When my hand touched the top of the cliff the moon had already set, and the western sky was stained in a pink hue that signaled the oncoming sun. One of the oddities of the labyrinth was that there was no guarantee as to how the floor would function. Some would be flat, some would be spheres, some had suns that rose in the east and others in the south, some had no sun and others had no moons. There was only one consistent aspect of each floor aside from the portal, and that was it had at least one star. Lute once told me they weren't actually stars, but for some odd reason she never elaborated.

I slipped up onto the cliff edge without a single noise, my attention focused on the goblins encampment and not Kuzu below me. With the approach of morning the goblins had begun to stir. My body stayed low to the ground while I scanned our surroundings.

"Thanks for the he-," Kuzu started to complain as she pulled herself up behind me, but then noticed how many goblins were in view. Instead a strange strangled noise came out from her mouth to finish her sentence.

About a half dozen goblins were near enough to hear Kuzu as she whined, and each of them turned with sleepy expressions to gawk at us. Their little minds worked slowly, and it felt like an eternity before they finally reacted. One or two of them went for their weapons, but the smarter ones started to shout as loudly as they could and point.

 

Our distance to the portal wasn't that far off, although we had a wooden barricade in between us and it. I grabbed hold of Kuzu and scooped her up into my arms once more, before I swung my right foot up in what would normally have been a forward kick. As the kick started I had begun to generate a bolt of lightning that started at my heel and shot up in advance of my foot.

 

In the world of science such an act would have melted my boot, burned my foot and probably crippled me for good measure. In the world of magic my foot stuck to the bolt like glue, and as the bolt flew up into the air above the wall I was dragged along with it. Magic was and always would be the realm of imagination and wishes, and I had vast experience in figuring out tricks during my past life.

 

Kuzu's scream at that was far louder than I'd expected, and it also served as a beacon for the already alerted goblins. Everywhere across the entire encampment thousands of goblins not only paid very close attention to us, but also began to run for the portal.

 

We landed right near the portal, pain shooting through my legs due to how far we'd fallen. A goblin near the sphere cried out in shock, as he'd failed to see us due to the wooden wall in the way. Normally I would've simply kicked his head off, but at that moment my body refused to move as I wanted.

 

Kuzu, surprisingly, came through for us at that moment. Even though she'd been frightened by the leap it seemed as though her instincts kicked in, and she pulled out and threw her dagger into the goblins face.

 

I shifted my weight forward and lightly headbutted the portal, the warm sensation a welcome feeling. "Kuzu, touch it and go!" I ordered her, afraid that if I went first she'd somehow mess it all up and the goblins would get her.

 

For a moment there was a hesitation, but then she placed her hand against the portal. A few seconds later she vanished from my arms, gone to the next floor, while a gate opened on the wooden wall around me. The goblins started to pour in, armed to the teeth and enraged at the intrusion into their home territory. Amongst them there was even a couple of shamans, one of which tried to crowd past the other goblins as though eager to show off.

 

With my hands free I had plenty of time and opportunity to wave goodbye to the goblins before, with my forehead still against the portal, I focused inward and activated the magic inside the sphere.

 

---

Floor 9

The Goblin/Kitsune Border

---

All of my daggers had been exhausted in the climb, so when I showed up on the ninth floor I could only ball my hands into fists and prepare to use magic if it was needed. Around me autumn had obviously come to the floor, gold and amber leaves scattered through the air as a light breeze teased at the loosely spread forest around me.

 

Kuzu stood off to the side, moved perhaps ten feet away from where the arrival point was. Her tail had puffed up, her ears flat against her head while she glared not at me but toward the treeline. Three dark figures stood there, shadows that watched from within the shadow of the forest. I could make out, from their silhouettes, the obvious fox ears on their heads.

 

I staggered toward Kuzu, the protest of my legs ignored, and cleared my throat loudly. "Kuzu," I tried to draw her attention. "They're kitsune, like you."

 

"Look at his ears!" one of the kitsune exclaimed, before the three stepped into the clearing. Each of them was lightly armored with steel and leather, while armed with two-handed swords that had a slight curve built into them. "Isn't that an Elf?"

 

"There's no way, those filth wouldn't dare come to our floors," one of his friends proclaimed, his hand already on the handle of his sword. An eagerness was visible in his golden eyes, and much like Kuzu his body language was obvious.

 

Any further conversation was cut off as noise came from behind. I had heard it before, the sound of someone appearing via the portal system, and I twisted around with arms lifted up in a defensive posture. The goblins had begun to arrive in vast sums, and before all of them had transferred the first of the arrivals dashed at our small group.

 

My hand snapped out in a quick jab at the nearest goblin, the bones of his nose making an audible crunch. While he reeled from the strike I grabbed his wrist, twisted it hard enough to snap the thin bone, and caught the freshly dropped club. I buried the club as hard as I could into the goblins face, the little monster unable to even react to anything I'd done before he collapsed dead to the ground.

