Curselock

Chapter 235: Bear

“Hello!” Jude yelled into the snowy flat wasteland that was the first section of Floe and Gelo’s dungeon. “Anyone home!?”

At one end of the wasteland was the worm zone, a collection of the dungeon’s first boss, a massive worm. Frozen like stalks of corn or sprouting trees, the worms died as they lived, lunging from the dirt like a shark breaching the water’s surface. Countless of these worms laid in the graveyard reaching for the sky, each killed by the dungeon master of this sub-world.

Floe.

“You’re back.”

The two words were like ice, and felt even colder. They whispered through the wind, reaching the boys’ ears like the speaker was directly behind them. Emerging from the worm graveyard was the source, the very reason they were here.

Floe appeared as she always had, a great grizzly bear with fur made of ice. The size of a house, her tree-trunk sized legs carried her across the wasteland at speeds unfit for a creature that size. Each step echoed dull thuds and sent gentle tremors through the ground.

Flanking her was her cub and daughter. Gelo, from this distance, mixed with the backdrop sky. With early winter icicles frozen to her fur and skin, the true color of her fur shined through - faded blue. And while her steps were no less impressive than her mother’s, the little bear teetered with excitement from right front and back leg to left front and back.

Floe arrived first, then Gelo a moment later.

“I take it everything went well with your city and princess-queen-friend?” Floe asked.

Leland gave her a great smile. “More than fine. The city’s been saved, bad guys killed, and Sybil’s healthy and in power.”

Noticing the strange looks his friends were giving Leland, Floe asked, “There is something else to the story.”

Glenny spoke up before the others could. “Leland and Sybil are dating.”

“Ah. Human mating.”

Leland went red. “What— Don’t call dating ‘human mating.’”

“Why not?” the great bear asked. “It makes sense, no?”

“I mean, it does. But mating usually refers to something else…”

“Hmm. I see. Are you planning to have cubs?”

Leland coughed, sputtering out an odd sound. It was then he noticed the bear giving him an impish smile. “That’s not funny,” he muttered.

“Forgive me, Leland Silver.” Floe went from all fours to sitting on her butt with her front two paws in the air. “It is not often I get to tease. Gelo… is now that certain age where she finds my ribbing tedious at best.”

“Ah,” Jude announced, waving his hand. “Teenagers. Tell me about it.”

They all openly stared at him.

“What?” he asked. “Something on my face?”

That was when Gelo arrived sliding the last few paces on her belly. She huffed, hot breath exhaling from her nose. “You-you’re back!”

“And you’ve gotten bigger!” Jude said to the newcomer. “And has your fur always been that faded? I think more white is coming in!”

Gelo positively preened at his words, her exhaustion suddenly gone. Strutting around in a small circle, she showed off her fur to the boys. “Mother says it will be fully white in another year or so.”

“Oh? And when will it be full-on ice?”

The cub snorted, which sounded more akin to a horse than a human. “My fur only turns to ice as my proficiency with elemental frost increases.” Her tone turned dour. “For that, I have to practice.”

Floe rolled her buckler shield-sized eyes. “Becoming attuned with the elements will not only make your fur grow. You are a being of frost and ice. When your fur turns to ice, so will your body and soul thus creating more opportunities for you.”

“Soul?” Leland asked, suddenly a lot more interested in the conversation.

“It is no secret that one’s soul can evolve.”

He recoiled at her words. “Uh? Yes? Yes it is? I’ve never heard that before.”

Floe looked down at the Legacy of Curses, a boy who could literally steal souls from their living host. “You have much to learn.” She glanced at her daughter who was being pet by Jude. “A lesson perhaps?”

“Nooo,” groaned the cub, staring daggers at Leland.

He didn’t care, however, the enthrallment of knowledge too much to pass up. When was the last time he had a lesson anyway? Years, he assumed.

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“For beasts like us,” Floe began, “one’s soul is a key to power and intellect. Time grows one’s soul, as does the computation of mana and magic. It can come in many forms, but eating other magical creatures is most popular for our kind. But at some point, meat doesn’t cut it. So what do we do? We become one with our element. Frost and cold for us.”

“Are you saying that at some point your soul requires more concentrated magic, so you… what? Train? Become one with the element?”

“More or less. Is it not the same for humans?” Floe asked. “Replace the power of Lords with elements. The same information applies. You gather power from fighting and killing, then evolve.”

Glenny had a question about that. “What about non-combative Legacies? How do they evolve?”

“Right,” Jude said. “Remember Ol’ Rudy back home? Legacy of the Brewer. I think he was on his fourth evolution.”

Floe answered with a chuckle. “Everyone is different. Everyone’s element is different. Where do you think a Lord gets their power? From the elements.”

“The Lord of Brews has affinity to the element brew? Alcohol?”

