Chapter 234 — going home

Chapter 234: Chapter 234 — going home

The ramp up from Floor Ten carried a different weight than it had on his way down two months earlier, though it took him a moment to place exactly what had changed.

Not lighter. Just steadier. Earned, maybe.

He set a deliberate pace rather than his usual brisk one, in no hurry to rush the climb the way he’d rushed almost nothing else about this trip. Floor Nine greeted him with its familiar, considerable scale, and he found himself, crossing it, genuinely enjoying the dry, solid ground beneath his boots after two months of water pressing against him from every direction.

A lone Ironhide Troll tested him near the old mining chamber, and he handled it without much trouble, the fight feeling almost gentle compared to anything Region III had offered these past months. He gave the floor its proper due regardless — two full days, the ground considerable enough that rushing it would have meant missing half of what it still had to show him.

He made camp that first night properly, pulling a full meal from storage rather than rationing anything, and found himself writing a longer entry than usual, more reflective than practical.

First night on the climb home. Strange, how much lighter the upper floors feel now. I remember them being genuinely demanding, not so long ago. I suppose that’s the honest measure of how far this trip actually carried me.

Floor Eight took a similar two days, the old Cinderback Salamander’s scorched den sitting quiet and undisturbed as he crossed near it, a small, private smile crossing his face at the memory of the fight that had once properly tested him here. He let himself move slower here too, in no particular hurry, simply appreciating ground that had once cost him so much more than it did now.

Feels like a different life. Not that long ago, though.

He crossed into Floor Seven on his fifth day of climbing, and gave the Deeproot Guardian’s known territory the same wide, deliberate berth he always had, though he noticed, passing it this time, that the old caution had settled into something closer to simple respect rather than genuine unease.

Still not ready for that. Getting closer, though. Properly closer.

Floor Six’s water pocket barely registered as an obstacle, and Floor Five’s old pit trap site he avoided on principle, the memory of that early fall still sharp enough to warrant caution even now, months and months removed from the actual event. Both floors passed in a single combined day, their scale considerably smaller than Eight or Nine’s had been, nothing about them demanding the same patient, lingering attention.

He made camp that night in the same excavated chamber where the Ironhorn Minotaur’s distant cousin had once given him Bulwark Strike’s foundational pieces, and spent a quiet while before sleep simply testing his accumulated kit, cataloguing everything he now carried with the same careful, methodical attention he gave most things worth properly understanding.

Water Sovereignty, Water Armor sitting close to it now. Bulwark Strike, Earthen Grip still unfused. Lightning Strike and Lightning Ward, recognizing each other properly. Stonebound Veil, Depthbound Grace, Iron Stomach, Magma Touch, the storage space, and everything else from before.

He didn’t try to count the total. He’d learned, months ago now, that the exact number mattered considerably less than how well each piece actually served him when the moment called for it.

Floor Four and Three passed over his next day, familiar ground settling beneath him with the comfortable ease of a path walked many times before, nothing demanding more than his ordinary, practiced attention and no particular reason to slow down further.

He thought, crossing Floor Three’s rougher cavern, about Eldrin’s letter from months ago, about the southern border’s quiet troubles, about the pillar ruins he’d found deep in Region III and chosen, deliberately, not to disturb. He wondered whether any of it connected, the same patient, unresolved curiosity that had followed him since Millbrook’s forest, and found, turning it over, that he still didn’t have enough pieces to properly guess at the shape of it.

Someday. Not today.

Floor Two and Floor One passed quickly on his final day, the worked stone corridors familiar enough now that he barely needed to think about navigating them at all, his mind instead drifting comfortably toward everything waiting for him on the other side of the checkpoint.

He reached the surface archway after one week of climbing, the guard checking his badge and clearance mark with the same brisk efficiency as always.

"Long trip," she observed, glancing at the wear on his gear.

"Worth every day of it."

"Good to hear." She waved him through, and he stepped out into proper daylight for the first time in over two months.

It hit him the same way it always did, sharper than he expected despite having done this exact thing before — the smell of bread and dust and horses, the particular warmth of real sunlight against his skin, the sheer, overwhelming ordinariness of a city that had simply kept existing the whole time he’d been gone.

He stood there a long moment, letting it settle properly, and found himself smiling without quite meaning to.

The walk to the Foxglove felt longer than he remembered, his legs still catching up to solid, unmoving ground after so long spent mostly underwater, and he found himself slowing deliberately as he approached, savoring the last stretch rather than rushing it the way some eager part of him wanted to.

He pushed through the Foxglove’s front door, and the common room’s familiar noise washed over him immediately — the particular clatter of a place that had kept right on existing without him, exactly as it always did.

He stood there a moment, breathing it in, before anyone noticed him at all.

Home. Finally, properly, home.

He thought, standing in the doorway, about everything this trip had given him — the pillar ruins, the heat vent, several new abilities still settling into their proper places, the quiet, earned confidence that had replaced the desperate uncertainty he’d carried the last time he’d walked through this exact door.

He thought, too, about Yveth, about Pella’s teasing and Rilla’s quiet warmth, about Elira and Dallin and Neris and everyone else who’d been waiting, patiently, while he earned this homecoming properly rather than rushing toward it.

He stepped fully inside, and let the door close behind him.