The avians were created to have certain similarities to birds, while still resembling humans. They lived on the fortieth floor in a floating fortress, one that would require flight or teleportation to reach. Due to that they had grown xenophobic and rarely mixed with the other races of the labyrinth.

For the most part they looked almost angelic, with their wings that came from their back. They had hollow bones and often almost no fat on their bodies, which made them as light as possible. In a stand up fight they would often lose, so to counter that they preferred avoidance and range in a fight.

Luticia had been kind enough to grant them three advantages to make up for their frail physique. The fortress they lived in was the first, and she also granted them an innate ability to use wind magic at the cost of no other magic being usable.

The final bonus was their ability to manipulate space, which was how we stood inside a house while in the trunk of a tree. I’d always found it somewhat pointless to give a race that had the entire sky to themselves that blessing, but I’d learned quick enough that Luticia had her own sense of humor.

The avian in front of me had short black hair that was spiked backward. She had golden eyes reminiscent of an eagle, and her fingers ended in talons. A slight bit of scaling similar to a bird patterned her hands. She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed at me with open hostility.

Adam stepped in between the two of us, his one hand lifted up to hold me back from reacting to the avian. “Calm down, Row,” he told her, “I told you we’re escorting someone. This is Fenix, he’s an Elf, and Kuzu is a kitsune.”

At the mention of Kuzu my gaze shifted to her. She had knelt down on the ground with her two-handed sword on her lap and a whetstone in one hand. With slow movements she worked the stone along the blade, her full attention dedicated to the sharpening process.

“With your permission may I take my daughter to the bedroom?” I asked as I turned back to Row.

It was a request that caused her anger to falter, and her eyes shifted to Lance who held the sleeping girl. “Oh,” she let out a quiet sound in surprise, and then she strode quickly over to the closed door and opened it, “please, this way, I’m sorry about that.”

For some the reversal of her attitude might have been a shock, but I knew from personal experience how much weight the avians put on family and especially children. So when Lance carried my daughter past I wasn’t surprised that Row watched her with a big smile.

On the other side of the once closed door was a spacious room with two beds. One of the beds was clearly meant for two people, while on the other side of the room sat a smaller one. The rest of the place was by and large sparse, with no proper furniture except for a table near the center of the room.

“You can use my bed,” Row said as she pointed at the single bed in the corner.

I limped alongside Lance as he carried Lisa to the bed and put her on it. When he stepped back I pulled the blankets up and covered her with them, before I gave a light pat on her head. “Thank you,” I told Row as I turned to her, “I’m sorry we’re intruding like this.”

The avian looked at me with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment, before she clicked her talons together and turned away. “Don’t worry about it,” Row muttered as she left the room.

When I returned to the main room I noticed that Row had walked over to the kitchen, a knife that seemed to be gnome in origin being used to cut some vegetables. Adam had leaned up against a wall and his eyes were permanently locked onto Row.

“Adam,” I called out his name to get his attention and then beckoned to him.

A few moments later and Adam and I were in the bedroom alone, or rather alone with the sleeping Lisa. “So what’d you want to know in order to keep you and Lance from leaving?” I bluntly asked Adam.

“First, how can you do magic, and the second is I want to know how your daughter did what she did.”

“Magic, well I’ll be doing that soon enough since I suppose we’ll be spending time to rest,” I mused, “so simply put you’ll learn how I can do magic before we leave Row’s house.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Using magic requires doing a type of ritual first, and I’ll be doing that ritual so you can watch,” I told him with a shrug.

“Alright, what about Lisa? How can she be that powerful?”

“That will require a bit of explaining,” I said, “first I’ll need to talk about the Architects.”

“People who make buildings?” Adam asked with an upraised eyebrow.

“No. The Architect race is a humanoid species found after the seventieth floor. Technologically advanced they’ve focused on genetic and cybernetic manipulation of the body to create the superior form.”

“Floor seventy! How would you know about that?” Adam exclaimed with wide eyes.

“The Architect Markov is an old friend of the family, and since my wife and I couldn’t have children he helped us,” I continued on, brushing aside his question, “he created Lisa, but it required mixing in a little Architect genetics.”

“So there are entire floors filled with monsters like her?”

“She’s not a monster,” I told Adam with clear anger in my voice, “and yes, there are a lot of floors filled with Architects. Most of them will murder you, so if you ever see people with white hair and red eyes avoid them.”

Adam blanched a bit at the open hostility I showed. “Why that combination of hair and eyes?”

“The labyrinth won’t let the purebloods be anything else,” I responded, “Lisa isn’t like that because she’s a mixed race.”

“Okay, so you know about the Architects because of this Markov guy, I’m guessing he had his own reasons for wandering into the lower floors.” Adam nervously adjusted his monocle. “Why are you so intent on going to floor fifty though?”

“Lisa’s twin sister is there, plus Markov left me equipment,” I told him as I opted for honesty.

