ABH - CH 44 - For A Star To Fall

A/N: I actually don't know if I'll keep this chapter as is. I'm happy with it, but also feel like it could be drawn out some more. Let me know. When I edit it at the end of book 2 I may change it.

Chapter Forty-Four

For A Star To Fall

Rise of Winter, Week 5, Day 6

Freddie used [Running] and [Quick Fight], trying to set herself upon the goblin. Charging, she got just within range and darted a fist out, aiming for the creature’s abdomen. 

When her hand should have met flesh, when it should have melted flesh, instead she met nothing—no resistance, no crushed organs, nothing. Simply air. And the Starlight Goblin was no longer before her. Her ears pricked, [Quick Fight] didn’t help, not then, but her Perception helped her feel the wind shift just in time to tilt her head backwards.

Across Freddie’s nose, a blade of darkness sliced into her skin. It was a crude thing, from what Freddie could make of it, but it didn’t matter. She felt the sting of air hitting an open wound and felt her mouth move without her full control. 

“You foul, idiotic beast,” Freddie growled, spit flying from her mouth in her ferocity as she brought back her arm and tilted backward further, practically falling, before catching herself and rolling away. 

Behind her, Ogon paused in her fight, his light meeting Freddie’s gaze. 

“Watch your back, Captain Lady,” Ogon said lightly, and she felt a grin spread across her face. 

“No, you watch my back. I’m looking forward, sparky.”

Then, Freddie was snapping her eyes around the cavern, reaching within herself to find the magma in her veins. [Fire Conjuration+Fire Manipulation] were running already, and so she simply willed the magma to manifest out from her. To heat the ground, to turn it into molten earth, to expose the goblin, to leave it without a place to land. 

Around Freddie, the world was fire. Flames billowed, consuming whatever they could—the dust that clung to the stone, the wood of the bonfire the goblins had circled, the metal stools they had been sitting on, the bodies of the fallen goblins. 

That was when the screaming started. 

A claw emerged from above Freddie, made of darkness and darting toward her from behind a stalactite hanging from the ceiling, though she couldn’t have seen it. She was too focused on the open maw of the Starlight Goblin emerging from the shadows across the room, lit aflame around the edges. 

Thus, it was as the claw dug into her shoulder that her own pained scream joined the goblin’s.

As her flesh tore, she watched the way the Starlight Goblin’s skin bubbled. Gritting her teeth, Freddie forced her screams down—the goblin felt no such need and continued, filling the cavern with rebounding savagery. 

Freddie forced herself to step forward, but the dark claw followed her, digging and digging until the claws met bone. The soles of her feet grew hot from the molten stone. She took another step, her heels sinking into the heat. As she moved, she felt the claw dislodge itself, and with it came a chunk of cloth and skin. Turning her eyes to her shoulder, Freddie stared at the gaping wound, as the way her blood seeped into her dark clothes and began flowing down her arm. 

Snapping her head back to the emerging goblin, Freddie felt, for the first time, that this goblin could be her match. 

A Level 10 [Rare] goblin. Freddie was Level 12, nearing 13. What was holding her up? Why hadn’t she leveled from the other fights? Why? Why?

“Why?” She growled, reaching out her hand for the Starlight Goblin’s neck, finally within range. 

Her fingers wrapped tightly around the creature's esophagus, and she tightened her grip. The goblin continued to scream in Freddie’s face. 

“What makes you think you are better than me?” Freddie continued, grinding out her words as a red haze leaked from her. 

“What makes you think you are anything other than dirt under my boot?”

Freddie brought her free hand out quickly, making a fist and aiming for the gut of the goblin. As she used her maximum speed, her fist sank into the monster’s flesh. 

That was when the screaming stopped. Not, as Freddie or Ogon would have hoped, due to the goblin’s demise. No. The Starlight Goblin was gasping for air, gasping and gaping and reaching with its gnarled black and silver fingers up to Freddie’s palm. 

