Chess tried toggling her Carpenter profession on and off a few times but it didn’t seem to do anything that she could perceive so she shrugged and gave up.
That is until Lynn gave out an exasperated sigh. “We get it. You advanced to Low-Journeyman in Carpentry. It doesn’t exactly benefit your class unless you pair it with some sort of Enchantment for your woodworking,” she groused.
“Oh! But this one does,” Chess said cheerily before toggling on her other Low-Journeyman.
“Two Low-Journeyman skills before you’re twenty,” Lynn shook her head. “I’m starting to see why so much of your 'basic' education is ridiculously lacking.”
Chess chuckled at Lynn’s barb and felt Ashley start to laugh quietly against her chest, and her smile widened. The humor helped after such a grim day so far, and despite everything, Ashley was soon purring softly again. I swear her ability to rest anywhere is nearly legendary. Though it is very catlike.
“Your parents, or whoever you had as guardians never expected you to leave some ruby tower, did they?” Lynn reasoned, shaking her head in dismay.
“You could say my upbringing was peaceful outside of a few instances,” Chess said trying to maintain her cheer, but thoughts of Kira and her short brush with death before Freya pulled her output a damper on her mood, and she turned away from the kin-woman and distracted herself with other thoughts. Or at least gave it a valiant attempt.
She frowned, bringing up the week’s gains window again, then tried for the previous week’s as well but it was no longer there. I swear I got more for playing music for people's satisfaction last week. Does that mean I get less the more I do something, or is it level based? She made a mental note to ask about it later, instead, opening her eyes to look about their small camp again. Finding nothing different from a few minutes before, she closed them again and sighed, trying to find sleep.
I can’t believe it's already been a week down here, she thought. Unable to stop her drifting mind from keeping her awake. Should I be using my skill points? No, she shook her head, only if I'm desperate or can’t seem to advance further without them, Chess decided and felt a little tension evaporate from her shoulders. Everything seemed to be happening to and around her so far, and she felt a little powerless. She needed to decide what she wanted to do with her new life, and about her promises to Freya. Granted we need to find a way out of this place alive before it matters.
Delving isn’t really a valid way of spreading Freya’s faith or exploring the world as she suggested. Not enough people to meet. Though it could be an excuse to travel. Chess smiled remembering how underwhelmed Freya had been with her first shrine being in the middle of nowhere. I’ll have to make sure the next one is closer to more people, she promised. But maybe people will make a pilgrimage to it one day in the distant future, she thought with a breathless laugh.
Exploring the world and its people. Need to figure out a job that lets me make money and explore. Something other than delving—at least until I have more training and a full group of experienced people. I hope there is a way to make good money with music. She sighed before opening her eyes to glance at her new friend and daughter surreptitiously, sparing a glance for the new addition. At least it should be interesting.
I wonder if I’m right about him being a humanoid muskrat, she thought before a jaw-cracking yawn took hold, and she hid her eyes in the crook of her arm to block the light being emitted by Ashley’s armor from penetrating her eyelids.
I really miss pillows, was her last thought before she finally found sleep, using her arm for the missing item.
----------------------------------------
Chess woke to the sound of violent thrashing and a loud exchange of foreign words.
She sat bolt-upright, her salt-crusted eyes searching about frantically for the source of the danger and its victim but came to rest on the crouched form of Lynn hovering over their new companion trying to calm him with a bevy of words that Chess knew none of and calm hand gestures. Until she caught, “no harm, please,” in wood elven from Lynn. Confirming Chess’s guess, she was trying many different languages to no avail. She smiled at the butchered sentence and sat up, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
Chess took two long breaths then extricated herself from Ashley’s embrace—the girl seemed able to sleep through just about anything—and moved to stand behind Lynn, putting a hand on the kin woman’s shoulder to let her know she was there. To her credit, Lynn didn’t flinch at her approach or the touch.
Lynn had removed the gag, and the Rat-kin man was struggling against the bonds, even going so far as to bite at the cord around his wrists, but it seemed the ironwood rope had no problem resisting his big teeth. Chess noted that fact for later. A good rope is a good rope; his teeth looked tough.
“Any luck?” Chess stifled a yawn with her fist.
“No,” Lynn admitted, rocking back on her heels to watch their captive struggle against his bonds for a moment before shooting Chess a frustrated look. It continued to amaze Chess how similar most of the Kin-women’s, and many of the others she’d met, mannerisms were to people back on earth. Though there is a whole different layer with people that have tails and, I think, something with their ears that I'm missing completely, she admitted to herself. Granted I had to explain the middle finger to them. They used an outward flung okay hand gesture for a similar meaning.
