Cultist Release 52-55

This release brings Cultists ahead of the public by 4 chapters, catching them up to the previously promised amount. Several people pointed out that the promise wasn't being kept, as I've been behind for a while. Going ahead, the cultist tier will instead be getting half of the total amount of advanced chapters while Lesser Demons receive all advanced chapters, regardless of how many ahead we are. A notice will be put in the author's notes of each public release on SH and RR specifying how many chapters are available. The number might go up or down as writing permits, but my goal is to keep at least a month's worth of releases ahead of Public. This is because I'm behind and don't have any backlogs, and now Lesser Demons are only ahead of cultists by 1 chapter instead of 4. To make that up to the Lesser Demons I'm going to stop public releases until they receive chapter 59.

So, this one is going to be a long one.

You can also read the release here on the google doc.

===============

Chapter 52 - Collateral Damage

‘Oh fuck.’

Elania had no time to move as the mercenary busting down the door didn’t pause, the door slamming into the wall with a crash. “What’s---”

His words clipped off the second he saw Elania; he pulled a knife off his arm and flung it straight for her. Her dodge reaction was just as fluid as the attack, except only as she was about to push off, she realized that would leave the knife going straight into Yolani.

Checking her movement cost precious time, but Elania was able to grab the other girl and pull her away into a fall. The knife thudded into wood, and Yolani let out a scream as she slammed into the stone floor, causing Elania to wince. Elania hadn’t intended to hurt the other girl, but she hadn’t had time to be gentle either.

The mercenary cursed, whether at almost having hit Yolani or that he missed, Elania didn’t know. She wasn’t going to wait to find out, either, leaping back onto her feet and between two of the shelves before darting toward the front door.

The man must have been tracking her movement, as wood splintered then exploded just in front of Elania’s face as his sword punched through the shelf. She had intended to get around him and lead him away then escape outside, but the sudden attack had her reply in kind.

She didn’t have a sword to punch through back at the man, so she braced herself and then shoved the heavy shelf with all her might. It had no choice but to obey her sudden force, planks cracking as it crashed sideways and smashed into the mercenary. A pained grunt signaled to Elania that her attack had found its mark, but she froze, unsure of what to do next.

“Jonas!” A second mercenary arrived shouting at his crushed comrade before drawing his sword and leveling it at Elania. Instead of charging her, though, he turned his head toward the entrance and screamed as loud as she had ever heard anyone try.

“DEMON! HERE!”

“It’s not what it looks like, he---”

That’s when the new mercenary decided to charge, shouting something at her she figured was a war cry. He was fast, much faster than his friend and Elania found herself backing up a step before realizing she needed a weapon. There were plenty of metal bits on the remaining shelf to her right, and she grabbed one of the longer ones just in time to use it to intercept the man’s sword swing.

The metal clanged together with a thud, but he was already pulling back for another swing while her arm was still ringing from the impact. She wasn’t going to beat him in a sword-fight, so she didn’t even try. In a move the man had not been expecting, she darted forward, under the heavy swing he had been preparing to smash away her improvised pipe.

As it was, it was a hazardous move because the mercenary almost backpedaled enough to make enough space for his slash. Still, Elania managed the lunge required and slammed into his middle, catapulting the both of them back into parts of the broken shelf and the scattered debris.

She landed on top and immediately slammed a fist into his side without considering his armor, but the blow elicited a pained grunt anyway. A flurry of blows followed unblocked, but then he managed to grab her arm on one of the wild swings and throw her off and into some of the broken wood with a crash.

As Elania hurled herself back onto her feet, she saw she’d done more damage than she’d expected, as he remained in a heap on the ground, unable to prop himself back up. That was good because she needed to catch her breath, too.

[Power: 249 / 277]

That wasn’t too bad, Elania thought. She’d managed to conserve Power while dealing with them. It was quickly followed up by the realization of just how fucked things had become so quickly. A layer of dust filled the room from the shattered shelves, and a thick layer of miscellaneous Artificer bits were scattered everywhere.

She could hear shouts coming from outside; there wasn’t going to be an escape that way.

Escape.

That was what she needed to do, there wasn’t going to be any reasoning or talking this out. The mercenaries had seemed friendly enough to her, but the second they’d seen her with red eyes, the first one’s response had been instant.

She wasn’t willing to put her hands up and surrender either, not with how she knew demons were treated in this city.

Elania turned and started to walk toward Yolani, who was beginning to get up. “Hey! Is there another way out?”

The other girl was still fuzzy and out of it and didn’t respond. Elania was halfway across the shop to her when a crossbow bolt crashed through the single small window by the entrance and cut through the air in front of her face.

‘Why do things keep trying to impale my head?’

Elania threw herself down just in time for a volley of three more bolts to smash into the wall behind where she had just been, before a chorus of shouts heralded four mercenaries charging into the room.

It had been hard enough fighting them one at a time, so Elania felt completely justified when she responded by jumping back onto her feet, grabbing the last remaining shelf, and hurling it at the entrance. The frame ripped apart as she did so, so only the top half of it flew at them, but it smashed into three of the mercenaries, downing them temporarily. It was enough to buy her more time to continue her retreat toward Yolani and the back door she hadn’t seen behind yet.

Elania didn’t make it the rest of the way to the back, though, as something solid and hard clipped into the back of her head with a thud, sending her reeling onto the ground. As she rolled over, she saw what it was, the last mercenary had thrown his shield at her like a frisbee, and the edge had struck her.

He cursed as she got up, and Elania found herself agreeing with him. She had a hard head now. Didn’t she have a dagger somewhere? Where was her pack? The entire workshop was destroyed, with only the back counter remaining. She knelt and picked up the shield, but everything felt a bit muddled. Maybe the blow to the head had done more damage than she thought, but her status hadn’t started screaming about [Regeneration] to her, so she wasn’t sure.

“Stop!”

The shout coming from behind froze Elania. It didn’t work quite as well on the mercenary who had his short sword drawn and leveled at Elania in a slow approach, but the flash of light and sudden crack that threatened to blow out Elania’s eardrums did.

‘I was so right, it was a gun.’

Elania turned slowly, and Yolani had the tool pointed at the mercenary who was still standing.

“I said fucking stop, you bastards!”

‘Oh, it’s a wand. A gun wand?’

Elania was suddenly very glad Yolani was ignoring her and that the dangerous little length of shard encrusted metal wasn’t pointed at her.

