Walking back to their new home, Mykhal told Cerise, "You've changed a lot since getting that authority."
Cerise considered his words, then said, "Yeah, but it isn't the authority. It's the Diplomacy skill, and some of it is about growing into being a [Healer]."
"Um, I hate to tell you this, but that whole scene back at the guild hall was not diplomatic," Mykhal said.
"Oh, no, Mykhal! It was highly diplomatic," Cerise disagreed. She then explained, "By putting herself in our faces like she did, Hildai gave me the opportunity to be quite dramatically diplomatic with the whole of the Free Lancers Guild."
"Wait. What?"
Cerise ticked off points on her fingers. "First message sent: I will not be pushed around, disrespected, or disregarded. That is necessary for me to make clear as a [Healer] because if I have to tell someone to do something as a [Healer], I do not have time to fight for basic respect right then. I have a patient in front of me who will suffer or die, or both, because of needless delays. So I will fight that fight now, while I have time to spare.
"Second and third messages: I am loyal to my party because my party has earned by loyalty. Honestly, I was irritated at her disrespecting me, but the way she insulted you? That's when I got mad.
"Fourth message: I am not weak. I can and will make people regret showing me hostility." She frowned and sighed, adding, "Something I learned by watching when you moved to Trall is that people have a pecking order, just like chickens. I don't know if I told you, but I was afraid of you when you first moved in next door to us."
"You were scared? Of me?" he asked, gaping at her with shock.
Cerise nodded. "I didn't know what kind of person you were, if you'd be mean like some of the [Miners] or nice like my parents." She smiled and hip bumped him. "Then out you walk that first day we played together, and you have this angry frown on your face, and you stomp on over to Varise and you say, 'Why are you scatching yourself? Did something bite you? Are you hurt? I can get one of the parents if you need help.' You went from being this scary new guy to the big brother I always wanted."
He got this look on his face, like when someone bites into something they expected to smoosh, but it crunches, and that look while the person is trying to decide whether that was a bad crunch or just unexpected. "But, you don't let people think we're siblings. Why?"
Cerise stopped. She put a hand over her mouth as she thought. After a moment, she looked to Mykhal and admitted, "I don't know. Do you want to swear siblinghood? You're my best friend no matter what. Kaspea and Kasper were pretty nifty as siblings, but I think that's more because they're best friends than family. And seeing how Mahayan and Izrai get along, I'd rather be friends, but we're awesome. We can do both!"
The weird look faded behind laughter, but it clung around the corners of his eyes.
Cerise regretted the emotional hurt she could feel in her friend.
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It took half a moon to build their home. Mahayan came to practice her Geomancy "in a practical fashion", and sometimes Izrai and Heral joined her "for Stamina training", though they were often off on their own doing [Warrior] training things.
In the end, their house had an open room that served as foyer, parlor, and family room, with an arch separating the cooking and dining spaces. On the other side of the great room from the entrance were three doors. The center door led to her parents' room. The door nearer the food room, to the left, went to Cerise's room, and the right hand door led to Mykhal's room. It was a grand mansion by Trall standards and of a decent size by merchant standards.
The [Farmers] put up their own houses in that time, too, and got started clearing out new fields.
The next building to go up was a barn on the commons with a fenced in paddock. That took only a few days because, despite the size of the building, no one had to dig out a cellar. Also, by then her father, using Cerise's profile trick, had taught both Matais and Jiotian a goodly amount of Carpentry. While Matais was still bound to Basic skills because of not having a class, Jiotian was already working his way through the Practiced ranks of the regular Carpentry skill under her father's tutelage.
Her parents were still engaged in a Long Talk over building a place for Jiotian and his son to live on their land, so Cerise and Mykhal decided they had put off exploring the dungeon long enough.
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"This dungeon is actually really good for training in, " Jaxin told them as they Quick Stepped to the entrance.
"Are you still okay with us trying my approach first?" Cerise asked.
Jaxin grinned. "Absolutely! If it works, it will make life so much easier!"
Four [Warriors] in Sir Brais's yellow and gray House colors stood guard at the dungeon entrance. They lounged under a gazebo. The trio recognized two of them.
"Hail, Guards Keiteral , Gaboral. Not at the town entrance today?" Jaxin asked, wearing an expression of pleasantry like a mask.
"Mister Jaxin. A pleasure to see you again." The way Keiteral said that announced that it was anything but a pleasure. "Please declare--."
"No," Cerise cut him off.
"Hey, what?" Keiteral asked.