“That is likely, yes. Or perhaps elemental brew does not exist and the Lord has affinity for elemental life and decay. Fermentation, yes? Life and death.”

While Glenny and Jude were acting as if their eyes had just been opened for the first time, Leland wasn’t so quick to reroute his life views. Instead, he asked, “But we humans don’t eat others for power. And I’ve never heard of people becoming one with an element to evolve. We just fight and train until we are deemed ready.”

Floe gently nodded. “Allow me to ask a question. Your parents,” she said to the group, “why have they not evolved more? They are old enough to become beings of immense power. But they stopped growing. Why is that?”

“It’s harder to rank-up abilities and spells the further you go,” Leland quickly answered.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they are not gathering power correctly.”

He chewed his lip. “How do you gather power correctly?”

“By becoming one with the element you are attuned to,” Gelo answered smugly. “I even know that.”

“Or,” Floe said, “by consuming immense amounts of your attuned element.”

Leland’s mind went back to Ashford and how he consumed his parasitic weapon to become more. More Lord-like. More divine. Was that what he was doing? Jumpstarting becoming one with elemental undying and miasma by eating the very parasite that had been feeding off his own elemental undying and miasma?

A stray thought passed. Was that what Lodestar was doing?

“Is it possible for humans to become one with the elements without consuming their element?” Leland asked.

At his question, Gelo’s face scrunched. “I… don’t know.”

Floe, however, was much more reserved. “I would say so. Your Lords have already done it.”

Again, Leland’s mind went back to the battle in the capital. But instead of Ashford, he thought of the Sightless King and his red-souled remains.

A Claim.

It was what Ashford wanted the whole time he tormented the city. A claim to divinity. A soul with power unlike any other.

And for some reason, in his final moments, Ashford entrusted it to Leland.

Staring off in the distance, Leland’s hands went to his neck where the Soul Lord’s necklace rested. The artifact was supposed to take the form of a cloak made from souls, but right now it didn’t so much as glow. It acted as a bank for souls, a place where he could put souls for later. But right now there was only one soul inside.

The soul of the Sightless King. A Claim. A push for divinity.

All of this led him to the reason he and the others had returned to the dungeon. To free Floe from the chains that were her home dungeon.

He looked up at the Guardian Spirit Beast. “I think it’s time I start working on getting you out of here,” he said. “And I think I know how to do that. What do you think about becoming a Lord yourself?”

All eyes went wide at his words.

Floe recovered the quickest. “Whatever it takes to leave this cursed place.”

Leland smirked. “Funny you said ‘cursed.’ Because I’m rather adept at manipulating curses.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jude interrupted, stepping in front of his friend. “You do not get to say all of that then make a crappy pun—”

“I don’t think that was a pun.”

“—What do you mean by make Floe a Lord?”

With a deep breath, Leland yanked at his necklace, removing the Sightless King’s soul. It was basked in red crimson. It leaked ethereal blood. A mangled blob of what used to be the soul radiated a power all could feel. While Jude, Glenny, and Gelo flinched at the overbearing feeling, Leland and Floe stood tall.

“This is called a ‘Claim.’ It’s the soul from another Guardian Spirit Beast. One that was as close to divinity as one could be… at least that’s how I understand it.”

“Put it away,” Floe forced herself to say, staring at the thing’s sick beauty.

A moment passed as everyone collected themselves.

Floe then asked Leland, “You call it a ‘Claim’ but do you know what that is, truly?”

“No,” he responded rather slowly, thinking about his answer.

“It is a soul one step from breaking into divinity. A soul one step from becoming their element.”

Glenny had continued to stare at where Leland held the soul. As the one closest to the corrupting power of the Sightless King, a connection had been formed between the two. And in the Sightless King’s death, that connection had been severed. Still, there were some feelings, some unshakable feelings, that he’d never forget.

“Primordial and blood. Those were the Sightless King’s elements,” he muttered.

Leland’s eyes shifted off his friend back to the massive bear. “What do you think? Would it work?”

Floe shook her head. “I do not know. Nor do I know if that is what I truly want. A last option, yes, but not a wanted one.”

Anyone could see that she was scared. It was understandable. Divinity was a beast all its own. Leland knew that better than anyone. Still, it was his best plan to break Floe out of here.

“Alright, here’s my plan,” he began.

He talked for ten minutes straight, explaining how there were “lists” among the Lords and how he kind of, sort of had a say in these lists. He’d tack Floe’s name onto the list for the next Lord of Dungeons, making use of the Sightless King’s Claim to give her enough authority to not be laughed out of the heavens.

“I still need to talk to a few Lords to make sure this plan will work,” Leland said. “So why don’t I start with that while you all process everything I said.”

Floe gave him a reserved nod.

With a deep breath, he said, “Lord of Beasts, I humbly wish to renew our contract.”