Yolani started shouting at the mercenaries, who had thankfully stopped their approach. Instead they began to collect their downed comrades. Two new mercenaries entered to replace the ones that dragged the wounded out. Elania had no idea what to do now, and she was pretty sure that whatever back way out was probably being watched now, too. Yolani continued yelling, but the men didn’t budge or make to leave. The standoff lasted a few minutes longer, before Harlock entered with a grim expression on his face, followed by Artificer Ranolf.

“What are you doing girl? Stand aside and allow them to arrest the demon at once! Can’t you see she’s destroyed your shop?”

“Like hell! Your men did this to my shop, Ranolf! And attacked my customer!”

The man scowled, and Elania decided to try and explain.

“This has all been a giant mis---”

Elania hadn’t noticed that he had one of the ‘gunwands’ in his hand already, and he leveled it on her without warning, and suddenly a giant invisible fist slammed into her. The only thing that prevented her from slamming into the wall was that she smashed into the back counter first, the impact shattering the backboard and causing Elania to double over, blood exploding out of her mouth from the eye-popping blow.

[Your physical Status is degrading quickly.]

[Due to your high Power, Regeneration is enhanced!]

‘Oh, does it say that without my power being over 100% now…?’

[Power: 211/277]

Everything was pain, and when vertebrae in her neck slipped back into place, she tried to scream, except broken ribs had punctured and deflated both her lungs, so nothing came out.

Her hearing wasn’t working anyway; all she could hear was a painful torrent of tinnitus. Her eyes still worked, however, and Yolani was still clearly arguing with them all.

Elania blinked away her tears as the pain reached a climax, then thankfully started to taper off, [Regeneration] had saved her once again at the expense of a rapidly draining power bar, but she was losing hope of finding a way out.

Apparently, the other side had run out of patience as one of the mercenaries with a shield started forward. Elania wasn’t sure just how she and Yolani had become a ‘side,’ but there was no denying the other woman was protecting her when she leveled her wand and blasted the man away.

The victory was short-lived as Ranolf responded in kind, the invisible fist of air becoming a visible red cloud as the crystal on Yolani’s wand suddenly surged in brightness. A dusty blue cloud in the shape of a shield suddenly appeared in front of the red cloud. The particles mixed in a torrent of exploding lights as red and blue particles collided with each other in tiny, soundless explosions.

The exploding clouds quickly tightened up into narrower and narrower streams until they were focused into two beams as thick as an arm colliding and annihilating each other as they met in the center.

‘Artificer fights are pretty to watch.’

The idle thought made Elania realize just how woozy and fucked up she was still. That Yolani was fighting off Ranolf, whom Elania had thought was pretty much the boss of the whole Artificer thing, was impressive.

Then the crystal in Yolani’s wand began to flicker and die. The clash didn’t end, though, as Yolani pulled out a second wand, discarding the first one when the crystal shattered into dust.

That’s when Elania realized that fights between Artificers weren’t duels of skill. They were wars of attrition. The Artificer whose mana shards ran out of Power first would lose. Her eyes drifted back to Ranolf, and she realized that he had a dozen of the wands on his belt.

Yolani’s second wand began to flicker. Ranolf’s wands all had larger, stronger shards than Yolani’s. Did she even have a third one? The answer was yes, but the grim look on her face told Elania that there wasn’t a fourth.

‘I need to help somehow.’

Elania propped herself up with an arm; she’d regenerated enough that she could move. Standing up was still impossible, though. Crawling was too slow. So she gritted her teeth and hurled herself forward, landing just behind Yolani’s feet.

That was good enough for her idea, a hand coming up and closing around the other girl’s ankle. Elania felt the Yolani tense up as soon as she touched her but quickly relax and go back to focusing on the clash of magic. It was enough for Elania to be in contact with Yolani, to feel the energy in the wand’s mana shard.

It was already almost dead.

‘What happens if you drop a nuke in a war of attrition?’

But, Elania hesitated; how could she calculate how much Power to use? Enough to win the duel, but leave enough for [Regeneration] and then to survive long enough afterward to get more energy?

The answer was: she couldn’t.

‘Fuck it.’

Ranolf, the mercenaries, and the storefront disappeared in a giant nova of yellow light.

---

Thump-Thump.

“Hey, wake up, The Guard is here.”

“Seriously! Wake up!”

“What did you do!”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania! Wake up!”

Everything was so terribly hazy. It didn’t feel like she was in her own body, but the pounding thump-thump of her heart in her ears was relentless as it was rapid.

“I don’t… feel very good.”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania!”

“Hey… let’s make a contract.”

It was hard to think, but it was simple enough to bring up the screen.

Thump-Thump.

“I don’t understand. How is this a contract?”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania! Hey, Elania!”

Something was shaking, maybe it was her. What was going on? What was wrong?

[Power: 1/277]

Thump-Thump.

Oh. Yeah. That.

She felt too tired to worry about it now.

Thump-

Chapter 53 - 15 Days Later

Thump-Thump.

“Hey, wake up, The Guard is here.”

“Seriously! Wake up!”

“What did you do!”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania! Wake up!”

Everything was so terribly hazy. It didn’t feel like she was in her own body, but the pounding thump-thump of her heart in her ears was relentless as it was rapid.

“I don’t… feel very good.”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania!”

“Hey… let’s make a contract.”

It was hard to think, but it was simple enough to bring up the screen.

Thump-Thump.

“I don’t understand. How is this a contract?”

Thump-Thump.

“Elania! Hey, Elania!”

Something was shaking; maybe it was her. What was going on? What was wrong?

[Power: 1/277]

Thump-Thump.

Oh. Yeah. That.

She felt too tired to worry about it now.

Thump-

---

-Thump.

Elania sat up with a gasp, hand flying to her face only to find her forehead covered in a thin sheen of sweat. It was the same nightmare she’d repeatedly been having for the last four nights. It was always the same and always ended with her heart stopping.

She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone; there didn’t seem to be any point. It didn’t affect anything, anyway. Other than waking up with a fright and sticky skin. Pulling back the fresh bedsheet the Inn was happy to supply every night, Elania glanced at the small manashard on her nightstand and frowned. It was already dead.

That was to be expected, though.

[Mana Shard 0/3]

The amount of power the smallest size shard could hold was barely enough to sustain her for a day if she did absolutely nothing.

And doing absolutely nothing--- that never happened.

