Silver Knight Pov
I still can't believe that Eclipse is just a baby. Its intelligence and staggering amount of titles definitely went against the fact that it was 2 days old, yet a [Status] Reading cannot show false information.
Though it makes me sad that a baby had to go through what was said to be 'unimaginable pain' when it wasn't even a week old. There was also the fact that it saw something that could've caused it to die in some way. The more I think about it, the worse I feel about the fact that I was going to kill Eclipse just because of one title.
I looked down at Eclipse as it trotted, with the occasional stumble, beside me. It was currently preoccupied by looking at the light crystals that were scattered in clumps along the upper part of the main tunnel we were in. These crystals were able to provide a dim light and allowed us to slightly see ahead of us.
Just before we walked out of the ritual room I had to do another interrogation with Eclipse. That was when I learned that Eclipse was forcefully taken away from its mother.
Sadly I couldn't get any more details about how it got here as Eclipse could only 'say' "yes", "no", "whats that", and "you need something?". The last one was recently added as there were quite a bit of times when the juvenile moth angirly stomped its legs when I just stared at it and didn't say anything. Now when it caught me staring, instead of blankly staring back, Eclipse would tilt its head. Which in my opinion was adorable.
Wait, how am I supposed to explain Eclipse to the guild? I couldn't lie about a class change as that would've been noticeable right away.
I can't believe I hadn't thought of this problem before hand.
Ah I'm sure the problem will sort itself.
It seemed Eclipse noticed my gaze and looked at me, tilting it's head.
How can a creature, that is supposed to cast the world into darkness, be so darn cute!?
I cleared my throat.
"No it's nothing, just wondering about the future."
That seemed to satisfy Eclipse as it once again looked up at the crystals, it's beady eyes seeming to sparkle like a star. Or was I just imagining it? I was pretty beat up from the fight, and I still have an arrow in my shoulder.
As I was debating on if Eclipse was real or a hallucination, I heard voices from afar with my enhanced hearing. I quickly scouped up Eclipse and moved to one of the many smaller side tunnels this place had.
I silently pulled out my Bastard Sword out of my sheath which hung loosely on my waist and waited for the opportune moment. The voices became clearer with each passing second and a dim light made itself known.
"...So thats when I saved the princess from the vile dragon!"
A loud and joyous male said loudly.
Dragonslayer!? I am in deep shit-
"Stop it with the bullshit Mike"
A clearly annoyed female replied to Mike.
... I should really stop overthinking things...
"What a man can't dream?"
The male said whining.
"You can dream, just don't talk outloud about your dreams. You sound like an asshole."
The female replied with venom.
"Ah are you jealous that the princess isn't you, Lex?"
Mike said with a teasing tone.
"I swear after this mission I'm going to-"
But Lex couldn't finish the threat as a voice as deep as a canyon intervened.
"Would the two of you children stop your bickering? Don't forgot we are on a mission."
"Ah sorry about that Gerald.."
The two of them said in unison, clearly having done this many times.
Mission? They could be mercs, but it'll be better for all of us, if Eclipse and I stay quiet and let them pass. They're probably here for the cult's bounty.
Wait why did the trio stop moving?
"You heard that guys?"
Mike's playful tone turned serious and quiet all of the sudden. I barely heard the other two agree.
Crap they seem to be pros. Not good, I wonder what noise they are talking about though? I'm sure I haven't moved a muscle.
And thats when I decided to pay attention to something other than the trio. And I heard rapid tapping on my stomach.
ECLIPSE.
I somehow forgot about it as it was clutched in my now slightly working left arm. Definitely should check that out.
Anyways, we were in deep shit. Since the trio definitely heard the angry tapping, I had no choice other than to gently put down Eclipse. And said in a barely audible whisper. Even though the trio was still pretty far away, I was not taking chances as one of them might have enhanced hearing or own enchant gear similar to mine.
"Stay here and don't move."
I hoped Eclipse heard that and I think it did? It just seemed to angirly shake in place.
Ah I am definitely going to have to face the wrath of the juvenile moth later...
No time to have such thoughts as the orange glow of a light turned brighter with each passing second.
Time slowed to crawl as I activated [Absolute Concetration].
It seems one of them can buff the other three as the chances of all of them being able to have the skill [Silent Step] is outrageously low. Maybe a skill sharing spell? In theory that means theres definitely atleast one mage and theres a slight chance for a single rogue. If this is a professional merc party, that means there would also be a tank and a healer. Since there was only 3 people, that means either the mage had some healing spells, or the tank could be a paladin which would make them a healer so taking one of them out first would be a good strategy, if the paladin's knight armor wasn't too protective that is. Since there also needs to be a damage dealer and having a rogue as the main damage dealer would be strange as they were better suited for quick light attacks, but I'm not going to be a fool and say that a rogue can't be the main damage dealer as I've fought with rogues that used explosives and other extremely deadly attacks....
