Chapter 17

“Cynthia?” Theresa was waiting for me in my room when I returned late from Sune’s Temple. Two of the acolytes got in a fist fight over something stupid enough that neither was willing to admit what it was and I ended up spending hours overseeing their punishment. Plus, Sister Gretchen wanted a full report of today’s meeting. And an update on the architect’s progress, of which there wasn’t any.

“What happened today on the field?” Theresa meant my blow up.

“Tell me honestly. Between the two of us, how many floors can we clear before we need more people? Not want or desire, but actually need more people to survive passing it?”

“The fifth-floor boss might be too hard for us alone,” she reluctantly admitted.

“And if we go all out, and use all of our abilities and skills?”

She scowled at me.

“I thought so. So, us taking Sir shovel up his ass and the rest of her escorts is for Marigold’s sake. You are talking escort duty, not adventuring.” I paused-mid thought.

“You know, I don’t mind that. You will probably be teaching the both of us what to look out for and what to avoid and what’s the good stuff. I wouldn’t have said a word if that was the case. But you didn’t ask me ... and that smug bastard would have made the dungeon unbearable. Probably for the Princess as well.

“Theresa, I’ve been in thousands of dungeons in my life. But I haven’t been in this one. Please don’t treat me as a complete noob.” At her questioning look, I clarified the term, “Beginner.”

“I’ve adventured with paladins and knights before. Some can be fun to be around and some were much worse than Byron could ever be. At least he will stick to his credo. But people like Byron suck to,” game with, I almost said, “adventure with. There is no joy or levity ever from one such as he. At least not in view of his Princess.

“People like that suck all the fun out from everyone around them. Do you now see why I reacted so strongly?”

“Cynn, men like Sir Byron make the best teammates when the dungeon danger increases,” Theresa countered.

“But only if they are group-centric,” I reposted. “His only care in the world is Marigold. If we all die and she lives, then his duty is fulfilled and he can go to bed happy. That is what I have issues with.”

Before bed, we agreed to disagree and call it a truce, but only because Marigold conceded to leave Sir Byron behind.

I hadn’t realized that Theresa wanted Sir Byron in the party until we talked it through. I was the dick who didn’t.

It was a mindset. One I didn’t share with the others. I was from Earth and Adventuring was done only in games. Here, adventuring was something different.

Adventurers treated the dungeon as a dangerous job. Where I treated it as ‘fun’. Hence the difference.

But something I did need to learn was that Adventurers died in the Elemental Palace. That wasn’t something said, but something that Theresa didn’t believe that she needed to say.

Something I couldn’t wrap my thick skull around. Even against the Basilisk, I never thought I would truly die. That I was in danger, sure. Die? Nope.

In the world with VR gaming, death was a momentary setback at most. If there was a good healer in the party, well, seven seconds later, you were up and moving again.

In the ‘Palace’ people died for real.

Like those bandits on the road.

Those corpses left behind weren’t pixels. Nor were the flies landing on them.

“Therese,” I called out my newest nickname for my friend, one that I had only uttered in my mind before this.

“Yes, Cynn.”

“Where I was before this, my party had a healer just as strong as I was, the mage and archer nearly as strong. We never worried about death. I think I was wrong today.”

“Maybe. Good night, Cynn.”

“Night, and thank you.”

I’d have to work on changing that mindset of fun versus danger and death unless I wanted to get others killed.

I had a lot to learn.

The architects learned what it meant to have a High Priestess come down on them when they were trying to scam her. Us.

They either had to renege on the contract and face legal issues, or pony up with the granite that was agreed upon.

They decided a smaller profit was better than jail and confiscation of all of their property.

Gretchen had left a great deal of wriggle room in her demands. Too much for my liking. I tightened up the specs where I could and insisted on only the best. Which they were now cooperative about, but I doubted that that cooperative mood would last when the bills started rolling in.

Granite was a great deal more expensive than the cheap shit that they had planned on swapping out in its place. All to skim extra gold per shipment and for no other reason.

That was what galled me. Substandard material always did.

Something that surprised me was that word of my and Theresa’s spar didn’t circulate. Someone had put the kibosh on that. And hard. I wasn’t sure who, but I suspected that Marigold did.