Elania rolled out of bed with a quick glance at her Hud:

[Hud]

Power: 66 / 277

Level: 49

Clock: 9:39

She had slept a bit longer than she expected, but that was fine. Her schedule was hers to set, and she had plenty of time before mid-morning. Still, that wasn’t any reason to dawdle, and either Henri or Elburn was probably waiting in the common room for her.

It only took a few minutes to wash, the mirror reflecting her sapphire blue eyes and mostly black hair. Well, after this evening, her hair would probably be back to its previous reddish-pink color. Hopefully. Being low on power was troublesome in more ways than worrying about her hair color changing faster than an indecisive teenager playing with dyes.

The fresh set beige of underclothes wasn’t what she was used to, but they worked well enough. She was reasonably sure the matching blouse and pants came from Yolani’s wardrobe, which wasn’t a problem since their measurements were pretty close. It was the armor that was an annoyance.

Harlock had scolded her for leaving behind the metal chest piece that covered her bust the day before. Leaving behind potentially lifesaving but uncomfortable equipment was not acceptable even if you had [Regeneration] apparently.

Elania agreed with him, actually, but the multiple layers of leathers and straps were complicated, and she’d lost patience with them. This time at least she had a bit of experience with the get-up and probably wouldn’t need Yolani’s help to straighten things up.

Finishing things off with a leather double-wrap sword belt, and a short sword that seemed about on par with a roman gladius mixed with a European-style crossguard, Elania smiled and bit her lip as she posed for herself. In her opinion, she looked every bit the part of some silly medieval hero-adventurer.

Her enjoyment quickly turned to embarrassment.

‘God, I’m glad no one saw that.’

A little notification popped up, and she half feared it would be mocking her for appreciating the outfit. Instead, it was one of the strange alerts she’d been getting since she woke up in Yolani’s lap.

[Notice: ̵̧͇͈͊̀T̷̮̱̙̓͌ṇ̸̛͈͙3̵͇̌̂͝M̷̗̿͂N̸̫̭̂͆9̴̬͝1̸̜̟̌̋͒l̴̢̼̇Ā̶̞̾̎5̴̯̐̔̅͜1̷͚͎̔ͅm̷̜͖̑ ̴̢̤͋̈Ṭ̶̤͑c̸̢̳͎̐͋͛a̵̘̭̾̿Ŕ̵̛̭̥͠ţ̷͍͛̌N̸͖̂̀ó̶̟͌c̴̟̝̟̓͐̆-̶̠̙͓̔̋3̷͔̚͠C̸͖̏̚͝n̵̺̍̏3̸̟͚̦̎5̵̍͜5̶̹̯͎̐3]

It turned out creating a blank contract caused weird shit to happen. At least that was her best guess. When she looked at the contract, gibberish would suddenly start spilling everywhere until she closed it. Yolani said her side of it was fine, but everything was blank except the Contractor and Contractee fields.

Despite how many times the glitched Notice text had appeared already, it still made her apprehensive. She pulled up her status screen, despite the fact she knew it would make her feel even more worried.

[Status]

Name: Elania Reyes

Race: Lesser Demon (S Class Monster)

Level: 49

Power: 190/277

Karma: 3

Titles: [Locked]

[Some functions are disabled due to insufficient requirements.]

[Skills: Elania Reyes]

[Class: N̶̹̙̎o̴̢̦̊ṅ̸̻ē̷̲̻͠͝]̶͍͆̆

[Affinities: Demonic, Mana, Darkwalker(Complete)]

[Magical: Demonic Aura Lvl - 11 (Deactivated), Mana Manipulation Lvl - 76, Battle Concentration Lvl 35, T̴̚ͅr̴̡̼͑a̴̝̙͑͝n̶̬̽s̶̝̜̕f̷̝̱̐o̸̝̚ŕ̸̙̺m̴̱̚a̴̻̼̍t̴̥̿ͅi̶̜͍͒o̷̱̝̅̀n̷͕̱̕ ̵̲̹̀͠Ḁ̴̚c̸̙̀̍u̶̪͋ì̶̛͓t̴̬͑̐ͅy̶̱͉̓ ̶̧̫̔̋Ļ̷͎̔̔v̴̙͛l̶̮̾ ̵͍͋-̶̰̮͝ ̸̲̝̚1̴̧̮͋͗,̷̡͚̽ ̶̢̀ͅT̴̼͆͆r̵̪̺͝a̶̧̾͝n̶͙͒s̵̯̑f̵̲̱͆̽o̸͜͠r̸̳̄͗ḿ̵̢͝a̸̔ͅt̶̨͈̒̓i̶̊̏͜ö̶͔̥́ṉ̵̯͌̂ ̸͉͖͠C̸̢͖͘ö̶͖́͠ǹ̴͕̉t̸̺̔r̷̜̔ͅo̸͈͒͠l̶̺̯̽ ̷̫̖̀̕L̶̤̂̚v̷̺̩̐̕l̵̻̓̀ ̵̤͎̈́-̶̳̇ ̵̤́1̶̣̈̾,̷͇̕ ̷̻̿ͅC̶̬̓̉ö̸͕́n̷̟͚̿͝ț̴̣̑r̷̠̈́̆ą̴̪͆c̴̩̄͛t̵̩͚̀í̶̭̎n̴͖̓g̶̭̈́̊ ̴̱̂͐L̴̦͓̊v̶̦̯͐l̵̝̾ͅ ̷̼̘͌-̷̭̾ ̴̞̄̀2̷̯̅]

[Physical: Unarmed Combat Lvl - 17, Darkvision Lvl - 3 (Activated), Dodging Lvl - 44, Block Lvl - 16, Stealth Lvl - 31, Throwing Weapons Lvl - 34, Combat Mastery Lvl - 42, Ĺ̴͉̌ȉ̴̦g̷̛̪̹͐h̶̤͓̾t̵̹̺̂̈́ ̶͍̐̒B̵̭̯̈́̏l̸̘̅ȁ̵̘̓d̴̤̳̔̐e̷̝̽s̴̹̔ ̸͔͐̃L̶̗̭̊͌v̷̥͕̽̉l̶͓̆́ ̸̪͕͊̚-̷̞̥͂ ̴̨͐̂1̵̱̲͐̚2̴̺̓͛]̶͇̓ ]

