Like Darak had said, at least the monster was slower than Penelope. The woman moved like a striking serpent, and she didn’t hold back at all, so dodging the vine creature was almost second nature by comparison. Daniel focused on making relatively light, fast cuts, and saw a few breaks in the vines start to appear as he sidestepped the creature and shoved it away from him with a kick.
No matter how strong the creature was, it was already off-balance when he kicked it, which sent it toppling forward. The plant monster tried to catch itself with one arm and Daniel grinned in delight as there was a cracking sound and one of the creature’s arms broke free, sending it toppling farther forward. But then he froze in shock.
The monster tried to catch itself again, but this time, the floor gave way in front of it. The creature fell into the pitcher plant with a loud splash, and Daniel watched with an open mouth.
“Well, I suppose that’s one way to do it,” Joseph spoke after a moment, chuckling softly as Darak gaped.
“Right, then. So now to critique your work,” Joseph spoke mildly about ten minutes later, sitting on a rock. “Darak, you first.”
“Whatever you say,” Darak grunted, frowning slightly at them. “First off, you shouldn’t have focused on the damned dangler, Eric. After the others trimmed its vines down to size, it had to move closer to be any sort of threat at all, and the thing moves slow as molasses. You left Danny to face one of the big lugs on his own, and at your skill level, those things are dangerous. He got damned lucky to manage to throw it into a pitcher plant.”
“To be honest, that wasn’t intentional,” Daniel admitted, shaking his head. “I just wanted it to get away from me. That was pure luck, though I might try using that strategy again.”
“Fair enough. I just was remembering one of those things strangling Henry and didn’t want it to happen again,” Eric spoke after a moment, sighing slightly. “Sorry, Daniel.”
“It’s fine, Eric. That’s why we’re here, to figure out what we’ve been doing wrong,” Daniel replied with a shake of his head. “I’m a little out of my element since I was more of a marksman.”
“That brings me to the second part. Your weapon is shitty for your skill set, Daniel,” Darak spoke bluntly, gesturing at the human’s longsword. “You’re lithe and quick. The only one of you lot who’s good for hitting something with brute force is Eric. I’d suggest he takes up an axe and shield, a flail, or even a glaive. I’d be a little leery about polearms because of how narrow tunnels can be, but so far, the dungeon’s been good about putting most monsters in caves. You should think about either making more precise attacks, Danny, or possibly picking up some throwing axes. Use your marksmanship in a way that works in a dungeon.”
“Hmm. That makes sense, though I’d have to be able to afford it,” Daniel replied thoughtfully, considering the idea as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“There are all things you need to consider in the future, not something that needs to be fixed now,” Joseph spoke up kindly, looking at each of them in turn. “With your current skills and both a little practice and some form of healing, I think you could eventually clear the first floor of the dungeon. The problem is that this was only the first room, and you simply don’t have the stamina to keep it up without injuries.”
There was a chorus of assent, and Daniel felt himself straightening at the praise, before Eileen asked, “What about me and Sayla?”
“The pair of you have good teamwork, unlike the ugly lugs over here.” Darak chuckled, pointing a thumb in the direction of Daniel and Eric. “You work well together, but you’ve got some issues of your own. Sayla. You have too many flashy movements which tire you out quick. Eileen, you focus on your opponent too much. I saw you nearly step into a trap twice in the fight, and that would’ve sent everything downhill fast.”
“In addition to that, save for Daniel, all of you were focusing on your own fights too much,” Joseph interjected, frowning at them. “You’re a team. You need to keep track of who needs help, and draw enemies into positions where your friends can hurt them badly. You need to keep track of where the traps are and use them like Daniel did. Survival comes first, for the entire team. If you lose one ally, that allows the opponents to concentrate on the remainder of you and defeat you one by one.”
“Alright.” Eric’s eyes lit up at the explanation, then frowned. “That explains part of why we got beaten so badly our first time in. Everyone was too focused on their own fights, and ignored each other until it was too late.”