Cerise ignored him. "Mister Gaboral, please use your Inspect skill on me." She looked at the other guards. "The Free Lancers Code of Conduct instructs Free Lancers to 'Inspect; don't assume' because assuming an introduction is accurate is a good way to end up dead. If anyone claiming to be a Free Lancer objects to being Inspected, that instruction is on the very first page."
She felt four separate rolls of Inspect flow over her, and turned back to Gaboral. "Do you know what an authority bearer is under Druerjan law?"
"Eh, no, Miss ban Silverwood," Gaboral answered, looking less than sanguine.
"A diplomat. Do you have your copy of the Dungeon Law of Druerjan?" she asked.
Gaboral nodded.
Another group of delvers was coming up the road. Cerise noted them, but ignored them for now. She rattled off the code section and waited while Gaboral flipped to the correct page. He read, haltingly, aloud the law noting that diplomats and their delving parties were immune from search or taxation while Druerjan was at peace with their nations or authorities.
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"But it's an entrance fee!" Keiteral complained.
Gaboral slapped the back of his helmet, sending the unsecured equipment flying.
Cerise smiled to Gaboral. "Thank you for being reasonable. Would you like me to mention you kindly to Sir Brais the next time he comes to dinner?"
He shook his head. "Oh, no, Miss! I wouldn't want to bother him so! The less the good Sir hears about me, the better I've done my job! It's been long enough for the queue to clear, so there's no reason on our end to keep you."
"Very well. May Fortuna smile upon you this day." Their trio departed to the dungeon entrance.
Before they crossed the threshold, they clasped their hands with thumbs crossed and fingers wrapped around the edges of their palms. They said, all together, "We come with peace in our hearts and a sacrifice to be given in the classing place. May we enter?"
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«Gods Above and Abyss below! Nobody does that! Who does that!? Nobody does that!» shouted a voice so high pitched the decorative crystal in the chamber vibrated in dangerous sympathy.
«What's happening? Why? Why is there a huge build up of divine mana just outside me? Are we under attack?!» the voice that threw out its own question was as deep as the rumble of rocks grinding leagues under the surface.
«Sacrifice! We're going to get a sacrifice! Open the door! Open it! Let the supplicants in! Don't let your constructs attack!» the high voice demanded. «I'm going to greet them!»
«Wait! The door!? But! ... And he's gone already.»
«Yes! The door! I can't greet them! No one does that! But it's happening!»
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The dungeon entrance was obviously not natural. A boulder as tall as three big men standing on each other's shoulders pushed up from the ground, and wide enough it would take at least thirty adults, maybe fifty, to encircle it with their arms outstretched and only fingertips touching. In that boulder, an arch-like cavern opening stood, smooth despite artistic weather and creeper vines.
At least, that was the entrance everyone was used to.
Cerise felt the magic rising through the ground, and, soft voiced, warned Jaxin, "Stay bowed. The guardian of the holy place is responding."
He flicked a glance in her direction, but humored her.
And then stone ground over stone, and a second, smaller entrance dilated open. The guards shouted, panicked, scrambling for weapons, and the second team stopped, also readying for an attack.
Cerise waited for the magic to calm and the sense of a barrier to retract from the new opening. Then she rose from her bow and, clearly, in a carrying voice, said, "We thank you for your invitation," and led the way into the previously closed entrance.
Mykhal followed her without hesitation, but Jaxin took a moment.
The mana dilated closed behind them, masking the new entrance under an illusion of stone.
Jaxin couldn't see the mana making up the solid illusion and jumped, panicked, though he calmed when he saw the relief in Mykhal and Cerise's expressions.
"Did you--? Did you know that would happen?" he asked.
"I hoped," Cerise admitted. "Holy places fall under the aegis of different gods, and each god has their own way to ensure the clarity of intent the holy places need to thrive. We come with ritual and respect, observing the rites that the high gods' priests have shared for a peaceful supplication."
Mykhal said, "The walls are almost like the Grotto of Ascension."
Cerise looked and saw the purity of the stone and the dim yellow light that illuminated the passage. She nodded. "Not granite, but no striations like the Grotto. Let us not try the guardian's patience."
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«What's a Grotto of Ascension?» the earth voice asked.
«She's Blessed, but not a priest. Is that why she's here?» the owner of the high voice had calmed enough that the decorations need no longer fear shattering, but had obviously fallen into a speculative fugue.
«Guess I just have to watch,» the earth voice grumbled.
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The tunnel was long, and noticeably sloped downward. It had ledges hiding the corners of the ceiling, but they encountered no monsters and no traps. Like the Grotto, it opened into a room filled with light, a quartz spike hanging from the ceiling, but unlike the Grotto, this room was finished, the walls smooth, the floor tiled in geometric patterns.
