Laire was making good time and finally approached the lake. She scanned the area for a good place to set up camp while she tried to clear the floor. While water was a necessity for adventurers who entered the dungeon, it also tended to attract plenty of monsters. It was a precarious balance of finding a place sheltered enough that monsters would not approach yet near enough to the water that it could be accessed easily. While unused to making such assessments from the air, Laire was happy with the advantage her wings provided her in terms of viewpoint.
Until an arrow whistled past her ear. Laire dodged wildly to the side in shock and nearly tumbled through the air. She hurriedly dove lower as she looked for the source of the missile. Barely managing to avoid another arrow, Laire finally spotted her assailant. At first, she almost though it was a monster, so unusual was its form. However, dungeon monsters that used humanoid weapons were rare. A flash of a metal plate confirmed her hypothesis.
"Hey, I'm a human!!" Laire yelled as she somersaulted through the air, avoiding the rapid fire. Nevertheless, the arrows continued to come. Desperate, Laire dived towards her attacker until it had no choice but to look at her eye. Well, not her eye, which was closed, but the vampire eye. "I'm a human, dammit!"
The half-man half-beast dropped his bow as the wave of confusion hit him, but managed to shake his head and clear it after a moment. However, that was enough time for Laire to get close enough to wave her own metal plate in his face. Each adventurer who entered the dungeon was issued one, and monsters never picked them up. While some adventurers might attack each other, most had their hands full just staying safe from the monsters. Therefore, anyone holding a plate, while not necessarily an ally, was at least not a certain enemy.
"Human, are you?" the man smirked and looked Laire up and down as he retrieved his bow, which irked her a bit, especially considering the man's own appearance. His body was a patchwork of various monster parts, but the horrific part was that from the waist down, it was as though he was attached to the torso and limbs of a large four-pawed beast. Laire could not begin to fathom how the man survived such an injury with enough stamina to attach himself to a beast in that way. Even more disconcerting was the natural way he turned and walked away from her on four paws, his bow in his hands. "Don't kid yourself!" the man called back over his shoulder.
"Wait! What do you mean by that?!" Laire snapped at him after a moment of shock. Flapping her wings, she swerved around to land in front of him.
"Do you think any of us who entered this godforsaken place can call ourselves human anymore?" he sneered, then nodded towards the nearby lake. "Just look for yourself if you don't believe me." Ignoring Laire's glare, the man easily padded around her and continued on to his destination.
Laire froze at his words and could not stop herself from glancing over at the smooth surface of the lake. Up until this point she had not seen a complete reflection of herself. Would she even recognize the person staring back at her? And if she could not, would anyone else? Would...Sir Honsel? Laire hesitated a few moments before...