Another Discussion

Will locked eyes with his body. That was definitely him. His body was standing across the street; it would only take a short bound for him to reach it.

“Hey! You!” Will called out.

His body panicked, before turning and running, melting into the crowd.

“No wait!” he reached out.

“We have to go, my lady!” Shisa shoved him into the carriage, before following, closing the door behind her.

Will frantically pressed his face to the carriage window, scanning the crowd for any sign of his body. He couldn’t find it.

“You’re going to ruin your make up,” Shisa grabbed him by the collar, dragging him backwards.

“I need to find him!” Will protested.

“I thought you weren’t interested in romance, my lady,” Shisa noted.

“No not like that, I need find…” Will sighed, deciding to give up. He remembered his plan to escape tonight. “It’s fine.”

They rode in silence, the early evening covering the streets. A few workers approached, lighting the streetlamps with magic as the carriage rode down the path. About fifteen minutes later, they had arrived at the Adventurer’s Guild. The massive building almost resembled a castle, easily dwarfing most other buildings in the city. Will, of course, had been here many times. It was where all adventurers went to accept quests and receive payment. It was also where they took their advancement exams. Will wondered when would be a good time to take the D rank exam, assuming he could get his body back, of course.

“We have to hurry,” Shisa said, opening the carriage door for Will. “It took you longer than usual to put on your dress.”

“Sorry…” Will apologized. He wasn’t used to wearing dresses, and he also wasn’t used to having someone else dress him.

They entered the guild hall, pushing past the reception area. It was a quiet evening, usually the hall was filled with adventurers milling about, accepting quests or returning from them. They turned down a hallway Will hadn’t been down before. There was a staircase there; it was cordoned off with a rope barrier guarded by two armed adventurers. They saw him, immediately bowing in reverence, before opening the barrier. Will nodded in thank you.

“Hurry,” Shisa ordered, pushing Will up the steps.

The S rank hall was not as grand as Will expected. It was quite spacious, with a few tasteful decorations and paintings on the wall, but otherwise, it felt like a normal meeting hall. Will was the last one to arrive it seems; Kagan, Markus, Liandra, the Guild Master, and another were already there. Will noted that one S rank seat was empty.

“Lady Crestfall, I didn’t expect you to join us this evening,” The Guild Master noted.

“My apologies. But this seemed a manner of great importance,” Will said with a bow.

“Don’t you worry, princess,” Kagan smirked. “You can sit in, but we don’t expect you do anything. Wouldn’t want you crying and running away again.”

“What?” Will’s eyes narrowed.

“Ignore him,” Shisa whispered.

Will bit his tongue, taking his seat.

Kagan sat back in his chair, a care free expression on his face. He was staring at Will, a mocking gaze in his eyes. Markus sat to his right. His left arm was in a cast, and his face seemed worn, with dark bags under his eyes. He was busying himself, staring down at some papers, which he tried to oragnize with one good arm. The Guild Master was next in line; the older man’s gaze fixated on the empty seat near Will. Next was Liandra. The blonde young woman had a calm look on her face; she flashed Will a smile, causing him to dart his eyes away, a rosy blush on burning on his cheeks. The final person Will did not recognize. It was a little elven girl, perhaps no older than eleven. Her dark hair matched the dark frilly dress she had on; she had a bored look on her face. Behind her stood two elven attendants, each dressed in white robes. They stood with their wrists crossed, eyes closed, ready to serve their master’s will.

“The new inheritor of the Magic God,” Shisa explained. “After Miss Zena was killed, the skill chose her younger aunt as its successor.”

“But she’s a kid,” Will said. “She can’t be going into the dungeon.”

“She’s only a little younger than you were when you first sat here,” Shisa said.

“What? That’s terrible,” Will gasped.

“We don’t have a choice, especially with the crisis going on now,” Shisa explained.

“Where is Ronin?” The Guild Master tensed, slamming his fists down on the table. “I’m used to his random disappearances, but at a time like this is treasonous!”

“No one knows where he is,” Markus said.

“He always talked big, but at a moment like this he ran away, just like our princess here,” Kagan ground his teeth. “I’m disappointed. What’s the point in calling us S ranks if half of us are cowards?”

“That’s enough,” Liandra scolded. “We’ll deal with Ronin another time. Right now we need to focus on the threat in front of us. On this Forsaken King.”

“He killed my aunt,” the little girl said. “He’s a formidable foe, is he not?”

One of the little girl’s attendants leaned down, whispering something in her ear. She just nodded in response.

“I fought him one on one,” Kagan grunted, adjusting himself on his chair. It was much too small for his gigantic frame. “He’s strong. Stronger than anyone else i’ve faced. I don’t know if we can win.”

“He’s just a boss!” Markus added, finally looking up from his papers. “He’ll stay put, and we just won’t deal with him.”

“Bosses don’t have skills, Markus,” Liandra corrected. “And we have no idea of knowing if he’ll adhere to the rules of the dungeon.”

“What is he, then?” The Guild Master asked. “An adventurer? But according to the reports, he has multiple skills, even more than any S rank. High Priestess, did you find anything mentioning him in the divine texts?”

“No.” Liandra shook her head. “I poured over all the church documents. There is no mention of any Forsaken King.”

“So he’s anomaly then,” Markus said.

“I have a theory,” Liandra answered. “It has to do with the history of the dungeon in this first place.”

“Go on,” The Guild Master gestured for her to continue.

Will leaned in, listening intently. Shisa gave her a surprised look.

