XANDER VASILIAS, ☆☆GRAVITON KNIGHT, STONE LVL 14

TOWN OF HELDON, PROVINCE OF ARAGONIA

When Xander regained consciousness, he was dressed in his underclothes in a bed with cool silk sheets and large pillows. Sunlight played against his closed eyelids and a familiar, yet distant smell of hot scivit filtered into his room. He blinked, vision focusing on a familiar yet oddly unfamiliar room. His mind caught up to his perceptions and he realized he had been here before, years ago. Right after he’d undergone chrysopotheosis.

“Loris…” he muttered, wincing as he remembered his draakan teacher. She’d been a harsh teacher, but his favorite. This was the room he’d stayed in when he’d gone to Heldon to begin his Reborn training.

He sat up slowly, one hand going to the spot in his belly where the bone spear had impaled him. He lifted his shirt and looked—a tiny scar was all that remained. Xander smiled faintly: Culvis had done him a favor. He didn’t have to leave that scar—a True Healer could leave him completely unmarred from even an injury as serious as the one he’d suffered.

How did we get out of there then? He wondered. Culvis had been pinned down and Jess wasn’t getting through the Boss’s natural armor with her sniper rifle. Salyyb…Salyyb was still working on his bees, wasn’t he? He winced as a twinge of pain shot through his head and a dull ache blossomed. What was Zahara doing? Was it her that got us out of there?

He looked around and found a glass of water on the small wooden table near the bed, drinking it down in one long gulp. The effort seemed to drain much of his strength, the glass felt like it weighed ten kilograms and he nearly dropped it putting it back. As he was setting the glass back on the table, the door to the bedroom opened admitting a very familiar black-scaled draakan in a pristine black and gold House Vasilias uniform with red stripes down her snout.

The draakan’s eyes widened slightly and her tongue shot out a couple of times as she tasted the air in a gesture of surprise. “Ah, you’re conscious; a significant improvement. You’re a little too stubborn for your good though. Don’t get out of bed, my Lord,” the dry whipcrack voice of his old teacher snapped out, stopping him before he tried to get up. “You’ll ruin the good work of young master Culvis. Your injuries were more extensive than what you remember and our staff Healer will want to examine you. Now that you’re awake, I’ll fetch—”

“Hold on, hold on, Loris!” Xander interrupted, his voice surprisingly weak. He had to take a few seconds to catch his breath. “How did I get here? Am I truly in Heldon, in my old room?” He asked when he could. “The last thing I remembered, was I lost consciousness in the Water Temple. That’s at least a hundred kilometers away from there.”

“Tch, precision, Lord Vasilias. It is a hundred and forty-one point nine kilometers away from here, and yes, you are in Heldon—at the Reborn Training Facility if we’re still being precise,” Loris said. “I believe it was Lady Zahara Bardoul who was leading your party when they arrived in town. You were not the only one carried on a stretcher. Salyyb was also nearly dead from his wounds and required immediate botanimedical attention and Jessaline’s injuries, while not life-threatening, were severe indeed.” Disapproval rolled off of the old draakan in palpable waves.

Xander’s face paled as he heard Loris’ news. He knew it’d gone bad, but he hadn’t known things had gone so catastrophically bad. “It was a standard Dungeon run, Loris…” Xander began.

Loris held up one clawed hand and flicked her long forked tongue out again, “My Lord, as you know, I won’t contradict you. I will instead entreat you to remember one of my fondest sayings from before you were Stone rank.”

Xander sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think it went something like, ‘There is no such thing as a standard Dungeon run.’ Or something like that.”

Loris nodded her head, her large eyes narrowing to slits as she flicked an invisible bit of dust from her uniform, “That sounds about right, my Lord.” She fell silent, but she was waiting for more from him.

He knew what she wanted and he fell back onto the pillows, grimacing as the Boss fight played out in his memory once more. Loris remained quiet, waiting. “The Boss—it was a Tyrannoarchiteuthis but we never got a clear monster entry from the System on it—was labeled a Class 2 Boss monster in the monster report but it was at least a Class 3. We could barely scratch it with our most powerful graft combinations. I thought, for a Class 2 Boss, it’d be a trifle risky but we had an Ivory rank Bard with us and we’re all veterans. But that’s not what happened.”

Loris nodded and said, “It is very fortunate that Lady Bardoul accompanied you on your delve. I understand that it was due to her quick thinking and clever graft usage that you survived at all.”

