“The Lizardkin left a lot here when they fled but nothing more valuable than some gold gold and silver necklaces and bracelets” Master Netlor said as he stood on the first step leading to the sealed stone doors behind him.
Cid looked over to his teammates to see how disappointed they were. He had really hoped to have found something in here, they did get to keep a percentage of what others found here as a finding fee.
“And the doors?” Jax asked.
He stood with his helmet off and his long white hair in a loose ponytail. The cave was warm and Jax was wearing a light, simple but dark red City State lavalava around his waist with his bronze colored chest plate, greaves and vambraces over bare skin. Both of his arms showed dark bands of complex tattoos. All in black ink and earned by his years of service for his city, Falfou. His large round shield was leaning against his rucksack on the ground next to him where his helmet sat.
Master Netlor let out a soft trill of excitement. “We will attempt to open them today shortly. Once again Helmric wished me me to convey his gratitude for your patience. I know it's been days since you found this but the discovery of an intact Jade Temple and one with a living golem from the time of Desanigh’s fall is significant for everyone, but especially for the Kimber as a people. The good and troubling news is that these doors seem simple to open but that the Lizardkin never attempted it tells this old adventurer to prepare for trouble.”
“And we will be some of the first in?” Jax asked, leaning on his short spear.
“Your [Thief] may do the honors himself if you wish, there is a simple enchanted dial on the left door about three feet up. The Master Enchanter said you turn it nine complete times to the left. Just give me a few more more minutes to set up everyone” Master Netlor said before he walked off to get the large party organized.
“What an honor” Cid said as he rolled his eyes after Master Netlor left.
“What’s to worry about kit, just an ancient city turned dungeon that the Lizardkin have lived next to for thousands of years but never opened the door to. Sounds perfectly safe.” Daggron said, smiling. The sea elf had his full armor on but only a simple cloth wrap as hair cover to hold his shoulder length hair back.
“We can ask one of the Gold’s to do it. You’ve heard them complain that they are doing all this work and only Coppers and Silvers have struck it big.” Jax said before pulling his canteen and drinking some water.
“I’ll do it” Cid said. He was excited but it was worrisome that the way to open the doors was so easy. Nothing else about this dungeon has been easy so far. He could feel his right half ear twitch in worry. It was the more active of his two Harekin ears. He turned to overlook the Lizardkin village seeing a few blocks of large buildings. These had all been used as communal spaces or so it had seemed with the cave wall dwellings being homes. There were almost a hundred adventures picking over the village now with the few Copper teams and two bronze teams up on the village walls. Earning a good day's pay as security.
It had been a long nine days since they discovered this cave. Cid’s team had played silver to the Stone Eaters gold over that time. Who cares about a Lizardkin village and another doorway into the dungeon proper when you find ancient relics and the Jade Temple. Why open another door to the dungeon when you can enter the Jade Temple and fight monsters and horrors from legend and return with legendary relics.
Cid shouldn't curse their luck; they had paid for it the same way his team had. Now with the second wave of adventurers settled in and another two days before his meeting with this living golem, Helmric has seen fit to make Cid’s team's discovery a priority.
“The rumors of what's really down here are getting pretty crazy with the return of the wonder team,” Cid said.
“Minotaurs, Demons and miles of underground city that survived while the world ended above them. Sounds like normal dungeon things” Daggron said with a sly smile on his face. His blue skin tone showing bright today under all the light.
Their team had visited two well known dungeons in the past and had been on their way to a third when they had heard the call for this Expedition. Having cleared Kia’s Dungeon and the Lost Seas one near the City States they had done more than most when it came to things like this and while they were still only a Silver rank team they had expected that to change as soon as they hit level 20 but now with Mia dead Cid was just hoping to keep the team together. He felt more anxious that Jax would leave the team than he did about opening those doors, but just barely and he began to hop from foot to foot.
“Well let's play this straight, I have no idea what to expect behind those doors. Between the pit trap and the village we have some money but not enough to cover our loses” Jax said as he put on his helmet and got ready for a fight.
