The discussion of roles and responsibilities seemed to have calmed the fire in Made’s eyes and Russ released her while Serenity was setting up the three spells he was going to attempt to infuse. They’d interfere with each other significantly, but he doubted he’d have to balance them for long.
The hard part was deciding what to infuse and in what shape; for a true area spell, he couldn’t simply pick targets. He decided on a vertical cylinder with a hole in the middle that he could scale a bit in size and two spheres. They’d be the easiest to target; he’d simply have to be careful to not catch his allies in the area.
His Void Concept felt a little too murky to work with for attack magic, so he decided to go with Plasma for the cylinder and one of the spheres. Unlike Nat, his Plasma Concept wasn’t based on temperature in general; it was based on the conditions inside a star, instead. For cold, he’d probably need to use Nihility Void. He could, but she probably had that covered anyway. Energy seemed like a better choice for flexibility. No one wanted a lightning bolt to suddenly run through them, and he doubted it was healthy for wasps, either.
It wasn’t until he finished casting the three spells that he realized Nat was recording the process. “When did you start recording?”
She chuckled. “When we entered the dungeon. Russ was stopping Made from running off and getting herself killed, which - well, I don’t know how Made’ll spin that, but a record of what really happened is a good idea. I’m probably going to record most of what we do here. It’ll all be posted, but we’ll cut it down to the good bits for actual broadcast.”
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The first room was little more than a warmup. It was a single giant wasp about the size of a person that flew down at the group from a high ceiling. There were no other wasps, not even ordinary ones, and all it did was strafe and attempt to spear whoever was closest with its stinger. Russ and Lancaster managed to deal with it with little help from the others, though Serenity did pull out his bow and shoot it twice.
Made managed to hit the wasp’s stinger with her blade, lose control of it, and have it sail off away from the others. By the time she recovered it, the fight was over.
She was about to head off to the next room in a huff when Serenity suddenly realized that this wasn’t just a dungeon run; it was also supposed to be an interview. “Made? Didn’t you have other questions you were going to ask while we were in here?” Serenity glanced over towards Nat and saw that her camera was already trained on the pair of them.
Made halted and turned back to Serenity. “Oh yeah! Ah,” She dropped her sword as she dug into her pocket to pull out a phone. “Here it is! First question: You’re pretty clearly not human. What are you?”
Serenity decided he’d give her (and the theoretical viewers at home) a similar speech to the one he’d given from his father’s home office. “Human or not isn’t what’s important; what’s important is that this planet and this country are my home. I’ll do whatever’s in my power to save them. Some invaders will probably be human; if you want evidence of that, just look at the Tutorial; most of the instructors are human. Shape isn’t what matters.”
He turned a bit away from Made to look more directly at Nat’s camera. “As for what I am? What you’re seeing is my draconic heritage.”
Made blinked. “What’s a dragnatic? I’ve never heard of that. A type of bird?”
Serenity tried very hard not to overreact. She was just ignorant, that was all. “Dragon.” He took a deep breath then let it back out. “Draconic means dragon. Why don’t we take on another room? I can answer another question after that.”
Made skipped away, only to have Russ yell at her to wait for everyone else. She stayed at the entrance to the next tunnel. “Are all dragnatics this slow? Get your asses in gear, I want to kill something!”
“I think I hate her a little.” That was Raz’s voice. “What is wrong with her?”
“I’m not sure,” Serenity admitted. “Can’t argue with you though. She’s something else.”
“I’ve worked with her before,” Nat’s voice came from behind Raz. “She doesn’t seem the same. Normally she’s annoying, but she seems more random than usual. I thought she was better at reading a situation, at least.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Serenity supposed he couldn’t blame the reporter for not paying attention to others’ feelings; he was bad at that himself. Her lack of care inside a dungeon was still grating.
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The second room was also well-defined, two of the person-sized wasps. Serenity shot the wings on the farther one only to find out that they didn’t need wings to fly. The one with a missing wing was far less maneuverable than the intact one, but it wasn’t disabled.