“Want me to give it a try?” Chess offered while scratching at her head. She didn’t want to think about the bugs she’d picked up in the past few weeks. New bites seemed to appear every morning. She shivered slightly at the thought and focused on Lynn’s charge instead; consciously dropping her scratching hand.
Lynn squeezed the bridge of her pert nose in weariness and shrugged, gesturing at the Rat-kin. “Be my guest,” she breathed through her teeth.
“Okay, professor,” Chess drawled before removing her hand from Lynn’s shoulder. “I think you were trying too hard,” she added, taking a knee beside their captive.
“Here, here,” she snapped her fingers in front of the struggling kin a few times to get his attention. She used Thump so that the sound was sharp and crisp, reverberating through the small space.
He paused his ranting and struggling, ears lying flat against his head, to look up at her with wide startled eyes. Chess shrugged expansively, her arms out wide, and shook her head trying to say she was at a loss before adding an exaggerated eye roll.
Chess winced internally when she heard Ashley mutter, “Who, what?” Behind her.
Summoning her vault and pulling out a glowing mushroom, Chess asked slowly, “What is this?” Pointing at it and raising an inquisitive eyebrow hoping the look translated to the musky as it did the others.
“Cyuiim,” the musky replied and Chess parroted the word, with relief, the best she could before slowly saying “Mushroom,” while still pointing at it.
“Mushroom.” The musky nodded his slow understanding.
Chess held her hand to her chest, fingers spread. “Chess.”
The Musky’s eyes twinkled as he nodded at Chess parroting “Chess,” while calming, his frantic struggles ebbing.
He touched his chest copying Chess’ gesture. “Mikel,” he said with a wide smile before looking at Lynn. Both Lynn and Ashley repeated the gesture and introduced themselves, the latter having joined the conversation quietly.
At first, the Rat-kin appeared confused about what had happened but Lynn unbound his legs and led him to the corpse of the Ghoul before he nodded in mute understanding, spitting at the body with vehemence. Silent tears started to leak from his large expressive eyes before he turned his back on the group with hunched shoulders. The trio gave him time as his shoulders shook.
Once he collected himself a good quarter-hour later, he spent a long time gesturing wildly while saying slow words that no one understood before he got across to the group that he wanted to see the ghouls' lair to search for his companions or something important to him. He gave a small glance at the pile that contained his pouches and other items near Ashley but only nodded despondently and didn’t make a move toward them. Instead, he watched the trio and waited.
Lynn and Chess shared a look and shrug with the former gesturing that the latter should lead the way.
Chess let out a long breath and gave the man a serious look before nodding reluctantly, indicating he should follow. They left the skull wall in place with the fur and other camp items as they dragged their feet on the return to the horrible room.
When they came around the corner and the eye-watering stench overtook them again the trio waited as the man searched through the piles of offal. A second look at the room only increased the disgust Chess felt for the place. Stacks of dead and discarded items filled shallow pools of bodily fluids. She did her best to see it without seeing it; keeping her eyes only half focused and moving.
After a quick initial look around Mikel returned to the trio and begged with gestures and tear-filled eyes for the bonds to be removed from his hands. He fell to his knees, bound hands out before him.
Chess looked to Lynn. “It’s your decision. I’m out of my depth here,” she said with a shrug and a backward step to lean against the wall.
“We don’t have a suppression collar. Well, not one we can use on him,” Lynn sighed, tugging on the scuffed ring of metal around her neck. She held up Chess’s spear, shaking it meaningfully inches from Mikel’s face before saying, “You try anything, you get the point,” slowly. Mikel nodded mute understanding, frustrated tears forming in his dark eyes, but he dipped into a short bow with his head careened to the side exposing his neck.
Once freed he immediately rushed over to a nearby corpse pile and gently removed two fur-covered corpses, dragging them to the middle of the room and arranging their limbs reverently. He paused for a long moment before he turned and started digging in the closest pile again.
----------------------------------------
“I can’t just stand here,” Chess confessed with a reluctant sigh after a few minutes of watching the rat-kin pawing through the stacks and liberally coating himself in a layer of filth as he searched each corpse and threw the odd item or sack into a pile in the center of the cavern. It quickly became clear he was removing anything of value and adding it to his growing stack.
Chess pushed off from the wall and used her big bowie to help look through the piles with the tip before grimly returning to the task of removing rotten heads in the process.
Every time she dry-heaved against her empty and aching stomach she told herself, only one more to go, but the lie didn’t ease her gorge one bit, nor she suspected the nightmare fuel she was adding to her future dreams.