Cid tapped both his daggers. He had lost one fighting the Woolly Spiders and the teams that had gone down into the pit traps on either side of the bridge room that lead here had not found it yet. Yesterday his team had made the effort themselves to strip the arrow traps from that room and had found ten very interesting stones after Cid had spent an hour on each side climbing the walls and anchoring himself to the wall to rest his enchantments and his muscles. The stones were clearly magical but somehow they held a specific type of magic and passed that on to the bolts. They were a little bigger than his thumbs finger nail.
He held the stone in his pocket that had given the bolts that hollow white light magic that had sometimes killed without leaving a mark on its victims or had caused great pain to them. It seemed so strange to him but familiar somehow. He wondered what aspect of magic it was imbuing the bolts with.
It took another hour to get everyone in place and for Master Netlor to feel good that they were set to handle a small army on the other side. Four new Gold teams and six other Silver teams were in position to throw down an army's worth of death.
Cid walked up the steps and stood before the massive thirty foot doors. Each was at least ten feet wide and had detailed drawings of tiny Kimber in a city set in a giant cave-like place. He could only imagine that it depicted a part of Desanigh. There was writing on the door themselves but Cid ignored it for the dial on the left door. It looked like a hand sized nine pointed star that was on top of a much larger nine pointed star. There were symbols at the point of each of the large stars but Cid, the street hare trusted the Enchanters and Wizards when it came to magic. He only knew how to get around it.
Double checking with his team and Master Netlor to see if all was still good to go he waited for their nods before he turned the dial to the left completing one full circle, when nothing happened he turned it again. It was only on the last turn that something changed.
He was on his toes ready to spring backwards if needed as he brought his second hand up to help turn the dial one last time. He began to sweat as he had half a turn left. He planted both his feet firmly on the stone doorway and put his full weight and muscle into turning it up, back to its starting position. As he grunted and struggled, the points of the nine pointed star dug into his gloves. It caught there at the very end as if something was blocking it from moving that last bit when suddenly a loud snap rang out and the doors shook, dust and dirt falling down on Cid as he jumped back to the edge of the doorway.
The faint slow ringing of a bell could be heard but not from their side of the door but from the cities side
“Shit” Cid said as he pulled both his daggers out and crouched low. He would be the first one into the city but he did not want to get trampled but whatever was on the other side.
When the bell rang for the ninth time the two massive black stone doors in front of him swung fully open. One second dirt and dust was everywhere and then with the doors slightly swinging open the air pressure changed and a gust of wind pushed at Cid and cleared the doorway and the entrance into the city of Desanigh.
Before Cid as the small dust cloud parted lay the city of Desanigh or a part of it. The doors opened inward and he stood above it and saw what looked to be hundreds of buildings if not thousands. Some as tall as three stories where they ended well below the incredible craven ceiling. It glittered with thousands of different crystals of different sizes, shapes and colors. They must be huge, Cid thought as he slowly walked forward to see into the city better. What light came from Dungeon Moss and other sources Cid could not tell from where he stood refracted across the space hundreds of times casting it into a bright rainbow of colors with Dungeon Moss’s steady bluish light dominating.
Below lay a true city as he passed through the doors. He saw wide roads and blocks of housing, what must have been a park or a square. Large warehouses and clear shops lay around them. It was mostly intact which Cid found surprising. From where he stood he could see deep crevasse that cut through a part of the city to the left of him. They cut through buildings and other structures but he could see clearly that there was no rumble around them. As if someone had cleared the streets of it. He followed it back to the wall of the cave near him and he saw that the wall was not natural but rubble from the city. Starting from that spot on the left he swept his vision quickly along the edge of the space as quickly as he could. He stopped as he saw another large door that hung above the city to his left like his did with stone stairs made out of rubble leading to them. It looked to be around five miles away. This place was huge for a cave and it looked like it was only part of Desanigh.
Cid brought his focus back to his own area and swept the inner side of the doorway he had crossed. There was a little landing here before the rubble built stairs leading down to a plaza. There were clear open roads from the plaza but then other alleyways and roads were cut off with large rubble walls blocking them. As he focused he saw that there were only six ways out of the plaza that lay at the foot of the stairs he found himself on, the rest having been sealed off as well as many of the doors and windows of the buildings facing the plaza. He saw some movement in the air above him. Bats he could tell, thousands of them and some seemed very large.
