Chapter 9

Theresa was a little less hesitant to get into the transit tube, but I had Amenthia go first before Theresa to make sure there was someone there familiar to her when she arrived. I gave her instructions to think of the dungeons atrium and followed them a few minutes later. I found them both standing nearby, while Theresa looked around wide eyed at everything around her.

Gesturing to the area around us, “We are now in the main entrance or atrium of the tower, where many people meet up for groups. Adventurers can also look for groups to work with and go to the various facilities in the tower. Normally when we are exploring a floor we have been to before, we would head to the pact house of an established floor we wanted to start from. There are a few villages per floor, which can be focused as our target area when we enter the transit tube. Now did you get this place and the various floors explained to you at all?”

Theresa shook her head and I continued, “The upper Five levels are designated to be home to the Smithing Houses. Each house has a third of the floor, which acts as separate buildings that go five levels. There are also smaller shops in between on the various floors that fit cheaper or niche needs. These aren’t privy to the floor restrictions that the three buildings have. The lowest quality are found on the floor nearest to the main floor, with the rarity and power increasing with each floor up. The Bottom levels are designated to the Guild the other two are for the knowledge base. A place that houses the collected knowledge of all past adventures. The top floor closest to the main floor is the guild floor responsible for solo adventurers, the middle is for parties like ours, and the bottom is for pact house related quests and business. The person you are assigned to will juggle between the floors to assist you. Ours is Esmerelda and she is an awesome and extremely helpful person. We are going to go down and talk to her before we go in so that you’re introduced.”

Theresa smiled and thanked me before the instruction before we headed down. Since this wasn’t a typical party situation, we went down to the first level and waited in line. There were some that found it odd to see a trio waiting in line for singular adventurers, but others knew us and figured there was a reason. When we got to the counter we asked Esmerelda, and I wasn’t surprised when I was asked about not going downstairs to the party floor.

“Normally I would Virta, but this is merely an introduction for Theresa here,” I explained. “I have been tasked to mentor her and thus I wanted to facilitate this in a way that would be best for her. Since she might at times work on her own, she needs to see how this particular floor is set up.”

“Ahh, I see,” Virta replied with a warm smile. “Please go to room five-two-three and wait there. Esmerelda will be with you momentarily.”

We thanked her and headed to the designated room to wait. I could tell that Theresa was getting nervous and anxious, but I assured her that she had nothing to worry about. A few minutes later Esmerelda entered the room with her normal warm smile.

“Good morning, everyone,” She announced as she took her seat. “A pleasure as always to see you Pathios, and you Amenthia. Looks like he left you in quite a state, maybe you need to not tease him so much in the future,” Esmeralda stated with a wink.

Amenthia’s eyes widened, and she began to blush, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at her discomfort.

Esmerelda turned to our new companion, “You must be Theresa. I was told about the changes in your circumstances by the council. I am sorry about what you went through and hope that we can show that this world is a good one to live in. Yes, I am aware of who and what you are, as I was with Pathios. It is part of the job. I do hope that you do choose to stay an adventurer and work with us.”

“I am not certain I will, to be perfectly honest,” Theresa replied. “I don’t think I could take the life of a sentient creature. Sure I can eat meat and such, but to actually end a creature’s life is something completely different.”

Esmerelda nodded, “As an elf, I understand fully what you’re saying, but I also know that things in the dungeon are different. The creatures you see there don’t exist in reality so to speak, and the ones that exist outside the dungeon were created differently. Like us, the creatures are given souls, and the needs and wants of their species. The creatures of the dungeons do not die In a typical sense. When we kill them from the dungeon, they are released into the wild, within a habitat to continue their lives. There are exceptions to this rule, which have only recently come into existence.”

“You’re talking about the dragon and arachni queen,” I replied. We learned that any creature that has been changed by a red crystal, are made to die for real. However these creatures kill indiscriminately, with the crystal causing the escape stones to no work. IN both cases they had to be dealt with and I don’t feel bad about it.”

I could see the unease on Esmerelda’s face, “I am surprised that you know about that, since it isn’t common knowledge to regular adventurers. You always seem to find new ways to surprise me. We have been sending specialized groups to deal with any possible reports of such animals and have been thankful they have kept people from getting injured. We have dealt with a few threats that show signs of the red stones and the groups may have ended up injured, but no losses so far.”

“While I am glad that I am not the focal point of these creatures, I worry about others being lost to these threats,” I muttered in frustration.

