“Bingo, and if you figured that out, it’s only a matter of time before they do,” the voice responded. “You aren’t ready for what is coming. Not with one of you at half-strength and so under-leveled. So, take this cursed item to the prince and ask if he can get you access to the guild early, so you can get to the next city to unlock your full magic.”
“How do you know about our quest?” Mona’s tone suspicious.
The voice hesitated a second, then responded, “I put it here. The orb that is. I made this place to have this conversation with whoever came in. Thankfully, it was you and not some other Neanderthals like the prince and his goons, who failed the puzzle spectacularly. Luckily it would have taken a decent amount of social maneuvering to get here, so that would keep most out. Look, get to Belgonna’s Hold and get stronger. Soon.”
“Why are you helping us?” Mona blurted, frustration dripping from her voice. “It’s just a game, why the rush? And why hide yourself?”
“Because you aren’t ready, and neither is anyone else,” the modulated tone cracked back. “I’m doing what I can because… because I have to. I hide because it’s harder to track me like this. Just do as I say, and for the love of god, stop taking things at face value.”
The voice disappeared after that, and Sundar’s voice came back to her. “What a dick.”
“Let’s get the orb and go.” Mona huffed as she stepped forward toward the glowing sphere.
“I should mention that this room is trapped, and that you just stepped on the trap.” The voice came back as soon as she was close to the orb. My heart fell into my stomach as I watched for any kind of reaction. “Don’t be so clueless, I rigged this. There’s treasure in the piles, but what did I say about taking things at face value, Red?”
Mona and I stilled completely. That had been something that only her father had called her.
“Dad?” Mona whispered, tears springing to her eyes. “Is that you?”
No answer came as we stood there in the glowing light of the orb pulsing near us.
“Let’s get that and loot this place before we go.” Albarth tapped me on the shoulder, whispering, “We have this; you be with her.”
Mona hyperventilated next to the pedestal, streaks of tears falling from her chin as they went. “Hey, hey—Mo. That’s a common saying for people who have red hair!”
“My hair is tan here, Seth!” She hissed, her shoulders shaking. “That was my dad; it had to be.”
“Let’s take a step back here, okay? There’s a chance, but how could he possibly know who we are?” I had to admit, it did sound like it, and it was very odd. “Your dad left, and though it took a little while, you were over it. Why would he come back now? It makes no sense. And that guy was probably just D.”
“What if he didn’t have a choice?” She wiped her tears away. “What if he was taken? What if he was D? D for dad.”
“There were no signs of a struggle in his office, Mona,” I reasoned. We had looked. We’d looked everywhere for any kind of clue as to what had sparked his leaving, but to no effect. “And you know admins usually have letters or numbers assigned to them. Maybe it was a fluke.”
“Pros wouldn’t leave one, or what if he went willingly and they’re holding him captive?” She seemed to be piecing herself back together, but it was in a very weird way. I pulled her into my arms by her shoulder and held her tight. “I have to know, Seth. I have to.”
“Look, if it makes you feel better, we can bump dinner up to tomorrow, and I’ll come over to help you look for something, okay? But you need to promise me that you will focus on the here and now until then.”
She didn’t seem to trust herself with words, so she nodded, and I let her go, and we went to work looking in some of the piles. We found some money, coppers really, bone dust that looked to be a material, some ore, and one weapon that was really just a large femur with a metallic cap on the large portion of it.
That automatically went to Sundar, and the rest we decided to divvy up once we got out of the dungeon. Mona grabbed the item on the pedestal, and we booked it back to the exit.
Chapter Fourteen
“I was worried you wouldn’t be back!” Gage greeted from inside the light of a lantern. “How did things go—is that what was causing all the trouble?”
Mona tossed him the orb. “This is for Prince Klemond, please pass him our regards and let him know that his kindest greetings to the guild would be appreciated—we need to move on.”
She walked away faster than the Minotaur could even respond and left us all standing under the stars aghast at her behavior.
Could I blame her? No. Not really, and even if that had been her father and not a severely weird coincidence in wording, what could be done? We had no way of finding him, and there was nothing to be done now, and she seemed to need the space.
I had said I would help, so I would. But I’d give her some space, too.
“Well, I will take this to the prince right away and pass on your desires.” Gage shrugged and glanced at Sundar. “I’m glad all of you made it through. Once he has this, the quest will be complete, and I will be able to negotiate on your behalf for entry into the adventurer’s guild. But what’s the rush?”
“We have to be able to go to Belgonna’s Hold to unlock the other half of my magic,” I supplied, unsure of how much we should let him know. “The sooner, the better, right? All for fighting the demons and being the best we can be.”
“Ah, preparation and dedication—fine traits.” Gage’s easy smile confirmed that he wasn’t suspicious as to our reasons any longer. “I will let you all know through Sundar when I have confirmation of what will be done. Since she will likely be closest to me when I escape his Majesty’s clutches.”
He walked off, and the others turned to me, the light of the lantern fading and leaving us all in shadow.
“I’m going to be training tonight at Gage’s place,” Sundar advised, stretching a bit. “I was kind of hoping that dungeon would be a little more fun.”