“Most likely,” Darak agreed, shaking his head. “Now let’s move on to the rewards you’ve earned!”
Stepping into a corner of the cave, the dwarf leaned over with a dagger and carefully removed a white flower with as much of the stem attached as possible. Holding it up, he asked, “Do any of you know what this is?”
“Ahh… no?” Daniel admitted, blinking in surprise. “It’s a flower.”
The others at least had the wisdom to shake their heads, and Joseph suppressed a snort of laughter, grinning as Darak shook his head.
“Ah, boy… you have a lot to learn. Of course it’s a damned flower! This, however, is violetroot. If you dug it up, its roots are quite obvious,” the dwarven warrior chided, then frowned. “Don’t dig it up, though. You just need the flower and stem. Violetroot is the primary ingredient to high-class healing potions, when properly dried and preserved. I’m not sure what the going rate for these is right now, but a single flower’s probably worth right around a silver. These aren’t a bad reward at all.”
“Oh.” Sayla’s eyes went wide. “How many flowers are there?”
“A single plant generally has two to three flowers,” Joseph told them, looking at the plant in the corner. “This one appears to have two more, which is better than normal. You’re only going to have one problem.”
“What’s that?” Eileen asked, moving to where she could examine the plant.
Darak chuckled, handing her the flower and grinning. “Selling them. These aren’t nearly as useful if you don’t have an alchemist nearby, and I haven’t seen any in town.”
“Oh.” Daniel’s hope for his finances went sour as he frowned. “Well, that sucks.”
“Don’t worry, lad. When the guild gets here they’ll have alchemists with them. I guarantee it,” Darak comforted, dropping a hand heavily on Daniel’s shoulder and chuckling. “And believe me, I don’t think they’ll take too much longer. Dungeons with good alchemy supplies are nowhere near common enough for their tastes.”
“Ah, well that’s better than I hoped,” Daniel replied, moving Darak’s hand and massaging his shoulder for a moment.
“Are we going to continue or head back?” Sayla asked, stepping forward to carefully harvest the other flowers, handing them to Eileen one at a time.
“I think that going back would be best. You four need time to think about what you learned, and you’re tired,” Joseph replied after a moment of thought. “Besides, the soldiers seem to be in a bit of a panic lately, and I’d rather not get too far from Penny and Nirath.”
“I wonder what happened?” Sayla asked aloud, getting up from collecting the flowers. “They’re definitely riled up.”
“Wish I could tell you,” Daniel muttered, shaking his head. The disappearance of the Adjudicator didn’t bode well.
Ellis looked down at the mark that Sistina had left around his left wrist and frowned, flexing his hand for a moment. The mark was faintly warm, but it looked like a simple black tattoo in the shape of roots or vines circling his wrist. He didn’t feel any different, though.
“This isn’t quite what I was expecting. From what I’ve heard, the brands that Kelvanis uses are quite painful when placed. I barely felt this,” he finally spoke, shaking his head.
“Inefficient. Less constraints,” Sistina replied, tapping the mark on his wrist. “Simple.”
“Huh. If you say so. I’m glad you let us stay, Sistina. From what was said, you were a bit upset with what Desa and the ot
hers did,” Ellis replied, blushing faintly at how calmly the beautiful dryad touched him. “Having to leave would be exceedingly unpleasant.”
“Saying that she was upset is like saying a desert is somewhat dry,” Phynis interjected with a soft snort.
Ellis blushed again at that, looking around him before stepping back near his mentor. Save for the prisoners, everyone left in the caverns was gathered under Sistina’s tree, and Sistina had just finished marking all their company who hadn’t been branded. Zarenya, Desa, and five of the princess’ guards, the princess herself and two of her maids, the seven jewel-hued priestesses of Medaea, and then the three slaves who’d been living here were gathered together. Compared to the numbers who’d been present only a day prior, there were almost none of them in the dungeon anymore. But Sistina seemed relatively happy, and she looked at Lily pointedly.
“What?” Lily asked, looking startled as everyone focused on her.