I thought of many plans and counter attacks that I could use against the trio, and settled on a plan that would guarantee victory if certain conditions could be met, but I made a few back up plans just incase.
Just as the buff finished and time returned back to normal for me, I grabbed a smoke bomb, a dark grey tinted cyliander with a black rune on it, from my spatial bag and quickly activated the rune on it quickly chucking it towards the trio.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The trio immediatly respond as the bomb sailed through the air, exploding into a cloud of dark grey smoke mid-air, obscuring their vision. This was when I started silently running towards one of the other small tunnels. I heard a shield slam into the ground as I was right in the middle of the main tunnel. The shield slam was followed by an immediate activation of either a spell which casted bright light, or a flash bomb, which pierced through the smoke, blinding me slightly, but the worst part is that it revealed a silhouette of me.
This caused 3 sharp objects to immediately zone in on me. I reacted quickly and brought up my left arm to protect my body.
And then the pain hit me. I completely forgot that my left arm was in a really bad shape as the arrow was still in my left shoulder and the lightning attacked which basically fried my nerves.
Thankfully the objects didnt seem to penetrate my knight armor as 2 of them rebounded with a clang and the other one glided aross my shoulder piece, casting sparks along the way.
I didn't even wait and sprinted in a strange pattern towards my opponents, which was good as a fireball seemed to whiz past me while whining the entire way, and casting a warm glow throughout the tunnel before exploding behind me.
I quickly activated a speed buff as I cleared the smoke and jumped at speeds that my opponents had a very hard time tracking.
The tank, who was a paladin wearing a golden and black full plate armor set with a tower shield that was easily taller than me, was the first person I saw. He held a war hammer in one hand and waited for me. As he saw me move through the air, he lifted up his shield to block me. So I gladly used it as a stepping stone as I leaped over the trio and landed behind them. Just as I landed, I activated [Earthquake] causing well a small earthquake. This made the black haired rogue lose his footing. He wore a cloak but I could see the black chest piece underneath, and a toolbelt with an assortment of weapons and bomb. With zero hesitation, I swung my sword towards the rogue.
"MERCY!"
I stopped my swing just before I was able to behead the rogue.
It seems that this guy is smart enough to invoke a merc guideline.
I waited for him to continue as required by the merc guidelines.
"I, Mike Yoke, surrender to our attacker."
He spoke shakily.
Silence ensued, so I moved my sword closer to the rogue's neck. The rogue might've surrended, but his teammates haven't yet which means I would be innocent if I suddenly killed the surrenderer.
The rogue gulped with fear knowing exactly what would happen if his teammates didn't surrender. His black eyes moved back and forth, trying their hardest not to look at me or the sword that would kill him if anything were to go wrong.
The other two seemed to understand the very small time frame and quickly stated their names and surrenders one after each other.
"I, Lex Ambers, surrender to our attacker"
The magician said shakingly as her earthen cloak gently swayed to the small draft along with her short brown hair. her brown eyes looked at the rogue with great worry.
"I, Gerald Grove, surrender as the party leader to our attacker."
The paladin said deeply, worry very clear in his voice. I didn't bother replying as I drew back my sword and sheathed it, which made the trio exhale simultaneously. I walked through their party towards were I had left Eclipse.
As I passed by the paladin, I could hear him quietly say thank you, which I merely responded to with.
"The Cultists of Rain are dead, the demon summoning has been delt with."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gerald nod after a short moment of silence.
Thankfully it didn't seem that they recognized me.
Now, how do I play off the fact that I got an ancient creature following me. Well it's not like they'll know its ancient, and hiding Eclipse forever will no work. I can atleast see what will be the trio's reaction.
As I reached the small tunnel that Eclipse was left in. The juvenile moth had stopped shaking in sheer anger and seemed to have calmed down.
Seeing me, Eclipse started flapping its wings with what seemed to be excitement?
"Hmm? Are you interested in the dark cloud?"
A negative came from Eclipse.
"The bright light?"
That seemed to be what Eclipse was interested as it lifted one leg and flapped its wings with impatience, I think.
"Ah ok, that's what one of the mercs I was fighting used. It's either a spell or flash bomb. Ah I should probably explain what a bomb is, but I'll have to do that later as it's a long explanation. Oh you can probably learn the spell since you have a good light affinity, first we'll have to find someone to teach you it though... anyways, is there anything else you are interested in?"
Eclipse lifted up a single leg.
"Alright, but we'll have to continue this talk later as we'll be heading out now."
That seemed to deflate the once excited juvenile moth.
"Don't worry, it's not going to take too long for me to answer your questions!"
I hurriedly said, and thankfully that seemed to please the moth as it stopped deflating and trotted next to my side and we left the small tunnel as we entered the main tunnel.