It was as she used short hard chops of her heavy blade on the particularly recalcitrant neck of a somewhat squat humanoid that an idea struck and instead of continuing the task as she was, she stood and looked around, shaking gore from her blade. She found her daughter and Lynn had also returned to the grim task and had added to their pile of skulls from the day before. Lynn had Ashley threading delver chains through the bottom jaws of the few that had them. Her daughter had her shield and spear near at hand as she worked.
Opening her vault, Chess removed her seedbox and took out some of the new mushroom spores and bramble seeds, spreading them over the pile of offal before her. And because she needed to brighten her mood and in an attempt to put a humorous twist on the task before them, she summoned her guitar and started to sing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ in a crisp and clear voice, keeping the forced smile plastered on her face; fake it ‘til you make it.
The Rat-kin boy looked up in gape-mouthed astonishment, his eyes wide when she started to sing. She gave him an apologetic smile around the words when he sprang back from his work once sprouts started to form in the body he searched. After regaining his nerve, he increased his pace, doing a quick search of each pile, pulling out items or bags in a rush. Undoing entire belts and tossing them at the stack he was making before moving on as Chess continued. He started with the first one that she grew.
Once she’d finished the first run-through of the song, she was surprised that the flowering, then berry-filled brambles, and glowing light shrooms indeed brightened her mood while doing the job of lessening the foul aroma of the immediate area with their fragrance. She suspected the removal of much of the organic matter and moisture in the corpses had a large effect.
With increasing enthusiasm, she turned to the next pile and repeated the process, continuing until every pile in the cavern had been transformed; leaving only the two bodies Mikel had removed. The others had all taken to the entrance of the tunnel to watch her work. The Rat-kin joined them, standing a little to the side, once he was satisfied with his search having built a small pile of sacks, weapons, and other bric-a-brac in a clear space near the center of the room near the two bodies he’d dragged out. Lynn kept a wary eye on their new guest throughout, a hand always on Chess’s spear and her back never turned to him.
I wonder how morticians deal with this kind of thing all the time. Chess thought as she completed the last of the piles, turning the cavern into a glowing flower garden. The smell of death was greatly muted by the flowers, berries, and the now desiccated flesh of the bodies. Though a strong musty scent now underscored it all. Too bad all of this will likely die without a ready source of water, Chess mused taking in the morbid garden.
With the smell greatly diminished, the task of removing heads became much more bearable, though they now had to chop more than a few branches out of the way to get at the mummified skulls.
----------------------------------------
Chess took a break with her back to the cavern wall and ate some of the sour berries, hoping she could keep them down, and found the taste suited her mood after the grim task of removing heads was complete.
It was then, with her finished and relaxed, that the Rat-kin did something bizarre. He visibly collected himself, smoothing out his fur with his palms and wiping at his face with a rag before he approached Chess with slow deliberate steps, stopping a few careful feet in front of her then bending into a slow Kow-tow holding his head to the floor for several long seconds before rising to sit back on his heels.
Chess took the moment to study his face when he straightened. She thought he was young under the filth that still clung to him. His dark brown fur looked healthy where he had washed his face and he stood firm despite his short and thin stature with a bit of the bumbling confidence of a high school football player. But Chess admitted she could be wrong since his fur could hide what would be obvious signs of age to her.
His eyes were larger than she would’ve thought a rat or mouse of any kind would have and hugely expressive with a dark walnut brown color, but what do I know? He had a strange short snout-like mouth that protruded forward with four big flat buck teeth that formed the top and bottom of his jaw. They sat fully in front of his lips and a full set of human-like teeth behind. Definitely a species that doesn’t kiss, Chess observed to herself.
The scaled tail that dragged on the ground a few feet behind him was narrow but a few inches tall and flat on the sides tapering to an end much like an American eel. He stood on short squat legs that tapered to wide flat webbed feet with humanlike knees like Lynn and Ashley. Holy shit! I think my guess wasn’t far off. Muskrat or whatever they call similar water-adapted rodents on this planet, she thought.
She raised an eyebrow at him. There was a sense of ceremony to his movements, so she opted to keep her mouth shut and follow his cues.
He said two grave sentences in his language and indicated the two bodies he’d removed from the filth at the beginning. He’d removed all their stuff and stacked it neatly beside each body. His eyes seemed to plead with her before looking to the rest of the bodies she’d inundated with faintly glowing plants before returning to the two she’d left alone.
“You want me to do the same to them?” Chess asked, nodding to their surroundings than to the two untouched bodies.
He nodded slowly staring at her intently before saying “Somewhere over the rainbow,” in very stilted English.
Chess smiled and nodded her understanding. And because he tried to mimic the song, she sang it one last time to grow glowing mushrooms and brambles from the bodies of Mikel’s two friends.