“The dungeon was formed three hundred years ago after the cataclysm war. It was proposed by a minor trickster god, known as Traveler. Traveler stated that the dungeon would be the best way to settle disputes in heaven. Each god would then select champions to conquer this dungeon, with the goal of claiming victory for their patron god. Each of these champions would be given a blessing, known as a skill.” Liandra explained.

“Which makes the Forsaken King even stranger,” Markus interupted. “Some skills can overlap, but in general gods don’t like sharing skills with each other. Why does he have so many contradictory ones?”

“Allow me to finish,” Liandra said, raising a hand. “Now every god, no matter how minor, was allowed to gift a skill to a champion. This is why you have adventurers with seemingly mundane abilities. Skills seemed to be regulated by the dungeon, sort of like there is a library or archive that distributes these abilities for the gods. This is proven by how many people around the dungeon seem to manifest skills, while those born further away do not receive any.”

“And why there some skills that only work in the dungeon,” the little girl added. “Such as Dungeon Way Finding or the long lost skill, Dungeon Pathing.”

“Right,” Liandra nodded. “Now there seems to be, let’s call it an archivist, an entity or god that distributes this skill. This archivist takes the skills from the gods, writes them down and assigns them to people that meet the god’s criteria for a champion.”

“But if there was a way to access those written down skills…” The Guild Master pondered.

“Correct,” Liandra nodded. “Now, back to the origin of the dungeon. Traveler did not think it was enough motivation to send adventurers into the dungeon without a reward. So, according to legend, he convinced the gods to make one. A single artifact worth more than thousands of platinum pieces. An artifact that was said to grant the wishes of any who obtained it. This artifact would be stored in the deepest section of the dungeon, awaiting the day an adventurer would retrieve it, conquering the dungeon in the name of their patron god. I think the Forsaken King has the artifact, and is using it to steal the archived skills from the archivist.”

“I don’t get it,” Kagan added. “If someone has this artifact, why hasn’t the dungeon collapsed already? The whole point of it was to settle the Cataclysm war, wasn’t it? So if some adventurer managed to get their hands on it, doesn’t it mean their god won?”

“I don’t know,” Liandra replied. “I don’t even know what he wants. Besides, everything I just told you all is just a theory I put together using the scriptures. I don’t know how inaccurate it is truly.”

“It’s a better explanation than anything else,” The Guild Master said. “Good work, Lady High Priestess.”

“So, what do we do about him?” Kagan asked.

“Will he be a threat to future delves? Markus also asked.

“He coordinated an attack on the dungeon cargo train. It was the largest, most organized attack we’ve ever faced.” The Guild Master said. “He is no doubt a threat.”

“Then,” the little girl began to speak, only stopping as an attendant whispered into her ear. “Shall we plan another deep delve to deal with him?”

“The pathway to his castle is closed off,” Markus said. “Had some of my party members check. It’s gone.”

“What?” The Guild Master flustered.

“I don’t think he’ll be a problem,” Kagan said. “He was all the way by the Vast Ocean. If he wants to reach us now, he’d have to cross the Dunes and the Ice Plains. Not an easy trip, I only made it as far as dunes on one deep delve. Takes months. So we should leave him alone till he pops up again.”

“I disagree!” The child leapt up onto her chair. Her calm looking attendants panicked, eyes opening at the sudden outburst. “He killed Zena! An S ranker! We need to make him pay!”

“Calm down, lady Lily,” one of her attendants grabbed her, trying to stop the tantrum.

“No!” She shook her attendant off. “I won’t let him get away with this!” tears were forming in the little girl’s eyes.

“Great, she’s only half as mature as the princess here,” Kagan chuckled.

“Lord Kagan!” Shisa broke her composure. “I insist you stop insulting my lady at once!”

“Shisa,” Will chided, trying to calm the fuming maid down. “It’s all right, doesn’t really bother me.”

“You two make a great pair, should I start crying to?” Kagan stood up, slamming a fist down onto the table and causing the whole thing to shake. “Crying children and cowards! This is embarrassing! Look at all of you! Markus is still pissing his pants, all the women are acting out, and we have one bastard who’s apparently too good for this meeting! I’m out of here! Call me back when we actually have something important to discuss.”

Kagan lifted his fist from the table, revealing a deep, cracked indent on it. He turned, before storming out of the meeting hall, slamming through the exit door and nearly ripping it off the wall. They all watched him go, dumbfounded at what to next.

“I’m not pissing my pants…” Markus muttered, looking back down at his papers.

“Where is he going?” The Guild Master growled. “We need to plan against this threat!”

The attendants managed to get Lily to sit down, and were busy keeping her from having another outburst. Her face was red with anger, and it took all her strength to suppress her sniffles.

“He’s right though,” Will stood up.

“My lady?” Shisa gasped.

“We’re supposed to be the greatest adventurers in the world, and instead we’re at each other’s throats, freaking out on what to do!” Will slapped the table. “What happened to the adventurers of old? The days of Ricard and Leon Crestfall, deep delving in the name of adventure? You think they’d be acting like this? You think they’d be missing meetings? No!”

“My lady calm down, please I’m begging you, I’m sorry for my outburst but …” Shisa protested.

“You’re one to talk, you ran away and didn’t help fight,” Markus coughed.

“I did,” Will pushed through, accepting what Natalia did. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not right. We need to deal with this threat.”

“And what would that proposition be, then?” The Guild Master asked.

“Deep delve. We deep delve towards the Vast Ocean.” Will said.