“Another one, dear Goddess,” Adam muttered before he asked me a very dumb question, “you aren’t planning to take over Heron or something along those lines are you?”

“What? No, I promised their mother I’d protect them.”

Adam rubbed at his chin as he stared at me, his mind most likely tackling the answers I’d given him. After he thought to himself for a while he gave a nod of his head. “If you let my brother and I have access to some of your gear on the fiftieth floor we’ll stick with you.”

“That’s fine, but some of it requires years of training,” I warned him, “and some of it you won’t be able to use at all.”

“Deal. Now how about that ritual?”

I reached into my shirt at that question and pulled out the two remaining crystals I’d stolen previously. “One is for me, and the other is for my daughter,” I told Adam, “but once you see how I do this you’ll know how to do it yourself. Mind if I borrow a knife?”

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

By the time we finally left Row’s home it was two weeks later. When we left the tree the sun was still in the sky, and the flowers nearby were in full bloom with numerous types of butterflies feasting on the nectar.

Kuzu was the first to leave as she darted out at her quickest speed. She vanished into a cluster of sunflowers and high grass, her body lost amongst the greenery. She’d already volunteered to scout around and keep an eye out for any ambushes, and given Lisa and I had a way to contact her from a distance I’d had no issues with it.

I walked with a slight limp while using a wooden cane that I’d carved during my convalescence. Lisa skipped alongside me, a smile on her face, while the Wolfe brothers left the tree last. As we walked out Row came along with us and paused a few feet from the tree.

It was obvious to me that Adam and Row wanted a moment alone, so I walked over to check out a bunch of tulips along with Lisa. She poked at the flowers, either out of curiosity or mere childish delight, and I made certain to pretend I couldn’t hear what the two behind us were saying.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Adam whispered.

“No, not yet,” was her reply, “but soon. I mean, I can’t leave the house until my parents get back.”

“Do they normally leave for weeks?”

“No,” she said in such a way that I thought she was about to cry, “please, please keep an eye out for them!”

“I will. I promise I’ll be back.”

I could hear as Adam walked away from her, his feet making a slight noise on the grass behind me. When he came up close I half-turned my head to glance at him. “Are you ready now?”

“Yes, but try to keep an eye out for any other avians,” Adam told me, “Row told me her parents are missing.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I told him as I looked back at my daughter.

Lisa had shoved her face into a tulip and had begun to smell it deeply. “It tickles!” she declared with a giggle as she turned to me, a light yellow powder on the tip of her nose.

I licked my thumb and wiped off the pollen. “Yes it does, your mom loved this floor,” I told her, “but we need to move on. I’m worried about Mika.”

“Don’t worry, she’s tougher than me!”

“Mika, is that your other daughter you mentioned?” Adam chimed in from the side.

“Yes, and the last I knew of she might be in trouble,” I started to limp away from the Wolfe brothers and my daughter.

They followed after me with Lisa taking my free hand in her own. She stared at everything we came across, every type of flower and tree and even the various insects that buzzed about. Her curiosity was high, a side effect I could only theorize of how she’d been a computer program all of her life.

It wasn’t long before we came upon the portal for the next floor. A small contingent of gnomes had gathered around it, their attitudes lax as they lounged openly on the ground near the sphere. We approached it from the deep bushes, our advance slow and cautious as we didn’t want to alert the gnomes to our presence.

“Where’s Kuzu?” Adam whispered to me after we’d come to a stop a few dozen yards from the gnomes.

I gave a wave off in what seemed to be a random direction. I already knew that she wouldn’t stay still, and the last time she’d made a noise so I’d know where she was had been five seconds prior.

“When we attack she’ll follow suit, but we need to make sure we stop any gnomes from getting through the portal,” I said.

Adam slipped his pistol over to Lance before he unslung his rifle. Much like he’d done previously he held the rifle with two hands and aimed down the sights. “Tell Kuzu not to go through the portal, the last time we came through they had an ambush setup.”

Lisa handled relaying the warning to Kuzu as Lance and I prepared our pistols for the fight. “She said okay, and she’s all super ready!” Lisa told us with a smile, though a bit louder than I’d have preferred.

The noise was enough to draw the attention of a couple of the gnomes who looked in our direction. Before any warning could rise up the first gnome had his head removed by one of my bullets, and then Adam and Lance started to fire as well. The gnomes roused from the ground as quick as they could, but before any of them could reach the portal Kuzu was on them with her two-handed sword.

A few of the gnomes tried to skirt around Kuzu and she responded with a wall of ice, one that blocked off access to the portal. A few more seconds went by and the rest of the gnomes were either dead or well on their way, and our small group emerged from the bushes to join up with Kuzu. We didn’t waste time cleaning up the bodies and instead hurried on to the next floor, worried that a gnome messenger might stop by and find out what we’d done.

Floor 28

The Gnome Slave Mines

“Oh that’s new.”