Unable to find its grip, the goblin's hands slid off Freddie’s blood-slick skin. 

Freddie felt the moment Ogon flickered his heat next to her wound, but did not spare him a glance. 

“You are n o t h i n g. Not an enemy—for I have faced worse than you. Not a foe—for you have fallen too quickly for that. Not an ant—because even they have a place in life.”

Her voice became layered, and the Starlight Goblin’s knees buckled. Letting the beast fall, Freddie kept her grip on its neck. 

“So why don’t you—”

The Starlight Goblin’s eyes popped open, its silver pupils blown, and its mouth moved, forming a single, garbled word. 

“DIE,”  it gasped.

Shock ran through Freddie at the word leaving the goblin’s mouth, and her grip loosened. 

“[Blood of the Dark]!” The goblin screeched. 

Freddie hissed in surprise, dropping the goblin fully. That was the moment she felt her chest ache. Looking down she had to take a moment before she processed what she was seeing. 

There was a spike lodged in her chest—no, the spike was protruding from her chest, and it was made up of black, crimson, and gold liquid. Blood. Her blood. 

“Wha—” Freddie couldn’t find the air to finish her words. 

She tried to take a breath, to steady herself. Instead, she felt her lungs grow heavy. Around her, the flames dimmed—all but one. All but Ogon. 

“My Lady of Flames!” Screeched the young fire spirit.

[Regenerate]

[Regenerate]

[REGENERATE]

But for every time Freddie tried to use the Skill, there was a greater pushback. A greater resistance. There was nothing [Regenerate] could do when the wound was so severe. When Freddie couldn’t breathe. When it was her own blood impaling her. When it was her own blood filling her lungs and stealing her breath. 

The edges of Freddie’s vision grew black, but the red haze in the air never faded. 

No. 

With everything the girl had in her, she slipped her bloodied hand to her hip and fumbled as she wrapped her fingers around a vial. Which vial, she couldn’t be sure. She had a one-in-two chance of getting it right though. So, she let her gaze fall to the ground, egging the goblin on. To feel as if it won. 

And then Freddie snapped her hand up and popped off the cap of the vial, downing the concoction. 

It tasted like bluebells on her tongue. 

Between one second and the next, the blood filling her lungs vanished, the wound on her shoulder closed, and the blood-spike became little more than a shadow. The blood sucked itself back into her body, and her vision returned. 

With a harsh cough, Freddie spat out a glob the color of pitch. 

The [Blood of the Dark].

“You can speak,” Freddie said, her voice hoarse as she peered down at the goblin. “You can fight.”

She leaned down, bringing her bare palms up to the goblin’s eyes. 

“But you will never win.”

Digging her hands in, she pressed. And pressed. And pressed. Until a horrifying snap resounded. 

The goblin stilled. 

And Freddie felt the System sending her a combat report. 

She knew, then, that she had leveled. She flicked open the report and closed it just as quickly. Power flooded through her, though it did not restore her aches and pains, nor did it eradicate her exhaustion or refill her mana pool. Thus, it could wait to be examined later. 

“Ogon,” Freddie said, her eyelids heavy and her voice barely there. 

“Yeah?” Ogon said, fluttering around her—even as she took a shaky step back. 

“Have you ever seen the end of a dungeon?”

Ogon stilled.

“Of course you haven’t,” Freddie huffed, staring at the shimmering chest that was half-translucent in the center of the cavern. “You aren’t even as old as my wounds.”

Freddie took a deep, aching breath, the freshness of the healed skin causing her to wince. 

“I don’t think we’ll live if we try to take this dungeon down.”

Ogon didn’t say it. He didn’t. But Freddie still heard his shock. 

“I think it’s a fool's errand to try.”

“Have you gone mad?”

“I don’t think so,” Freddie said, a tired smile making its way onto her face. “Besides, you can’t see what I can. You don’t have the [System].”