Mikel gave Chess a tear-stained smile and grateful bow before returning to the other pile of goods, removing and emptying two large sacks. He demonstrated this by shaking them upside down in front of Lynn. She gave him a wry smile and shooed him away. He turned and spent a long time carefully harvesting berries from the bushes growing from the two bodies; careful to keep the berries from each body in separate bags.
Chess watched him for a while before turning to help Lynn and Ashley sort through the large pile of items, armor, and weapons. She soon had a significant pile of assorted wooden items.
“No storage rings. Very little metal of any sort other than the enchanted items. Most of these dead rat-kin have many small totem charms but none have retained their enchantments after their deaths,” Lynn complained once they were a significant way through it.
“Six enchanted items,” Ashley enthused, nodding to the items laid out neatly on the noble’s shirt nearby. She was shifting from foot to foot like she had ants in her pants.
The six carefully laid out items were all small: two matching brass rings, a thumb-sized tarnished but intricate silver bead, a tiny cloudy ruby with a hole drilled through its center, a silver cloak pin with a large beetle embossed on its oval front in black lacquer, and a tiny but thick gold hoop earring.
Chess brushed away the prompts without reading them to concentrate on the conversation.
“Mostly from those two Dwarven corpses, and only the cloak pin isn’t Dwarven racially-locked like most items they make for themselves,” Lynn snorted in frustrated disgust before she let out a sigh. Chess couldn’t blame the Dwarves. If you could make stronger items by putting restrictions on items, the only reason you wouldn’t, would be so anyone could use them. Which only made sense if you looked to sell them openly. If Dwarves were as insular in this world as in the fiction back home, she could see them and anyone in a similar situation doing it.
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“There were only the five delvers chains though, so it’s not so bad. We can harvest the Pyths from the rest and smash their skulls so no undead rises here,” Lynn reasoned.
“I can use most of them!” Ashley squirmed in anticipation but Lynn held her off from taking them for the moment with a stern look.
“Wait, we didn’t have to remove the heads? Just smash them?” Chess asked, her voice rising with indignation.
Lynn shook her head forcefully. “No... if we’d left them and only smashed them, they could turn to a shambling horror or other worse undead. It only takes one partially attached and intact head to start it,” Lynn explained with a frown. “No one likes head duty,” she muttered under her breath.
“Store those five,” Lynn pointed a small stack of better-persevered desiccated skulls out to Chess before turning her attention to Ashley, “You can harvest the rest. I hope this place is full of something useful. Usually, you can tell what a dungeon will have easily if there are humanoids like this populating it, among other things,” she told Ashley. “We are unfortunately lucky the ghoul had a lot to feed on and stuck to organ meats, usually a ghoul’s den is impossible to sort out,” she added as an aside.
“What other things?” Ash perked up as she gingerly picked a skull from the pile, placing it before her and grabbing a handful of leather sacks from the pile before activating her ability. Her hands briefly glowed yellow with the magic, leaving her two slightly bulging sacks.
Chess moved to the discarded pile of goods and removed a few wooden clubs and the handles from some stone hammers and axes so she could turn the new heads into more of her blocks. They were proving useful so she didn’t see a reason not to continue to do the same here. Besides, for some reason, they don’t seem so morbid when they are primarily covered in hardened wood. She was getting better at increasing the density of the wood and thus shrinking the space it took up. Allowing her to store more.
“You don’t need to hold the bags; they just need to touch your skin; or in your case your armor since it's made of your magic. The harvesters in the church often just have a couple dozen bags touching them when they have to do large harvests like this. It makes it easier because any matching Pyths will end up in the same bag. If you need to know how much each corpse gave you can bring up the prompt anytime in the next week,” Lynn instructed, taking away the harvested skull and setting another in its place.
Lynn borrowed Ashley’s mace to pulverize the skull while she talked. The skin and fur encasing it prevented the shards of bone from escaping far leaving it to look like a mangled leathery pancake. Which she promptly kicked to the side of the cavern well away from the bones in the cave.
Chess switched to watching Mikel once she finished with an ear tuned to the conversation. She idly picked through the wooden items. Finding a few more fire-hardened spears, arrows, and bows which she idly worked into solid blocks keeping them to the size of the skull blocks. None of the wood was as strong or interesting as ironwood, but she did find a few spears and a bow that were made of sturdy but flexible red hardwood. She made a note to try making a crossbow from it when she had more free time.
The Rat-kin had finished harvesting the berries leaving not a single one behind and had moved onto using a small stone ax, taken from the pile with Lynn’s wordless permission, to harvest the larger of the branches from the brambles he’d cleaned of berries. Chess thought it was peculiar but didn’t see any harm in his actions. The thin sticks would be of little use against the trio’s armor and weapons.