[Mundane: Identify Lvl - 9, Universal Speech Lvl - 5, Reading Lvl - 4, Writing Lvl - 3, Athletics Lvl - 17, Improvised Crafting Lvl - 29, Ṭ̴́̌r̶͉̉à̴̝̫́c̷͍̫͐k̴͚̙̓ī̷̩ñ̶̠́g̴̬͇͒̄ ̸̼̀L̸̰̣̆v̵̖̎̆ļ̴̲̏̓ ̸̖̑͠4̶̢̻͝]̸͕̭̅ ]

[Attributes: Elania Reyes]

[Current Attributes:

Demon Contract (1 Active, 1 Available)

Regeneration (Normal)

Demonic Self-Sustenance

Enhanced Physical Abilities (Strength, Mana Capacity)

Immunity (Darkness)

Resistance (Poison, Mana)

W̷̪̔e̵̹̜͊̐a̷̢̟̅̌ḱ̶̬̮̕ň̴͇̿ͅe̴̯̱͊ş̶̼̀s̷̯̮̀͑ ̶̢̙̌̂(̵͚̺̅̚H̵̳̫̋o̵͖̎ĺ̶̰̈́ỵ̶͕̉)̶̳̆̒]̷̢͑ ]

[Essence Management]

[Power: 66 / 277]

[Rank: Manager]

[Contractees: 1] [View]

[Contract Essence Income: -0.00 PU/hr]

[Essence Composition: R̴͔̬͍̈́̃͗3̸̟͒͋̋H̵͎͔̯͒̒̈́7̵̡̓̒͐0̶̣̖̩̾̅̆ ̵̳̍̿͠%̵͎̞͘2̷̢̪͗͜ ̷̪̋̾̕,̷̣͍͉̓R̴̝͒̐͠3̵̮̥̋͗͜k̸̘̙̔͘l̸̥͈̜̄4̸͉̖́̓͗w̴͖̰̱̽́̚k̵͚̓͝r̵̦̪̜̽4̵͈̓̑̓D̸̤͍͊͑ ̴̻̯̄̈́̓%̷̭͈͊̍͊8̵͊̾͜͝1̷͕̘͛̔ ̸̭͔͋̓͂,̵̗̿̋̈ñ̷̫̮̪4̶̛̜̔̇m̸̝̹̃̓́Ű̴̠̭͝H̴̫̣̋͗ ̸͍̤̒%̶̏̃͜͠0̵͔̺̣͐͋͠8̶̮̞͚͑]

[Corporeal Upkeep: -̷̪̙̃̉̃0̴̗̅̅̍.̷̦̤͓̋̽͠0̷̣̭͈́ ̸͕̈̆̂|̸͖͂͠>̶̘̃̃͒|̷̭̰̓̔̔_̵̜̿|̴̙̚͠/̶̬̤̻̈́̎|̷̣͇̈́-̶͚͇̄̋|̷̟͗̂.̸͔͛̆-̶͙͎͕͒͗]

[Excess Drain: -0.00 PU/hr]

‘Yeah. Ok. Nothing wrong here. Maybe just a little damage from blowing things up too much?’

Earlier mood completely ruined, Elania reached up and flicked the screen with her middle finger, sending it spinning away and through the wall. That was better than pressing the stupid ‘X’ in the corner.

‘Everything is fine.’

‘Elania, you fucking liar.’

She took a deep breath, then exhaled, before speeding out of the bathroom. On her way out, she grabbed her small manashard that went in a hidden pocket where she kept her coins.

As soon as she popped open the door, the noise from the common room assaulted her. That took some getting used to, but the doors had some type of artifice rune engraved on them that made them soundproof. The walls probably had them, too, now that she thought about it. It was just one of the few amenities that justified the Inn’s hilariously high price.

Not that Elania had stayed in a cheaper Inn before, the one at Waystation Four had cost just as much but was definitely a notch down from Olaf’s.

As she crossed out of the hallway and into the common room, she spotted Olaf pouring Henri some kind of drink in a big wooden mug. The alert innkeeper spotted her almost immediately, though, and he suddenly slid the mug down the counter and away to the guard’s protest.

Henri wasn’t pleased, “Hey!”

Elania couldn’t help but smile as Olaf poured the man a smaller cup of something else.

“What’s this?”

“Frujuice.”

“I thought---”

Elania slid onto the seat beside him. “Henri, you aren’t getting drunk again are you? You remember where we are going today right?”

“Oh, come on, it was just---”

Elania reached over and nabbed the cup, drinking the Frujuice in a single gulp before letting out an appreciative “Ahhhh” and slamming it down. “That was great, thanks Henri!”

“Ahem.” Olaf coughed and tapped the counter in front of her.

Olaf was terrific; the Inn was everything Harlock had said it was, the service and accommodations--- and the security couldn’t be beaten. It was chock full of people whose main source of employment was security. There was only one rule that couldn’t be forgotten or broken. The exchange and relationship was monetary in nature.

Elania nodded and slipped out one of her large silver coins and passed it to him quietly. It disappeared out of sight behind the counter gracefully without any further acknowledgment of the exchange.

Well, that was settled. She'd be welcomed to return again tonight.

She looked at Henri, “Let’s go!”

“You already slept in all morning, what’s the rush?”

“Isn’t it your job to keep an eye on me? So---I’m going~”

Olaf barked a laugh as he cleaned and polished the now empty glass.

“Never seen a ‘suspect’ turn a stakeout so throughly on her ‘investigator,’ Henri. Aren’t you worried about how you’re making The Guard look?”

Henri sighed and responded to the Innkeeper, but Elania had already headed for the door, and the sound was lost in the noise of the common room. She did hear Henri’s ‘Hey! Wait!’ when he finally realized she was already moving.

She turned, waved at him, then slipped through the front door without missing a beat, picking up the pace into a fast walk that would leave him chasing after her through the crowded street.

---

Artisan Row wasn’t that hard to find. Elania wasn’t sure how she had managed to get lost that first time she had searched for it.

‘Probably because I was so exhausted.’

She looked back over her shoulder, and sure enough, Henri turned the corner; she could tell he was out of breath. Every time she was about to lose him, she had stopped and waited long enough for him to catch another sight of her.

She waved at him once more, then pressed forward up to the guarded gate.

The two Ironfist mercenaries glared at her, but by now, they just let her in without a word. They shared an employer now, after all. Not that they had forgiven her for the thrashing she had given several of them. None of the mercenaries had died, though--- which was a miracle and probably curtailed a lot of what some of those glares said they wanted to do to her.

