Juia_Darkcrest

  The trip to the new dungeon took them the better part of a day. The first few hours were on the road, the well traveled path weaving between the rolling hills to the East of Meritoni. They passed many small farms and hamlets, the workers in the fields not even looking up from their jobs as the wagon travelled by, the sight commonpce here.

  Eventually they turned off the road, following the map Brod had given Nanael. It was slower going but there was little to impede them on the grassy pins.

  The conversation in the back of the wagon was oddly light, with Evie leading the conversation with John; the subject? Magic.

  "So that is why Holy magic is different than Elemental magic. God just takes your magic and bends it to your request, while other spell casters like myself need to bend it ourselves. As you gain more control, through both practice and skills like magic control, parallel thinking, and mana conservation, your ability to cast spells will improve drastically." She said, tossing a small ball of wind magic to John.

  He 'caught' the ball with his mana control skill, stabilized it, then tossed it back to her. She taught him this concentration game early on, and they had been practicing for awhile now. At first the magic would 'bleed' when it was under his control, but the constant back and forth showed him how she was able to prevent the ball from losing energy.

  "I came to a simir conclusion when reading the Firebolt tome. By the way you describe it though, you are not limited to spell tomes for Elemental magic, while with Holy magic, I can't make up new spells." He replied, focusing on how she was handling the ball. He couldn't see exactly what she was doing, but he could see the results. It was something simple in this world, but John was amazed at the magic just being tossed like a baseball between them.

  "Correct. You can take the base magic from your tome and experiment with it, building your own spells based on whatever you desire. Well whatever desire with your affinities. Someone with Fire and Water affinities can cast illusion-like magic that isn't found in any tome. You just need a good foundation and the rest is research, experimenting, and time to improve." She continued, tossing the ball between her hands a few times, then added another element into the ball, turning it brown.

  "See this is what the ball looks like with some Earth element added. I would add another, but my Fire affinity is weak and unstable. Wind is my strongest affinity, with Earth about half as strong. With Fire, I can light a campfire but that is about it." She finished, sounding happy. She tossed the now dual element ball at him.

  "Is it- ah... common for people to have multiple affinities?" He asked, fumbling with the ball a little bit, the magic responding differently now.

  "No. Most mages only get a single affinity, usually about as strong as I am in Earth. Dual elements, which is what I consider myself, are about one in a hundred mages, and typically have one stronger than the other. Three elements are rare, with only a handful in the world. Most become court wizards, or get to do research on the floating city, the home of the mage guild." She continued, eyeing his control of the ball. "No, use your Earth element like this..."

  They kept chatting for awhile, but once they were off the road, the ride became too rough for John to continue the practice. Shallia and Terra chatted quietly amongst themselves while the magic lesson was going on, but Terra spoke up when they finished.

  "Mr. Wayne, do you prefer that, John-Sama, John-San, or something else?" She asked.

  "Just John please. Nanael keeps calling me John-Sama, but I have no idea about Japa- err, I have no idea what the honorifics actually mean, so keep it simple please."

  "Very well. So John, as your shielder I need to know how you can support us. Can you go through your abilities?" She asked, wanting to know what she could expect.

  "Of course! I can..."

  And that is how the rest of the afternoon went, no weird talks about being part of his harem, but actually learning about each others abilities.

  Terra had two main abilities, a skill called Enrage, which caused people and monsters to focus on her instead of other around her. The smarter the targets, the less effective it was, but most monsters were not known for their brain power so it worked out. The other one was Blood Oath. She could choose a target, and accept the damage the target received instead "Its why I have all this scarring on my hand and arm." She said, taking her gauntlet and bracer off, dispying her scarred up arm.

  "Oh my god, that looks terrible. Did you get a healer to look at it?" He asked, taking her hand in his.

  "No, was too expensive. I won't use it again unless there is no other choice." She replied, letting him explore her scars.

  He traced his fingers along the scarring, probing the hardened tissue to see if he could do anything. "Do you mind letting me try something?"

  "Sure. Not sure if there is anything to do though, it has been over a year since I used that skill." She replied.

  "Middle Heal!" He called out, casting his new spell. Bright green light emanated from his hand, enveloping her arm for a moment.

  "Whoa that feels warm. My arm is tingling." She said, her grey eyes watching with interest. She had never seen healing magic before, let alone had it performed on her.

  John kept his focus, running the magic along her scars. Sadly though, it did not appear he was able to fix all of the damage, with it happening so long ago, but he did reduce the scarring, turning the angry red lines into pale red lines. With a sigh, he released his magic, finishing all he could for her.