“Well, we know there’s likely Sky-stone here somewhere since we encountered the result of its presence in the basin chamber. This chamber is likely close to it,” Lynn finally answered Ashley’s question, gesturing about with the gruesome mace. “Also, there are very little or no natural metals in this place or it’s hard to get to, as the only metal items we’ve found so far come from dead delvers. It appears the locals like Mikel use bone, stone, and fire-hardened wooden weapons, and for buttons, and such.” Lynn looked at their busy new companion.
“Maybe they don’t know how to work metal,” Chess reasoned.
Lynn nodded, conceding the point, “Or that.”
“Dungeons are often enclosed areas so the Pyths available are limited. If there is little or no outside trade with any intelligent species inside, this becomes even worse. I’d be surprised if more than 5 types of Pyth are common here. Outside of the occasional undead but those can be grown by throwing your dead in a pit and purging it every decade or so,” Lynn continued her lecture with a grimace for the last, as she went about her task stoically; moving then crushing the skulls for Ashley.
Chess suspected there was a story there, given Lynn’s response to summon undead abilities when they’d arrived but didn’t press. She was still unsure how far she could trust the Skunk-kin woman, despite her oath.
However, Chess was glad that Lynn was explaining things to Ashley like this as it let her learn without having to ask. Even though she suspected Lynn was doing it as much for her benefit as Ashley’s.
“I am curious what kind of fur this is though,” Lynn paused in her task to take up one of the few full fur-covered bags of Pyth that sat touching Ashley. Chess looked over to study it closer while Lynn ran her fingers through it. Short downy fur with lightly luminescent blue and green rosettes on a lustrous black background. “I know more than a few noble ladies that would pay a fortune to have a supply of this.”
Chess held out her hand for the sack and Lynn handed it over. The fur was silky soft, a lot like a Bengal cat named Norris an old fling used to have. “Nice, but I don’t think it came from a large animal. There are two more,” she pointed them out. “And none of them have similar markings.” Chess shrugged and placed the bag back against her daughter's leg.
“Still valuable, if for nothing but bags like these,” Lynn said.
“So?” Lynn asked Ashley once they’d finished the harvest and destruction of the heads.
“You were right, most of the bodies were whatever Mikel is and only had a few each,” Ashley said, picking up a half dozen bags and handing them over to Lynn.
The Rat-kin’s head perked up at his name but he went back to his task when he saw they weren’t trying to get his attention. The wet crunch of pale branches under his small ax refilled the cave.
“He’s more muskrat than a rat,” Chess murmured, studying the small Kin-man closely again. “The tail and webbed feet are a lot like the semi-aquatic muskrats back home,” Chess explained when Ashley looked up and tilted her head in curiosity.
“Muskrat. That’s not bad, we will need to differentiate them from other rodent-kin eventually anyway,” Lynn nodded once.
“Only thing I’m unsure of is the musk part of the name,” Chess tempered the Kin-woman’s decision.
“Oh, he has a very pronounced scent. It’s just hidden under all this death,” Lynn assured Chess with a vague wave. Chess was surprised she had become almost accustomed to the scent now that other aromas were covering it.
“He does,” Ashley confirmed.
Lynn looked into each bag before breaking out into a wide, almost feral grin at the last.
“That good?” Chess asked the Skunk-kin, her eyes switching between her and their captive.
Lynn nodded again, “Infuse minor totem, Sure-foot, Rock-Claw, Buffet, Water breathing, and Swift-Swim,” she said pleased as punch. “Sure-foot and Swift-Swim are both uncommon and in high demand. Infuse totem is an uncommon faith Pyth that can only be found in areas where tribes venerate animals or items instead of a god or goddess. But the real winner is Buffet, I’ve never seen or heard of it before, and there are three full measures of it here, and it's a System-Rare! This place is a Mythril mine if this is what it has to offer,” Lynn enthused.
“What about the other two?” Chess asked.
“Both are very common and popular with beast tribes and Clam-divers respectively but not worth very much even in those markets.” Lynn waved them off.
"Either of you ‘brave’ enough to try something new?" Lynn asked half in jest while tossing the Buffet sack up and catching it.
When Lynn said Buffet the meaning Chess got was to push back, not a large meal, so she smiled and immediately volunteered by holding out her hand for the small fur bag. "Sure."
Lynn held the small bag above Chess's hand with a frown. "I was kidding, trying something like this down here is risky. Most of the others are more likely to help us survive down here." Lynn gave her a serious look.
