Before anything else, Kya wanted to make sure that the area was completely safe before she even remotely relaxed. She knew that there was a room under the stairs, out of which Douglass and Arthur had come what felt like hours earlier but had been only minutes. She also knew, and had been tasked with, speaking to the dwarves above ground.
But, as always, first things first. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
Making her way over to the heavy door set into the stones under the balcony by a couple inches, Kya studied it with a wary eye. It was solid dark red wood, a single narrow window running up from about the midpoint towards the top of it. It had a single iron ring on the right side sticking out in an unmistakable handle.
She confidently pulled on the handle, and rather than swing outwards as she’d expected, it slid ever so slightly off to the left, retreating smoothly into the wall.
Sliding it the rest of the way open, Kya shook her head mournfully saying “what is it with this world and fucking doors. I wasn’t ever this bad with doors on earth.”
Walking in, the room was almost cozy. She realized this must have been where Douglass had been sleeping for the last several years, with frequent visits from Arthur as well, it would seem.
The room wasn’t incredibly large, at least not by the standards of the grand architecture from the city and the massive ritual chamber behind her.
It was about the size of a two car garage, golden glow stones hanging all around the room to provide a warm even light. In one corner, there was a moderately sized bed with some fuzzy brown blankets and a couple pillows. Again, the room screamed practicality, rather than opulence. Against the same wall as the bed were several chest of drawers, a few of the drawers still pulled out at odd angles here and there.
There was a small kitchenette like you might find in a hotel, with what looked to be a stove and a sink, another door standing half slid into the wall revealed a small bathroom, and there was a rug and two chairs in the center of the room. One of said chairs was reclined, and seemed to have been used quite a bit for naps or sleeping the night judging by the blankets and pillows present on it as well.
However, the thing that caught her interest was the writing desk completing the room, and the papers strew about it. She made her way there before anything else, and began sorting through the documents for any information on the two apparent cultists. Like, for example, the name of the cult to which they had so obviously belonged.
However, despite spending several minutes looking from paper to paper and scouring the desk and even some random drawers, she found nothing of any use. There were lots of blank pages, a couple with normal notes about the farm above or supplies they needed to get. Not even good supplies though. She had hoped to find the “magical death ritual supplies”, but instead was left with the “we need more toilet paper and soap” supplies.
It occurred to her the blank sheets of paper might be enchanted or something to not show their contents to any random passersby, but if they were, she couldn’t sense any traces of magic with her aura. Though, as she’d recently discovered with that man, her aura wasn’t foolproof.
Finally just throwing all of the papers and several of the more interesting mementos of the room into her storage space, she sat down in the non-reclining chair and let out a long sigh.
She had no idea what time it was, or how long it had been since she’d really slept. She knew she’d been unconscious, at least for a while, but also that being asleep and being unconscious was a square rectangle situation, and she’d definitely gotten no rest from the experience.
After taking a minute and hearing the profound silence of the room, the chamber, the earth as a whole, she finally pulled up the several minimized notifications she’d been getting throughout the evening to go through them all.
The first one was simply for the Ghoul that she’d defeated, and this one was pretty standard.
- - - - -
- You have defeated Ghoul - 1-Star - Common
- - - - -
As its death wasn’t directly related to a quest or anything, that was all it had warranted was an acknowledgment.
It was the next one, however, that caused her eyebrows to rise in astonishment and trepidation alike.
- - - - -
- You have defeated an enemy wished dead by one or more gods of this world. This action has earned you a boon from the following divinities: {Life}, {Death}.
- Seek out the nearest church(es) or priest(s) of the above divine(s) to receive your boon(s).
- - - - -
Kya… had no context for this. She literally could not fathom what an actual real life god would do as a boon for her, let alone two. Which again… gods? Was she going to meet a god? What did that even mean?
She was skeptical in the extreme to meet a god of life, and what would probably end up being his brother or something, the god of death. Much less skeptical than she would have been on earth, considering she had just stopped the resurrection of a dead woman with her own powers over space itself.
But still, skeptical. Also, not that this was important, but what was with all the parentheses? Was it up in the air whether she'd get both boons?
She decided to ask Rory about it when she returned to the city. He was with the church of life after all and could probably give her some pointers.
Moving along then, she pulled up the next message, much to her abject disgust.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
- - - - -
- You have slain Arthur Daris - 0-Star
- They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Happy trails.
- - - - -
That… nope. Kya did not like that. What the hell was that even supposed to mean? Kya had begun to appreciate her narrator, as it had seemed generally interested in keeping her alive and helping her to escape life-death situations. But now… was it excited for her to kill people? And she hadn’t even been the one to kill them!
She’d kill monsters or beasts as needed, hell she even enjoyed the rush of power entering her body to signify her ability had grown ever so slightly more powerful. But people were different. She didn’t want to kill people.
. . .
She sat in the chair for several minutes, lost in thought. Lost in memory.
She eventually pulled up the next one, starting the same, but taking a decidedly darker turn.