She quickly hurried past them without a word; she didn’t see Lucas there like he usually was. She quickly passed the third house on the row by and was almost to her destination when--

“Elania!”

She scrambled to a stop, jerking to the side to look at the voice calling her name.

“Think fast!”

She was terrible at this game; how Harlock knew that her father tormented her with it back home on Earth, and that he needed to take up the mantle, she had no clue. Still, with her ‘super-duper demon reflexes’ she almost managed to save herself. Almost.

A heavy piece of cloth fell on her head, covering her vision. She grabbed it and shook it off, but it was heavy.

“What the hell!”

“Girl, I told you, you need to pay more attention to your surroundings!”

The cloth was a darker olive green that matched her leathers, but it was definitely not just cloth. It had some weights sewn into it.

“What’s this?”

“It’s your cloak.”

“Why does it seem to have lead inside of it? You’re not telling me to run around with weighted clothing as training are you? That’s hella cliché.”

Harlock raised an eyebrow, “No, it has other uses, but that idea…”

“No, no, no. No way!”

“Hmmm.”

Elania turned to look back the way she had come; Henri was just passing through the gate.

A frown creased her face as she turned back to Harlock.

“Hey… has anyone spotted any sign of Tina?”

The grim look on the Sergeant's face told her the answer even before he spoke.

“No. I’m sorry, the men have been keeping an eye out, but spotting a specific orphan in the district… well…”

“Yeah, I know. I was hoping we could find and help her though.”

Even if Tina had been the catalyst that had set off events on her arrival, Elania didn’t blame her for the chaos and battle that followed. It had taken several days before Elania recovered and a few more before they had pieced together exactly what happened.

Shortly after Elania had left to go shopping, the girl left on her own, pockets full of Lucas’ rations. Elania had promised to feed her… and she had in a way. The girl probably figured that she had been abandoned again.

Tina leaving ‘her’ demon behind suddenly, that threw up all kinds of red flags to the mercenaries. The timing of the contract break was terrible as well.

Looking down, the binding menu popped up, a single press away from opening the map interface. She resisted the urge to open it and look again.

Elania shook her head. No point in dwelling on that.

“Let me know if anyone sees her, ok?”

“Sure thing, but about that training---”

Elania glanced back over her shoulder quickly; Henri was almost caught up, and he looked exhausted with sweat on his forehead and heaving with every breath.

“A-a-a- Nope! We’re going to go fill manashards today! Gotta go!”

She took off, still holding her new cloak over her shoulder. It didn’t actually flutter behind her, but that was probably because it was weighted.

“I think it is a good idea!”

Ha-ha. Elania didn’t turn around, and instead hurried to Rano-- Yolani’s Artifice.

The shop still had the sign, but someone had painted over the name. Badly.

She still wasn’t sure how the hell Neftasu law worked, but Yolani had ended up receiving the shop as ‘compensation’ for the destruction of hers.

Ranolf hadn’t survived the incident. Elania had missed a lot of the events directly after the fight, but Yolani had told her just how the vultures had arrived to pick apart the Master Artificer’s possessions.

“Henri! Just the man I wanted to see. I just had this crazy idea---”

‘Henri, I’m sorry!’

---

The door to the shop opened with the jingle of the bell, but the shelves and tables were bare. There weren’t any apprentices anymore, either. The Guard and the city had taken half of everything, and almost all the mana-shards and finished artifices; Yolani received the shop and a bare minimum of tools needed for the craft; The other shopkeepers had received all the spare parts, and the mercenaries--- they’d been paid in flesh.

Demons, apparently, had a common usage of being used to charge manashards. Feed them things, and they converted their essences into ‘Power’ that could then be extracted into manashards. It had been one of the ways Ranolf kept his hold over the row. The fees for charging manashards were worse when there was a manashard shortage, too.

It was the one reason Elania didn’t feel quite so bad for the man, even if the ‘demons’ hadn’t been of the human variety, the exploitation didn’t sit right with her. Even if it was pretty much her new job. At least she had a choice.

“Hello? Yolani?”

The front room was devoid of anyone. Maybe they were in the back. With no one to watch, Elania pulled up the map interface and signaled a single name with a very specific person in mind.

It remained blank. She knew it would, she’d tried it many times before. The only thing she could think of was that the girl was dead. How? Why? It didn’t make sense.

She knew what Harlock would say, that she was entirely too attached to some orphan she had only been with for a few hours, but…

Elania slid around the empty shelves and tables and crossed the room, before pulling the door to the ‘workshop’ open.

“No! Don’t ope---”

Something popped, and a thick coating of vicious red liquid splattered on everything and everyone, but most of it went in Elania’s face.

Chapter 54 - Dungeon (Part 1)

“What the heck!”

Elania’s first thought was that it was blood, but the red liquid smelled like oil and was too thick.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry! We were replacing the condenser and it’s sensitive to pressure fluctuations!”

Wiping whatever guck it was that the condenser needed off her face, Elania tried to keep a straight face as she eyed Yolani. Lucas was there holding some type of machine; he’d been spared most of the splatter but still had lines of the stuff on his armor.

Somehow none of it had hit Yolani.

“Is there a way to get this off?”

“Ahh! Towels, we have some for emergencies!”

Lucas coughed and pointed to an empty rack, “We used those yesterday.”

Elania shook her head, although the gesture was lost on anyone not from Earth.

“It isn’t flammable is it? Smells like some odd mix of gasoline and engine oil.”

“Gas-o-lean?” Yolani stammered over the strange word before saving them all from a fiery death, “It isn’t, unless---maybe a little if it dries.”

“Does the plumbing upstairs still work, or did they manage to take the nailed down things, too?”

“It’s still there.”

“You know, I just took a shower before coming over here.”

“I’m sorry!”

“No worries, I’ll go wash up, then Lucas can have a turn after.”

Elania headed for the steps that lead upstairs to where the living quarters were located, stopping as she took the first step to look back. Yolani was trying to fix whatever the thing was already.

“Put a sign on the door next time you’re going to work on something that explodes if the pressure of an opening door is going to cause it to explode. Actually, lock it!”

“They took the locks, too!”

It was a miracle they hadn’t taken the bell, now that Elania thought about it.

The upstairs wasn’t much of a living space now, either. Everything that had belonged to Ranolf had been taken. There were a few boxes that Elania had helped Yolani move from her destroyed shop that she had lived in with her father. Yolani hadn’t even started to unpack them.