Cerise stepped over the threshold between room and tunnel and walked to the center, directly under the quartz. She pulled out one of the packets of magic seeds. She knelt and laid out her sacrifice, one seed at a time, explaining what she knew of each of them, explaining their province and the purposes humans had for them. When the last seed from the pocket had been offered, she rose and stepped back.
Mykhal was to go next, but he paused when the seeds began to sink into the tiles. He waited until the magic was done, then went to where Cerise had knelt and followed suit. He laid out fangs and claws from some of the creatures he had hunted along the way. He, too, explained what he knew of the creatures, as Cerise had done with the seeds. When he rose and stepped back, Jaxin knew to wait until the offering was accepted.
Jaxin went to one knee and unsheathed a plain knife. "My father told me that anytime I enter a classing place, I should demonstrate my respect for the training a dungeon grants us by the gift of my blood. We did not come by the violent path, yet my respect is no less. I am told that blood letting, though, is a breaking of the peaceful heart of this path, and so I offer up a knife I forged, made from ore I mined and refined." He laid down the knife and stepped back.
The knife, too, sank into the floor.
Cerise bowed. "Thank you for accepting our gifts. We three may not yet be ready to come for our own classings yet, but we will be standing for a young man seeking his first class. The young man is a simple human, with a sensitivity to mana. He may not understand all the proper rites and rituals.
"Our request is that you permit one of us to accompany him, as we three have come today, to guide him. If your door remains open when we bring him, we will know you have granted your consent."
Cerise straightened and switched to Sylvan Speech, pulling on the authority token. She reached under her shirt, into her bra band, where she had carried the seed entrusted to her to give to the dungeon. She withdrew it and walked back to the center of the room. She did not kneel this time, but she did respectfully lay down the seed she could not Appraise.
«That was human business, and is a separate matter from this. The Lady of the Silverwood Grove, Whisper in the Leaves, Daughter of El-Ahrand, greets the Dungeon of the Sea Crest and offers a token of aid. No response is needed, nor debt implied.»
The seed sank into the tile before Cerise had a chance to step back.
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«She's a Diplomat! Authority Bearer! And that's--! We need to return gifts! Push up reward chests! Chests! Now!» The high pitched voice squealed, this time cracking one of the larger crystals.
«But they're not in a fight room,» the earth voiced speaker protested even as magic gathered.
«Chest! Now-now-now!»
«You are going to explain this at some point? Right?»
«CHEST!!!»
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Three dainty chests pushed up from the floor. They were two hands wide, three long, and two hands tall below another hand-width tall lid. All looked made of wood of different colors. The one nearest Jaxin was brown, blue for Mykhal, and green for Cerise.
Cerise listened to her Diplomacy skill and bowed. "Thank you for these considerations." Then she lifted the lid.
Jaxin had already opened his and was examining the metal ingots inside with wonder. He glanced up at Cerise's voice and then hastily said a heartfelt, "Thank you!"
Mykhal echoed him as he drew out slats of wood that exuded mana.
Cerise's eyes widened and a radiant smile dawned upon her face. She reverently lifted out a black scaled egg.
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«What did you do!?» More crystals shattered.
«I told you, it's not a fight room. I don't control what goes in the treasure boxes! Not in those rooms.»
Finally, the high pitched voice calmed down, emitting a meek, «Oh.»
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*CRACK*
Tatara claims you as his human.
Tame Monster advances to Practiced-9.
From the egg, a powerful voice roared, "I am the great and powerful--"
"Tatara," Cerise smiled, already helping to pull the shell away from her new companion. The monster revealed was iconic, if miniature, small enough to curl up in the palm of her one hand. The body was feline in structure, covered in shimmering overlapping scales so dark a purple a person could be forgiven for mistaking the color for black. Eyes of indigo and gold examined her from a serpentine head on an elongated, highly flexible neck. A tail nearly as long, tipped with a heart-shaped caudal finial, uncurled experimentally.
"Well, yes," the draconic being said, dropping the roar for a high tenor more suited to his size. "Please keep my shell. I'm going to need to eat it as soon as I get my wings open."
"Do you want a bath? Get the egg juice off?" Cerise offered.
"Oh! Yay!"
Cerise laughed and unstoppered her water bag. A gentle going over with Greater Cleanse prompted Tatara to make a chirpy purr noise.
"Yes, I have selected a good human," Tatara declared as the gunk sticking his wings to his body peeled back. He stretched, extending translucent wings vaguely similar in shape to a moth's.
Mykhal grinned when Cerise glanced at him. Jaxin, however, stared at the wings of Cerise's new companion with unconcealed horror.