Sunrise 8-day, I bathed, dressed, ate, and then met the others. Theresa was just taking the four of us through the first few levels to get us acquainted with the earth elementals who roamed freely in the Elemental Palace.

This was the first time I wore a full set of Smith Matty’s armor into battle. His outfits were stiffer than my original set, and honestly not as good. But I didn’t have a better alternative.

One of the reasons I wanted to dungeon delve was that I was near broke. In my terms at least. Besides, this city was expensive to live in. The cost of living, even before the Gods’ Judgment, was higher than every other city in the kingdom except for the innermost regions of the capital.

That Laine expected a breakout in the upcoming year and was in hoarding mode made goods even more expensive, which in turn made services more expensive.

Oddly, Theresa’s father, Tristan, stood by the stable where our horses were kept all alone.

“Keep an eye on my little girl, will you please? It’s been a few years since she has been inside the Palace and she might not be as sharp as she should be,” he asked in a way that only a father could.

“I promise.” A promise that was all too easy to make, for I would have done that anyway.

It looked like he was about to say more, then stopped himself.

“You know, you should tell her yourself. Theresa should be out soon.” Someone had stopped her on the way out from breakfast and she had waved me to continue.

“I’m not sure if she wants to see me,” he admitted. I didn’t know the dynamics, but...

“If you care, say so.” He gave me a nod and left the stable. The stable boy had already prepared both Theresa’s and my horses for the ten-mile, or so, trip to the Palace.

Theresa joined me a few minutes later with a slight smile on her face. I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell, but having at least one of her parents see her off must have felt nice.

We met up with Marigold and her troupe, even if the right word for them would have been troop. It still felt like they were clowning around, yet under an extremely professional guise.

Bodyguard knights and Adventurers were different. Whether or not anyone wanted to admit it. For a personage such as a Princess, the greatest threats she would face in her life were centered around human politics and human attackers.

The knights in her service were some of the best in the kingdom at preventing harm coming to her from that quarter.

Monsters were Adventurer’s forte. Most knights had never even entered a C-ranked dungeon before. Even if they were the cream of the crop or the captain of an army.

There wasn’t a need, for the danger that their charges would face in their lives didn’t come from monsters. And if a danger did come from a monster wave, then instead of facing that wave, they would bundle up their charge and get her the hell out of there and let the regulars fight the monsters.

What no knight would ever admit to was that the skills, reflexes and awareness to danger that experienced adventurers needed to develop surpassed theirs. Some by a great margin.

Or in Theresa’s case, a margin that couldn’t even been measured.

Sir Mustache glowered at me, but kept his silence. Thankfully. Marigold must have followed through on her promise to make him keep his distance and silence with the threat of being sent back to Rosewood in disgrace.

Sir Belle, with her jet-black hair with an inkling of silver, was decked out in a light mithril chainmail, Kite shield, and a flanged mace. A different weapon than she used last time.

Her patron, the blonde Princess Marigold, wore a similar outfit to mine, yet with a jacket that came to the lower part of her ass. A fine one it was, not that I was about to say that aloud. Her chosen weapon was a longsword at her side.

What good a longsword would do against earth elementals? I questioned silently.

Both, Marigold’s attire and her weapon, raised my suspicions. She was hiding something. Probably something magic or intrinsically magic.

Theresa donned her ever-present full leather armor with seventeen buckles. I have counted them often and helped her unbuckle a few now and then. None were easy to unfasten.

Unlike Marigold’s longsword, that drew a questioning thought from me, I had no doubt about Theresa’s blood red sword. Hers had to have been extremely magical in nature if not a genuine Artifact in itself.

And then there was me, no weapons, light leather armor, hell I even had my belly exposed, and no hood or helmet options available.

Even Marigold had snaps on her collar every inch or so. Their purpose was very clear.

I most definitely had the lightest enchantments on my outfit of the whole group. And that included the escort knights who were probably going to wait outside of the dungeon entrance until we exited. Regardless of how long we spent inside.

The only addition to my attire was a light backpack that Theresa personally packed for me and then made me unpack and repack a dozen times last night. Mostly it contained provisions, but there were extras, such as needle and thread, pitons and hammer.