While the pile didn’t amount to much, Elania was surprised that she had been able to salvage that much. The shopfront had ended up collapsing, and the quarters above had the floor give out and spill into the debris below. When Elania had examined the wreckage a few days later, she’d not have believed anyone if they said people had survived.

There was a towel in the bathroom. Yolani must have forgotten she put it there. Not that a towel was going to clean up her clothes very well. A quick test of the plumbing told her something unfortunate, though--- they’d stripped out the hot water faucet and replaced it with an unartifced fixture. All the water was going to be cold.

“Fuck!”

---

“Here.”

Elania tossed the slightly used towel to Lucas, who had already managed to clean most of the condenser fluid off somehow.

“Thanks, uhh. I’ll be right back.”

“There’s no hot water. Goodluck.”

He gave her a strange look, then disappeared upstairs.

“So, what’s this and aren’t we going to go to the dungeon today?”

“A customer stopped by this morning needing this fixed, and it should pay enough to get some things. We can go in a bit.”

Elania rolled her eyes, “Yes, well I figured that, but I really meant what was ‘this’--- we aren’t all Artificers you know?”

“Oh! It’s a condensor manifold. They act as regulators when a energy field becomes stressed and condense the power output of manashards into a denser form so the field can still operate under higher pressures. This is a small one someone probably uses to protect a single room or building!”

Elania eyed the thing. It was about the size of a car engine and looked just as complex to her. It didn’t quite look as heavy as a block of steel though, a lot of it seemed like it was made out of ceramic.

“I almost understood that.”

“So, it should only take about an hour to fix. Although we need to replace the fluids now. Then we can go hunt for shards and see if we can charge you up more.”

“Alright. Hey… have you… seen any of those glitches?”

Yolani looked at her with a bit of worry before tilting her head ‘no.’

“Do you want me to cancel the contract? Maybe that will…”

“No!” It came out a bit more forcefully than Elania had intended, and the other girl’s eyes widened a bit in surprise.

“Sorry… its just… I don’t want to…” Elania’s words came to a stuttering stop as Yolani came over and suddenly hugged her while patting her gently on the back.

“Hey. Hey. It will be alright. I didn’t mean I wanted to get rid of you.”

“I know… I’m sorry, it’s just…”

“Shhh. It’s ok.”

---

“That should do it.”

Elania wiped her forehead and let out a breath of air she hadn’t known she was holding. She had been half afraid it would explode again and cover them all with the condenser fluid a second time, even if it was empty.

Yolani handed her a spanner to tuck away before turning on Lucas.

“Lucas, go ask Artificer Terzan for a single unit of condensor fluid. Tell him I’ll repay him the stock value in manashard charges.”

“Uhh, alright. He’s the one a shop down, right?”

“Right. I saw him take a shipment of a lot of fluid a few days ago, so he should be happy with the trade.”

Well, that was solved, and Elania started collecting back her things that she had taken off while they were working. There really was no place for a weighted-down cloak or a shortsword while working on some kind of machine she still didn’t fully understand, even if her major role had just been holding parts or tools.

“Hey, Yolani?”

“Huh? Elania?”

“When I level up, I get another attribute point. Can you help me pick which one I take?”

“That’s…”

“You don’t have to, I was just… well I was looking at them last night and I’m not sure about what they do.”

“Oh, I’d love to help! It’s just not a thing people usually ask.”

“It might be tonight, I’m only one level away.”

“Well, when we get back, we can look over the choices then.”

Elania smiled; it was a relief to have the promise of help for something so important, especially when she didn’t have much confidence in knowing what each option entailed. Although choosing [Regeneration] seemed to have been a solid choice, so it wasn’t like she had a terrible track record. That decision had been made under pressure, though.

For some reason, the thought of choosing made her feel unconfident. Typically, if she had been rolling a character for a game, she would go through all the options and create a build that she was interested in. That was the problem, she realized.

‘This isn’t a game. A bad build doesn’t mean I lose a character. It means I’m dead.’

The realization made the suggested evening training bouts with Harlock for raising her skills seemed a lot more appealing, even if she wasn’t sure how smashing a metal stick into a wooden target would make her better at hitting things.

---

Elania let Yolani take the lead as they headed out onto the street. The other girl had been even faster than her at getting ready, although she didn’t have the same armor to put on. Her cloak only reached the middle of her back, probably because she didn’t want to worry about anything getting in the way of reaching the brace of Artificer wands hugging her waist.

“Why’d you have to run all the way here if you were just going to stay in the shop for two hours? Do you know what the sergant had me doing? Elania? Hello?”

Yolani in front, Henri behind her, she decided that she liked the middle position in their group, and if The Guard was going to ‘spy’ on her, she had no problem having Henri help as much as possible.

As the street cleared out and they moved at a good pace, Yolani looked back at them and started laying out the plan.

“So we’ll be starting at level 5 this time. The last one was just a dry run so Elania could get used to the system.”

“I still think we could have skipped that. We spent more time walking through the maze than actually doing anything.”

“Most people don’t ever go that far in the first place, though, and it was your first time. We aren’t exactly Delvers either, so we need to be careful.”

“You do realize I’m like 10 or 20% Darkwalker, or something right? I was killing those with a stick. Chasing over-sized rats and having a goblin for a boss wasn’t exactly thrilling.”

“Gosh, it wasn’t supposed to be ‘thrilling’ and we got your power up and charged a few manashards didn’t we?”

Elania sighed; it wasn’t that she thought Yolani was wrong. Elania just wanted to make more progress. She didn’t like the fact that she was still low on power or that they were barely scraping by on how many manashards they had left.

“I know, you’re right, I just… was hoping we’d be further along already.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get there.”

As they turned the corner, Henri finally spoke up, “Level 5? Goblins? Wait… you… we aren’t headed to the dungeon are we?”

Elania looked back and grinned, “Yep! I told you we were going to fill some manashards today.”

“But… but I thought you were going to pay to have them charged.”

Yolani laughed, “With what money? Your bosses didn’t actually leave anything for us to sell, remember?”

Elania nodded, but then turned back to smile at him, “But it was nice of them to leave you with us so you can help with some labor!”

“Uhh… I’m not sure that’s accurate, and look… I’m not sure I can go with you. I doubt the Syndicate is going to let a guardsman in.”

“Don’t worry, there are plenty of guardsmen who moonlight as delvers you know. Although… you probably should stuff your tabard in a pack if your going to keep following Elania. It isn’t that far to Syndie territory.”