"It sounds like it could be a sound Pyth and from our talks, I'm coming to realize how rare that is. Besides I can always have it removed when we get out of here," Chess reasoned and shook her hand in a gimmie gesture.
“That's not exactly cheap," Lynn cautioned.
Chess shrugged one shoulder. "It's a harvest ability, right? We can just spend money on raising Ashley's. It’s pretty high already."
Lynn shook her head. "No, it's a harvest synergized priest, priestess, and cleric class ability."
"Oh… Hmm. I thought… I'll hold off then, but I think I want to at least try it at some point." Chess finally gave in to Lynn's reasoning, frowning at the small bag.
Lynn nodded slowly and dropped the bag with a what-can-I-do shrug. She turned to dig through the more common items in the pile. She took a few belts and pouches and donned them after ditching most of their contents.
Chess dipped a finger into the Pyth bag to give it a taste test anyway, breaking out into a wide smile at the strong ginger taste. At least it will be a good food additive if it works out for me. She opened her vault and added the hefty pouch to her box of Pyth.
"Make sure you each take anything you want,” Lynn said, sorting out the handful of enchanted items they’d gotten and handing all but the cloak pin to Ashley. “How many more bindings do you have?”
Chess mentally shrugged when Lynn kept the pin without asking. Ashley got the better of this place so far but I’ll get mine eventually, she assured herself.
“Five,” Ashley said, pawing at her breastplate in a failed attempt to grasp her new amulet.
"Okay bind the ruby, if you can match the requirements for it you will appreciate that enchantment one day. You don’t want to lose it. These others are much like your luck ring. Minor but useful in their way," Lynn said.
“It seems only Dwarven enchantments can survive the time they’ve spent down here. Again, I suspect the Delver's corpses were well mummified long before these local...muskrats, were dragged here by the ghoul. I should’ve looked more closely before your mother started filling the place with plants. As grateful as I am for her solution to the reek,” Lynn said to Ashley.
“All this Dwarven enchanted stuff. Where is my Elven stuff?” Chess joked giving her daughter a nudge.
Ashley shrugged and smiled, intent on trying on her new items. The paired rings quickly found themselves on the thumb and middle finger of her free hand before she started to form a small braid from one side of her head.
“Most elves don’t Delve outside of their ancestral holdings. They reproduce too infrequently to risk themselves, and humans and beast-kin don’t make their stuff last as long as Dwarves,” Lynn said, taking the question seriously.
“Though the church has hired Elves on occasion to send a party to solve a place like this. One that’s killed a lot of groups. When they are called, they are well prepared and provisioned and don’t usually die. It costs a fortune but there are many stories of Elves simply living for nearly a century in a dungeon until they devise a safe way out. It’s not easy to kill the old Elves who do delve, ‘for excitement’,” Lynn added.
“How long do Elves usually live?” Chess asked while her belly did a strange flip and drop.
Lynn gave her a look, that clearly said. ‘You’re a bloody Elf, how do you not know this!?’
“I never met my Elven parent,” Chess explained while staring at her toes, hoping to hide the half-truth.
“Truly meant for a ruby tower, I’d like to hear your story sometime. Your mother was lucky to conceive from an Elven lover,” Lynn said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “True-bloods easily live several millennia if they don’t die to violence. Part-bloods live anywhere between a handful of centuries to a few millennia. If you ever encounter an Elf that looks old by human standards be very wary,” she cautioned.
Chess shrugged noncommittally. “What about Dwarves?” she asked, shooting a furtive look at Ashley.
Lynn sighed heavily, looking between the two, “If you don’t die stupidly? You’ll likely outlive her six times great-grandkids with the amount of elven blood you appear to have. I’m guessing you’re half at the very least.”
“Well shit,” Chess muttered. When you said explore you meant everything, didn’t you Freya? I have the time.
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No one said anything for a time and Chess studied the items Ashley was equipping. She spared a few glances for Mikel when Lynn seemed more distracted with her preparations than watch, but he was only using smaller shoots from the brambles and a few belts to tie the cut lengths into bundles.
Ashley cast her binding ability, lighting herself and the ruby with a dizzying kaleidoscope of color for a moment, and Chess brought up the gem’s window; followed by the rest as Ashley put them on.
Thova’s First Find
Type: Haircharm
Rare
Properties: A small uncut ruby smoothed by time and handling, with a small hole drilled through the middle
Durability: 8,673/10,000
Minimum requirement for enchantment activation.
Wearer must possess at least 1/8th Dwarven blood
A braid of the wearer’s hair at least 16 inches long
Natural Strength of 14
Natural Constitution of 14
Enchantment:
Moderate Reduced Carry. Reduces the weight of anything held in the wearer's hands by the wearer's [Str(mod) x Con(mod)] percent.