He heard a beast cry and then another bellow from a different location in challenge. Cid thought he heard falling water from somewhere. This place had a lot of life in it and it had been prepared. He expected traps and danger but with no army of Undead or Minotaurs to greet him his fear was waning and his excitement grew. This place looked interesting. He backed away from the ruins of Desanigh and back into the Lizardkin village side to report what he had seen and to hopefully start looting an ancient city of horror and wonder.
Cid walked the perimeter of the wide plain stone plaza at the foot of the ninth door into Desanigh. It was clear that this plaza had not been here till after the fall of the city, its flat many shades of grey and white stone showed where foundations and walls had been. Someone or lots of somones Cid thought had put a lot of effort into clearing this space and building the steps to the door that sat above the city.
Those mysterious builders had also used the rubble of the former buildings to block dozens of roads and alleyways around it, limiting their way out to six ways. Four were roads, two heading deeper into the city while two more were roads that shadowed the cave walls, one heading off their door with a few city blocks between them and the walls.
He passed one of the many blocked alleyways and saw random bricks and stones packed dry, without mortar towering to the roofs of the buildings on either side. They had sent people to explore the roofs and the blocked roadways. They had piled the rubble high behind each blocked way, some as thick as entire buildings while the roads behind them were littered with detritus while the roads left open had been cleared. It all looked like a deliberate maze and been made. Cid doubted there could be many traps as there was a lot of life here with bat shit everywhere. Not as much as you would expect with such an old place. So the bats were relatively new or something was eating it or cleaning up after them.
Cid expected that anything of value had been stripped from the ruins and piled up or used by whoever had turned this into a dungeon. He neared one of the two alleyways that had been left open and his There Be Gold Here sense from this Adventurer Title pulled at him. He had felt multiple pulls on him on his first walk around the perimeter meaning that there was still a lot of wealth left here and that it had been collected. This was the strongest his Title ability had ever pulled at him since he had it. Treasure was near and there was a lot of it. Not artifacts as he had learned in the past, well there could be artifacts but his title didn't pick up on them actual gold and silver.
Most adventurers wanted to get a danger senses ability or something similar with their Adventurer Title. This was better, knowing that one path vs another lead to gold was always useful, especially for a Thief and while walking away with a sword worth 10,000 gold was easier than walking away with 10,000 gold, the gold was always useful while the sword could take a year to sell.
He walked back to the foot of the steps where Master Netlor had set up his portable table to work from. A young Kimber man in plain chainmail and with off white fur with a short and older red haired human woman in a riding dress worked on a large map they were putting together of the area as adventurers had explored it for the last hour doing short trips down each path.
Daggron and Jax had seen him return from his walk around and knew that he had sniffed something out so they got up from the step they had been sitting on nearby and met him around the table. Three Gold ranked team captains got up from where they had been sitting to hear what they had chosen.
They had all been waiting on him and Cid knew his ears were twitching from the attention.
“So have you decided?” Master Netlor said as he trilled with anticipation.
“I have, we will take the alleyway to the right” He said as he pointed out the small alleyway to the top right of the plaza using the door behind them as reference.
“Will you request any support with you?” Netlor asked.
Cid looked at Jax who just stared back at him. Fine, it seemed it was his decision.
“No Master Netlor we will be going solo” Cid said. He had not seen anything but that meant little.
“We will take the far left road then” Nathen Hawk cut in. He was Captain of the Gold ranked team Lagoon’s Forge. A northern team that had come down from Abigail to join the expedition.
Before anyone else could cut in, Master Netlor raised both his right hands. “Patentice, we know who has the next pick, lots have been been drawn. Jax, I will give you a two hour head start before I let other teams follow after you. After today the choice is first come first serve. Your right of first find for this entrance has been met. My plan is to make the Lizardkin village our base base of operations for the city's exploration. We will assume you are dead or in danger if you do not come back in 12 hours. Return before that and not bring a tide of monsters down on us. Bunker in a space and use a red signal light for monster attack and a yellow one for needing help but not under attack. Understood”
“Yes sir” Jax said before turning and leaving.