“We all do, but let us focus on other matters,” Esmerelda uttered, trying to change the conversation.

I nodded, “We plan to spend a few hours on the first floor, so she can see how things work and get her bearings.”

“It is a good decision, especially with her inexperience,” Esmerelda retorted. “With the two of you, she should be fine and can see how you approach things as well.”

She turned to Theresa, “You are in good hands with these two. They work harder than most I have seen in some time, but it is expected of rebirths and their supporter.”

“I am still uneasy about all this, but I promise to do my best until I know what I would like to do,” Theresa replied.

After a few minutes of discussing our plans and letting Esmerelda know about our plan with the quest that she had given us, we said our goodbyes to our friend and left to head back to the transit tubes. While new members came equipped and entered the first floor through the first stairwell, we needed to get to the armory. We explained that we were going there and told her to go again after Amenthia. She was far less hesitant this time and I followed her soon after. I was shocked when I appeared on the other side, and it was only Amenthia waiting for me.

“Where is Theresa?” I exclaimed, to which Amenthia replied, “I was about to ask the same thing to you. You did tell her to think of this pact house, right?”

I nodded, “I said think of this place so we can visit the armory, she disappeared, and I followed a moment later.”

Amenthia began to pace, which she did when she was trying to work things out and then she stopped with a start. A second later, she bolted off and I hurried to follow. She ran to the Armory door that only the people grouped with me could enter. She opened the door and entered to find a startled Theresa, looking around petrified.

“Where did you two go?” She cried as she rushed to my arms. “I did what you told me, and I popped in through that place there,” she explained, pointing to a transit tube that hadn’t been there before.

“We appeared in the pact house in the village closest to the starting stairwell,” Amenthia answered, hoping to calm the woman down. “Until recently there wasn’t a transit tube in here and so we didn’t think to come directly here. You did think to go to the armory, hence why you arrived here. We came through that door behind Pathios.”

Theresa glanced over my shoulder, “What doorway? You two just appeared in the room, and there is a solid brick wall over there. The only door is over there, and I am didn’t know where I was, so I didn’t want to risk opening it and something bad happening.”

We glanced over to see that she was indeed correct, there was only a solid wall where we had entered. I guessed that they needed to make sure we could enter here from inside of a pact house, but now there was a different means for us to get into the dungeon.

“So this is our armory,” I explained as we gave her a brief tour of the room. “All of the equipment we use when we do our dungeon diving is stored here. This is still not implemented fully for everyone yet, that is why you saw so many people in their gear on the main floor of the dungeon.”

Amenthia assisted Theresa with donning her temporary equipment, which was cloth based this time until we knew what she would want to wear. She was given a cap to protect her head, cloth armor and a short sword on the smaller side. This would let her be able to protect herself and feel relatively safe. I was tempted to give her a ranged weapon, but for now she was going to be an observer. She then watched as we donned our armor, looking on with wide eyes as we helped each other. No doubt she was surprised at the look of our equipment, especially mine as it was pretty much a blend of Captain America and Batman. As I donned my shield, I looked forward to Cassandra getting or creating the runes that would make this shield just like Cap’s.

“You two look like something out of a comic book movie,” Theresa exclaimed in awe at our outfits.

“Well that was kinda the inspiration,” I replied a little sheepishly. “The scallops came from the Dark Knight Batman movies and the armor is a mix of dragon hide and scales. The helmet was designed more like Captain America’s to allow my ease of movement, protection and ensure I didn’t lose any line of sight on possible enemies. Amenthia and Entivala both have the same bracers, Amenthia is of course a Norse motif Valkyrie helmet design, paired with hide and scale armor. It allows us more flexibility and protection.”

We then spent the next few minutes explaining about our gear as we loaded our projectiles into our belts and moved to the transit tube to try again. Amenthia went first, followed by Theresa and then finally me. Hopefully, this time we can move on to actually going into the dungeon now.

I was glad to see that everyone was together when I stepped out of the tube. With that worry dealt with, I activated my map and planned a path that would take us along the eastern plains and back to the village. Depending on the mobs present in the area, we could take an hour or two, but I would adjust the path as we went to ensure we covered a few types of enemies. With our path set, we left the pact house and walked over to the eastern gate of the village. We greeted those who said hello as we passed by, and it seemed that everyone we interacted with were happy and content. When we neared the eastern exit, I checked with the guards to see if anything worrisome had been occurring nearby, but they said everything was going well at the moment. I was glad to hear that there were no serious threats occurring here and that meant that today should go smoothly.