We were working our way back up through the second floor once again. The changelings had been just as annoying as always, but the iron troll crosses were enough to mitigate most of the trouble from them. We were the only ones who should be in the dungeon right now, and the changelings shouldn't be able to use the forms of anyone we know. There were times they had almost been convincing enough to trick us despite the hunks of iron hanging from our necks, and more gullible people could still fall for their ploys in the future. The buggers were sneaky. The troll crosses may not be a perfect solution long term, but with the limited number of people coming in and out, they made the changelings a lot less threatening.

  I slid to a stop at a crossroad that hadn't been there this morning, and cocked my head to the side.

  "What's wrong, Helena?" Maxwell asked cautiously.

  I glanced back at him and pointed down the new path with my clawed umber hound hand. "This path wasn't here the last time we came through, but it's heading in the right direction. It's probably a shorter path back up to the stairs."

  Piper looked around. "Are you sure? These hallways are so confusing. I'm not sure how you would be able to tell."

  I nodded and pointed to a small formation of reflective stalagmites. "I recognize these. I remember thinking that they would be small enough to break off and take back with us. I dismissed them at the time because we were already headed to test out our new equipment, but I remember them clearly on the way in, and my whiskers are telling me that this is a shorter path to the stairs."

  "We weren't on the third floor long. The dungeon shouldn't have shifted its floor layout too much," Aria added.

  Maxwell shared a look with his sister before meeting my eyes. "Then that path may lead to a floor boss, or better yet, a chest."

  "Or both," Piper said. She looked down the path with a frown that didn't match her usual interest in treasure. "The other teams have searched this floor extensively, and this is the first lead we've had on a floor boss. Not all of us are at full strength right now, though."

  "I can do it! I don't want to pass on this opportunity just because of me," Iris quickly interjected.

  "Relax, shorty. That's not what she's saying," Aria said before ruffling the mouse girl's hair. "You're not the only one who used a lot of mana on the third floor. Luna used most of her supply as well. Both you and Maxwell also nearly exhausted your new fire-spitters."

  ("I have mana potions. I picked some up from the alchemists in camp for emergencies, but we could use them now to extend our delve,") Luna suggested.

  Maxwell scratched his chin and glanced down at Iris. "Will drinking one of those things be safe for her? I know that they used to bother you before."

  Iris looked up at Luna with hopeful eyes.

  Luna nodded. ("She's empowered enough now that drinking one shouldn't be a problem. It might be good to see how they affect her outside of a fight before she needs one, anyway. That isn't a comment on whether we should do this or not, though. Just that we probably could handle it if we wanted to.")

  I took a few steps down the path and placed my hand on one of the crystals before closing my eyes and deeply inhaling the surrounding scents. The only thing I could pick up from the new direction was the spicy tang of changelings in their natural forms at first, but the more I focused on the scent I was gathering, the more I detected a note of something new mixed in with the smell.

  "I think finding a boss along this path is more likely than a chest," I said as I opened my eyes.

  Maxwell tapped his pommel with his thumb as he followed my gaze. "Eating a boss or variant of a changeling might be an upgrade in strength over the other changeling hearts you've devoured. I think it's worth it, but I don't want to risk fighting if any of us don't feel ready. I'm not sure I want to see what a changeling boss is capable of unless we all feel confident."

  Piper frowned and glanced between Luna and Iris. "I think we should do it if you two both feel comfortable drinking a mana potion. I didn't have much to do on the third floor, so I'm nearly at full strength. Maxwell was using those cuffs, so he probably has a real fight in him, and Helena looks like she's doing alright as well." She turned to Aria. "How are you on arrows?"

  Aria shrugged. "I was mostly using this crossbow the entire time, so I have plenty of traditional arrows left, and a decent number of crossbow bolts left as well. I didn't use them all on the third floor after I got a taste of how they worked. I'm good to go if everyone else is."

  "What do you want to do?" Maxwell asked Luna.

  Luna bit her lip and looked down at Iris, who was practically begging with her eyes. ("Alright, I think we can give this a try. Iris, you must tell Helena if you're in danger in this upcoming fight. There will be less room for error than usual. If you feel pressured at all, ask for help. Do you understand?")

  Iris nodded vigorously in return, and her eyes widened when Luna pulled a mana potion from the satchel she carried on her side. "Do I drink all of it, or half like Rell'kor said before?" Iris asked.

  ("In this case, the whole thing,") Luna answered before holding out the long vial. ("Return the vial when you're done.")

  The two drank down their mana potions, and Iris almost retched from the taste of it. Most potions in this world were nasty things, and usually caused toxicity if you drank too much, but they were damn effective. Iris managed to finish the whole thing without complaining and handed the vial back to Luna without a word.

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  ("Give us a few minutes for the potion to take effect, and then we can go see what this new monster is like,") Luna said, turning to Maxwell.

  I shifted my shield to my left arm and flexed my claws. These monsters tended to be too fast for me to use my axe. A lot of monsters tended to be too fast for my axe, truthfully. There weren't a lot of weapons that were well-suited to this size, and even with the ease I was able to wield my axe, it was still a bit too slow for a lot of our enemies. I wish I had something like a long knife that I could use in this form. Or, well, something knife-sized to me anyway. Something like that would probably be a bastard sword to anyone else.

