ALEXiThymia: Chapter 20: Return to Bottomless Gorge

Chapter 20

Return to Bottomless Gorge

When Alexa returned from the first Trials of Ascension, she was changed on a deep and fundamental level. The dungeon core of Bottomless Gorge could not warn her in any way of what happened when she went beyond the hundredth floor for the first time. In fact, very few knew of the conditions, as the entire process seemed to come at different times for different people.

The fact of the matter was that the Trials of Ascension came once a challenger passed through one hundred levels of a Tier II dungeon with a class slotted or fully awakened.

Only the Dungeons were aware of this, well only Bottomless Gorge was aware of this. In truth Bottomless Gorge wondered if the other dungeons were even aware of their purpose in the trials of ascension. Still there was nothing he could do for her, other than let her rest.

Fortunately, she herself had been keeping track of her own floors and progress. That was why the dungeon was thankful that she had stopped and rested.

Often what came next after first meeting one of the two groups would require an epic journey spanning many days. The dungeon was aware of Alexa’s time constraints, as she mentioned having a little over three days left on her run.

Honestly the dungeon hoped that would be enough time to accomplish everything. There were ten chances to redo each scenario, but most never took that opportunity. That or if they did, they took them at the wrong stages, when futures were already set in stone.

Bottomless Gorge knew the problems with the Trials of Ascension all too well, for at one point they too had undertaken the trials, before they died. Having been betrayed by the very Elven Matriarch who he, in his past life, had come to adore.

She stabbed him in the back at the last minute and used his life essence to fuel a final desperate defense of their homeland.

After that, Bottomless Gorge was but one of many spirits floating in the vast nothingness.

Even those that sided with the Orcs were eventually betrayed as well. Though their betrayal was more obvious in retrospect and often waited until you were already bloody and injured from a long battle, before the former Clan Chieftain challenged you to a duel once more.

Bottomless Gorge had of course learned the Orcish side of the story, and their betrayal when he absorbed Juan Carlos Arraya. A warrior who managed to survive both the final battle, and the final duel, only to leave the Trials and die once he reentered the true dungeon, he began his journey to floor 101 in.

That was why, Bottomless Gorge was happy to see their newest challenger come back alive and unscathed.

“The floors are back to normal.” Alexa noted as she looked out over the now all too familiar house floor. The one with the mimic for a bed.

Bottomless Gorge always set this as a reset room just in case their travelers needed time to rest. Bottomless had the mentality that slow and steady wins the race. Sure there was a lot of knowledge and energy gained instantly from absorbing the remains of Juan Carlos Arraya, but word soon spread that Juan went missing. At which point the number of people entering Bottomless Gorge slowed down for a while.

Since that point, Bottomless Gorge tried to be as accommodating as ever to the travelers who wished to test themselves against his traps. Yes, despite long ago forgetting their true name, Bottomless Gorge still thought of themselves as masculine. Though that term has drifted over the years.

Still, it was good to see this Alexa return once again. She was a monster of a human. The fact that she survived without any apparent injuries was an accomplishment in and of itself. But she had changed, her mana was now far more potent than it had been when she left.

She was already a monster in human skin to begin with. That was why he took such an interest to her in the first place. Not many people awakened or otherwise that are that powerful would want to come to a measly Tier II dungeon. That said, this Alexa seemed to break all expectations.

Originally, he had wished for her to go on as far as possible, so that she would continue to stay here in his halls and allow the dungeon to feed off her residual energy. But now she had the essence of true power.

The waves of energy of true mana now rolled from her in waves. For a second, Bottomless Gorge, thought about cheating, about throwing in more energy to take her when she wasn’t ready. To set the mimic bed to be a delayed reincarnater.

Then before the dungeon could get too far down this train of thought. The woman spoke.

“I am glad it is you again. That other dungeon felt wrong.” Alexa’s cold voice spoke. But Bottomless Gorge now knew this tone of voice for what it was, this was the only way she could normally communicate.

Then another thing that was odd was that she was Perceptive enough to see that she had in fact entered an entirely different dungeon.

Bottomless had wanted such a distinction to be obvious. As Bottomless stuck to a few core principals. The first was that only death trap rooms would have monsters, regardless of difficulty level. Second, to cut down on the confusion of travelers hating him, versus the Trials of Ascension, he would only keep the same five floors.

While this should seem obvious, very few people were perceptive enough to notice this. Almost no one noticed it as quickly as Alexa had. Generally, those that could notice such a distinction were on Tier V dungeons at the lowest.

With that acknowledgment that the Trials of Ascension were a separate dungeon from him; and that whatever horrors Alexa faced were not performed by Bottomless, made Bottomless feel vindicated. For too long he had been blamed for traveler’s deaths. Deaths that he had no part in orchestrating. Sure, if someone died due to the death trap that was on them, but there were ways to solve the problem.

Glow.

Bottomless for his part just sparkled brightly at the acknowledgment.

Seeing the glow Alexa nodded.

Then Bottomless watched as she stretched for a second, before hitting the obstacle course with a speed, grace, and power that she had never displayed before.