The hammer addition caused me to laugh. But she insisted.

We weren’t carrying all that much extra, since each of us had our own extra dimensional storage space. Or at least, I thought Sir Belle did too. I didn’t ask.

“Your Highness,” Sir Byron began one last time.

“Byron,” Marigold interrupted not at all harshly, “I be under the watch of Guildmaster Theresa Bloodbane and Sir Belle. Unless you believe that you can do a better job than either of them, then speak now or hold your objections.”

To say he was better than one of his companions would paint him in a bad light, even if it were true. Even worse, castigating a Guildmaster, any Guildmaster, was something that the politically savvy knight shied away from. That was one hornets’ nest that he HAD to avoid.

Besides, he knew that one on one, Theresa would mop the floor with him ten out of ten times.

And I was a priestess that could heal significant injuries. A rarity. That I was also Theresa’s companion and friend was also a strike against him.

Sir Byron bowed his compliance. “Please be safe, my Princess. I will await your return.”

“Thank you, Byron. I promise that I will return.” Surprising me, she gave the older knight a quick hug and then turned around and joined the rest of us to step in line to enter the Elemental Palace.

There wasn’t much of a line to enter the Palace. Most teams, of six compared to our four, stayed inside the dungeon for days or weeks on end. The size difference between this dungeon and the early levels of the swamp and Relic were factors of ten at the early levels and only increased from there.

“Karl, set us up for route 4, will ya?” the team in front of us requested.

“Sorry Gray-Fox, Bloodbane has it reserved for the next sixteen hours,” Karl, the gate controller, replied.

“Fuck that, we were here first,” the wiry man in brown scale male replied. Amusing some of the adventurers nearby and horrifying others.

I wanted to see how it played out. Not that I doubted for a second that our side would get to go where Theresa wanted us to go and when.

Theresa stepped forward. Karl saluted and said, “Guildmaster Bloodbane.”

“Is there a problem, Karl?” she asked the old, retired adventurer. From what I had been told by Theresa, Gatekeepers were normally accorded the same respect as D-Ranks, and some actually had been promoted to that lofty rank after their retirement. Some having no choice in that retirement due to severe, permanent injuries, such as the one Yvonne had before I healed her.

“No, Bloodbane. Just a young one flapping his gums.”

“What the hell? Their group has a pretty kid and a fancy noble. What do you plan on doing inside, little girl? Fucking the Earthies into submission?”

Theresa’s arm was out, barring me from shooting forward, even before I reacted.

“Your name is Gray-Fox?” Theresa formally asked.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“If you can beat that little girl behind me, that so wants to rip out your throat right now, then you can precede us. If not, then your team can not enter the Palace for seventy-two hours.

“Is this agreeable to you?”

“Seventy-two hours? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Theresa flashed her Guild card. A silver one.

“Guildmaster and D-Rank Theresa Bloodbane. Do you accept the challenge or not?”

Bloodbane meant little to Gray-Fox and his team, but Guildmaster did.

No one weak or black-hearted ever made Guildmaster rank. And Theresa looked very young, twenty ish. But that card was genuine. And so was her rank if no one else was disputing it.

“Me against the little girl? Sure.”

“Victory conditions?” I asked my friend, who knew that I wanted to pulverize the bastard.

Amethyst HATED being called a whore. And by proxy, so did I.

“First blood. There is a small field right there,” she pointed to the opposite side of the gate which controlled entrance to the Palace.

The man pulled out a pair of short swords, his bow was left with one of his friends.

“First blood only?” I clarified. I thought that she would say don’t kill him.

Ignoring my question, Theresa stood in the center of the arena, “This contest is between two C-ranks for the right of entry for seventy-two hours. The decider is first blood, do both parties agree to this condition and wager?” The visiting Guildmaster formally stated clear enough so that even the adventurers a distance away, who came rushing full bore, could hear clearly.

“C-rank Gray-Fox of the Animals to the south versus C-rank Priestess Cynthia of Sune to the north. Are both contestants agreeable?”

“Ready,” I said easily. Theresa wanted this man to suffer. Painfully.

I did too.

