Caeileera

  At first, I was mad at Lilyth for causing Rennie to break down in tears, but it soon became clear that the poor girl needed that cry. The fact it was caused by a “how are you holding up” question was another mitigating factor.

  Bottling all those thoughts up was not healthy for her.

  Then another thought struck me.

  Was bringing her along a mistake?

  I couldn't decide. On the one hand, she was an important part of the team here.

  We would have died facing the soldiers without her, I shuddered at the memory of one of them almost finishing off Lilyth. Aki would die to the mannequin too.

  But, on the other hand… she ended up paying a heavy price.

  Why can’t anything in life be simple?

  We ended up staying the night in the chamber cuddled all together in what Lilyth described as “a great bundle of love and warmth”. I couldn't help but agree. The closeness of others was really comforting.

  ‘I wish Chirpy were here,’ Ren said in a quiet voice as we were eating breakfast.

  ‘And Veenaya,’ Aki added, pressing the plushie she was holding to her chest.

  I could only nod along. I missed them both, even if the bloody furball could be annoying.

  ‘We’ll see them soon,’ Lilyth said. ‘Just need to leave this place.’

  ‘So what's the plan?’ Ren asked.

  We looked at Lilyth with Aki to continue.

  ‘It’s your show,’ I shrugged.

  Lilyth

  ‘That’s not a plan,’ Ren sighed after I finished explaining. ‘That’s a vague idea of a direction.’

  ‘Got a better one?’ I asked.

  Let’s ignore the fact that one of the steps is “???” and the next one is “Profit!”

  She harrumphed in defeat.

  ‘I guess not. But what if this entrance to this Goblintown place doesn't exist on this version of Dwynveia or it collapsed?’

  ‘The flooded corridor,’ I simply said. ‘Hopefully, it actually leads somewhere.’

  Ren looked like she wanted to cry.

  ‘I know this is not exactly comforting but this is more than I had to go on when I first ended up in this shithole.’

  And that was that on the subject. We spent a few more minutes on small talk, and then it was time to get going.

  The oval armoury room was much like I remembered it, sans the skeleton and the sword. Bits and pieces of shelves, an overturned table and, now dark, torches.

  ‘This place is creepy,’ Caeileera said while looking around.

  ‘It used to be worse,’ I replied and told them about my meeting with the undead there.

  ‘I stand corrected,’ Caei conceded. ‘I’ll have to admit that actually seeing these places… I can’t imagine what it must have felt like…’

  ‘It fucking sucked,’ I laughed. ‘Anyway… Shall we continue the tour of all the places I almost died at?’

  They didn't find it funny. Truth be told, I didn't either but gotta keep yourself sane somehow.

  Ultimately, getting out of the Tower turned out to be a relative breeze, and, for once, things mostly went our way, but more on that later. I couldn't decide whether it was the karmic payback for all the suffering up to this point or a suspicious case of the universe being generous. You know, kind of like when you find a massive cache of ammo and health in a video game. This tends to mean that the next room is going to fuck you in the ass extra hard.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  At least based on my experience with Kojiro’s goons I can say I am happy I never went that far when I tried dating men back on Earth. A surprising win for my gender dysphoria.

  Anyway, the chamber with the large crystal was utterly devoid of life. Like previously, the floor was strewn with skeletons but not even one of them got up. Led by an impulse, I checked whether that one healing potion was still there and, to my pleasant surprise, it was. Alas, the chest in the room where the soldier attacked me was empty.

  You can't have everything.

  What we did find, however, was the exit to Goblintown. Thanks to Caei’s [Floating Disk] we easily ascended to the top of the unfinished dugout and started crawling towards the pantry. As we approached it, I began noticing a pungent smell that sickened me. Rotting meat.

  ‘You never mentioned the place would reek like this!’ Caei complained moments later.

  ‘Because it didn't,’ I retorted as. ‘The abattoir where I found Aki, sure, but this was just a pantry.’