Henri actually stopped and looked around, and then the speed at which he pulled the white guard tabard over his head and stuffed it in his shoulder bag made Elania giggle.

“Great, now you’re undercov---”

A sudden massive crack echoed from across the street. Elania started to throw herself to the ground before she realized what it was. A wagon had slipped loose of its brake while a few laborers were unloading and began to roll down an incline before slamming into a wall.

Yolani didn’t miss her sudden reaction, “Elania, are you alright?”

Embarrassment flooded Elania’s cheeks, no one else had almost dived for cover, and she shook her head.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let’s keep going…”

There weren’t any more distractions as they walked across the city. It didn’t feel quite as long a walk to Elania this time around. Maybe that was because last time, she’d been hovering just over empty on her Power gauge with only a few charges from Yolani’s manashards to keep her going. Or maybe it was just that she was more familiar with the city, and everything in the Merc’ Dist was starting to look the same.

Even during the day, the streets weren’t nearly as crowded as she remembered in the Artisan District. She wasn’t sure why that was the case, especially since she had been told that there were more people in the Merc’ Dist than the rest of the city combined. Regardless of the reason, it made traveling in a group a bit easier, at least while they were on the side streets.

As soon as they started nearing the square that held the dungeon entrance, Elania started to pick up the subtle drone of a lot of people. Yolani had warned her that there were usually a lot more people than the first time they had went. It had been much later in the evening. Nothing really prepared her for the huge crowd and several long lines that entered into view.

Chapter 55 - Dungeon (Part 2)

Elania coughed and tried to blink away the blur in her eyes as dust, and the shouting of men filled her senses. It took a few seconds before she realized she was on her back, head nestled on another girl's lap. As the face came into focus, she felt a slight familiarity, but her fuzzy head couldn't come up with a name.

"You're pretty."

It was a stupid comment, the other girl's face was covered in soot and ash, and her long dark hair had come loose into a tangled mess. It was the first thing that came to Elania though, and served to draw Yolani's attention from the nearby activity of the Guards clearing the rubble.

Yolani, that was her name.

Rather than answer her inane comment, Yolani looked down and frowned, pressing a mana shard onto Elania's forehead. It was a tiny crystal, barely able to hold a couple of units of charge, but Elania noted her power gauge greedily consumed everything it contained.

"What did you do?" The questioning hiss that came out was somehow admonishment and incredulousness mixed into one, and Elania didn't know how to respond.

She barely remembered what had even happened. What had she done? Blown up the ones trying to kill them? Them? Hadn't she been alone for a long time?

"I signed the contract. Somehow there's so much confusion no one knows what's going on."

Elania tried to answer and sit up but moving and talking proved not to be an option. That was alright, Yolani's lap wasn't unpleasant, and she was too tired to worry about anything else.

The small trickle of Power worked to heal her more, and the last thing she remembered before passing out again was Yolani's face.

---

"Why are there so many people now?" Elania frowned as she looked over the large crowd that had gathered. There were so many more people at the Dungeon entrance than before that it looked like a riot in the making.

"Most of them are buying yesterday's haul. Everything that comes out of the Dungeon is usually useful to someone. The Syndicate taxes not just any money or shards that come out, but goods as well, remember?"

Elania did remember, but the scale was way more than she had imagined. They'd done the first level, which was for complete beginners, and they'd seen nothing more than a few weak goblins and oversized rats. She'd done her best to drain the Power out of them, despite the fear of gaining their affinity, but it turned out the monsters inside the Dungeon weren't entirely natural.

Or at least that was her theory because when they had gone back in for a second run, things were almost the same. Just as if it had been a game resetting the level for them. She had been told the first level always reset like that, and that was why new runners always tested themselves on it first, to make sure they had a handle on things before moving on to deeper floors that were more random and dangerous.

"And others can be on the same level of floor as us, and we won't run into each other?"

"Only on the transition floors at the end of every five levels can you run into another party, that's why we will only go down to Level 5 today, there can be… dangers running into others."

Yolani cut off her explanation as they started to bypass the line and a large man stepped in front of them.

"No cuts in line, not even for a pretty girl like you."

"We're delvers, not customers." Yolani pulled her arm back, moving her cloak away and lightly resting her hand on her 'Gunwand' while not backing down at all.

Magic-users, in general, were held in a bit of awe by most people, Elania had gathered. Artificers themselves were considered a type of one, with a reputation of being a bit more unhinged than most considering their ability to accidentally destroy things.

It wasn't an unwarranted stereotype from everything Elania had seen, although she was sure Demons were seen in a much worse light. She didn't end up needing to step forward and adding any more menace, though, as the guard's frown quickly turned neutral, and he gave way motioning them forward.

There weren't enough delvers compared to customers to need a line, the Dungeon readily accepting as many people into its maws as would dare to enter it.

That didn't mean they didn't get held up, though, as the Syndicate had a checkpoint right under the entrance. Even if they weren't from The Guard, they still had the same appearance as guardsmen, the post manned by five men, all of a respectable level in the 300s. She was sure there were a lot more roaming around in the crowd out of sight, or even stationed within bowshot or magic attack range in the numerous buildings surrounding the square.

Essentially, the Syndicate had the area on constant lockdown. Going against their rules regarding the Dungeon was in the same category of bad idea as trying to break through one of the city entrances.

From Elania's point of view, there wasn't much difference between the way the Syndicate had their checkpoint set up and how the city had the Guard along the border, except that the magic barrier was missing. The tax was different, too. Rather than pay money or mana…

A bored bald man with a notebook picked up a quill, "Leader, Team, Floor?"

“Yolani Devon, Artificer, 78. Elania Reyes, Lesser Demon, 49. Henri, Fighter, 278. Fifth."

"Just the Fifth?"

"Yes."

All of that was public knowledge to anyone with [Identify] so Elania wasn't sure why he bothered to ask, but he wrote it down as Yolani spoke dutifully. Maybe it was just some sort of formality.

"Tax will be two small shards or one monster core. Or fifty percent of what you find, whatever is more."

Yolani nodded, but the man continued.

"Any attempt to avoid paying the tax on return will result in an immediate judgement against you by law and subject you to the penalties of indenture until your debt is repaid. Cost of keeping and maintaining your indenture will be subtracted from any income derived from—"

"We know the penalty, you don't need to go over all of it."

