Eternium ~ ch 23!

“Well, that was fun.” Dale stared at the faceless Golems waiting for him to step on their paths, and fully decided against going through here alone. “Back to the surface, I guess?”

He walked toward the portal, using his newfound gravity ‘spell’ to hinder the movements of the huge Cats that patrolled the edges of this space. Dale grunted in dissatisfaction when he realized that he couldn’t use the spell to squish the Cats, only make it impossible to move. He had been hoping that he had a new and glorious weapon. Still, he had a long way to go before mastering this ability, and maybe squashing Cats was in his future.

The Cats not being able to move did make it easy to end them and gain a Core. He was happily attacking another as a second one caught him by surprise. Then he realized another weakness of the spell. It had a very small area of effect, at least compared to some of his other abilities. Dale smiled at the Coiled Cat, which was ineffectually gnawing on his leg. “Thanks, little guy! I’m learning so much today!”

Then he punched down and siphoned off some Essence using the Runes on his gauntlet. The Cat, suddenly weakened and dizzy, stumbled away only to be met with a heavy blow that made everything go black. Dale swiftly added another Core to his bag, and walked out of the portal. “Huh. Normally I come out and really enjoy the fresh air… what changed?”

“Dale!” A voice Dale still flinched at called out, and Minya appeared in front of him. “I knew if I waited around here you would show up.”

“Didn’t you ask Cal?” the Mithril-clad man asked with crossed arms.

“You can’t possibly still hold that against me!” Minya asserted while matching his hard look. “I know what you’ve been up to, and all the benefits that you’re getting from working with him. You know that there are a lot of people who hate you now, ever since your talk with The Master in public about sharing a soul with the dungeon.”

Dale was speechless. He hadn’t thought about that at all, and he had known that it would be an issue. Whoops. Minya smirked and continued speaking. “So, I was wondering if you would go with me to the Pleasure House and we could talk about things.”

“I guess that’s okay.” Dale sighed and started walking with her. “I have been avoiding you for a long while, and we really should clear a few things up.”

“I’m glad you see it that way.” Minya softly laughed, lapsing into silence as they traveled. Dale was watching the people they passed, and saw recognition on far too many faces. Whether it was happiness, excitement… or resentment on their faces, Dale decided that his days of anonymity were over. 

As they walked into the massive tree that had been grown as the restaurant, Madame Chandra herself was there to greet them. Dale had interacted with her a few times recently, but only when they were in a group. Looking at her now, Dale nearly fell over in shock. “Chandra! What happened! Your power… your rank!”

“Ha!” Chandra laughed in his face, “I’m surprised and pleased with you, Dale! Most of the men who have talked to me recently never even notice something has changed. Let me look at you…”

“I see… following Moon Elf traditions, are we?” As she spoke, Madame Chandra’s voice sped up, allowing Dale to have a conversation at a normal pace. He smiled in relief as she did so, everyone being so slow had been making him grumpy. Maybe that was why Mages had always seemed so arrogant in the past? “Careful with all that power, Dale. Failure absolutely means death at… whatever tier you’re wielding.”

“Speaking of tiers, were you this powerful the last time I saw you?” Dale looked the five-foot-tall woman over, shaking his head in wonder. “Path advancement? What’s the new one?”

“Nature.” Madame Chandra’s eyes glinted in pleasure. “I’m near the pinnacle of the elements, and I’m easily able to fend off any type of attack that contains even a drop of elemental power. Fire, stone, water, air… I can control it all better than someone who is an expert in just one of them. I am quite pleased.”

“No kidding.” Dale smiled at her, then surprised her with a hug. “Congratulations, Madame. This is exciting!”

“Yes, yes. Now, I see you’ve brought a lovely lady with you today, let’s get you seated.” Madame Chandra winked at Dale, who turned red in an instant. He had not thought through how this would appear. Did Minya plan this? Was this… intended as a date? Celestial feces.

They were led to the top of the restaurant, where only the very best ingredients were used to create only the finest dishes. The branches around them opened up, allowing a spectacular view of not only the skyland, but the world below them. As far as Dale could see, there was only blue. When had they gotten out over the ocean? Dale’s brow furrowed, and he nearly stood up to go investigate when Minya began speaking.

“So, Dale. We finally can relate to each other, and I really think that we have a lot to talk about.” She clasped her hands and leaned forward on the table.

“Sure. Yeah. Let’s talk.” Dale sat and waited for her to begin asking questions. The silence stretched a little too long, and Minya sat back with a groan.

“Ugh. Let me guess, you have a couple of friends that you are close to, and not much other social interaction at all, right?” Minya rolled her eyes at Dale’s predictable response. “Listen, relax and we can just talk for a while. It’s hard to find people that actually understand what I mean when I talk about the dungeon and the odd jobs that he gives us.”

An hour later they were still at the table, laughing over the remains of the food. Dale was trying his hardest to catch his breath and speak, but was having trouble. “And - ha - and then Cal says ‘oops. Hey, Dale, I did a thing’. I tried to ask what he meant, and by the time I was able to form the words, I was flying across the room, bleeding!”

The laughter quieted, and they lapsed into companionable silence. After griping about Cal for the last hour, they were actually feeling connected and were getting on good terms. Then Minya did something Dale had not been expecting. She stood up, came close, and kissed him deeply.

While this was a surprise, at this point Dale was not opposed. Another kiss followed the first, and another… soon Minya closed her eyes and softly sighed, “Oh. Cal.”

*Bam.*

Dale was on the other side of the room, and had let Minya fall face-first to the floor. “What?”

~ Cal ~

<Hey, Dani. I’m getting a little worried about what’s happening in the upper layers of the dungeon.> I watched as the fight began to get more intense, growling a little as the walls began to shatter under the pressure the Mages were exuding. <There’s a fight going on between a few of the factions, I think they are using me to hide what’s going on.>

“So what’s the issue?” Dani connected with me and watched as a few necromancers fought off nearly double their number by pulling corpses out of interspatial bags and adding them to the fight. “So they kill each other off. So what?”

I changed what she was seeing, and as a Mage died their Mana seeped away and out of the dungeon. I was able to grab a portion of it, but the vast majority vanished into the world. <See what I mean? I’m too far away from them to grab all of that, and Dregs can’t take in foreign Mana without exploding. I wouldn’t care if they were fighting a few layers lower. Also, they are smashing up my walls and floor.>

“Well, get someone down here.” Dani told me bruskly.

<For some reason Dale and Minya are both outside of my influence. I could call them through our bond, but it might take to long for them to get back from wherever they are. Oh, see, the fight is already over. What a waste.> The Necromancers had won, but had lost half their number. Their friends were shoved into bags, and the undead quickly followed. They seemed furious, which could have been because the attackers that survived had run off.

<I’m not a fan of necromancers, even if I’ve mostly gotten over my old hatred of them. I do think that this is the second time this has happened down here, and I’m going to need to start setting up fail-safes for when it happens again.> I thought about that for a long moment. <I’m going to go have fun with this actually. At some point, this place is either going to cleanly work together, or erupt into open warfare. I’m betting open warfare.>

I sent my mind up into the council chambers, which were as empty as they always were when not in use. I took measurements, and began putting the preliminary requirements in place… time to set up some wards.