I think I like autumn here better, but that doesn’t come as a surprise. The brisk wind, the brilliant leaves, the odd scent that comes with it; it’s all perfect. Watching the world prepare itself for winter, preparing for inevitable rebirth and change in a way countless poems try to capture... it captivates me.

Distracting, too. I push myself off the ground, dusting myself off and making sure I don’t pick up any splinters from our latest kill.

“Do these count as kills, do you think, or underbrush clearing?” I say aloud, wincing the moment it leaves my mouth. Gods, that was terrible.

“Um, what?” Helena replies, turning to look at me. She’s reaching up at a crystal dangling from a branch, and unfortunately she’s too short to manage. It’s kind of adorable. “Sorry, I’m a little distracted with this...”

“And you switched back to exploring pretty quickly,” I nod, crossing my arms. My tail slaps the ground behind me, kicking up a puff of leaves. “You’re getting used to this. Good.”

I stride on over, boots crunching through the ever-growing layer of falling leaves. It’s so satisfying, and I can’t help but kick my feet a bit to send puffs of leaves up into the air.

“Stand still for a second, will you?” Placing a hand on her shoulder, I push up onto the tips of my toes, reaching up to the crystalline leaf and hooking two fingers around the stem. A little twist and pull is all it takes to take it down, and I present it to Helena. “Here.”

She looks at it, lip caught between her teeth. Her expression clears, and she takes the crystal out of my hand. “Ah. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” I shrug, taking my hand off her shoulder and stepping away. “Let’s get a move on, then?”

“O-of course! But, what did you mean about underbrush clearing? Does that make the monsters a form of scrub tree?”

Oh, Gods, she remembers. Of course she did. Fighting the heat in my cheeks, I look firmly away and start walking. “It was a stray thought. Don’t worry about it.”

Helena giggles. “Ah, okay then.”

There’s a comfortable quiet that follows, giving me time to recover... and to hear a strange snuffling sound, coming from the woods. That’s not how the wolf monsters have sounded; this sound is heavier, deeper. Something bigger.

“We need to move, Helena,” I say, voice clear and crisp. I glance around the clearing, taking note of where the sound seems to be coming from, and pick out a cluster of trees with high branches. “Hope you’re ready to climb. If not, you’ll need to get on my back.”

Helena’s expression sharpens, and she tilts her head. A moment later, realization dawns, and her eyes widen. She nods curtly, her hands glow green, and we hurry out of the clearing.

And not a moment too soon, it seems. I’ve barely finished helping Helena hoist herself up onto a higher branch when something enters the clearing: a shivering mass of thorny briars, wrapped tight around the shape of a massive wooden bear. Its eyes gleam orange, and a black tar oozes out from between splintery, wicked-looking teeth.

Each step is a thump that shakes the ground, enough for my sharpened senses to feel even up here. Its snuffling sounds more like the wheezing of wind through branches, now that I can hear it more clearly. The monster strides across the clearing, head on a swivel, but its path leads it directly to the corpse of the wooden wolf monster.

Looks like we have a food chain in here, huh? I wonder what the wolves eat.

The branch creaks, and all good humor escapes me in a heartbeat. Its head snaps up to us, eyes no doubt straining against the impossible shadows of this forest. I can see Helena’s chest still as she presses herself further into the tree. Her expression is more curious than scared, though; it’s a good attitude to have. Nerves are important, but keeping calm in a Delve is even more critical.

The bear sniffs the air. Once, twice, three times.

It turns away, and sinks its teeth into the wooden corpse. The sound of squealing, crunching wood fills the clearing.

Helena exhales slowly, her breath rasping against my ears, and I do the same— though I flood my breath with Wind. I take that movement and amplify it, swirling it into a sphere that should seal off our scent and sound from the world. It’s a bit taxing, and I can feel the drain on my already dwindling reserves, but it’s worth it.

Then, I let out a normal sigh, and let myself move to the second step of appraising this new threat. It’s bigger, it’s tougher, and it’s got a glint of magic in its eyes.

The movement of its joints looks more natural, less like a monstrous wooden toy and more like a seamless living being. I'd need to break its joints, which I can certainly do, but without my knife, I'll need to rely on Wind magic.

That thing isn't from this layer at all, I realize. It's from much deeper— a few hundred marches deeper. Enough that it could be a decent threat to me without armor and a weapon.