They fought the uninjured wasp the same way they had the single wasp in the previous room while they avoided the damaged wasp. It was still a straightforward fight, and they once again escaped uninjured. The only notable problem was that Russ repeatedly had to move Made out of the way of a wild attack by the injured wasp; she didn’t seem to be tracking it at all.
The moment the second wasp fell, Made posed for Nat’s camera. “Question time!” She pulled out her phone and quickly scrolled down, finding what she was looking for. “Time for a fun question! Since you’re only partially human, does that make sex with you bestiality? What do your genitalia look like, anyway?”
Serenity stared at the reporter. What made her think that was an acceptable question to ask?
While he was still scrambling for a response, Rissa stepped between Made and Serenity. “First of all, I’m the only person allowed to see my fiancee’s equipment. Well, maybe his doctor too. Second, no, it’s not. He’s not an animal and - and shut your filthy mouth!” By the end, Rissa was screaming her words at Made.
Serenity reached over to Rissa and put a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t intend anything more than that, but she turned and flung herself into his embrace, crying. He closed his arms around her and glared at the reporter.
He didn’t care who she was, no one was allowed to reduce Rissa to tears.
Serenity felt Russ’s hand on one shoulder and Raz’s presence on his other side. He glanced around and noticed that Lancaster seemed to be flanking Russ on the other side; they were all facing Made.
Nat stood to the side, catching everything on camera. Serenity would have appreciated her support, but he couldn’t really blame her for capturing the drama; it was her job, after all. It was probably for the best.
Made didn’t seem to realize that they were all arrayed against her. Instead, she looked through her phone. Her head came up and her tone of voice didn’t have the hard edge it’d had for the previous question. “New question! Is magic real or is it something else? A fake, some kind of advanced tech, what is it really?”
Serenity rubbed Rissa’s shoulderblade as he answered the question. “It’s real. At its core, it’s turning energy from one form into another, like anything else. It’s an unknown branch of science, as much as it is anything else, with its own rules. The big difference between magic and the known forms of science is that intent matters. A caster’s intent shapes the magic, whether they want it to or not. Everything else is details.”
Made didn’t even seem to pay attention to the response as she kept scrolling on her phone. “Oh, this one’s good! From a new mom, what’s the best path? Should I look for one to make me a better mother or do I have to learn to fight?”
Serenity smiled a little. They were finally getting into the sort of questions he’d hoped would be asked. “There’s a short answer to that and a long answer. I’ll give you both, but then we need to get moving. The short answer is that there isn’t a best path. Choose the Path that feels right.”
Rissa shifted in Serenity’s arms and he loosened his hold to let her move around. She turned from having her face buried against her shoulder to where she could glare at the reporter. It was clear that Rissa hadn’t forgiven Made, whether or not Serenity was willing to keep talking to her.
“The long answer is more complex. You should always choose a Path that you think you can advance. This means one where you can gain experience. In the Tutorial, most experience comes from fighting; that’s because it’s the fastest way. It’s also the most dangerous, of course. I’m sure you know that paths that make things get experience from doing it, but that’s still not the only way. I recently met someone whose Path was all about running; he actually gets experience from going out and running. Any Path can give you skills; most Paths will also give attributes. If what you want to do is fight, take a fighting Path and it will help you fight better. If what you want to do is investigate magic, take a path that focuses on that instead. You may not be able to gain experience towards your Path from fighting if that’s not what it’s for; instead, you’ll get it from doing what you’ve chosen to do.”
Serenity faced Nat instead of Made and smiled, knowing he was talking to an audience that wasn’t even watching right now. “Next time we stop, I’ll talk about what the point of Paths is. For now, I want to keep moving so nothing strange happens in the dungeon.”
Serenity had been in dungeons where monsters could change rooms once the dungeon was entered; this seemed to be one of them, and in those dungeons, it was possible to run into a mass grouping that was much more difficult than if the monsters were more spread out. He didn’t think that was likely in a low-Tier double-floor dungeon like this one was now, but he wasn’t willing to risk his friends’ lives on the chance.