“Good luck adventurers” Master Netlor said as he turned to deal with the Gold ranked captains.
Cid let another team pass as people saw that they were being cut loose. No matter the danger this was the best opportunity many of these teams would have. An ancient city that was new to the world and as far as they knew no one had touched in four thousand years. Once in a millennium opportunity if that.
Jax and Daggron joined him as they walked to the alleyway he had chosen and waited until they were distant enough not to be overheard.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“So” was all Jax asked.
“I got a lot of pulls, I think whoever made this gathered the wealth of the city up into treasurer piles all over the place. A sense of direction is usually all I get but I feel like I could point out a few with how strong the sense is.”
“So is this one the closest or the strongest?” Jax asked. He was in his full armor and was ready for a fight.
“A little of both, it's the strongest I could sense but that might be because the others are massive treasures that are just miles away. How far ahead do you want me” Cid asked as they neared the alleyway.
“Shouldn't need to go too far. There is a lot of life here Jax” Daggron said.
He had a simple mace hanging from his adventurers belt as well as only a few battle potions he had been able to buy for his lost or used ones. Luckily they had all been able to get two healing potions each from the new merchants but battle potions or their ingredients were tougher to get a hold on.
“What do you think?” Jax asked Cid.
“I think it should be clear for the most part, so a dozen feet or so should be fine Jax” He scratched the oily and dirty fur on his right check with his human hand. He would need a bath after this.
He entered the alleyway and scanned the surroundings looking for any sign of a trap. There was a small layer of bat dung covering most of the flat magically smoothed grey stone floor. Groves of what looked to be hand cart sized wheels could be seen down the middle of the alleyway.
It was no more than eight feet wide and had been clearly a back alleyway. Just a few feet in from the entrance from the plaza they found signs of life. Dungeon Moss grew up on the right side of the alleyway, covering most of a building. A set of doors would have led into the building but the doorway was filled almost to its top with rumble.
As Cid moved along he found signs of rats, bats, slimes and other creatures or smaller monsters. All the back doors or windows had been filled in. The alleyway continued straight for two blocks until it intersected a road and from its size a decent size one. A pile of rubble at least as high as the buildings around it blocked the road on one side. So they had to turn left down the road. As the party had made good time here Cid kept going. He had not seen any sign of traps and the animal life had not worried him. He could see that several alleyways on either side had been blocked off and that a wall of rubble lay across the road they were on a few blockers down. So a dead end or there would be a turn further up.
With the houses and buildings on either side of this section of road Cid could get a better feel of how the city looked. Two or three story buildings were common. They all shared outer walls and had lots of windows. All the first floor ones and many of the second ones have been filled in. Some of the third floor ones still had glass in them while most were broken. The fronts of the buildings all had little patios in front of them with what looked like little fountains or flower beds. Wild cave plants and mushrooms along with Dungeon Moss grew out of these old beds and covered many of the buildings. Cid thought that the buildings once had painted fronts with lingering signs of green, red, blue and even yellow on their walls all around.
He was quickly moving his eyes over the open third floor windows ahead of him and that building's room line when one of the many vines crisscrossing the road wrapped around his left leg and pulled his feet out from under him as it pulled him towards the left.
He yelled in surprise, hitting the stone surface hard and causing his left arm to seize up as he landed on that elbow.
Jax’s spear flew through the air and just as Cid was able to roll himself onto his back he saw the spear cut through the wrist thick vine. Scrambling back away from where it had been pulling him Cid pulled his right dagger out and cut the vine that still held tight to his leg.
He was on his feet as Cid and Daggron got to him and the large mushroom man stood up in front of him. It had looked like another plant in an overgrown patio when he had passed it by in his screening. Now it stood six feet tall with two thick arms and three short stubby legs. All looking like thick mushroom parts while a dozen vines emerged from its back. Its mushroom top looked like it would be its head but it had no eyes Cid could see but it had a giant teeth filled mouth in the center of its body.
“What the ill dredged bottom fiend is that” Daggron said with a mace in his left hand and one of his battle potions in his right.
