I grab Talos by the arm and just storm through the nearby door not even waiting or thinking for a second about what might be on the other side. I feel extremely energized, maybe a bit too energized.

As we basically break down the door, we enter a thin hallway that looks like it could hold two people standing next to each other. Exhibit A. Me and Talos. You know if I was like a thick Elf I might have a bit of trouble with certain spaces, but the only thing I have to worry about are my boobs and ass.

Sounds oddly depressing. Or just for me?

The fact of the narrow hall does actually get me to stop and think about what this room could possibly be used for. I mean, obviously it leads to another room, that's the obvious purpose. I can see a door on the other end which isn’t even that far. Its just oddly clean and tidy. There are torches on both sides of the walls.

I take a step forward and the torches nearest to me suddenly get brighter. Oh! I see what this is. I glance back to Talos, give him a light thumbs up, he probably doesn't know what that means though.

“Ready your weapon.” I tell him, I should teach him pop culture and stuff sometime

I start moving forward with Talos behind me. As I pass all the torches, they get brighter. As I near the other door I can see that it has one of those old mechanical locks that’s built in between the stone, the design of the outside gives it away. I start hearing the shifting gears before I turn around. I probably activated it.

From the other end I see the door lock itself up with visible iron bars and spikes. From the ground a slab sinks into the floor and I see the large hand of a skeleton appear. Soon enough a large and armored skeleton climbs out wielding a Greatsword.

You know if we were in the Norselands I’d be calling this thing a Draugr, but different cultures and countries, different names or no names at all. I guess you could technically call these Vrykolakas since they’re undead, but undead skeleton is more appropriate.

I think I’m lucky I haven’t encountered one yet, a Vrykolakas I mean, god, that is a mouthful. If you’ve ever played Age of Sigmar and know about the Flesh Eater Courts then you’ll get why I’m glad not to have met any. I think I just jinxed myself for the future, great..

Back to this undead amazon. I step forward and raise my hand. I can finally use this thing. I speak the chant of Gaia’s Fist to cast it.

A bit of dust starts forming in front of me before stone begins materializing, taking the form of an open hand that slowly morphs into a fist. It begins shaking before firing forward, pushing me back a little. The stone fist flies at the skeleton and hits it dead center where its once non skeletal boobs were.

The skeleton gets pushed back a few feet before it begins to move forward again. Okay. One. That was fucking awesome, it looks so much cooler up close! Second. This is probably a level seven-ish skeleton, might be off.

Guess I should continue the attack. I mean, I will, this spell is fucking awesome.

“Talos, move forward.” I tell him as I start casting the spell again, just for safety I need my defense in front of me

Once I reforge him I’ll be able to use mental commands which is a time saver if anything. Another lucky break is that the bigger these skeletons are the slower they are.

I let loose another Gaia’s Fist and the stone hand slams into the skeleton knocking it back again. I won’t have much luck with fire this time, pure blunt force is what does real damage to these things.

I fire the fist at it again and as it makes contact with it the skeleton shatters into a few hundred pieces, armor included. Three hits, good to know. Since I got here in this world it has bugged me that the damage output of attack spells isn’t visible and I don’t think that’s a level issue, I’ll need to be careful with that.

I’ll pass on looting at the moment, don't think I'll find anything good at the moment and I want to find the others. I turn back to the door and hear the mechanical noise slowly unlocking it and boom. That dun gives me the signal that I can progress.

I move to the door and placed my hand against it to push it open, but struggle a bit. Fuck this is heavy. I mean…its stone. Yeah….

“Talos.” I glance back to him and motion for him to help with the door

He doesn’t move. Right…

“Help me open the door please.” I ask

He moves next to me and with a dash of friendship power we push the door open. Now, let’s see what we have here and wow. That is utterly terrifying, yet oddly well lit.

Imagine the same hallway we just entered, except there are no walls and there’s a pit below, which goes deep, really deep. I mean like really deep. Whether its water or something else down there I don’t know and don’t want to find out. There’s also some form of plant against the cave walls that illuminate the place lightly.

“Hey, Talos, can you make sure I don’t fall?” I ask him with a nervous laugh

He just stares at me in approval, I think.

But I won’t lie, I’m a little curious about what’s down there, even if I can't see it. I'm contradicting myself I realize. I slightly peek over the edge of this suspended path which I do hope has a pillar or two to support it.