- - - - -
- You have slain Douglass Daris - 1-Star - Terrestrial Reaper
- Another step, and so soon after the first. Good thing this can be addicting, you still have nine-hundred-ninety-eight miles to go.
- - - - -
Again, she hadn’t been the one to kill him, and she wasn’t sure what allowed the kills to be attributed to her, but it sickened her to her stomach.
Journey of a thousand miles? Was it asking her to kill a thousand people?
Her obnoxious narrator had suddenly taken on a wholly different vibe in her mind, and she despised it.
Finally coming to the last one, and the only one she'd already read, she let it play out again.
- - - - -
- Unable to Identify subject.
- - - - -
Concentrating hard, she mentally urged to give any more detail, or any sort of explanation as to why it had been unable to provide even the slightest bit of information regarding the creature who had stood before her. Of course, however, she was left with the same message as before, no more and no less detail to be added in.
She wondered then, as she had many times before, about the possibility for upgrading or evolving her abilities. She assumed when her push/pull ability reached one hundred percent, it would get some noticeable shift. But she wasn't sure if the same would happen to her aura for example, or her identify skill or any of her other odd abilities. What would an advanced translation skill look like, for example. Or a better looting power?
She said again for the hundredth time. She needed to know more, and she needed to know more quickly.
Kya sat in the chair for a little while longer, letting her thoughts wander from one topic to the next, and simply taking a breather from everything that had been going on. When she found herself about to slide into an unwelcome sleep, she knew it was time to be moving again.
Making herself busy and trying to keep her mind occupied to avoid any unwanted drowsiness, she began to loot everything else in the room that she thought to be of any value.
Including, and Kya couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to do this, grabbing several of the glowstones from their perches and storing them away. She took one back out just to see, and sure enough, it still glowed in her hand, warm to the touch. It did seem to dim as she moved it about, the light strongest when completely stationary, but that was a small drawback compared to a portable light source.
She took with her the chair she’d been using, a couple of the blankets, and a surprisingly dense and solid feeling pillow.
She had the briefest thought of taking some of the clothes in the room, thinking to expand her very limited wardrobe as quickly as possible, but found herself unwilling. Likewise, she left behind anything that seemed personal in nature. Several small moving photographs of the family in happier times. A small wooden lizard looking animal toy. Stuff like that.
She hadn’t been the one to kill them, she knew, but being the last person to speak with both Arthur and Douglass, Kya simply couldn’t bring herself to ever wear their clothes. She just wasn’t there mentally.
A small part of her, a part she was disturbed to discover was there, whispered quietly “yet…. not there yet…”
Walking over to the little kitchenette thing, she studied it for a while to see how it worked.
It wasn’t a stove top like she had known, but rather one of magical means. A flame crystal, like the ones she’d found in that cave with the crazy mushroom, was placed at the center of a small glass dish, with tiny and intricate engravings all around it. A small dial was affixed to the bottom portion, sticking out of the entire enclosure and to where she could grab and control it.
Giving it an experimental push, she found that it almost immediately grew to the temperature of a blazing fire.
“This would be extremely handy to keep around” she thought, switching it back off. She didn’t want to damage it, but neither was she willing to leave it behind.
After several minutes of tinkering with various pieces of the entire mechanism, she eventually was able to detach and remove the crystal and cylindrical glass casing. Without a second thought, she placed it in her storage space with a satisfied grin and took one last look around the room.
She would be leaving it much the same as when she arrived, taking only so much with her. She wanted all the interesting things, but everything else would be left for now.
Pushing out into the large ritual chamber where so much had happened, Kya scanned the scene. She reluctantly started with the body of Arthur.
The moment she made contact with him, she knew. There was an instinctual understanding she had, and she knew. He could go into her inventory. If she could just pick him up, she could do it.
The thought sickened her, and she tried her best to ignore the sensation as she went about inspecting him.
For all the trouble she went to, there wasn’t much of any real importance. She tried identify on anything she saw, but most of it was simple and unenchanted. There was a small ring that made it slightly easier to concentrate which she took, and there was the dagger he’d tried to use on her. It wasn’t enchanted but was a fine dagger and when one carried around a warehouse of crap anyway, an extra blade wouldn’t go amiss.
From there, Kya quickly moved about the entirety of the chamber, her footsteps echoing loudly around the hauntingly still place.
So much had been happening and at stake when she’d first gotten here, that Kya hadn’t really taken in how empty this place was. There was the ritual site, but otherwise, this really wasn’t some massive underground cult headquarters, but truly something a man and his son would have set up on their own, given that one of them had supernatural capabilities with earth shaping and several years of dedicated labor.
By the time she’d made a full circuit of the room, she’d collected another dozen of the death crystals, several of the red glowstone variants, and several of the suspiciously clean golden bowls from the ritual.
Cause why not.
Making her way up the stairs, she decided it was time to speak with the dwarves above, and then, finally, get back to town.