Paired Dwarven Spelunking Rings
Type: Ring
Common
Properties: A matching pair of plain brass rings.
Durability: 156/200, 123/200
Minimum requirement for enchantment activation.
Wearers must possess at least 1/4th Dwarven blood
Natural Agility of 12
Enchantment:
Body-weight reduction: Reduce the effective force of the wearer's body weight against the equipped limb by (Agi(mod) x (Fast Climb Pyth, or Traceless Accent Core (If applicable)))) percent. Only effective when climbing. To a maximum of 35% per ring [Current 4% per ring]
Stonestrike Bead
Type: Haircharm
Uncommon
Properties: Ancient large silver wire knotwork bead.
Durability: 341/400
Minimum requirement for enchantment activation.
Wearers must possess at least 1/4th Dwarven blood
A braid of the wearer’s hair at least 12 inches long
Natural Agility of 14
Enchantment:
Minor true-strike (Pickaxe only): Increases the chance any blow you land with a (Pickaxe) will land true, by Agi(mod) percent. Also reduces the chance of a bad rebound by an equal amount to a maximum of 25%. [Current 4%]
Dwarven Oarsman’s Blessing
Type: Earring
Common
Properties: A plain thick gold earring.
Durability: 276/325
Minimum requirement for enchantment activation.
Wearers must possess at least 1/16th Dwarven blood
Swim Skill of 5
Enchantment:
+1 Faith
I wonder if the spelunking rings would work when climbing stairs or a slope if worn on her feet? Chess mused.
“Can I see the cloak pin again?” Chess asked Lynn who handed it over without a preamble. Lynn had returned to watching their captive more closely.
Weather Pin
Type: Cloak Pin
Uncommon
Properties: A True-silver cloak pin with a large beetle embossed on its small oval front in black lacquer.
Durability: 137/250
Enchantment:
Weatherproofing: Reduces the effects of weather on anything covered by latched cloak by 5 x Con(mod) percent. Max 50%
Chess handed it back to the Kin-woman wordlessly.
“Your first two hair charms. Like a true Dwarf. You’re lucky they both came from the same body. There is a deep tradition of Dwarves wearing as many as possible without their enchantments failing,” Lynn said, raising to test the knot Ashley had tied to hold the ruby in place.
Ashley nodded. “Da used to have a few before we had to sell them to buy Rufus…” she trailed off rubbing a finger over her shield bracer for a minute before tying another braid.
----------------------------------------
“You have two free slots left now Ashley. What were your synergies and their rarity again?” Lynn prompted after she’d risen to pace back and forth in front of the pair, her eyes on Mikel as he finished up his work.
“Unique Faith. Weapons, Shields, and Harvest, are Rare. Death is Epic. Movement is Common and Ride is Uncommon,” Ashley listed off after a moment of unfocused eyes.
Lynn rubbed her nose in thought for a moment.
Chess felt a small jolt when Ashley freely gave away her information. The longer Chess was on this planet the more she grasped the value of knowledge. Especially about your abilities. It was evident how everyone keeping it tight to themselves or their small families would be necessary to keep a society with this much magic even remotely civilized. You could never truly know when you step in it with someone that could kill you with a wave of the hand like that Graventy douche-canoe.
What got her wondering though was how easy it had been to defeat their enemies so far, despite her various mistakes and the fact that they’d been having an easy time finding good Pyths in her short time on the world and in this Dungeon. There must be a way that the nobles run herd on the general populace that I'm not seeing. It can’t be that people simply don’t risk places like this or the wilderness is it?
All this ran through her mind as she dug the last few wooden items from the small pile and formed another block composed of smaller blocks before shoving it into her inventory. She added the remaining bags of Pyth to a new box she’d created to store what they found in the dungeon separated from her small collection; both boxes were now the same size and shape as the skull blocks but she wrote Pyth with a different colored wood on all four sides to keep them straight. A simple flexing of her magic made the tops lock in airtight.
Two fist-sized stone hammerheads were added, sans handles, because they were made of a beautiful blue/grey stone with golden traces running throughout that she liked.
“You should consider taking either the Totem or Sure-Foot Pyth, maybe both,” Lynn told Ashley, placing a hand on the Pyth box before Chess could store it in her inventory. “You still have two free slots and your passive skill selection should be today sometime. Totem will expand your ability range and leads to abilities that will let you make charms based on your Goddess Freya's aspects, that only you and others of her faith can use. It's complicated but could be useful and strong if done right with your unique synergy. Sure-Foot is an uncommon movement-Pyth that is relatively easy to find and would greatly complement your class and current skills. It will never be the one to hold up ranking up an ability,” Lynn said.
