost entirely wrapped in bandages, only its fanged mouth visible, looking like a gate to hell, dry, dusty, dripping in sand and wreathed in the same green fire that had indicated the bull’s curse-carrying hoves.

She almost tried to kick it in midair but realized that it would hit the ground before she could reach it, and bounced off the floor to go for her jugular.

Leaning back to the point where she’d already have torn several muscles before caused it to fly overhead, however, and she managed to carry the momentum over into a kick that slammed into the bottom of the monster, launching it over and past her alongside the sound of crunching bones.

Then, she managed to twist around back to face the rest of the room, where the rest of the mummies had emerged from their cases. The cats all had glowing, curse-ridden mouths while the humanoid ones were marching forward with their arms outstretched in a way that looked cliche but also brought their balefully glowing palms closer to the delvers, and their bandages were unravelling around their lower arms, whipping around like snakes.

A spray of lightning tore through half a dozen mummies, igniting them, and sprays of fire lit several more, but then they were already among them, curses ready, bandages whipping about.

Jaclyn’s hand shot forward, past the glowing palm rapidly closing in on her face, and grabbed the arm at the wrist, which seemed to be safe. Only for the bandages to shoot down her arm, locking them together just in time for the mummy’s other hand to flash towards her hip. She blocked that too, and almost immediately found herself just as trapped as her foe was, both arms connected while they struggled against each other.

Strength-wise, they might have been equally matched, but for once, Jaclyn had the weight advantage. She pushed, surging forward, making the mummy slide backwards while she avoided a cat chomping down on her ear.

All around, the bandages were flowing across her body, rapidly getting closer to actually mummifying her. Jaclyn wasn’t sure whether or not it would outright kill her or merely trap her, but either way, it wasn’t anything she could afford to let happen, so she threw her arms wide, forcing the mummy to do the same and simultaneously pulling the two of them together, then headbutted the damn thing.

Sort of. She had no desire to smash her face through a bag of old flesh, so she instead snapped her teeth at it and a spectral badger head appeared to outright bite the damn thing’s head off, then found herself spinning and ducking and weaving while still attached to the thankfully inactive body of her enemy.

The cats also had a bandage projection ability, but instead of directly attempting to wrap them up, they connected to the environment, creating the world’s most disgusting spider’s web and making any kind of fire use a dicey proposition, to say the least.

Henderson was cursing and spinning rapidly, transforming to tear or get free off bandages while Granger used raw kinetic force to blast apart mummies. It worked, mostly, shattering bones and tearing flesh, but at the same time, all those bandages did a fantastic job of keeping their foes together.

And Gula was ceaselessly burning her mana to keep Henderson together in the face of all those curses.

A single wingbeat took Jaclyn into the air and carried her across the room, plowing through the various “webs” and the crowd of enemies, both bowling them over and ripping through the obstructions, “shaking off” her current problem but getting herself thoroughly tangled.

Also, it created a new opportunity …

“Burn them!” she snapped even as a cat chomped down on her ankle, a fiery pain blasting through her body in an instant. Her other leg pulverized the monster, and a flash of inspiration let her clean away her wrappings before they could catch fire, but she fell to the floor in a heap nevertheless.

Jaclyn scrambled to her feet, almost slipping a couple of times, arms barely raised into a combat stance, only for a nearby mummy slapping down her guard and doubling down on her affliction.

Henderson’s bear paw smacked the monster back, but the damage was already done.

She felt like she’d been working out for hours underneath the noonday sun without water, accompanied by the sickening heat of a fever, while her mouth and throat seemed clogged with an etheral mucus as though she’d also gotten a terrifying cold on top of everything else. And if she the curse wasn’t lifted or she managed to get to a restroom, something unfortunate would happen.

Bloody hell … these thing were nasty.

A wave of holy light washed over her, briefly leaving her feeling as though she’d been wrapped in a warm hug while in a luxurious bath accompanied by a stellar massage, yet when it fell away, she was back to feeling crappy. Not terrible, but still not exactly fine.

And even after several more monsters had been burned by Granger while she’d cleared out the webs, and between her and Henderson, they’d annihilated several more …

But it wouldn’t work. Even after she was done kicking the head of one mummy, a second managed to grab her leg, and immediately she found herself fighting to stay on her feet.

This wasn’t working. They’d managed to clear out three-quarters of the room so far, but it simply. Wasn’t. Working. Daedalus would be forced to pull the plug or … or he’d misjudge how many curses they could take and someone would end up dead.

“Retreat!”

Jaclyn barked the order and immediately began marching backwards, only to find herself backing into a wall of bandages covering the doorway. But before anything else could happen, the mummies stopped and retreated.

She hung her head and sighed in relief. If they hadn’t been approaching this under the “forgiving” rules, who knew what would happen?

Well, actually, they all knew exactly how this would have ended. In a memorial service for all five of them.

“Thanks,” she sighed, vaguely waving in the direction of the path deeper. Normally, they might have tried again, but looking around at everyone disabused her of trying that.

So the group of delvers retreated. Just like that, it was over.

Jaclyn could feel herself start to sag, and caught herself. This was hardly the closest she’d ever come to death, not even this year, but still … all this had been humbling. She loved her build, and wouldn’t change it for the world, but in this situation, she’d been mostly useless.

That stung.

***

And that was that. There were a few things that might have to be changed, such as more monsters being added to the other rooms while the number of mummies got reduced because he might have let himself get a little too influenced by horror movies, but all in all, a fun delve to watch.

Not to mention that he hadn’t expected curses to be that effective. He’d have to look into that … but only once he was done watching the current delve through the panacea challenge. This ought to be good.

***

Just as the five of them reached the entrance, it began to rain. Oh, that was just perfect. Jaclyn sighed, summoned her wings, and folded one over her head while the others cursed. She raised the second one to be held out to the side, where someone else could walk under.

Harper took her up on the offer, Gula summoned the Caladrius to shield herself, and Granger had a rain shield of his own … which he belatedly extended to cover Henderson as well.

But just having “umbrellas” wasn’t enough, not really, not in a tropical downpour that could hit the ground and ricochet to drench most of her torso.

So they ran to pile into the jeep, a rather undignified look for people of their stature. No one gave a shit, though.

“You know, those things were pretty powerful,” Harper commented. “You could almost say their power le- …”

Henderson rolled his eyes. “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘it’s over nine thousand,’ you’re walking home.”

“Oh, come on, what’s gotten into you?” Harper asked. “You’re not usually this grumpy.”

Henderson offered the healer his hand. “I normally don’t get cursed either.”

The wounds left behind by needle-like fangs of the cat monster had already largely healed, and the curse was obviously long gone, but the results of that bite were still visible.

They made their way out of the jungle together, still gently “bickering” and throwing snide remarks. This group really had come together, hadn’t it?

Until eventually, they reached the regular city … and her phone promptly exploded.

Someone had died in the dungeon, to the dungeon. And while most people who delved or were even just distantly involved in the whole affair knew that it had been long coming, being simply a matter of time, but apparently the PR of the whole situation was … well, it was about as bad as it could possibly be.

And while that was largely something Frye and the public relations department had to deal with, Jaclyn knew that she couldn’t just dump it on them.

Oh, bollocks.