  Iris visibly shuddered. "I think I'm full on mana now. It feels a bit weird to regain my mana this fast. It also kind of left a weird aftertaste in my mouth."

  ("That's a good sign, it means that you handle mana potions well,") Luna told her.

  "The aftertaste?" Iris asked with a frown.

  Luna barked out a laugh so loud that it caused her wince in pain. ("No, silly. It's a good sign that it filled up your reserves so quickly.") She rubbed her throat as she stepped forward and adjusted her staff. ("A few moments to drink some water and we're ready.")

  Maxwell nodded. "Alright. Me and Piper in the lead, Helena in the back. Everyone else in the middle for now."

  "Let's go see what changeling boss tastes like," I said with a snort.

  Maxwell led the way through the new pass until it opened up into a large clearing. Just a quick glance at the shape of the nearby walls screamed boss arena after my experiences in the Fallow dungeon. This one was about twice as large as most of the others, looking more like the size of the area we fought the alraune in, rather than where we fought the minotaur. The walls rose up around the arena at a sloped angle, with the mirrored stone's shining facets creating something reminiscent of a stadium facing the center of the ring.

  In the center of the arena was a giant throne made from reflective glass-like crystal. It shimmered in a multitude of twinkling colors as we approached, but the chair was empty. I looked around, and even though I didn't see anything, I could feel their presence. There were eyes on us, lots of them. We were outnumbered despite being seemingly alone in this place.

  Once we crossed some invisible threshold, a tall and lithe changeling literally popped into existence on the throne in front of us. There was a rumble through the ground along with the sound of a rockslide behind us as the path we had come from collapsed. I didn't tear my eyes away from the creature in front of me though. I had a perfectly fine image of the chaos behind me through my echolocation, and I couldn't risk taking my eyes off of this thing now that it has shown itself.

  "You have a lot of nerve coming here, you know. You've been killing my little siblings in cold blood for weeks now, and you didn't even bring me a present! How is a queen supposed to take that? You selfish little wingless twoleggers come into our territory and start chomping down on them like food! How disrespectful!"

  "They have two legs too, though..." Iris whispered to Aria.

  The little fairy queen gasped. "A short little rat dares compare itself to our kind! How dare you! You vermin are merely an imitation of our greatness! Not a one of you even have wings! To draw any comparison between us is downright blasphemous!"

  I snorted in amusement before breaking into a chuckle.

  "What is so funny, you man-eating beast?! You cannibal! A mere dog that eats its own kind deigns to laugh at me? You should be groveling on the ground like the bitch you are!" the changeling queen continued to shout.

  The more it spoke, the more it made me laugh. Because I knew what it was doing.

  ("It's trying to insult us with our insecurities. It's so transparent. Ignore her, it's just trying to get a rise out of us. It wants to enflame our emotions so it can feed on us and throw us off balance.") I stretched my neck and slid one hand along my armored chestplate before flexing my claws.

  The fairy queen's words came out like sweet honey, which contrasted with the vile things she was saying, "Oh! So the carpet-muncher thinks she has us all figured out! Always standing in front of your cripple of a paramour. Oh! Or your wife now? Looks like you finally tricked the damaged goods with daddy issues to sleep with you. How long before you throw the trash away? It's not as if you could love something with such ugly scars on its throat. Can I watch when you abandon her like you abandoned your mother? Who would choose an ugly cripple over a sexy and mature woman? It's not like you cunt-lickers have the morals to stop yourselves from bedding down any woman who breathes, all of you are so easy."

  Luna's hands were balled into fists and her tail had puffed out. There were tears in her eyes and she was shaking. I had never seen her so angry before. More than half of that had been targeted at me, but Luna took it all so personally. A faint smell of ozone started to crackle around her.

  "Luna, wait!—"

  Before I could say any more, a bolt of lightning surged from Luna's fingertips and shot out at the fairy queen. Rather than hit the wicked thing, the electricity curved downward right into the chair she was sitting on.

  Luna's eyes went wide, and the fairy queen began to cackle. "What a useless damaged fox! Because she lost her temper, all of her friends are going to meet a violent and painful death, all because of her."

  The lightning caught inside the changeling's throne only seemed to grow in intensity after it was captured. Streaks of eye-searing light began to travel through the floor and illuminate large glass pillars that had blended into the environment. Each pillar began to brighten up the area with painfully dazzling light, revealing the hundreds of changelings that had been sitting along the angled walls watching the queen's jabs at us like a show. Arcs of electricity crackled from pillar to pillar with sharp frequencies that rang in my ears.

  A sudden horrible realization ran through me as I stared at the scene of the tall and leggy changeling dancing and blowing kisses to the crowd.

  All of us were wearing hunks of conductive metal around our necks, and we couldn't remove them while surrounded like this.

  The changeling queen turned and stared at me with its unnaturally huge smile of wickedly sharp teeth. Lightning buzzed around her in the quiet anticipation before the fight.

  Hello! I'm back from my week long impromptu break! Sorry about missing last week, I had some irl stuff to take care of. Everything should be back on track now. This chapter is a bit of a cliffhanger so it's pretty good that this wasn't the last chapter before my break, I'm pretty sure readers would have killed me, haha. Those changelings can be so mean! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

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