Bottomless thought about increasing the difficulty for her, to make it more challenging, but eventually figured that would be too much.

Finally with the first run done, and the mimic bed once again dispatched by Sleepy Time Tea that had to be brewed just right.

Item: Maximum Strength Sleepy Time Tea

Warning: May cause extreme drowsiness and death in some cases. Use as prescribed.

Directions: Must be brewed for thirty minutes to achieve maximum effectiveness.

That slight change was often enough to kill most travelers. Or make it so that the tea was only half as effective. But Alexa easily noticed the change. Then without missing a beat, identified the iron kettle that was already filled with water.

Then it was just a matter of her waiting in the kitchen for thirty minutes while different traps would go off. Everything from a gas line leak in the stove, to a clog in the sink’s trash compactor. Then there were other traps as well. There were always things that the traveler could do to avert the traps, and somehow Alexa saw everything. She knew which random piece of debris would be important. Never questioning it, and just picking up the one piece amongst hundreds of similar items. Then as soon as a found piece could be used, she knew exactly where to put them. It was amazing seeing her work.

After a time, Bottomless didn’t even begrudge the fact that she won every challenge he threw at her. Since her return from the first stage of the Trials of Ascension, her ambient energy rating was through the charts.

Then she asked one of the most ironic things to ever ask a dungeon.

“Could you set up a place where I could practice my Magic?”

To a dungeon such a case was a blessing. Dungeons often needed to come up with elaborate ways to get travelers to use their mana within their boundaries. Going so far as to summon monsters, on the hopes that the mana used by the Traveler would be overkill.

In this case, Bottomless just started by opening up a large room.

The creation of this room was taxing, but well worth the effort if Bottomless’ thoughts were correct.

Nature Magic raw and untamed course through the open lands.

At first Bottomless felt like they were being invaded by ants, but that feeling soon lessened over the course of hours.

In the first hour Bottomless had regained the energy used to create the room.

By the second hour, Alexa had begun growing little sprouting plants. Yes, plants, deep underground, where no self-respecting tree should grow, Alexa forced a tree into life.

Bottomless watched in amazement as Alexa slowly worked through her own concepts of what magic was. Her interpretation was far different than what everyone else seemed to use. Most used wild gestures and confusing words. Of course, this was a part of the Trials of Ascension, designed to make it so that even if a Human did learn magic, they would be weaker at it than others.

Still Alexa just tried over and over, until she grew an entire forest within the room.

At the height and size of the trees, and the amount of mana Alexa was using, Bottomless expanded the room. Doubling the height to over thirty feet, then expanding the diameter of the floor by over 100 feet.

Alexa once again used this new land to grow more and more trees.

Then once every inch was covered with thick trees, Alexa changed her focus to Wind Magic. Creating gentle breezes at first, but then changing her tactics, narrowing her focus and devising wind blades that would cut off branches.

As soon as a branch was cut off, Alexa then let the branch on the ground, while focusing on Healing the tree itself.

Bottomless watched in awe, as Alexa taught herself how to use not one, but three different schools of magic.

For her part, Alexa never left the one floor. For her purposes this was perfect. She already had the dead mimic bed, and the open room to endlessly practice her mana usage.

After that was done, Bottomless was more than happy that he once again showed prudence and did not bestow the mimic bed with the power to reincarnate.

The power and energy that Alexa gave off over the final few days of her trip was amazing. Better still, Bottomless didn’t have to do anything. No energy was wasted to create new floors, to generate new rewards.

The energy he was gaining now was enough to easily let him evolve into a Tier III dungeon.

The only problem was, he knew that if he did that, then Alexa would not be able to come back to him. At least not as a pre-awakened.

Tier II dungeons were the only dungeons pre-awakened could go to, but they were also the most delicious, especially for a dungeon. First, they did die a bit, but also without a class to hold in all of their ambient mana, they were just little roaming batteries that were perfect to snack upon.

Rather than expanding to a Tier III dungeon, Bottomless Gorge decided to go the opposite route.

Condense Core: You are attempting to condense your core. This will make you able to absorb 25% more ambient mana and retain 100% more mana within your core. Your Augmentation Crystals will now give +2 to the assigned attribute.

In a way Bottomless wished he could share the +2 crystals with Alexa now. While they weren’t friends, he did have a lot of respect for her, especially with the way she managed to not only best the elven trial but gain their graces enough to learn all three forms of their magic.

That was something he and many others had tried desperately to do, but almost none could.

Unless those classes of magic were part of your class, it was unlikely to unlock them from the Trials of Ascension, but she had somehow managed to do just that.

Ding. Ding-ting, ding.

A melodic chime started to go off.

Alexa looked down at the black thing on her wrist and nodded in understanding.

“Thank you.” Alexa said.

It was clear that she wanted to say more but couldn’t.

Bottomless just glowed.

With that, Alexa nodded. Then just as oddly as she had appeared, she disappeared through the return portal.

Bottomless waited for a second, wondering if she would come back, or if she would even remember him. Then decided to go on as he always had, alone, while preparing to have another memorable encounter with the next traveler. One who he hoped would be as interesting as Alexa, though somehow, he doubted that.