“Cid” Jax asked.
“No idea, but mushroom like men are common in the deepest and largest caves.”
“No risks, back up you two and lets see if it burns” Jax said as he held his spear in his right hand with its point just past his large shield which he put between them and it.
Backing up and watching their sides so they wouldn't be surprised by another he barely caught as Daggron threw a Flame Splash potion.
The mushroom monster had walked forward only slightly as its many vines hand moved much faster to surround them. As Daggron’s potion flew through the air the monster moved to the side while a vine whipped out to push aside the potion. The vine struck the potion so hard it shattered it there in mid air which caused it to explode and ignite the Flame Splash liquid.
Cid stopped as did his other two teammates as the small splash of burning liquid set the entire vine afire and within two seconds the entire mushroom monster was burning. It let out a shriek of pain as it began to run blindly. They watched it bounce off a patio fence and then run straight back into the front of the building it had just been sitting in front of. Hitting the wall hard enough it knocked itself to the ground as it burned
They backed up as it rolled on the ground now all its vines a flame and twisting in the air. Its dying cry caused other similar mushroom monsters to appear all along the street. They had been hiding and it seemed they could not see well but could hear and feel as they sent out vines to the shrieking burning monster.
Cid and his team had to go all the way back to where they had turned onto this larger road as a dozen burning mushroom men ran or rolled around the street ahead of them. They had managed to set each other on fire and sent fleeing all the other living things that could move away.
“That first one took a long time to burn to death, not sure if it would be this easy to kill without the fire” Cid said as he silently watched the last of the monsters stop moving. A greasy yellowish smoke burned off their bodies. Cid was glad they had backed away so far.
“No, one of them is at least a Bronze rated threat and a pack of them like that is Silver if not Gold.” Jax said as he watched.
“Gold, we would have to run if more than three attacked us. Even before I didn't think we could handle five. Well to be fair they are very weak to fire so maybe a group of them like this is only Bronze worthy.” Daggron said as he took a sip of water from a canteen before putting it back on his belt.
They waited another fifteen minutes letting the air clear before they moved back down the road. They found no more mushroom men or anything else besides those third floor windows. They decided to check on their way back if they didn't find anything. They figured they only had an hour left of their two hour head start.
When they reached the end of this road where a wall of rubble twenty feet high was above them they turned to the left this time heading back towards the plaza but much further into the city. They found this alleyway much like they had the first one, no traps but lots of little life.
Cid was approaching the end of the alleyway where it connected to a large road they would have to turn right on once again the road blocked on one side.
“Stop,” Daggron said from behind him.
Cid froze thinking he was about to set off a trap but the tone in Daggron’s voice hit him. Smug. The sea elf was smug. Cid spun now more worried than ever only to see the smile on Daggron’s face. His bright clean white elf teeth came out in force as his smile spread across his face.
He was standing very near the wall of the building that made up the right side of the alleyway. A large building that did not have a door or window that had been filled in as it was a solid wall of stone. Cid looked up at the building and it was a story higher than any around it and at least fifty feet high. The base of the building was made up of three foot thick stones that were almost six feet in length.
“What is it” Jax said as he looked at Daggron, seeing his smile and the wall before turning to Cid.
“He found something that I missed”
“Yes I did kit, come see”
They stood next to the wall of the building and just behind Daggron and as he pointed to the wall. There was a faint but perfectly straight vertical line no more than six inches long but clear as day at this angle, in the middle of the large stone block. There were shadows cast from the light above but not enough to hide details like this.
“A hidden door?” Jax asked as he tapped the wall near the line with his spear.
“Yes, back off, let me check” Cid said as he got near the line. It was a few feet up and he put his good left ear against the spot. He could hear the faintest sound of air moving. He took out his newly bought dagger and used its cheap tip to slowly trace out the door. It was bigger than he expected, at least seven feet tall and six wide. He looked back towards the road they were approaching, maybe sixty feet away.
“In plain sight of the street there so maybe it wasn't meant to be secret as much as secure. Help me find the keyhole or lever” Cid said as he ran his right hand against the stone near the door.