Ashley nodded, taking both bags and glancing in each before handing the totem one back to Chess.
"I thought you wanted to create magic things?" Chess asked her, tilting her head sideways.
Ashley took a deep breath and said, "Lynn's only half right. I want to be a warrior, and I need to choose things that help with that. Besides, crafting is more your thing. I did learn some tinkering from helping mom around the farm, but I much preferred caring for the animals and the time spent with pa on maintaining his weapons and armor. I need to stick to my interests," Ashley said with a decisive nod. This was the first time she’d mentioned her dead parents without withdrawing, Chess noted.
"Can I have the small sack of Sure-Foot from the cat? With it I'll have just over 7 full measures, that's rank 3," Ashley said with relish.
The statement and question made Chess blink and reassess Ashley in a new light. "Of course," Chess said, retrieving and handing the small bag over, feeling bemused.
Chess picked up the Totem Pyth bag but hesitated before putting it in the box. Should I take it? She looked in the bag. Only 24 doses, Buffet had 31.
Ashley gave it a taste test, smiled, and started pouring small quantities of it into her mouth. Washing them down with swigs from her waterskin.
"Well? What does it say? And how does it taste?" Chess asked once Ashley finished the last bit.
Sure-Foot Pyth: Uncommon: Rank 3
Active: Spread up to Rank x Agi (mod) x Str (mod) [Current 6%] percent of your weight to each of up to Agi (mod) [Current 4] companions when stepping over unstable or treacherous ground. The effect lasts rank x agility mod seconds. [Current 12 seconds]
Passive: reduces the chance of losing your footing or slipping by Agi (mod) x Rank percent. [Current 12%] Max 75%
"It tastes like baked liver," Ashley said, quite pleased with this fact.
Chess shook her head at Ashley and dismissed the window.
----------------------------------------
Chess and the others had all dismissed any of the rotten cloth items and most of the leather though Chess copied Lynn, taking a belt with a pair of supple leather pouches. Emptying them and cleaning them the best she could with a damp rag.
Lynn expressed her surprise that they hadn't found any loose Pyths but dismissed it as all lost to the depths, ghouls, or time. Being water-soluble they were easy to lose if not stored properly.
The only other significant enchanted item they'd found was the pickaxe which Chess retrieved as they returned to the tunnel's entrance and finally escaped the foul room. Lynn forced their new guest to go first. And he gamely led them after hefting his two sacks after slinging the two large bundles of brambles over his shoulders; tied with a few of the belts he’d retrieved from his friends' bodies. He used the other set of belts to attach the bags and other items around his waist.
A final belt, strung over his shoulder, held the heads of his friends with a length of leather cord near his left hip.
Lynn had done a quick search to remove any evident weapons from him which she carried in her new set of similar bags and pouches she’d taken from the dead. Even Ashley now had a set tied over her glowing armor in an x.
Stone Chipper
Type: Pickaxe
Uncommon
Properties: An ancient well-preserved miner’s steel pickaxe with a burnt-ash handle.
Durability: 601/1000
Minimum requirement for enchantment activation.
Pickaxe Skill of 20
Natural Strength of 14
Natural Constitution of 14
Enchantment:
Anti-Oxidation: Prevents Oxidation
Hardened Tip and Edge: Reduces chipping and other damage to the working edge and tip by half.
Strengthen: Doubles base durability.
The ghoul’s body still gave off its sickly miasma, so the group left it where it lay.
“We should explore a little further and return here to sleep if we can, it’s easy to secure,” Lynn suggested. “Hopefully, it will be safe to touch by then.”
“I don’t think I could sleep right now if I tried after what we just did,” Chess said, pulling at her face with her free hand as they stood around their camp.
“Fine, we will try pressing on. I hope our new companion can help lead us from here on,” Lynn said nodding toward Mikel.
Chess bent to fold the fur up in case they couldn't return.
"Just leave it, we will likely return. Besides, it’s no real loss. I don't want to sleep in that thing again. It smells as bad as the green pool now,” Lynn begged.
Chess grumbled but dropped it and checked her armor and weapons. Making sure nothing important would be left behind.
"Can I have that?" Lynn asked, gesturing at the pickaxe in Chess's hand.
"Sure, I want my spear back though. You should get your own and your shield from the pool so I can have my stuff back," Chess said trading weapons with Lynn.
"Just make another, you have plenty of wood now," Lynn reasoned.
"I like that one though, besides the water is probably shallower here. There is a big wall splitting it," Chess grumbled.
“Fine, I will try,” Lynn said while checking her gear.