Subtly, I woke from sleeping through the secondary meeting. As most of the details were stated in the first, this secondary one was simply held as to tie up loose ends and see to it that any movements of guilds which were relevant and necessary were achieved. This not affecting us in the slightest, I was awake to hear where we were, then gradually drifted off. Only awoken by S’s jabs finally going through to me.

The room was one of the side rooms to the main one we were in last time, with the envoy from the guild- who came to check on our composition and political stance- informing us to where it was when they came.

As we: Charles, Jacqueline, Mask, Sam and I left, we were interrupted by a rather simple-looking female whose chainmail top adorned an emblem with a silver silhouette of a curved sword. She had bottoms made of the same material, and had a helmet currently resting under her left armpit. A sword poked out from underneath her right arm, nothing visible under the other although potentially hidden behind her helm. Her sharp, large ears poked from her orderly yet short head of blonde hair. Behind her was a bunch of nine people, and to describe their expressions, instead of scorn, their lack of eye-contact and general huddled-over stances indicated fear.

“Salutations, art thou these ‘Black-sheep’ I hath heard so much about? Worry nought, mine own guild and I only wisheth to speaketh with thou. We art thee ‘Guild of Silver Blades’, mine own nameth being Sybil,” she asked, in a natural old-fashioned tongue that completely lost me with its added syllables.

Mask responded, adding in unnatural terms into his lexicon likely as some joke on the misses’ behalf, “Good morrow, we are those you ask of, Miss Sybil.”

Once hearing his answer, she fired off a few more questions, “Due to whispers of an independent skeleton in thy group, I simply wisheth to askesth thee: who is’t the necromancer? And, furthermore: doth the gents useth real bodies in their ceremonies? The answers to both are unequivocally important to us.”

Jacq stepped forwards, answering, “That is me. And I do not, I only summon the souls willing rather than forcing the souls of the real dead back to their bodies under my dictation. Although I understand why you ask, it sickens me that those who do the latter even exist.” She paused for a second, putting her hand on S’s head before continuing, “Before you ask, she isn’t mine. We just met, rather, our main goal- rather than enslave her, is to set her free of her undead body, using that cleric there’s eventual power.”

Unsatisfied, she turned to Charles and asked, “To clarifyeth, humoured cleric, doth thou wisheth to confirm? [Coystrill’s Burneth]” Small flames came from a magic circle which suddenly appeared on both of her palms.

Watching the fires complete their dance, Charles explained in full detail, “I know I don’t need to swear, but with my various god’s and goddess’s blessings, I confirm miss Jacqueline’s Story. She is unrelated to the event of Miss S’s turning into a skeleton, and she personally asked me to help try to free her from the condition when I get the ability to… Which I wish to fulfil when possible.”

The flames then reached him and extinguished themselves. Leaving not even a small singe as the did so.

She seemed to accept this, visibly nodding, “Well enow, I shalt believeth thee, and prithee accepteth mine own deepest apologies for any offence taken from mine own words. We feared whispers may has’t spread, potentially setting tensions high on the battlefield and this placing both parties at risketh. Our guild may has’t stout ideals, we, however, art not zealots unlike others. Those who is’t art respectful to the dead’s rights, has’t done nay wrong in our eyes.”

She paused, now looking at me. “Thee there, may I seeth thy handeth? I wisheth to checketh thee for demonic living. [Purging Flames]” Small fires, this time pure which, were expelled from her hand in a similar fashion before. Unlike before, however, where they simply danced; this time the flames spun in a circle around me. The others seemed concerned, but it was only blinding rather than also hot.

I succinctly answered, “Sure.” Then I placed my hand out as ordered. The flames encircled it before, suddenly, all flew in in sync.

The white smoke from the fire enveloped my hand, so everyone held their breath aside from me who felt no heat or pain. Which the smoke cleared, my hand remained burnt. She, like everyone else; even S and the others, tilted their head at the result.

Sybil eventually snapped out of her trance, stating, “Intriguing, I did check as I spotted dark energies in thy aura. Yet, as nothing hath happened, I gather thee were did free. Pardon mine own bothersome questions, may we all square well on the day of ‘morrow. May this beest valorous partings.”

With that, the simple conversation ended. We, like the rest had done far earlier, left the room and headed our way back to our base. Using Jacq’s carriage with little conversation if any, like normal.

-

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A day had passed, and having woken from the carriage ride to our goal, we- Charles, Jacq, Mask, S and myself- exited the carriage nearby a large forest. Instead of heading there itself, we found a small section of the forest that jutted out of the otherwise orderly forest line. This area encompassing a small hill. Hidden behind the trees, this hill secreted a cave entrance which lead to a chasm.