It seemed the trio moved not too far ahead of us and I heard Mike make a joke about how much Lex seemed to care for him. This earned him a swift punch to the gut by Lex, which caused him to yelp in pain. I heard the Gerald chuckle at this, but otherwise he didn't say anything. The trio was definitely wary of us as they moved stiffly and at ready to respond to anything that I might pull. They also kept gancing at us. But it's not like I could blame them, after all I did almost kill one of them.
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Pov Eclipse
I tried to focus on walking along this tunnel, but I couldn't help but stare at the bright light one of the three new creatures carried ahead of Silver and I. One of them was a large and broad shelled creature with a golden and black shell. It was far larger than Silver which frightened me quite a bit as Silver was pretty tall for me.
Even though I liked its shell, I would choose Silver any time for the sole reason that it's shinier.
The other two creatures were smaller in size and had boring colors which were brown and black. What was interesting was that the black shell had the top of its shell, and it's hand shells removed, revealing a pale brown body. The brown shell also had its shell down revealing a pale body, and was smaller than the black shell.
The brown shell seemed to be interested in Silver as it looked back at Silver and me every now and then. The golden shell seemed to notice this and let out a rough exhale and spoke loud enough for us to hear.
"So miss knight, mind telling us what that thing following beside you is? We can't exactly write down on the report that we saw a unidentified creature as that would cause a ruckus."
The golden shell had a deep voice, which reminded me about Mother. Thankfully Silver promised to find out a way to bring me back to my mother. I didn't understand what a promise was still, but it gave me hope.
"This is Eclipse, it's a 'Juvenile Moth.'"
I heard Silver speak in a voice that seemed far too cold for it.
Huh why are you acting like that? Also are you miss knight? I like Silver more though, probably because I don't even know what miss or knight means.
It seemed that the three creatures didn't notice the strange behaviour Silver was emitting. The two with their shells down looked confused and conversed amongst themselves quietly. I stopped and tapped on Silver's leg which caused it to stop and look down at me. It seemed to be confused before seeming to understand what I asked.
Finally it seemed as the language barrier has fallen!
I thought to myself as Silver lowered itself to my level, and talked quietly without its eariler coldness.
"You have to be patient, we can't talk comfortably around these guys, don't worry though, I did after all make a promise to answer your questions about spells."
Nope the language barrier was still up.
I thought to myself sadly and didn't bother correcting Silver as I started trotting agian, but a little faster than before. This action caused Silver to let out a series of weird noises quietly.
Maybe it'll be a good idea to keep the barrier up, I really don't want to make those weird noises.
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Hmm? Whats that?
The dark enviorment seemed to just end in the distance as it was replaced by a blue wall or something else. The adrupt change in color was strange, but I wasn't complaining. Blue definitely looked better than brown.
Neither did the group of creatures or Silver react to this strange occurance, so I turned to Silver and quickly flapped my wings to get Silver to notice my sudden movement.
"Hm? you curious about the outside? Its basically where most things live, also it's really beautiful in some places, like the clawed mountains. I can show it to you one day if we ever book a trip on a airship."
I couldn't help but get excited at this.
As I thought about what clawed mountains were, I heard something light approach us. It seemed to be the brown shell. I looked over at Silver and saw it rest a hand on the line it uses for dancing.
The brown shell saw this and stopped in its tracks.
I should figure out a way to ask why the line is so special.
"Sorry to bother you miss knight, but I can't seem to remember a species that is called 'Juvinal moth' or a creature named Eclipse, so I'm wondering if Eclipse is fine with me checking its [Status] to confirm your words. My [Apprasial] is pretty low level so I would only be able to see its name and species."
Brown shell said strongly, a fierce look was in its eyes as it looked at me.
"That will not happen, not because Eclipse isn't fine with it. Its just that it has a skill that protects against [Apprasial]."
Silver replied once again with a cold tone that I did not like.
Damn you langauge barrier not letting me to express my dislikes!
"Oh I see, well I would like to read its [Status] using a Reader, but I'm guessing you don't want your [Status] to appear to all of us."
I didn't see the problem, but it seemed like Silver did as it moved its top shell up and down, something that I've noticed was an affirmative. I wonder why we didn't use that as a part of our language, but I won't delve too deep. The brown shell seemed satisfied with that and went back to its group.
"This is an example of a sneaky method that a person uses to get alot more information from a creature or another person. Of course she was really bad at hiding it, who tries to confirm what species and if Eclipse was your name or not- oh wait, named creatures are supposed to be rare, she might've wanted to know if Eclipse was a name that was given by me or you were blessed with a name..."
The rest I couldn't hear as Silver started talking really quiet and really fast.
Huh, well anyways! I'm hopeful that I will see so many new sights if what Silver said is true. Very exciting.