“Speak for,” Sistina replied patiently.
“Why me? I’m a glorified gardener, for crying out loud!” Lily protested, anxiously taking a step back.
“Because you understand her better than anyone else here,” Ilmas spoke up, obviously amused at his girlfriend’s protests. “You’ve been here the longest, and she sees you as her spokeswoman, until she can be bothered to speak for herself.”
“Agreed,” Sistina added, smiling gently at Lily as the woman scowled at each of them in turn.
“Fine. But I want it to be clear that I’m doing this under duress!” Lily replied, sighing as she stepped forward to Sistina. Ellis noticed that she eyed the dryad suspiciously as she said, “Alright, I hope that you aren’t feeling quite as angry as last time.”
“Calm,” Sistina assured her, then reached up to hold either side of Lily’s head for a long moment. Lily seemed to grow distant for a few more moments, then her eyes focused as Sistina pulled away.
“Hmm. I see, well, that definitely wasn’t as bad as last time,” Lily spoke in a much calmer tone, making Ellis wonder just how bad this ‘last time’ had been. Turning around to face everyone else, Lily took a deep breath before speaking. “So, Sistina wants me to communicate her overall desires and some of her short-term plans. Her first and only directive is that no one is allowed to actually betray her or any other resident of the dungeon, nor are you to significantly harm anything inside. It’s fairly simple and I think it makes sense, so I don’t think anyone will object to that.”
Ellis nodded silently, as Desa asked, “What about the prisoners? We don’t have enough people to guard them easily.”
“Ah, yes. Sistina indicated that she is going to imprison them in a separate cavern with its own supplies for the time being, which will be guarded by a golem. It’ll be quite separate, though, so she won’t be able to monitor the room as easily,” Lily replied with a nod. “That’s one of the near-term plans she had. Another is that she’s going to be setting some rules of the dungeon which she’s going to post outside the entrance, and among it is going to be indications that dungeon servants are going to be left unharmed. She apologizes for the term, but it’s the best one she could come up with. She also is going to make a small cavern where we can offer adventurers supplies or minor services if we so desire. If anyone has requests for equipment or lodgings, you’re to come to me or Phynis and we’ll talk it over.”
“Uh, why is she having you take care of things? We just asked her directly before,” Ellis asked hesitantly, feeling slightly nervous as attention turned to him. “And what about me and Sage Zarenya?”
“Both of you get to do what you’d like, though you’re going to have to do more of your own housekeeping now that the cooks and other servants left,” Lily told him directly, then hesitated and looked at Sistina, who nodded. “As for why, she’s decided to conserve mana as much as possible, save for finishing a handful of projects. The presence of those not linked to the dungeon drains Sistina’s mana reserves slightly, so it was actively harming her growth and power to have our company here before. With us linked, we almost function as amplifiers, increasing her ability to absorb mana. She’s only populated a little over half of the floors of her dungeon thus far, and the adventurers have been talking about other adventurers that will be arriving soon, so she needs to use as much power as she can for that purpose.
“Furthermore, we’re in the middle of the ruins of the old capital of Everium. There are other buildings Sistina wants to unearth and refurbish, and one that has a distinct taint of necromancy she wishes to clear. Each task takes mana, and to fully refurbish the entirety of her domain might take up to a year of preparations,” Lily explained, then shrugged. “And beyond that, there are certain other problems that came to her attention. Diamond?”
Ellis blinked, opening his mouth for a moment, then shutting it again as he tried to process the full explanation. Diamond stepping forward distracted him, though, and the beautiful priestess in her white robe cleared her throat.
“I will not go over the full depth of the problem, but what I feel I can tell all of you is quite bad enough. My fellow priestesses and I were captured by Kelvanis’ Enforcers from a hidden temple of Medaea in the south-eastern reaches of the Godsrage Mountains.” Diamond’s voice was clear and beautiful, and Ellis almost felt captivated by it, but shook himself free of the spell after a moment. “Unknown to almost anyone, the temple possesses a ley line node that links to another in Golden Vale. While it can only be used to teleport to Golden Vale from the temple, it has gone unused in several generations. Unfortunately, Adjudicator Jared of Kelvanis learned of it and had already given orders before we set out to come here. The priestesses of the temple are sixty-eight in number, and all of them were branded and forced to pretend nothing was wrong in our absence.