“A Priestess?” Gray-Fox questioned. “I’ll bleed you fast, girl. No need to worry your pretty head overmuch.

“Ready, Guildmaster.” My opponent became much more servile at Theresa’s Rank, versus her title.

Theresa stepped back to just outside of the circle and began counting down, “5... 4... 3... 2... 1 ... Begin.”

I dashed forward and Jabbed. He tried to block it from his ready stance, but ended up with the sword in his right hand flung somewhere behind him. The crack in his wrist could be heard for those close enough.

My follow-up Strike to his chest drew blood, through his mouth, along with vomit and spittle as he collapsed backward out of the ring.

“Does anyone else wish to call a Priestess of Sune a whore today?” I asked the crowd, restraining my anger. That word really got to Amethyst as I felt her fuming inside of me.

“I think you made your point, Cynn,” Theresa stepped in and declared me the winner of the contest.

Turning to Gray-Fox’s teammates, “Go see to your leader. Cynthia did not deliver a killing blow. But he will need medical assistance if he wishes to recover anytime this year.”

Theresa clapped once, breaking the amazement which held the audience captive by the unexpected turn of events, gathered me up and returned to the Gate Keeper.

“How much longer, Karl?” Theresa asked.

I pretended not to see Sir Belle and Sir Byron standing off to the side, whispering to each other.

“Five minutes, Bloodbane.”

“Gear up,” Theresa said to Marigold and I.

I thought I was, but wasn’t about to question her. Especially before so many onlookers.

A quiet five minutes passed before we were allowed entry.

Entering through the Gate, I had a sneaking suspicion that this whole dungeon wasn’t located on this world at all and was willing to wager a great deal of money that I didn’t have, to that supposition.

It probably wasn’t even located on this plane. I wasn’t sure if the adventurers were lied to, or that no one else besides myself understood that little fact.

Inside the first level of the palace was what looked like a quarry that we appeared at the uppermost edge of. There were even stratus layers and what looked to be turtles digging up the earth and moving it around, or something. I wasn’t sure from this distance.

With Theresa leading and I by her side, we moved forward down the slope to the first strata. Marigold was safely ensconced in the middle with some separation and, of course, Sir Belle brought up the rear.

Some 75 feet away, Theresa stopped and said, “Go ahead and play, Cynn, I know you are just itching to see for yourself. The rest of us will wait here until you are ready.”

“You’re so sweet,” I grinned. And shockingly, she blushed in return.

But I didn’t press and ran over to see what the elemental turtles looked like up close.

Oddly, my first assumption was correct, they were kegs of earth on turtle legs. For heads they didn’t have any, just mouths which encompassed the entire width of their bodies.

I stepped up to the nearest one and tapped it on the side of the roundish body and felt hard packed earth. Not quite clay, but earth that had been buried for years and packed to a hardness that would take a shovel and a lot of work to loosen.

Of course, while I poked and prodded the creature, it was doing its best to bite me. But its mass restricted its maneuverability, so I had little to worry about.

I threw a few normal punches at the earth elemental, small, or so I classified it, and watched large chunks rain down.

And frowned.

The elemental was too weak for what I expected to find. Just to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything, I gave it a Jab, my lightest attack, and watched the thing disintegrate under my blow.

Taking out the small trowel that I snuck in my pack, I searched the remains and found nothing of value. With some serious contemplation, I returned to the party.

I shook off Theresa’s questioning look and retook my place at her left. She then began her narration, as if she truly was our tour guide, leading us through the elementals.

The Earth Elementals did get stronger as we progressed, but not at all near what I had expected out of them. To reach the second level of the Palace, the party had to travel to the lowest level of the quarry, and kill at least one hundred elementals. Who and how that number was kept track of? I didn’t know. Upon questioning my guide, nor did anyone else.

The other thing that got my dander up was that Marigold was too weak. Way too weak with her sword. She was either hiding her true abilities, such as her warrior’s aura, or she was a mage. I was hoping for a mage, since her swordsmanship wasn’t even close to Theresa’s.

But then, I knew my standards were too high.

“So, Marigold, just what type of mage are you?” I asked during a break at the bottom of the first floor of the dungeon. I asked mostly to see what the response was going to be.