  ‘Reminds me of Anika’s lure,’ Rennie coughed. ‘But somehow worse.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I think there might be fish mixed in.’

  ‘You can tell that?’ Aki asked.

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  The source of the stench became apparent when I emerged into the pantry. All of its contents were rotting. I felt so nauseated, all considerations about stealth abandoned, I ran out of the pantry straight on the corridor. The others quickly joined me. Caeileera actually vomited her breakfast.

  As Aki held our wife’s hair back, I and Ren started watching both ends of the corridor.

  Nobody came out to greet us. In fact… the place was deathly quiet. It took me a moment to register that there were no lights lit other than Aki’s [Abyssal Spark]. It heavily disrupted my [Darksight], I approached Ren and whispered into her ear:

  ‘See anything?’

  She pointed towards the darkness and whispered back:

  ‘Something large is on the floor. I think that's a body, but not sure. You noticed?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Won’t tell anyone. But I doubt Aki and Caei will not realise it soon. Can’t hide “I can now see in the dark” for long.’

  ‘Yeah… Might as well tell people.’

  Her face went blank and after a moment she said:

  ‘I’ve confirmed some stuff with Nyx… so…’

  By then Caei had recovered, so Ren told us how she had likely inherited some of the Prism's powers as the result of what he did to her, though she wasn’t sure what those were exactly. One thing she knew though was that her [Darksight] was really good now. It felt like she was leaving something out, why else would she be clearing things up with Nyx, but I decided to let it go.

  It’s not like it is hard to guess that merging with a god’s essence would give you more than just powers.

  ‘I would strongly recommend not mentioning that merge to anyone,’ Nyx said with an unexpected harshness in her voice. ‘Or your theories on the matter.’

  Is that an “Or else” thing?

  ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘It is just best not to spread information like this around. For your sake. We as all gods are aware of what exactly happened to Ren, but if people with bad intentions towards you find out…’

  There might be issues?

  ‘Yes. Some might want to kidnap her and use her for powers, some may just want to kill her.’

  Never a dull day?

  ‘Will definitely be duller if you keep your slimy mouth shut on the subject.’

  Noted.

  ‘Good fox.’

  The link went dead.

  I hate my life.

  Upon investigating the body we have discovered that it wasn’t a goblin. It was a human wearing a faintly blue shirt just like the trash which attacked us in Len-Cas.

  ‘Red Masks,’ I hissed and put my hands on my knife.

  ‘He’s been dead for a long time,’ Caei pointed out.

  I then noticed that she was right. Bugs were crawling all over the now-decomposing corpse and the blood surrounding it was congealed.

  ‘I think his corpse has been stripped of all valuables,’ Ren noted. ‘But hard to tell. No weapons or anything on him.’

  That was also true.

  Further investigation revealed several more corpses, mostly goblin, but a few human ones as well, one of them in a brigandine and a few in rags. None of them had any items on them, not that we were inclined to investigate too closely. The impromptu armoury was also looted of anything of value.

  ‘So they raided this place and then left their dead friends to rot?’ Aki asked while she pondered kicking the corpse of Grazzlag the butcher.

  ‘Seems like it,’ Ren agreed. ‘Probably some remnants of their group operating in the area. Possibly Kojiro meant to link up with them.’

  ‘So now we will have marauders terrorizing the area,’ I sighed. ‘We’ll need to let the Viscount know.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we hunt them down?’ Caei asked.

  ‘Most of the surrounding area is a forest,’ I replied. ‘Our chances of finding them can be described as “lower than those of winning a lottery.” Maybe if we had a skilled tracker we could try? But we don’t.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Aki said with alarm in her voice.‘Dan-Hem! They don’t have much in terms of defences and it is a day or so away!’

  I looked at my companions and they all nodded.

  ‘Let’s hurry then,’ I said. ‘Given the state of these bodies, we might be too late already.’

  Never a dull day indeed.