 

The kitsune darted past Kuzu and I, their dark cloaks they wore giving them the illusion of living shadows. Their large swords swung out and quickly began to prune the battlefield, body parts of goblins sent flying in all directions. However while the kitsune were quick the amount of goblins managed to continue to grow, and the tide changed drastically when one of the kitsune was impaled in the shoulder by a thin lance of ice.

 

"Osai!" one of the kitsune called out, as they hesitated in their attacks at the sight of their stricken ally.

 

The goblins took advantage of that hesitation and pushed hard against the seemingly powerful kitsune. With renewed vigor the goblins pushed the kitsune back toward Kuzu and I, while the shaman in the backlines began to lift his staff up. Though all the goblins looked the same to me, I expected it was the shaman who had pushed his way past all the others on the previous floor.

 

Kuzu had become involved in a fight with a couple of goblins, her punches and kicks barely enough to stagger the weak monsters. I knelt down quick and scooped up the club from the dead goblin, before I walked quickly toward Kuzu. While she had the goblins distracted I began to pummel one of them from behind, which instantly earned me the combined enmity of all nearby goblins.

 

"We need to retreat!" Osai proclaimed as he pointed toward Kuzu. "Girl, come with us and leave the Elf!"

 

What came as a surprise to me was that Kuzu responded instantly, as she did a crude spin kick into the head of one of the goblins. "I'm not going to leave him behind!"

 

"He's an Elf, we're your kind!"

 

"He's not an Elf," Kuzu told him as she backed away from the fight. "He's my friend."

 

"I hate to interrupt your lovely conversation," I finally spoke up, "but I'm going to have to ask you to carry me."

 

Electricity began to course up and down my arms, a sight that caused every goblin and kitsune to pause in their fighting. The shaman in the back screamed out something in that foul language of theirs, and he waved his staff in my general direction. A shower of small shards of ice spat out from the tip of the staff, a couple of the goblins nearest me caught in the cone.

 

Before the ice could touch me I had already begun to move, the world around me gradually slowing down. I dipped into the realm of the impossible again as I utilized the electricity to increase my reflexes. Much like with the lightning leap I had done on the previous floor, I used minute bursts of lightning to move my body faster than what I'd normally be able to.

 

My main goal was not to kill the goblin foot soldiers, they could be dispatched with minimal fuss by the kitsune warriors. Instead I slipped through the giant crowd of armed goblins so quickly that I was a blur to them, and when I reached the goblin shaman I backhanded him. The blow was sudden, powerful, and the goblin shaman fell to the ground immediately.

 

While he floundered on the ground I tore away the staff from his hands, before I shoved the wooden end of it into his side. I stabbed him with his own crude weapon over and over again in that slowed time reality of mine. With the shaman out of commission, or more likely dead, I turned off the enhanced mode and lifted up the staff.

 

"Run if you want to live, you garbage monsters!" I roared at the goblins around me.

 

Like so many times before the power of the magic drew upon my body, and I gathered as much as I could that wouldn't instantly knock me out. My mind focused on the image of what I wanted to execute and I lifted one hand up in front of me, clenched into a fist. When my fingers unfurled so did the power, a ball of electricity that exploded outward and instantly killed most of the nearest goblins, while causing the rest to scatter toward the outside of the clearing.

 

It was a brutal, powerful, and deadly use of the magic that dropped me to one knee. The goblins were too shaken to take advantage of my weakened state, and thankfully it was the kitsune warriors who recovered their sanity first. With an eagerness born of their lifelong hatred toward the goblins they once more started to murder every single one. Kuzu on the other hand ran toward me with a worried look on her face, though she remembered to grab a couple of daggers from the now dead goblins.

 

"Don't worry, they won't kill me in my sleep," I whispered toward Kuzu. "It'd stain the honor of their skulk."

 

"What? What are you talking about?" Kuzu replied, though she was smart enough to keep her attention on the goblins who still lived and not on me.

 

Watched over like that by her I began to relax, a feeling of trust already having begun to properly grow between the two of us. I smiled at that, before the memories of my lost friends started to push to the front. Before I could explain anything further to Kuzu my eyes closed and I slumped fully to the ground.

 

"Damn, I..."

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

"He's an Elf, I don't understand why you like him so much," Osai growled, his voice distant but easily heard.

 

"He promised to help me reach the tenth floor and he's done a good job on keeping that promise," Kuzu responded from somewhere nearby.

 

"He used magic! Nobody can do that! He's obviously a demon in disguise!" was another masculine voice, one that was a bit huskier. "We should put him in chains before he wakes up."

 

"I'm already awake," I growled as I opened my eyes.

 

We had at some point been brought to a large tent, one that could easily contain a crowd of ten. Cushions were put off to the sides, though a couple had been put under me and I could verify how comfortable they were. Kuzu was seated on her knees near me, while she had put on a light robe that had a sash that came around the front.