It took him a good thirty minutes before he found the keyhole and it was more luck than skill that he had found it. It was on the wall opposite the door, a wall for a different building but the keyhole was four feet up, a good height for a Kimber and behind a visibly loose brick that had no motter around it.
His detect magic wand had indicated that the lock was magic which made him smile. His Class Ability that he had gotten at Level 10 with his [Thief] class was Magic Lock Pick. So Cid didn't remove his roll of thief tools he kept at the small of his back but just removed his right glove.
“Ready”
“Do it” Jax said as he stood in front of the door Shield held high.
Cid put his right pointer finger against the complex looking keyhole and activated Magic Lock Pick. He felt the Ability tattoo on the backside of his left hand, in the middle of the hand below all his other Ability tattoos tingle as it activated.
A seemingly solid bar of magic left his right pointer finger, as thick as his finger and entered the keyhole, quickly molding itself to fit. Cid quickly worked the lock until he felt the magic lock pick click into place. He turned his finger unlocking the door as he heard shifting behind him.
He waited for the door to fully open behind him before he turned off his ability and withdrew his finger. He felt his There Be Gold Here title ability activate as he looked into the dark space behind the doors.
Daggron threw in two light marbles lighting the space up. Light reflected all around the room as Cid quickly got in front of Jax and with both daggers out and slowly walked into the space. It was clearly a loading area where small carts or wagons could be unloaded or loaded. The floor space was big enough for a few side by side and then the next floor was only three feet up and circled the smaller alleyway level area. On that unloading space stood dozens of chests and crates. Some of them having been knocked over and their contents spilled out.
Cid could feel his throat run dry as he looked over the area. It was gold, gold coins and silver bars and other things. Gems and bars of other metal were everywhere and that was only what he could see from the open crates where heaping piles of it all spilled out. Cid stepped in front of the gold blind sea pirate causing him to walk into Cid’s back.
“What the hells” Daggron said.
“Cid’s right, keep your head Daggron. This isn't our first time. No reason for us to lose it all because you activate some Superior spell trap.” Jax said softly. The sight had struck him hard also.
Cid wanted to count it all. It looked like hundreds of thousands of gold and silver. The haul of a lifetime.
Cid’s old street thief instincts finally overcame his shock at the sight. “We need to see if the door will open and close again and someone needs to watch the alleyway to see who or what's coming. We might have awoken some sleeping guardians but if not them then a bunch of Silvers and Bronze will be behind us soon.”
“Good thinking. Check for traps, take your time but we won't test the door again until you do. Daggron, stay here and watch the alleyway and Cid’s back. I am going to go recruit some Bronze and Silver potters” Jax said as he turned for the door back to the alleyway.
“What why” both Cid and Daggron almost shouted the question together.
Jax laughed and then looked at both of them seriously. “Don’t go gold crazy on me. There are thirty three crates and chests we can see here by my count. There is no way we could haul this out in one go and no way would we get away with hauling everything we can carry by yourself more than once or twice. Our best bet to maximize what we keep my greedy teammates is to go hire the teams following us. For what a hundred gold coins a person? And then all of us get to haul this out in a dozen trips. Backed by multiple teams and the Expedition's blessing because they get 30% of this. So no Gold or foolish Silver team gets any ideas? Be thorough Cid, no mistakes but we are on a time limit.” He was out the door seconds later and Daggron put himself in view of Cid as he stood out in the alleyway. Cid just looked around the space he found himself and the piles of yet uncounted wealth and smiled. Some days it was good to be an adventurer.
***
Summer hated being a Bronze ranked adventurer in situations like this, having to wait their turn and always being third one in. She understood the reasons why but at the moment it always struck her as unfair. Well at least they had avoided wall duty in the cave and got to see the fabled city of Desanigh or what was left of it on the day they had opened it for the first time. It was an experience she was sure to share with others for the rest of her life. She probably had Sir Allen to thank somehow. He was here with them in the city and had gone in alone as part of the second set of adventures let out of the plaza.