“That... looks like it’ll be hard to kill,” Helena whispers, echoing my own thoughts. “Thank you for the sound sphere, Ivy. I haven’t worked that one out.”

I glance up at her and raise an eyebrow. I understand her eagerness, but it’s best to put a damper on it quickly. “I’ve had a lot of practice, and no, we’re not fighting it. It's way tougher than anything else here, and it’d be easier to sneak past it than to kill it. If I had all my gear, it’d be easy, but I don’t.”

To my surprise, Helena simply nods. “Oh, okay.”

And that’s that.

We do still have to sit in that tree for a while, though. The bear takes forever to finish eating that monster corpse, and spends time circling the clearing, probably trying to track our scent.

Helena presses her hands against her back and stretches, groaning. “Oh, Gods. My back aches. Is there anything for that? A warming spell, maybe, or, um... ow.”

“Sitting in a tree will do that to you. You get used to muscle soreness, eventually,” I lie, then think better of it. “Well, it’s more like you learn to put up with it, or it gets harder to get sore. Both, I guess.”

“Jordan already bothers me about posture in chairs,” Helena mumbles. “Is there a bath at the Manor I could borrow? Something really hot? I’m going to need it.”

“Right after I get my shot, unless you want to share it,” I roll my shoulders. My foot jams into a rock, and I grunt. “Mind the ground, I guess.”

“At least we’re close. We are close, right? Um, we should have another hour or two, but...” She pauses. “That’s enough time to get back out too, right?”

I run it over in my head. “With a Delve Heart, I can probably force our way out to the first layer once we’re about halfway back. My own stabilization of the portal stops me from doing the same to the first layer, but we can skip the whole thing by jumping down the cliff. I can carry you, if you’re worried about your Wind-cushion spell failing.”

“Plenty of time, then?” Helena affirms, nodding along.

“Plenty of time,” I agree. The trees are thinning out now, and there’s more leaves on the ground than ever. “We’ll want to try and get moving before winter hits, assuming this Delve doesn’t alternate between two seasons. And, hm. Trying to figure out how close we are.”

I open my senses to the Delve, feeding a bit of magic into my mind to speed up the process. The slope of depth is increasing at a steady rate as we head towards ‘Delve down’, and I can just barely make out something thrumming beneath it.

There it is. The rippling of a Delve Heart, like waves on the ocean. “There’s the Delve Heart, then. Not that it’s any surprise, there’s always one past the first layer. So, yes, we’re close.”

Helena smiles. I match it, and do a little cheer inside my head. I have a dinner to get ready for, and as much as I’m dreading it, the bath I get beforehand will be amazing.

“I’m ready to be done. Um, no offense. I’m loving Delving, but I definitely want that bath, too.”

I grunt, nodding. “Don’t let it distract you. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

I pause. Helena snorts, and I press my hands into my face to groan.

And then we are out of the woods, barely two minutes later, looking at yet another copy of the chapel. More accurately, we’re right at the edge, and the trees are so sparse near the chapel that it’s more a plain than a woodland.

Chapel is a strong word for it, too. It’s a ruin vaguely resembling a chapel, if it was picked up and then dropped from ten marches in the air. Sturdy construction, and the doors are still intact, but it’s more holes than walls.

And from those holes, a faint golden light leaks out, a perfect match for the light of Delve magic.

“There’s our Delve Heart,” I say, letting my shoulders sag with relief. “This is the halfway point, and we’re just retracing our steps from here. But that’s no excuse to let our guard down.”

I hear the crunching of leaves, and I watch with complete and utter bafflement as Helena jogs out of the woods and towards the chapel. “Let’s get on with it, then!” She calls back over her shoulder, far too loud.

Each crunch of her boots on the leaves makes me wince. She’s out in the open, far from every shadow, and Gods, what is she thinking?

“Helena!” I bark, my voice cracking. I take a step forward, then start jogging to catch up. She’s almost to the door now, and I’m suddenly reminded of how I was slammed through the doors of the real chapel only a few hours before.

Then comes the familiar snuffling, and the thump thump of heavy paws.

Origami_Narwhal

Apologies for the shorter chapter today, but it felt like the right place to cut it off. Comments are appreciated, as always, and see you all tomorrow!