With some squinting and focusing I can see a few paths that go into the surrounding cave. So maybe this place was built around a natural cavern system. That’s a bit odd for a burial ground and temple to two gods. I wonder where Athena’s shrine is then.

I turn my gaze to the path and see that in the center of it there’s a circular section, I glance back over the edge and look at the same place to see a pillar going down into the darkness. That’s actually partially comforting at the moment. Props to the ancient tomb for structural safety.

I calm myself for a second before I start moving forward with Talos right behind me. We start making our way across the path without any problems. I do decide to look up and see there is an equal amount of darkness above as there is below. Fun. Maybe mythical Australia is above me. Heh.

We reach the center point and I take a breather. Walking isn’t that hard, but when you’re crossing something like this it does make things a little bit hard.

“You know when we get out of here, we should go to a big city, have some fun, not like that kind of fun you know? The normal kind. What do you think?” I try and make conversation with my mute summon

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Talos just stares at me in silence.

“You’ve got a good personality, man.” I tell him

Saying man in that sense sounds so weird with this feminine voice. It oddly reminds me of the loli trying to sing Gangsta’s Paradise. I miss the internet…

I stretch for a second before I hear a kind of crumbling noise which makes me perk up. I just glance below the pillar and I can just see the crack form on the stone in real time. I then glance back to where I came from and see some other cracks. Oh no.

I de-materialize Talos and just start sprinting with everything I have. The stone behind me crumbles from what I can hear. I’m not glancing back because I’m fucking terrified right now. I do know one thing for sure, I won’t make it to the other end. I quickly glance below the path to the edge of the cave.

I’m going to have to risk it. Fuck! I hate this! I can at least tick this fucking thing off the bucket list!

I can feel the stone disappear from my heels as I run. God fucking dammit! I leap from the path and conjure Talos onto the small edge of an entrance below the path I was on.

“Catch me!” I yell as I extend my arm

The second he’s fully conjured he grabs my arm and both of us fall through the door behind him, the doorway itself collapsing as the bridge does. We stumble downwards a bit until we stop moving. Talos lets me free of his grip and helps me up. Even with the shield active that did hurt. I need Cloudfall, such a good spell.

Oh yeah, fuck that bridge. Structural integrity or safety my ass! Also running in this skirt is horrible.

I’m getting thigh highs and a loincloth for my permanent for mage gear, probably some type of leotard as well. At least I’ll be able to run short distances while looking sexy. Maybe by that time I’ll have gotten used to the no underwear thing. I also want a witch hat, those are cool. Like a big one.

I sigh, clothing, such a great fantasy for any RPG player obsessed with wanting to make their character look as good as possible.

Before I lose myself in fantasizing my possible future self, I dust myself off and look up to see where we are. The room is dusty, but I can see obvious marks of Gorgons here. They’re not too big, teen ones probably. I follow where the marks lead to. Big stone door, eh? Convenient, I won’t complain.

I move to the door with Talos next to me.

“Open it.” I whisper to him while I prep a Firebolt

He goes forward and places his hands on one side of the door and slowly pushes it open. There’s nothing coming out from there so no Gorgons so far. I move forward and step inside, holding my hand up for light, not going to use anymore torches for this adventure, not that I could. I miss my matchbox already.

The room is dark, the smell is slimy if anything. This is probably a feeding or storing ground for them then. So, the eggs weren’t the only nest then, not the best news. They’re probably the youngest bunch, they feed immediately the second they get some food, not the teen or adult ones, they store them for later. Imagine that this place is a fridge basically.

Amazing right? Of course, of course. The things monsters do to survive, utterly terrifying.

“Talos, stand guard.” I tell him as I slowly inch forward and illuminate everything

I keep one eye on the ground and another facing the walls, they put their slime onto walls usually and I’m looking at the ground because I don’t want to step into any of said slime.

As I move my hand in front of me I stop, and my eyes go wide. Is that? Is that Nephele?

“Talos! Free her!” I turn back and yell

I look back to her, she’s unharmed, but knocked out. They’ve probably brought her here not too long ago. She’s the easiest target as a Rogue. I should’ve made the guess that she’d be captured.

Talos moves past me and reaches into the slime. He grabs ahold of Nephele’s shoulders and slowly pulls her out from the slime fridge. I move back over to the door and just glance around. I did shout which wasn’t the best thing to do.

I look to Talos, he already has her in his arms. Okay, great.

“Come on.” I tell him

I step outside as he follows me. Besides this door there are three others. Left hasn’t failed me so far, so let’s continue with it. With a hurried step I start moving, opening the door without any problems which was surprising for a brief second.

