Myrsvai stood before the fallen corpse of a dread vampire. It was the first he'd seen in a long time, and it was just as ugly as he remembered. Suta was busy knocking over barrels and checking the contents of each. It was unlikely to prove worthwhile, but the familiar was having fun and there was no rush.

Myrsvai felt like they were already making progress at a snail's pace. Owin would be leagues ahead of them unless he was doing something stupid. Actually, it was probably Shade he needed to worry about.

Althowin had made an intelligent call sending him to the Fortress early in his Shard Hero career. With the mobs only twice as strong, Myrsvai and Suta's strategies still found ways to work even when abyssal damage wasn't great against vampires or specters. The ocular mobs on the previous floor hadn't proved an issue, which was a great change to the nonstop specters of the first floors.

All the thralls and vampire servants were already not fun to fight, but since Suta couldn't be permanently damaged by them, he was having fun charging in to keep the bloodsuckers at bay.

Treasure.

Myrsvai turned to find Suta across the room beside a fallen barrel with a beautiful blue gem raised high.

"Good find."

Suta nodded. A thrall jumped out of the next barrel. He caught it by the face and slammed it into the ground. Black blood splattered as the familiar continually smashed the mob into the same spot. When it went limp, Suta stomped on its head and pierced its heart with his hand.

It was always good to do both to make sure the vampire's stopped moving.

"Dead," Suta said.

"I see that."

Suta grabbed the thrall by the foot and shook it violently. No loot fell out, so all he managed to accomplish was to shower the entire side of the storage room in black blood.

Mrysvai was glad he hadn't accompanied Suta on his search of the room.

Progress was slow, but he felt strong. They both felt strong.

If he could go without sleep for a day, they should be able to reach the top. With even a single shard, the need for sleep had dropped dramatically. As long as he felt aware and fast, he would continue.

Plus, Suta wouldn't be kind if Myrsvai needed sleep. When Suta insisted, Myrsvai complied.

Another thrall jumped out of a barrel. Suta caught it by the ankle and swung it horizontally against a stone pillar.

Myrsvai sighed as the familiar was drenched in sticky vampire blood.

Fun.

The room quaked as the pillar collapsed. Even that destruction wasn't enough. The thrall went spiraling out of the dust and struck another pillar. Suta leapt after it and landed on its head, stomping it to mush.

"What did I create?" Myrsvai muttered to himself.

Suta shook the body and proudly held up a single gold coin.

"Nice find," Myrsvai said, despite them having more than enough gold at the moment.

Hopefully Owin's journey was less bloody.

***

Owin walked back through the door that had once been a mimic. He flinched, expecting a tongue to lash out, but it was as dead as a door could be.

"So, we could go up the stairs or through that door." Owin pointed to the door that was almost hidden behind the grand stairs.

"Or." Shade grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back into the destroyed sitting room. "We could see what's inside that hidden door she came from."

"Oh. Do you think it's a secret?"

"If it is, I could get boned." Shade stopped pushing Owin toward the wall panel. "You know, sometimes I do surprise myself. The words I say aren't always the words I intend. A side effect of speaking quickly, I suppose."

"Did you say something weird?"

"No." Shade dragged Owin to the secret door and stopped, then stepped through first. A little spout sprayed fire directly into his face. "There are traps."

"It's a good thing you're going first."

Shade walked into the narrow passage and touched basically everything. Most of the walls on each side were old stone covered in dangerous looking fungus. Owin was far from an expert on anything fungus or construction related, but having mushrooms growing inside a wall seemed bad.

"Did that Catalyst of the Abyssal Lord spell do anything helpful?" Shade asked.

"Was that what you used? It made my vision weird. I could see the mana and creature type, I think. You were black like and the vampire was red. If I practiced, I think I could use it."

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"So, not helpful?" Shade ran into another trap and was speared with a spike. He had to wiggle to get it out from between his ribs.

"Not fully, but it was a good idea. It was at least a good distraction. I didn't know you could connect to the Abyss." Owin ducked under the spike trap even though it was already above his head. "Would you be able to summon a demon?"

"Probably. Not Thalgodin or one of Myrsvai's other friends. We would just need to pluck one out of the Abyss and fight it until it stopped trying to kill us. I'm sure I can't summon a familiar." His index opened. "I don't even have the spell, so I definitely cannot summon a familiar."

"Could we just summon demons for me to kill and eat?"

"Gross." Shade stopped at a corner. "We could try. Do you think the Lords of the Abyss would be happy about that?"

Owin shrugged.

Shade shrugged back. "Left or right?"

A vampire bairn fell from above, landing on Shade's head. It immediately started clawing at his face, even reaching into Shade's empty eye sockets.

Shade didn't react at all. "So, left or right?"

"Right, I think. Left would be back toward the stairs."

Shade combusted in abyssal fire. The bairn made some noises and shifted. Vampires were resistant to abyssal damage, so it wasn't dying as fast as a lot of things would. Shade seemed to know that and just waited until it dropped off his head. As soon as its chest was open, Shade stabbed the bairn with a stake.