“Kelvanis intends to use the temple to teleport a raiding force into Golden Vale and kidnap the heirs of all the noble families during their annual gathering in Golden Vale.” Ellis gasped in horror, hearing at least three other sharp intakes of breath from others as well as Desa’s soft swearing, but Diamond kept going inexorably. “They intend to use the heirs to force the Queen of Yisara to set aside her crown and turn herself over in trade, since the nobles would likely view their heirs as more important than their queen. Furthermore, they intend to force a peace treaty between Kelvanis and Yisara in the aftermath of this so that they can focus their forces on Sifaren.”
“Dear gods above, preserve us all,” Desa murmured, then asked, “Why are you telling us this? Do we have a chance to stop it?”
“The military force for the raid was setting out shortly after we left Westgate. They will likely be moving slower, but with Sistina’s permission, my sister priestesses and I intend to go attempt to stop them, rescue our fellow priestesses, and warn Yisara,” Diamond replied heavily, smiling thinly. “If nothing else, we now have the power to challenge even the companies that were assigned to the raid. But if we are too late, we will simply retrieve our fellow priestesses, sabotage the node, and return here. I pray it does not come to that, but the timing will be close. But we will only go if we have Sistina’s permission to do so.”
“Your lives. Your choice,” Sistina spoke simply, smiling sadly at them as she shrugged. “Careful.”
“Thank you, Sistina.” Diamond gave a deep bow from her waist, and the other priestesses followed suit, somewhat to Ellis’ shock. “You gave us our lives back, and gave us the chance to defend that which we believe in. We intend to leave at nightfall, once we have sufficient supplies.”
“I’ll help gather supplies for you,” Lily promised, then smiled wanly. “But on that… unpleasant note, that’s all that we had to discuss. Does anyone have any questions?”
Some of the others did, but Ellis simply stood there, stunned. Then he realized something, and spoke softly to Zarenya. “Um, I just thought of something, ma’am. This seems rather historic, so shouldn’t someone be writing down what’s been going on the last few months?”
“A good point, Ellis,” Zarenya
replied in a mild tone, turning her deep blue eyes to meet him, before smiling slightly. “Why don’t you get started?”
“Ah… yes, ma’am,” Ellis replied, feeling slightly bewildered and out of his depth. His eyes happened to meet Ilmas’ across the circle from him, and the other man gave him a sympathetic smile.
Chapter 2
A high-pitched, haunting sound echoed through the hills, causing Merric to jump slightly. He turned to the north, peering across the border into the Republic of Alcast as he asked, “What in the blazes was that?”
“No freaking clue. Might be a dragon, but I’ve never heard one of ‘em either,” Joric replied, scanning the horizon.
“I don’t think so… wait, what’s that there?” Merric asked, pointing toward what looked like a white cloud of smoke coming toward them. It dissipated too quickly to be smoke, though, and there was a cloud of dust behind it!
“Huh? I do—” Joric began, but it was at that moment that their commander spoke up.
“Watch! What in the hells was that?” Commander Calvin bellowed angrily as he came out of his office.
Glancing back at the slightly heavyset commander, Merric winced but snapped to attention. The commander had shown up as a replacement a few weeks before, and from what the grapevine said, he’d been a lord of a fortress on the Sifaren front before that. Merric had no clue what the man had done to get exiled to this minor border fort, but he’d been in a foul temper ever since he’d arrived.
“Not certain, sir!” Merric replied, gesturing. “I can see what looks like a dust trail and a white cloud that quickly vanishes coming from that direction, but I can’t tell quite what it is.”
Spells of Old (Ancient Dreams Book 2) Page 2