“Well, they did leave us a decent puzzle for a beginner dungeon, and gave us a means to cheat the system a bit since things here are so realistic,” Albarth reasoned, lifting his weapon to his gaze. The metal looked slightly warped and pitted. “Magical fire didn’t seem to affect it much, but the fires from the wood seemed to be bad for it. I’ll go tomorrow and see about getting some of that repair powder as a quick fix.”
“Good idea.” I frowned, then sighed. “Mo will need some time, so I think I’m going to go do some sword training. I need to see about a shield too. If I have to tank, might as well go sword and board for some of it, and I need to be prepared.”
“You aren’t going to go after her?” Albarth raised an eyebrow at me in challenge. “And you should have done the ‘sword and board’ bit before the dungeon, Kyvir. We’re better than that.”
“If there’s a part of ‘Mo will need some time,’ that you don’t understand, Al, by all means, follow her and get a beating.” I began to walk toward the exit to the grounds. “I’m not up for that right now, and gaming is about learning, too, Al. I’m all about learning.”
I glanced back to see his dour face but decided that I really needed to be away right now.
I’d made a promise, and Thea was likely still up, or I hoped she would be, and I could use the training. Opening my map to find and follow the most direct route from the gate, I found I wasn’t far away from the place at all. I took a left outside and followed the wall to a small home with lavish crawling ivy all over it. This place was nice, large, and a lovely shade of green with a forest scene depicted in paint on the front and the one side that I could see.
I walked a little more slowly toward the door, appreciating the artwork and paint when I heard a snort and a giggle from above me. I blinked and glanced up to see Thea seated on a balcony carved like woven branches with a book in her hands. “Hello handsome.” Her warm greeting made me chuckle, her normal tone changing to that of a royal lady. “It has been
some time since a gentleman suitor came calling so late at my door. Need I be worried about untoward action and impure thoughts?”
My smile deepened, shifting toward a grin as I did my best courtly bow, raising my head to reply, “Nay, my lady. My heart is as pure in intent as my actions. I only wish to join you for a time.”
She laughed then, a deep belly laugh, before dropping gracefully from her perch and landing in front of me. “That’s almost too bad; I think I would prefer the impure thoughts.”
I had to laugh at that. “Nice to see you, too. Your offer to train still open?”
“With you?” She leaned forward, her green shift dress falling away from her chest, exposing a little of her body that made me fight to keep my eyes on hers. “Of course, it is.”
Her hand grasped mine, and she tugged me along behind her to the side of her house where a small gate stood, a small whistled note, and the latch on the other side of it fell away. The gate opened as she pushed, and in we went. The garden inside wasn’t like Gage’s either, all flora and fauna found in a forest-like some sort of dreamscape grew around us, silhouetted against the night sky. A grove of saplings surrounding a circle of packed earth that looked to be our destination as she tugged and chuckled at my expression of wonder and amazement.
“So, what will we be practicing with tonight?” Her lips pulled away from her teeth in a grin as her nose wrinkled and eyes crinkled in delight. A strange expression for someone to take when wanting to fight.
“I could definitely use more training with the sword.” I scratched the back of my neck nervously. “I’m the tank—the guy who takes all of the damage for the group—so I should start working with a shield. Plus, with Sundar learning from Gage, it would help to learn a potentially different style of swordsmanship, right?”
“Well, I’m no good with those clunky things, but Gage is, and the dwarves are usually pretty handy with them as well.” Her smile turned wistful a moment, the moonlight playing across her tanned skin. “And since it seems that Belgonna’s Hold is your next aim, you’ll likely be able to find one there who can teach you if you don’t learn from sarge. And that is correct, if you’ll settle for me teaching you swordplay in his stead?”
“Of course, I will, but are there dwarves there?” I cocked my head to the side with the question. “At the hold, I mean? I haven’t seen too many here except for wanderers.”
She laughed and began to whistle a tune to a tree off to our right. A shape sprouted from it that she plucked as if picking fruit. The shape was a wooden sword that reminded me of practice weapons that martial artists used in movies. She did the same thing with another tree and tossed the first weapon to me.
“How do you do that?” I couldn’t help the awe that crept into my voice as she brought herself to stand before me.
“My gift.” Her coy grin made her eyes sparkle in the moonlight. “By the way, tonight I will be teaching you an elven form of sword fighting.” She motioned to her weapon, then mine. “It involves using traditional weapons like this, and the whole body with it. But don’t worry, my parents taught me well before they left.”
“So, it’s just you alone here?” I figured asking about herself before pressing her about her magic would be the least rude option of the two questions fighting in my mind.
“Yes.” She put the point of her sword in the ground and motioned to our surroundings. “My magic is plant-based, like many of my kind from the forest, but mine is stronger. I sang all of these plants into existence as a gift to my family, but all it did was remind them of home. They left to go back because this was too good of a reminder of what had been lost.”
I stood there at a loss for words. My parents traveled the world, into third world countries trying to better peoples’ lives how they could with their technology and medicines. I knew all about what it was like to have the people you love far away, but I had always had Mona and her mom to help. Because they were family, too. Made me think of what Mona was going through right now. But the last time her father had come up between us, it had been a week before I had been able to safely be around her without getting a thorough tongue lashing. I trusted her to sort herself out or to reach out to me if I was needed.