It dropped dead.

"So, right?" Shade continued, took another jet of flames to the face, and found a wall panel to open. He stepped into a sunlit room. "No vampires in here."

Owin stepped around the skeleton. It was a greenhouse with all sorts of plants. There were even some small trees bearing fruit. "They have a greenhouse, but they can't be in the sun?"

"They could work on it at night."

"Does it change from day to night on this floor?"

Shade was looking up at the glass ceiling. "I think the only way to answer that is to stare and wait."

"We're not going to sit here and wait, Shade."

"Then your question will go unanswered and you will be wondering for the rest of our lives."

"I won't."

"Alright."

They gave the greenhouse a good search, but without knowing anything about the plants, there was little of interest. Owin was sure there was something valuable for someone like Ernie, Katalin, or Miya. They would have to venture to the seventh floor themselves to obtain it. If Owin and Shade were in charge, nothing was going to be found.

"This one looks like a flower," Shade said.

"They all look like flowers."

"I think they are all flowers." Shade walked to the door and opened it wide. "Want to go stab another vampire?"

"I think we need a new strategy."

"Do we?" Shade waited for Owin to step into the hall before following and closing the door after them. He opened the next door, which went straight into the lobby with the stairs from the sixth floor. "I think we need to go back into the wall."

Owin ignored the skeleton and opened the door opposite the greenhouse. It was a long, elegant dining room with multiple tables with silverware and plates already prepared. A few bat-like vampire bairns worked on tables on the far side.

Owin closed the door. "Yeah, back to the wall."

They worked their way back through the wall panel, over the bairn corpse, and through the other direction. Instead of leading back to the lobby like Owin had expected, this path went up. It wound around and had far more traps that Shade triggered. A few looked painful, but the skeleton never reacted.

Somewhere on the second floor, they found a small area where the passage widened. Bars separated them from a chest that was tucked into a spot in the wall that had been designed specifically for the chest to fit.

Owin grabbed the bars, put his feet flat against the wall, and yanked. Things creaked and shifted for a time before stones finally broke and a bar came loose. Owin crashed into the opposite wall. He stood up right away and went to pull another bar from the wall. This one went easier now that the wall was showing significant damage.

When all the bars were gone, he pulled the chest from its spot. He opened it excitedly and found three things. The chest looked disappointingly empty with only the three small things.

"Well, I guess I'll see you in two minutes," Owin said.

"Don't you want to eat some demons?"

"Yes, but I think we should wait. We can do it when Myrsvai is around to give advice." Owin grabbed the gray bone and caused Shade to disappear in a puff of dust. The other items were a very thin stiletto knife, which he put into his bag, and a chunk of gold embedded in a rock. He wasn't sure what the point of it was, so he just added it to the near-full bag.

Owin closed the top and sat on the chest. He'd wait until Shade was back.

Summon the Withered Shade

When Shade reappeared, Owin immediately noticed a difference. His bones had completely lost the dusty appearance and had a bit of a sheen. They looked almost metallic. Shade passed the Thunderstrike Maul to Owin. The skeleton still held Isotelus and kept sticking the hammer in Owin's face until he took it.

"Why?" Owin asked as Shade put the Incandescent Blade in its sheath.

"Vampires keep regrowing stuff, so if you just smash all their bones, it will give me a chance to stab."

Owin only noticed the stake lodged between Shade's ribs when the skeleton grabbed it. "We still have the swords if you need them."

"That works for me." Owin hopped off the chest. "Do you have anything new?"

Shade opened his index and read a few things, which were all mender spells, before he finally found something that wasn't from being resummoned. "Withered Swap?"

"Do your abilities give descriptions?"

"No. That would be too easy and convenient. It's cooldown is long, so I don't want to waste it right now."

"Is it wasting it if you don't even know what it is?"

Shade narrowed his eye sockets. "Yes."

"Fine. Keep going. I want to get out of this cramped area."

"Cramped?" Shade stuck out his arms, striking both walls without stretching them out all the way. "This is spacious compared to my box."

"I know, Shade. You know what I mean."

Shade disagreed as he continued walking. He kicked a tripwire of some sort and paused. Nothing happened. As soon as he took another step, a press of some kind appeared out of the wall, smashing the skeleton's head into the opposite wall. If he had been a human, the sudden impact of the trap would likely have broken his skull. For Shade, it just made his head bounce off the stone.

"Well, these traps are especially rude."

It took a few minutes before they found the end of the passage. Instead of a wall panel, it looked like they were on the other side of a painting. Shade tapped it and shrugged. "Me or you first?"

"I can go."

Owin stepped past the skeleton, pushed the painting door open, and stopped.

He entered some type of gallery of paintings evenly spaced all around the walls. That alone wasn't a concern, but they were easily the creepiest paintings Owin had ever seen. That made it bad, and the paintings all turning to look at him just made it worse.

"I don't want to be an art critic," Shade said, "but what the fuck?"

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