Upon doing a quick check of the area around said cave, we entered. Having Charles, Mask and S in front, due to all three fitting spaciously in the tunnels the entrance lead to, with me and Jacq behind them with one of her skeletons simply for our line’s defense. The walls of the tunnel seemed to be carved in by something large entering with a squeeze, being oddly rounded and having cracks running throughout. The risk of being tunneled in was high, although due to me, this was little concern.

With enough walking, the wide tunnel opened up more. With combat starting which, unlike in the dungeon before, I could actually see S and Charles tanking the hits from the five orcs inside, with Mask darting into and out of the fray with fast bastard-sword attacks aimed at their joints. Due to the space and visibility, I helped using my normal bow and an on-back quiver with 30 arrows.

Even with two people crippling the orcs, the frontmost two could only finish two of them before their reinforcements came in. These nearly tripling their amount.

Charles and S fell back, declaring such as the skeleton helped them secure the area as me, Mask and eventually Jacqueline with low-leveled darkness magic, continued helping. All of the orc arms soon had many a scar with: limbs cut off at the joints, limb joints embedded with one or two arrows each, or both. Due to how: the area was so cramped side swings would cause friendly fire, whenever the orcs swung me and, or Mask would hit their raised arms, and how raising their arms was the only way they bothered attacking with their clubs, they didn’t get any significant hits onto the vanguard.

The fight, although slightly longer than expected, ended swiftly, clearly in our favour. Now we could see that, without including where we entered from, there was a split path. As the questions began to be asked by Charles, Mask walked up to the leftmost exit; his hand glowed as he spread his palm on the wall.

Once the glowing had stopped, he informed us as to his results, “This is a dead-end, but there is a room at the end. Want to risk a pointless fight for loot?”

With a vote three to one, to one as I didn’t care to vote either way, we entered the left tunnel. In short time, we reached the room Mask had told of. The room was significantly smaller than the one previous, with a central check and a single hobgoblin who held a stick.

There was already a ball of fire the size of a head coming our way, yet as it was seconds away from striking Charles- who recklessly charged in- it vanished. A splash came from further into the room, then a confused groan from the hobgoblin.

Using the confusion as an opening, Charles, brandishing a new dragon-bone mace, struck its neck, collapsing it in the one hit. Blood smattered from its mouth as its head, now unsupported, rolled forwards with no resistance. It fell forwards onto to the floor, its burns on its back now revealed. Seeing this, everyone looked my way and shrugged, correctly realizing this was my doing.

The simple altercation over, I shot the chest with a basic arrow. Given there wasn’t blood, Mask casually beat Charles to the chest and opened it. Unveiling a sword of a blue material which, holding the blade, he dropped unceremoniously. Before it reached the ground, it entered my storage.

With a nod from Jacq, we headed back to the central room. With a few orcs now in the room again, we slaughtered them quickly and headed from we supposed the came from; the other connecting tunnel. With orcs dripping into our lines, they got mowed down by a bored Jacq before they could reach the front three. The signs of something big barely passing through here were as present as the tunnel from the first room to the cave’s entrance.

Eventually we reached another room, this being as roomy as the first and having only one other way out. Inside was a now deserted, small camp, with only basic and primitive supplies and a fire. Mask had already started looting the room before anyone else could even comment. Although, around one of the areas we assumed were designated to sleeping he found golden coins. And in another, he found a skull that he passed to Jacq, her verdict being a high elf or, more likely, a half-elf.

His passion for loot temporarily sated, Mask finally allowed us to continue.This being after sharing it somewhat out to everyone although keeping the lion’s share to himself.

Through the new tunnel we found stairs, and like the tunnels before, this tunnel seemed widened by the same large creature due to having the same marks. And at the end, we found ourselves in a room notably larger than any previously. A larger camp was present, with fifty odd orcs, now alerted to our present, hanging around.

Seeing this, Jacq quickly summoned more vanguards and began using her magic with reckless abandon. Having melted half the orcs outright with one ball of darkness each, simultaneously. Although, from her expression, even this amount of magic use had no sense of exhaustion with it. Not even a bead of sweat appearing on her brow. The other orcs put up little fight, their morale crushed due to the immediate onslaught.

Charles and mask ran after deserters, making sure they got massacred for… the crime of daring to live. No one batted an eye at the apparent ‘holy man’ going on a massacre though, so we continued on without a word spoken. Mask not even bothering to loot this area, due to the general shanty-like look of the place.

The wide tunnels with cracks adorning the sides continued, and we quickly reached another room, this one about twice the size of the last one.

Ten hobgoblins, some of which wielding similar sticks to the one previously and others holding clubs formed a line in front of beast which dwarfed them in comparison. An ogre. Given that the hobgoblins were a similar size to orcs, which- for context- neared the tallest humans or elves, this ogre was nearly double the height of them.

The ogre roared, slamming his club- which was as tall as a small tree and wide as my body- to the ground. The thud knocking many a stone from the walls and shaking the room itself, meanwhile the same slam released so much mud to the sky, two of the orcs temporarily disappeared from view.