We were usually so good about that.
Even before I could feel pity for her settle into my stomach, Thea was moving. Her wooden weapon striking out toward my head, I ducked just in time, feeling the wooden blade slap against my hair.
“You can feel a lot of things for me, Kyvir.” Her earnest gaze met mine, determination and knowing in her eyes. “But that look in your eyes that I have seen from so many others? That is not one of them. Pity should never be one of them.”
I’d always felt the same. “Me? Pity you? Please.” Damn, this game felt so real.
She grinned, and our sparring began in truth. She would whack me in the shoulders and arms three times for every one strike I managed to block. After several bruises, she finally took pity on me, and we stopped.
“Sorry, I let my frustrations get the better of me, but you seem to be much better with the blade than the staff.” She motioned me into the center of the ring. “Come, I’ll teach you our ways.”
“Is it okay for a Kin to learn an elven way of fighting?” I wouldn’t lie and say I wasn’t highly interested, but if she would get into trouble, I’d definitely think twice about it.
“Only because it’s you.” Her mischievous grin after that was surprising.
“Why me?” I asked suddenly, making her pause to look at me.
“I like heroes.” She shrugged. “Meeting you was nice and all, but something about you and the way you carried yourself was endearing. And the way you fight, or try to, is attractive. I keep thinking of your potential, and it excites me.”
“I…see.” Suddenly, the air was hotter, and I couldn’t tell if it was my face or the world itself.
Thea moved closer, her hips swaying as she stepped one long leg in front of the other toward me. Her eyes piercing in the soft light. “There are few things out there that attract me so, other than a good fight, good booze, or something to explore. But you excite me.”
“So, I’m a fascination to you?”
Thea stood nearer to me now, her athletic body so close to mine that I could smell the forest along her skin and almost taste the earthy tones in the air around her. Large blue eyes stared up at me, lips parted slightly as my heart beat against my ribs.
“Is that so bad, Kyvir?” Her hands encircled my waist, not pulling, just there. “That I find you attractive? That I see what’s there, and I am unafraid to reach out and show interest? You could deny me, and I would still respect you for it and what you did. I would still offer you help and training.”
I had no words for what I was feeling. Sure, I could be feeling vulnerable for having been basically called an idiot for stirring feelings for my best friend. Maybe not in so many words, but the implication was there, and it had stung something fierce. Still did. I ached.
Longing for something that I never knew I even wanted—something I didn’t want all at the same time. I was alone now with a longing that no longer had a goal. Thoughts of being lonely forever began to consume me, visions of me sitting around by myself until I was old and gray clawed at my mind and heart.
“I know that your heart isn’t mine—and that’s fine.” That brought me out of my thoughts. She had heard my conversation with Albarth, me snapping at him for his meddling. “That doesn’t diminish my own desires, and from what I recall, you recently had your own shoved aside for you.”
I flinched, closing my eyes at that, and relinquishing my sword to the ground by my feet. I could feel my body tensing, my hands balling into fists. Why was that so damned upsetting? It was fine. It should’ve been fine. Why wasn’t it fine?
A calloused hand caressed my cheek. “I like you for you, Kyvir, and I would learn more about you if I could.”
I opened my eyes to see her standing there, chest pressed against me, and staring up at
me. And I wanted this. Suddenly more than anything else in the world, I wanted to be selfish and to forget the pain flooding my soul at whatever it is that I had lost with Mona.
Innocence. I had lost the innocence that we’d had all our lives, and now I felt as though I had none on my own.
I reached down and wrapped my hand around Thea’s waist and pulled her against me, insistent but gentle before leaning down and claiming her lips with mine. I tasted copper and felt a sting against my lips, realizing that my sharp incisors had pierced my lip and hers.
But she didn’t seem to care, and suddenly, neither did I. The stars above us looked so real from the ground of the training circle, but I could only see them if I wasn’t paying attention to the woman in that circle with me. And she did her absolute best to claim all of that attention.
***
“Now, as you go through the second form, what’s it called again?” Thea’s question brought me back to the present.
“The sprouting.” My arm moved from the first form, the seed, with the wooden weapon in it. The blade rose in an upward strike as if a sprout had broken from the ground. “Then the budding, the flower, petal fall, and finally the fall.”
The wooden blade slashed horizontally before me, I twisted and did the same again, spun a kick at an imagined enemy and ended the attack with a savage overhand slice.
Weapon Mastery: Sword
Level: 2 (Initiate)
“Oh!” Startled, I let my weapon fall to my side at rest. “I leveled up my weapon mastery with the sword.”
“Excellent!” Her wooden blade cracked me on the shoulder and I grunted in pain. “Never lower your weapon!”
She came into view; we had neglected to put our clothes back on, so the way she moved in the dawn light was distracting, to say the least. But seeing the way her muscles flexed and contracted during each form and movement in our fight had gone a long way in helping me recognize the way my body should move to match hers. It helped her in being able to adjust me and see the minute details in how I would react to an attack of movement with the weapon.
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