Xander shut his mouth. Nothing he said was going to make this any better than it was. He could see the disappointment in Loris’ eyes though. He owed her a better explanation than that.

“I thought the Dungeon would be a good place to learn to rely on each other more. To work together better and to learn to synergize our grafts and Class abilities. I hoped…”

“You hoped for Lady Bardoul’s name to be outshone by her actions, yes, though why you thought to bring her at all is a subject for another discussion. Your motivation for your delve was…clear…enough for me to discern that. But Lord Vasilias,” she flicked her tongue out several more times before she continued, “why the Water Temple? It is well known to be among the most advanced Dungeon in the province.”

Xander stared up at the blank white ceiling of his room, running through all the good reasons he and his team had come up with once he’d finally convinced them to accept Zahara. It’s far away from the scrutiny of your mother but still an official House Dungeon so the accomplishment would be recorded on our Dungeon records. That had been one of Xander’s more persuasive arguments. It seemed so short-sighted now.

Eventually, he sighed and said, “We had our reasons, Loris. It was agreed to by the whole team. It’s no excuse, I know, but we are Reborn. We must put our lives in danger’s way.”

Loris digested that for a few seconds before nodding. “You are far too naïve to espouse such idealistic politics, my Lord, but you are technically correct. It does not absolve you—your mother is furious—but you have never been one to carefully measure consequences before taking the action you think correct.”

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Xander didn’t bother arguing. He knew it was true. “Is mother really that angry?” He asked.

Loris just gave Xander another long, flat look. Xander winced and sighed. “I should’ve expected that. Does she think I’ll never be in danger again? I am a Reborn, just like she is. If I want to remain in good Imperial standing and, more to the point, if I ever want to get above Ivory rank, I’ll need to fight dangerous monsters all the time.”

“I would not presume on the High Lady Vasilias’ motivations,” Loris said, “but I have never known her anger to be unwarranted.”

“Try living with her,” Xander muttered.

The door to his room opened again and Culvis walked in, changed out of his heavy armor and into his Healer’s greens. The House Vasilias crest showed prominently on his sleeve right above the white stencil of a five-pointed vit leaf, the symbol of the Healer Class. He had a pale green Healer’s Systablo in his hand with several scanning and etheric resonance attachments hanging off it. The large man strolled over to Xander’s bed and gave a professional smile.

“Good morning, my Lord,” he said. “I’m glad to see that you have regained consciousness.” He turned to Loris and said, “Good morning, Trainer Loris, thank you for watching over Lord Vasilias these past few days.”

Loris bowed her head and flicked her tongue out. “I could do naught else, True Healer Culvis. Now that he’s awake though, I have more to do here than watch after unconscious Scions of Great Houses.” She flicked her tongue again and Xander chuckled a little. Loris bowed and departed, leaving Culvis alone with Xander.

“Now then my Lord, how are you feeling?” Without waiting for a response, Culvis began running a series of scans and examinations on Xander, checking over him thoroughly.

Xander did his best to withstand the treatment with dignity with minimal success. To distract himself, he said, “I was feeling better, but then I started hearing about the terrible mess I made of everything and I’m afraid I took a bit of a downward turn.”

Culvis chuckled as he analyzed the reams of data streaming onto his Systablo. He flicked a few quick commands and the display switched to a stable illusion floating above the Systablo and flipped so Xander could see. Stable illusions were much more reliable and expensive than holograms because illusion infusions could be used in any light conditions, but House Vasilias had spared no expense for the only True Healer in the Imperium. Xander tried to make heads or tails of what he was seeing but failed. He had only ever been a middling student in higher education since he’d been so concentrated on his Class training.

The illusion showed an image of Xander’s body, complete with his tensa pathways, circulatory system, and muscular-skeletal system. Several key areas were picked out on the image in zoomed-in floating windows, but Xander couldn’t tell if they looked normal or not. It all looked disturbingly biological to him.

“You’ve been unconscious for six days now, my Lord,” Culvis said in a businesslike tone. When he was acting in his Healer capacity, all trace of the casual drawl and easy-going manner he exhibited in the field were gone, replaced with the detached, professional calm of a master Healer. “You have been undergoing both mundane and tensa-infused healing procedures to repair the damage wrought to your body and anima by that Class 3 Boss monster we survived. It will take another few days of rest along with several more rounds of Healing to get you back on your feet and in fighting form; the venom in that bone spear is still inside you doing damage and I’m having to neutralize it a bit at a time to prevent you from slipping into shock.”