Theresa’s repressed ‘told you so’ grinning eyes at Marigold confirmed my guess.

“What makes you think I am a mage, Cynthia?” Marigold responded after finishing her mouthful of watered wine.

“It’s the only explanation that fits, unless you want me to expect that this is your real strength. Remember, Sir Mustache allowed you to go without him by your side. That means you are either quite capable on your own, or Sir Belle is actually a D-rank in disguise.”

Actually, Sir Belle’s strength was hard to determine. Theresa and I had been doing all of the work so far, with Marigold occasionally pitching in. Sir Belle’s position in the rear meant she was on watch from anything unexpected. Which had not happened yet.

Marigold was in excellent shape. But she wasn’t a true swordswoman. Just the musculature difference between Theresa and the Princess was enough to tell that much.

“Do you want me to add more? Okay then. Go ahead and give your full punch to Theresa’s stomach. See how she reacts. Then let her hit you,”

“Enough, Cynthia. You made your point,” Marigold fumed. “I’m a mage but not.”

And that clarified nothing.

“Back off, Belle, I know what I’m doing. Cynthia, my family has a gift, each of us can use body reinforcement magic. We can’t cast fireballs or lighting, but we can strengthen ourselves with magic.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks for sharing, now I don’t have to worry about you as much.”

“AS MUCH!” Marigold growled.

“You tell her, I need to relieve myself,” I said to Theresa, and excused myself to find a secluded spot and wish I was male, once more.

“Mari, Cynn hasn’t use any of her abilities since entering the dungeon,” Theresa said mentally exhausted with her over exuberant friend. Me.

“None?” Sir Belle asked.

“None. By the looks of it, she isn’t happy with the dungeon or the monsters.”

Nor Theresa. She lied to me. But that was a discussion for a different day.

She knew how easy I would find the first levels of this dungeon.

As a comparative reference, I maxed out at level fifty in the VR game world with this character, and not just a plain fifty, I was fully spec’d and geared. This dungeon so far was upper thirties, maybe forty. At most, level forty-one. When playing games, anything ten levels or below doesn’t attack you unless you step on their toes, and normally have their names grayed out, unless they are an elite or a boss.

I was almost positive that I could have done laps in this place and few of the turtle elementals would have bothered me, unless I got right in their gaping jaws.

Yes, this dungeon was significantly harder than the previous ones. But it still wasn’t up to my level. Or Theresa’s.

“Are we ready to go down?” I asked on my return.

“Sit, Cynn, none of us have your recovery,” Theresa reminded me.

“Why didn’t any of the turtles drop anything?” Not the best phrasing, but she understood what I meant.

“They do. Haven’t you heard anyone speak of mining the first two levels?”

“Yes, but I thought just meant like ‘farming’, killing and looting the easy monsters for their money and treasures, repeatedly.”

“They do, but they also do actual mining. The adventurers use pick axes and strainers in this case.”

“Let me guess, those turtles have tiny bits of metals inside of them.”

“Gold, silver and rarely a diamond,” Theresa acknowledged.

“And they actually come and mine those creatures.” I just shook my head in wonderment.

“Yes,” Theresa replied.

“When can we get to a level where there are actual benefits for us non-miners?”

“Level four. But the difficulties increase over double from the first level.”

“Wake me when we get there.”

“Cynn!” Theresa reprimanded.

I was irritated for her hiding this from me, and not so subtly let her know.

Level two, I took out a gardening trowel and used that as a weapon, only to receive Theresa’s boot up my backside.

“Dagger practice. You did want me to learn an actual weapon, didn’t you? Besides a real dagger would dull in minutes against these guys.”

“Fine, do what you want. Just don’t let anyone else see you do this,” she huffed.

Sir Belle kept quiet, mostly, just offered a word of advice or encouragement to Marigold now and then.

When I started sculpting one of the stray elementals into a sheep, Theresa got so mad that I thought she was going to draw on me, for real. I danced away from her half sword strike and grinned.

“No one would know if I brought an earth elemental disguised as a sheep back,” I pleaded.

“CYNTHIA!”