Freddie focused her eyes on the golden notice hovering above the incorporeal chest.

[Congratulations! You have bested Dungeon M283’s First Floor — The Starlight Bakery!]

[Please claim your rewards.]

[The First Floor will reset in: 9 hours, 58 minutes, and 43 seconds. Either descend or —]

[SYSTEM ERROR: NO EXIT DETECTED]

[SYSTEM ERROR: Notice is rebooting. Please hold.]

[The First Floor will reset in: 9 hours, 58 minutes, and 35 seconds. Descend to claim further rewards.]

“But, unless my grandfather can somehow break us out of this hellhole, I think we may have to try.” 

Freddie didn’t sigh, not quite, but she let out a huff that could have been mistaken for something of defeat. Something of disgust and disappointment. Something that said, “maybe I’ve been a fool.”

“We’ll be together, you know, you and me,” Ogon hummed. “Is that not enough? To know that between the two of us we will grow hand in hand?”

Freddie raised her palm, the remnants of her crimson and gold blood leaving streaks along ehr tan skin, and stared at it. 

“I think first we should find the mana pearls these three left behind—and I’m going to pillage this treasure chest. Then, I’m going to sleep off this exhaustion.”

Using [Fire Conjuration+Fire Manipulation], Freddie tried to coat her palm in flames, only for spluttering sparks to form and disappear. Within her, Freddie felt a chill. 

She was out of mana. 

Turning around, Freddie slunk past Ogon and went around the corner and grabbed her satchel. Digging around, she pulled out a dagger. 

“Old-fashioned way, then,” Freddie grumbled. 

It was a gruesome affair, carving apart the Starlight Goblin’s corpse, and it wasn’t something Freddie relished in. She had to use more effort than simply melting away the skin due to the nature of the goblin’s higher endurance. And she did not find the mana pearl on the first try, which was unfortunate, because the Starlight Goblin’s blood burned.

“Oh my Gods,” Freddie groaned, looking at her muck-covered hands. “Tiltham is gonna skin me if I don’t bring it back. For the potions.” 

“Ew,” Ogon helpfully added as Freddie began sifting through her satchel for any empty vials. 

Really, she only had the two from the health potions she consumed. The Quick Clean and True Wash potions she’d been nursing for the past two days still had more than half left. 

With a sigh, Freddie lifted the Starlight Goblin’s arm and slashed its wrist with her dagger. Black and silver blood seeped out of the corpse. Grimacing, Freddie thought it was like a sludge, and it made her want to gag. But by this point, she had melted enough corpses to be able to handle it. It was an annoying thing—to be used to the smell of death and the sights it produced, but it was also necessary.

Filling up the two vials, Freddie replaced the caps, grumbling to herself. “Gonna have to re-melt the wax. Otherwise, this crap is getting all over everything.”

She had recovered enough mana to melt wax, surely, but instead of doing it at that moment, she simply placed the vials off to the side and went back to searching the Starlight Goblin’s chest cavity. 

Her fingers met something hard and cold, and Freddie tightened her palm into a fist and ripped it back out. 

“Finally!” Ogon cheered as Freddie looked at the pearl in her hand. 

The goblin’s black and silver blood fell away as Freddie flash fired it with a blaze of hot flames. It only took half a second, but the effort expended what little mana Freddie had recovered. 

“It’s…” Freddie was at a loss for words as she stared at the pearl. It matched the goblin’s blood, with a black base and streaks of silver swirling through the marble. As she tilted it back and forth, the light of the cavern was reflected in the silver streaks.

[Inspect]

[Lesser Mana Pearl, Tier 1, Rare]

[Lesser Mana Pearl that was left behind by a dungeon monster. The energy within can be used to fuel Spells, Rituals, Skills, or be absorbed directly by a User and used to progress further in their Class.]

[Traits: Darkness, Perception, Cruelty, Blood, Anathema]

Freddie pulled a face. “Trash.”