He glowered but waved them on toward the large gates. They likely didn't open very often, Elania realized; two smaller doors built into the gate were more in-line with their group size. She wondered if someone had ever sent a group large enough to need the castle-sized gates or if they were only there for show.

The large square room had no other entrances or exits. A circular raised dais sat in the center; five pedestals sat in an X formation in the center of it, each one corresponding to a different level. Two Syndicate guards were leaning against the far wall, bored out of their minds as far as Elania could tell. They didn't even bother straightening up as the group entered.

No one else was present anyway; if there were any other Delvers, they'd already departed. The room was considered a 'transition' floor, and they were all essentially the same. There was one at the end of every fifth level, allowing delvers to skip four floors if they chose.

Elania didn't really have any opinion on the way it worked one way or another. It was almost sort of boring; she'd seen the same thing in a lot of video games before. Who or whatever had built the system of the Dungeon had been unoriginal in that regard. It pretty much defaulted her attention on one thing: how much Power she could suck out of the mobs and whatever mana crystals they could collect.

There wasn't much point in philosophizing about it when survival was a much more closer worry.

Yolani led the way to the central pedestal, and Henri and Elania followed close behind. There wasn't anything fancy required, although they all needed to be touching when she pressed down on the red orb.

The transfer was anti-climatic, the world just bent slightly, and then Elania's ears popped, the guards suddenly blinking out of sight despite not much else changing. The transition rooms seemed to be largely copies of each other. A large opening replaced a wall leading down a dark ruined hall.

"Henri can take the front. He should be able to kill pretty much everything on his own."

"What?"

Yolani pulled out a stick and tapped the tip of it, a white light bursting into life.

"I'll hold this, so you can see."

"I'm still at the part where I am supposed to kill everything. I'm just supposed to watch---"

"You're spying on Elania for The Guard. Writing down where and what she is doing every hour in that little notepad of yours. We make it easy for you to keep track of her. Now's the time for you to make it up to us."

"I'm really not supposed to be interfering, though."

"We're both resource intensive classes. You're not. It's free swing a sword around, it costs money for me to blast things, and if Elania gets hurt or has to use her Power it will cost even more."

"If I get hurt, I don't actually heal—and swinging a sword isn't free! It takes a lot out of someone to fight."

"We'll feed you something on the way back."

"Somehow, I feel like I'm being abused."

"If something dangerous appears, I'll take it out with my gunwand. If there's a big group Elania will assist you. It's only the fifth level, it'll be fine. Doesn't The Guard pay the Syndicate for those big training exercises every year for the new recruits?"

"Yes, and it's a huge waste of time. The goblins on the first level aren't anything like the real ones outside the city."

"Well, it's the first time a lot you do any real fighting, and it's super safe, so it seems pretty smart."

"You didn't hear our Captain complaining about how much gold it cost, though."

Elania started to hum to herself happily as Yolani and Henri kept chattering back and forth. She'd picked up a lot just listening, and she smiled as a happy feeling lightened her step. She was grateful that she'd taken that step into Yolani's shop.

Oh, the fight and almost dying part was pretty bad, but finding Yolani and having her on her side had saved her from probably making a lot more mistakes and flailing about.

It also felt good to know what she needed to do and having a purpose other than 'just keep going and hope to survive.'

Rebuild her power base, which was a lot harder inside the city than outside of it, for the obvious reasons that there weren't wild animals or monsters everywhere for her to drain.

Help Yolani build her shop up, which was definitely an excellent way to repay the other girl for having literally dropped a bomb on her last one.

Listen to everyone talk, which helped her build up her knowledge of the world around her. That wasn't always easy, but she was starting to figure things out, minus the strange bits about herself.

Then she needed to build up her equipment and possessions; even though they were collecting the mana crystals, they were generally too precious to let her eat, compared to getting gold to purchase supplies or paying taxes, so that was a slow process. Still, she had squirreled away one shard with Yolani's blessing so far.

Then there was---

Henri interrupted her thoughts when he suddenly stopped, and Elania almost bumped into his back.

"Goblins. Two. Sword and spear."

Elania had her knife out, and Yolani already had her wand in hand just in case. Both the girls nodded, and Henri continued forward, his sword leading the way with the light stick held up in his other.

Elania could see the two green things before the light ever touched them. The two creatures spotted them well before then as well. They looked just like the goblins Elania had seen in the ruins before reaching the city, small green creatures with warts and growths on their skin, along with primitive loincloths and weapons.

As soon as the light touched them, it acted as some sort of signal, and the two monsters screeched rabidly and charged without any tactic at all.

That was the huge difference between the goblins outside the city and the ones from the Dungeon. Henri had mentioned it earlier, and she had noted it herself.

These had no sense of self-preservation, completely mindless in their assault. Still, Elania braced herself and prepared to jump to either of Henri's flanks if one got around, but she needn't have bothered.

The sword-bearer jumped into the air with a wild swing, and the spear one tried to stab from below, but a single swing from Henri smashed the airborne one down on top of the spear wielder. The result was the disarmament of them both. A swift follow-up coup de grace ended both of them, and the whole exchange only took a few seconds.

"I told you. Level five. Easy."

"Fine, fine. If a dozen show up, I expect you to save me."

"You know the limit is five for this level, even in the final room."

Elania moved forward and put her hand on the goblins. She'd gotten over being squeamish at the thought of absorbing things.

The result though was the other big red flag Elania knew that the things in the Dungeon were somehow different, artificial.

She usually pulled a few dozen units of Power out of a Darkwalker. A bit less for something like a Ralfot. Goblins, she figured, should be somewhere in between.

In the Dungeon everything only gave her a single point of Power. She'd even had a few that only drew partial points or didn't even move the counter. She hoped they'd give a bit more once on a harder floor, but as she watched the corpses disintegrate, Elania's power gauge barely budged.

[Hud]

Power: 67 / 277

Level: 49

Clock: 9:39

She only gained one point from the two of them. Actually, she corrected herself, probably two points. Her natural drain rate probably had expunged one, and they'd made up the difference. She still needed to collect at least two hundred more before she'd be at 'normal' strength.

"Wow, that's handy. I won't need to clean anything up from this?"

Elania smiled up at Henri, who had been about to wipe his blade, and nodded. "Saves a lot of cleaning."

Yolani was grinning just as much as the first time Elania had shown her. The Artificer couldn't help but poke at Henri some more, "See, no reason to complain now. Lead the way, goblin slayer."

He grumbled, but they started down the path again.