“Fine, be all snooty.” I unleashed a Jab, blowing the thing to pieces. Yet out dropped a shiny bit of glass. Or so I thought.

I stopped my antics and sought out that piece of glass, or diamond. The small uncut clear mineral was smaller than my pinky nail, but I believed it was genuine.

“I found something. Here catch,” I lobbed it underhand to Theresa. Marigold put her nose in, inches away to see for herself, and confirmed it. I got my first diamond.

“Woot, I’m rich. I can afford a mansion and a yacht,” I called out sarcastically.

“What’s a yoght?” Marigold asked. Repeating the unfamiliar word, said in a language that she had never heard before.

“A very large boat, but its only purpose is to sail around and keep the occupants comfortable. Not to trade or to make war.”

She looked at me as if I was making up a fairy tale.

After eight hours since entering the Palace, yet only part way through the second level, Marigold started drooping from exhaustion. Which was normal, I guessed. We had been fighting for a while, and as much as she pretended and her spells bolstered her, she was more of a mage than a fighter.

But there was a danger of camping out mid-level in the earthen levels. Earth Elementals treated the whole place as their grazing area, so someone had to always be on the lookout.

Theresa was still miffed when I tried to use the beer keg sized elementals with stumpy legs as bowling balls and made me do a perimeter search before we set up camp.

We rested for two hours, beat up more defenseless elementals for two more hours and then crashed for eight. Theresa and I split the watch, Marigold was over tired and Belle reasonably so.

“Will they make it to five or do we need to return?” I whispered to Theresa at the changing of watch.

“You’ll need to slow down the pace tomorrow,” Theresa replied. She was just as much at fault as I, but I didn’t see a reason to argue.

“Thanks for letting me play some. I’ll get some sleep.”

“Cynn, sorry for not telling you.” How easy I would find the early levels, she meant.

“It’s okay. I might have done the same in your shoes.”

“Theresa. Cynthia...”

“What is it you want to say, Mari?” Theresa asked.

“When you said that she was as strong as you, I didn’t believe it,” Marigold whispered to her friend dozens of feet away from the camp, leaving Sir Belle to watch over the sleeping teen.

“And now you do?”

“I must. She didn’t even once tire yesterday,” Princess Marigold complained. “Did Sune grant her some special ability of endless stamina?”

“I don’t know where she gets it from. But we cannot discount that.”

Both women paused to watch the teen jerk suddenly in her sleep under her blankets. That wasn’t the first time Theresa witnessed Cynthia suffer through nightmares or a difficult night of sleep. But it was the first for the Princess.

“Does that happen often?”

“Most every night,” Theresa replied flatly. Cynn’s nightmares weren’t anything she could talk about to anyone. Not even a good friend. She alone knew the reason behind them and could never reveal their source. Which no one would believe, even if she did.

The Avatar’s punishment by the Gods was not a simple matter of just a few months pain and everyone forgetting her name. Theresa knew that Cynthia suffered agony and shocks inflicted by the Gods themselves for the hubris of taking their anger onto herself in order to spare the innocent.

“Is she ill or cursed?”

“Cynn has great power. Maybe the nightmares are a price. I do know that she doesn’t talk about them, even to me.” Theresa knew the nightmares were also a consequence of the Gods’ Punishment, but she couldn’t share and only diverted Marigold’s inquiries.

“Do they affect her when she is awake?”

“It would be like you getting the chills suddenly. That is the extent that I have noticed. I’ve asked and all she does is smile and say, ‘Can’t tell you.’.”

“Do We need to worry about her?” Princess Marigold meant the Kingdom in her royal usage of ‘We’.”

“Not unless the King angers Sune,” Theresa warned.

“My cousin is doing what he can to balance the scales for all the Gods.”

“I think he will do fine. As for Cynn, you can count on her to do what is right. I wouldn’t worry,” Theresa ended the morning conversation and returned to the campsite to start breakfast.

Marigold gave me a funny look when she thought I wasn’t looking. I thought it was from the bucket of water that I pulled out from my game inventory. The 32-gallon barrel of clean water, that I stored in an inventory slot, was cheating. But I needed to wash off the sweat from a rough night’s sleep. I didn’t even tell Theresa that I had a barrel of water in two different slots.