The door opened to stairs that led up which I followed, my hand in front of me, ready to fire at anything hostile. We’d enter into another dusty room that didn’t have Gorgon marks. I need to find a place to lay low for a bit.

I scanned the place and spotted a broken wall that led out to where the bridge was probably. Without missing a beat, I moved to it and looked out. It was a small jump down which wouldn’t be too hard. To the right looked like a small space where we could rest for a second, make a fire if need arises without drawing any attention.

I went first, jumping down without a problem, then came Talos carrying Nephele. He jumped down with her and we moved to the corner.

“Lay her against the wall.” I tell Talos as I take off my pack

I moved to her and knelt beside her, there were remnants of slime on her which needed to be removed for health reasons. If it stays on you too long, it might kill you. I charged another Firebolt above my finger this time and lightly held it above the areas where she had slime.

Slowly, the flame made the slime turn into nothing but dust and after about ten minutes or so of doing this she was slime free. I was going to check her under the armor, but that catsuit thing of hers probably came in handy from having any slime against her skin, discounting her face.

I then turn to Talos and do the same thing for his arms and chest. I know I can just re summon him, but I feel like this is easier.

As I finished with both, I just exhaled, these last like ten minutes have been needlessly stressful for me, but hey, there’s a bright side to it. Found one of my party members, now lets just hope she wakes up soon.

I could probably speed up the process, I don’t have any matches though, fuck. Wait. I look around and do see some small plant life. I reach for the few small leaves next to me and burn them up next to her nose. Theoretically this should work because of the magical fire.

Her nose moves slightly before her eyelids start to as well. She’s not dead, phew. She starts making a few sounds before she opens her eyes and she’s met with the lovely sight of me in front of her.

“Ynnessa?” she says slowly

That’s the first time she’s actually said my name, nono, don’t gloat now, wish that it that it happened under better circumstances.

I just nod to her. She starts sitting up more and moves her limbs and joints, slowly regaining the feel for everything.

“I was captured, but not killed then.” She said, sounding a little disappointed in herself

“Found you in the slime.” I tell her

She just looks at me for a second, probably surprised that I didn’t take a minute to put that sentence together.

“Have you found anyone else?” she asks

I shake my head, haven’t been that lucky today.

“I see. After we all fell, I found myself near here in this cave system. I lost my pack and then began looking for a way out.” She said then looked to me “Why did you help me?”

“Excuse…me?” I ask confused

“You should’ve gone and escaped. This tomb is clearly more difficult than what the brute said it was.” She said, referring to Damia

“I didn’t think it would be right to leave any of you behind.” I told her

She took a long look at me before speaking.

“Who are you?” she asks

I just nervously chuckle. “What?”

“I asked for information on you from the guild, but they found nothing. You just washed up from the waters onto the shore of the island by chance. You aren’t a thief or assassin. You have no need to hide your identity.” She said

“The Heralds only have reach as far Human lands go.” I say which makes her eyes go wide

She’s probably thinking. Nani!? How did she know that?! But yeah, they’re a human group, no fucking way they would have any sort of base in any non-human nation.

“I’m Ynnessa. By bad luck I ended up on this side of the world, now I’m just trying to survive.” I tell her “If you don’t want to trust me…then don’t.” I add

And like please don’t kill me. That’s an added bonus to everything.

“I see.” She says then falls silent “You seem to be quite knowledgeable on certain things if you know about my guilds reach…” she notes

I just nervously chuckle at her words.

“Do you plan to leave the island?”

“I think so. There’s something bad happening in Olympia and it’s going to spread here soon.” I reply

“The war.”

I nod. “There were Hobgoblin corpses in another part of the tomb.”

“I see. Not good news. A good decision to leave the island then.” She says, closing her eyes and crossing her arms “I have decided then.” She states

I just raise my eyebrow. Decided?

“Decided..?”

“I will accompany you on your journey when you leave the island. I can not only help you, but your knowledge can assist me. A fair deal, yes?”

“I..um..” I just deflate and sigh “Yes…”

If this was the game I’d either log off this moment or I’d get sent a friend request. I guess this is akin to friend request. It feels odd.

“Before we continue let us rest. Fill me in on what you’ve encountered so far.” She requests, huh, her tone has actually gotten a lot less sassy and dominating, kinda nice

I de-materialize Talos and just sit down next to her.

“Well. I found myself in-“ I started telling her about my journey through the tomb so far