 

Across her back was a two-handed sword that was favored by the kitsune, a 'Gift of the Fox' given to newcomers to their society. "Are you alright?" she asked, her hands on her lap. Her eyes, however, showcased a degree of worry more than what I’d expected.

 

"I'll be fine. Did you manage to keep hold of the staff?" I lifted myself up onto my elbows to get a better look at her.

 

"The kitsune took it away. They want to know how an Elf got to this floor," she glared accusingly toward Osai. As her head turned some strands of red hair fell down toward the open front of her robe. My eyes started to drift, before I wrenched the gaze away from somewhere too tempting to look at.

 

Two kitsune approached, hands on the hilts of their swords as though they feared I would harm them. "My name is Osai, this is Pritz, what are you doing here?" Osai bluntly asked.

 

"Diving, I figured that was obvious," I gave a light laugh at that. "Where is the reynard of your skulk?"

 

The two kitsune went rigid at that question, then they looked at each other and started to rapidly talk in a quick, almost barking language. It was easy enough to imagine a dog when one heard that, though it wasn't quite right. There was enough of a difference that it was obviously not a dog, but something else.

 

"Don't treat me like I'm an idiot, now where is your reynard?" I asked them, my words spoken in the same dialect they had lapsed into. Vulpese was what Lute had labelled it, although the origin of it had been half her influence and natural evolution.

 

Both of the kitsune failed miserably at hiding their surprise, then slowly turned their heads in my direction. Osai for the first time showed respect, as he went down to one knee, while his head bowed. "My apologies, but we are cautious by nature. Our reynard is in the city and meeting him will require going to the next floor."

 

Kuzu tilted her head at all of it. She had no clue what we were saying, a side effect of how she had been raised on the first floor. How she'd even managed to end up there was a mystery, one that I doubted I would ever get around to solving. In the end though it gave her less knowledge than that of a kitling, and made her more of a human than she might realize.

 

Carefully I stood up, my balance only slightly shot. I could feel a painful sensation in most of my body, but it was more of a muscle ache than anything else. Time would fix that, and so long as I didn't use my enhanced time magic I'd most likely recover soon enough. "They're going to take us to the portal."

 

"Where did you learn their language?" Kuzu whispered to me as she stood up as well.

 

"Something I picked up a long time ago," I honestly replied. A glance was directed toward Osai and his friend, before I requested something of them. "I'm going to have need of the staff that I grabbed from that shaman. It is meant to be my 'Gift of the Diver' to your reynard."

 

Osai's already surprised look became even more, and I wondered if it was possible for eyes to break from widening too far. To me it was common sense, one should always bring a gift if they passed through the tenth floor. The kitsune were a respectful group after all and deserved the same kindness back that they gave to others. From his response I could tell that he hadn't expected me to even know of it, a reaction that brought a smile to my face.

 

"Are you sure you're not a kitsune in disguise?" Pritz spoke up from the side, as he started to rummage in a wooden chest. From it he pulled the staff with the blue crystal embedded in it, blood still stained along the bottom half of the shaft. "Even the other skulks have been lax in their gifts."

 

I accepted the staff from him with a slight bow. "Manners and tradition are more important than personal feelings," I told him honestly. Though I didn't care for their clearly racist attitude toward Elves I wasn't about to break etiquette. "I expect I have the protection of your skulk until we reach your reynard?"

 

"On the honor of our skulk you shall not be harmed," Osai promised, one hand motioning toward the exit of the tent. "At the least we owe you for helping with the goblin invasion."

 

I gave a dismissive wave at that comment. "It was our fault, we didn't sneak through their camp and dragged them here."

 

"Pritz is right," Osai told me as Kuzu and I passed out of the tent and emerged into their makeshift camp. "You should be a kitsune."

 

The camp was, for the most part, generic and unimpressive. A couple of tents with a single large fire pit made up the bulk of it. There was no wall, as the exit to the floor would shift randomly and make such a structure obsolete. Instead the kitsune had designed their camp to be quick to tear down, and quick to put back up.

 

The portal itself was dead center in the camp. A single kitsune stood watch near it, most likely to make certain nobody tried to use it without permission. When we approached the portal the kitsune knelt toward Osai, a sign that instantly told me the command structure.

 

"Pritz, you have the rights to command," Osai announced to his friend, "if they attack send a messenger and I'll send support. Until then continue the guard duty until our skulks rotation runs out."

 

"As you say it shall be." Pritz bowed his head toward Osai, before he pointed at the kitsune's shoulder. "Are you going to return after you have healed?"

 

"Perhaps, though I'll definitely visit Sala before I do anything else." Osai smiled at his friend. "Be well."

 

"Greet her for me as well."

Osai walked over to the portal and put his hand on it, before he motioned toward Kuzu and I. Kuzu, with a shaking hand, touched the portal. Her tail refused to stop moving as she looked at me, a smile on her face. "I've never been there before!" she whispered to me, as though embarrassed to let the other kitsune know that.

"Don't worry, you'll never forget it," was all I told her before I vanished to the next floor.