Xander glanced down at the puckered scar on his belly from when he’d been stapled to the coral. It seemed to him that it twinged a little in response to his regard and he winced, covering it back up with the sheets.

“Is this toxin truly so destructive that it can withstand even your abilities?” Xander asked, his tone light enough to take any sting out of the question.

Culvis didn’t laugh. “It is venom from a Class 3 Boss monster. You are fortunate that it didn’t simply liquify your insides. Instead, it seems to be primarily intended to paralyze. I’ve had a rather difficult time keeping your lungs inflating since the venom wants to freeze your diaphragm in place.”

Xander gulped and shivered. “Can you tell me what happened down there? How did we get out?”

Culvis grunted. “The battle was fierce, but it wasn’t long. It wasn’t too much longer after you got hit that we managed to escape, my Lord.” He waved a hand and the illusory data display disappeared. He tucked the Systablo into his Healer’s coat and looked earnestly at Xander. “Your last attack hurt it enough for me to get a sample of its blood and it only took a little while longer for me to synthesize a poison that would kill it. But as Salyyb was delivering the poison I’d designed, he was nearly cut in half by one of its whipping tentacles and Jessaline’s arm was broken when she got stuck in some of the debris from that attack.”

Xander frowned and asked, “If Salyyb had been that badly injured while he was delivering the poison, how did you escape with everyone?” His face paled as a new thought occurred to him. “Did you escape with everyone? Is Salyyb—”

Culvis held up his hands and made a patting gesture in the air, “Calm down, my Lord, calm down! Salyyb is recovering. He’s currently in a bed of Plant-tensa-infused soil and he’s regrowing what he lost. It will simply take time.” He cleared his throat. “As will your injuries, my Lord. I can tell that you’re not quite up to this. Close your eyes an—”

“No, Culvis,” his eyes flashed. “Finish the recounting. I need to know.”

Culvis sighed, blowing air through his big mustache, “You’ll be gratified to know that it was Zahara who saved us. She realized what we failed to do almost immediately: that monster was too much for us. If it weren’t for her unleashing the loudest wall of noise I ever heard, we’d have never been able to escape from that room. The noise stunned the Boss which seemed to give it a bit of a fright and it sprayed out a cloud of ink and then fled. We managed to limp out carrying you and Salyyb trailing blood and chlorophyll until we got all the way back to the Borehole and I could get your injuries patched up,” he chuckled. “I think that was the first time it had been challenged in a long time. The monster reports we got at the start of the Dungeon showed that the last time the Boss had been killed was three years ago.”

Xander frowned, his sense of duty injured. “Reborn teams must be just sticking to lower levels, harvesting some of the monsters there. After all,” he reasoned, “the House offers the highest bounty for Water-aspected ethershards and those crab monsters dropped Common Water-aspected shards at an almost four-to-one ratio. We’ll have to start upping the bounty for the Boss to offset the danger. That’s how we can attract the higher-rank teams.”

“I’m sure you’re right, my Lord,” Culvis said disinterestedly. “I’ll leave Dungeon management and House politics to you.” He picked up his Systablo again and examined it. “Now before you start doing anything else, you need to get some rest. The Tyrannoarchiteuthis venom in your body is still active and it will require a lot of time and rest to allow my Healing spells and abilities to work on you.”

“How long?” Xander asked.

“We’ll have to see. At least a week.” Culvis tucked his Systablo back into his Healer’s jacket and turned to go.

“A moment, Culvis, if you would,” Xander said.

Culvis stopped and bowed his head, “Of course, my Lord.”

“Zahara…she…she wasn’t hurt, was she? And she’s still here? She didn’t go back to Aragon?” Xander felt a wave of exhaustion come over him and he had to stifle a yawn.

“She’s fine, my Lord. The governor has provided lodging at the Gilded Lotus. She’s been clearing monsters on the slopes of Mt. Discovery during the day—when she’s not running us all through exercises until we drop—and then putting on concerts at night that have the whole town attending.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about her. She’s doing quite well indeed.”

Xander smiled and nodded. “Good…good. I think I’ll get some…” he yawned so wide his jaw cracked. “Apologies. I’m exhausted. I think I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes.” He blinked, then realized he didn’t open his eyes back up.

He heard Culvis’ gentle laughter as the Healer left his room, then that, too faded away as he drifted off to sleep.