Her team, Seasons End along with the Atwood Axes who they had teamed up with waited near the alleyway that the bunny man and the [Hoplite] had chosen. The first and second wave had not been given the option to choose this path but Summer felt good with this idea. Getting to know an early successful team in an area like a dungeon was good adventuring tactics or so said all the books she had read. She hip checked Mari, the older dwarf man who was standing next to her and who was Captain of the Atwood Axes, a [Slayer], a rare and honored class of the Dwarfs. She had hit him hard enough that the little throwing axe he was just in the process of tossing up to catch again went flying in front of him.
“Oh you damn human brat” he muttered as the axe hit the ground in front of him. His large two hand axe lay across his broad shoulders and he spun so the bottom of its shaft hit her in her side before she could move.
“Oh lass i’m so sorry, i’m just all thumbs today” He said as Summer grabbed her side in pain. They both shared a smile that promised retribution but also something else and she saw the twinkle in the handsome dwarfs eye. Her heart raced at the thought of those eyes above her as a memory from just a few months ago flashed through her head. A memory of nights spent with a man above her last year in the Scholaria. The memory made color come to her face and the smile slipped from the dwarfs face as confusion went across it.
He didn't know why she had just gone red in the face but she didn't want him to back off so she jabbed him in his ribs with a finger. She did have a good inches of height on him and put on her best flirting smile.
“All thumbs are we, well we will have to put that to the test won’t we but I shouldn't blame you when you cant even see over me” Summer said as she spun trying to hit him again with her hip that she had flung out on the move but he avoided easily now as she stopped closer to her sister.
“How much longer” she asked as she neared Autumn. Her sister was going by Faye here as they both didn't like Autumn as a name. Her sister was dressed like a classic heroine of old from Abigail’s legends. She had a long ankle length black duster that was at least an inch and a half thick between leather, padding and riveted steel plates in key locations. It flared out by her legs and was held tight at the waist by her adventure belt. It was only wearable by its Greater Make Light Enhancement which made it way only half as much as it really did. She had her short sword on her left hip and two wands at the ready but she was a true Mage so she didn't need any of that to be dangerous which was impressive for a Lady of Abigail who had gone the Way of Majesty as they had. Her and Faye only had three Abilities compared to five at this level like most people who went the Way of Might. Her sister wasn't wearing her helmet but her stupid cowboy hat which made everyone around her worry. Even if it did have a Lesser Projectile Deflection.
Faye eyed her sister and then looked over at Kara, their minder who was staring daggers at the Dwarf who had a slight smile on his face as was rubbing the side where Summer had poked him.
Summer knew instantly what Faye was telling her. It was one thing to sleep around at Scholaria where they actually had privacy for the first time in their lives but out here in the real world there was no way Kara or Sir Allen would not know about it even if they didn't stop her which meant her parents would know, which would be a thing that would need to be discussed by any honest member of the Noble families when marriage was discussed. It was common enough, as to not hurt most marriage prospects but the more ardent believers of the Faith would have serious problems which would limit her, an already ‘poor’ girl from a smaller family as their mother put it. The thought made her smile.
“I know,” Summer said as she looked at her sister waiting for her to answer.
“Another half an hour at least” she said in reply to Summer’s look.
“Or maybe not,” Faye said a second later.
Summer turned to see the large Free Cities [Hoplite] jogging back to the plaza. A quite intermittent image flashed through her mind as she looked at the giant of a man in his Bronze armor. She looked briefly over to Mira. It seemed she needed to get working on this dwarf sooner rather than later.
“Anything wrong [Hoplite] Ajax” Kara said as he got near.
He slowed down to a walk, his spear and shield held at ease. “Have we met before, adventurer?”
“No, but we are here thanks to you, so your name and that of Wrath of Pele has been tossed around”
He smiled at that. “Are you a team set to follow after us down this path” he said as he scanned their group, his eyes hidden slightly by the large Hoplite helmet he wore.
She stepped forward and stuck out her hand in greeting. He shook her hand, his big meaty hand engulfing hers. “I’m Summer and this is Kara and that cowgirl is my sister Faye. I am Captain of Seasons End a Bronze ranked team and we have teamed up with Mira here Captain of Atwood’s Axes a Silver ranked team”
“Nice to meet you all and please call me Jax. I have a deal of a lifetime for you” He said with a smile.