  "That is about all I can do on your old injury for now. If I make it to A Rank and gain High Heal, or find some other tomes I am unaware of, I might be able...what's wrong?" He started to expin, but stopped when he noticed tears coming out of her eyes.

  "Nothing. *Sniff* It is just that I had to live with these for so long, and now you can barely see them. I am just happy. Thank you John." She said, then leaned forward to give him a hug, their armours cnging together loudly.

  "HONK!" Quackers squawked at them, the noise waking it from its nap.

  "Ahh, its okay Terra. It's just what I do." He replied, hugging her back.

  "Nya. No fair Terra! I want to hug John too!" Shallia said, watching the two of them with a grin on her face. She didn't look ready to jump up and hug him though, so John just thought she was teasing the Frostbear.

  "Enough you horny cat. I am just thanking him for healing me! This...this is purely ptonic!" She snapped at Shallia, rising to the bait the cat id out.

  "Sure, sure. That's why your tail is wagging like that right?" She replied, her grin broadening.

  "What? My tail? I can't control it, it just does that when I am happy... Wait! I am wearing armour, you can't see my tail! Bsted cat." She said, realizing she was being teased. She released John then and jumped towards the monk. Shallia dodged, sending Terra crashing into the floor.

  "HEY! Stop crashing around back there! You'll break my wagon!" Iris shouted at them, making Terra pause.

  "Yeah, stop crashing around Terra, you will break something *Bleah*" Shallia said, sticking her tongue out at Terra. She was now sitting in John's p, nding there after dodging Terra's charge. John didn't even see her move, she was just... there.

  "Hi." He said, her face next to his.

  "Hi! So you learned about how a Shielder works, but do you know how a Monk works?" She said, but continued before he could respond "I use my agility to jump around enemies, hitting weak spots and being a general nuisance to them, forcing them to focus on me else they get hit in a weak spot. Long as it isn't a swarm, I can easily dodge most incoming attacks."

  "I see. Any special abilities I should know about?"

  "Not really, just self strength and speed buffs, though as I level up, other options will open up for me. Oh, I do have a stunning aspect to my attacks too, but I have to hit the enemy in the head or spine." She said, then leaned into him. "Soo John, can you heal my scar too? I'd rather not be reminded of being swarmed by rats every time I look at my leg."

  "Haha, sure."

  John healed her, reducing some of her scarring as well. After she got her hug in, they all settled back down, casually talking for the rest of the trip.

  The foothills got rger the further away from the road they moved, eventually almost looking like small mountains. The terrain got rougher, but the horses managed to pull the wagon along without issues. It was early evening when they finally stopped at the base of one of the foothills, a cavern opening out of the side of the hill.

  "We're here." Nanael said, turning around in her seat. "Lets make camp for the night. We can enter in the morning after we rest."

  "Sounds good." John said, then climbed out of the wagon, stretching his back. The bouncing was killing him, but Middle Heal seemed good enough to make his pain manageable.

  They made camp, setting up a few tents and a fire. Nanael started cooking a stew of some sort, the rest of the party sitting down around the fire as they finished their tasks. Iris was the st to arrive after she finished tending to her animals, joining the rest of them when the food was cooked. She had her owl on her shoulder, the animal watching them all intently. Quackers followed behind her, the massive goose looking even rger now that it was standing. (Not quite a chocobo, but Evie could probably ride it)

  "This is really good Nanael. Thank you." John said, eating the bowl of stew she served him.

  "Thank you. I am gd you like it. I... don't know many recipes, but Gulgar showed me a few things before we left." She replied, blushing slightly at the admission.

  "Well it is tasty, so you did a good job." He replied, then dug in. The rest of the party gave her affirmations on how good it tasted as well.

  When they finished the meal, they cleaned up and then settled around the fire, the evening slowly turning into night. They chatted about the pn for tomorrow, with Nanael leading the discussion.

  It was pretty straight forward, Shallia and Terra would lead, John would be behind them with Quackers, Iris and Evie bringing up the rear. Nanael, would stand further back, watching their backs, and only intervening if they got into trouble. Not they would, with Evie being significantly higher level than the rest of them.

  "So what is the name of this dungeon? What is inside? I didn't even know there was once this close to Meritoni." Evie asked.

  "It is not named yet. It was found recently and Guild Master Brod explored it down to floor 50. The first ten floors are goblinoids, the next ten are Earth element golems. The twenties are water based creatures, the thirties are wind based, forties are fire based. There are rooms on every tenth floor with a strong monster. The magic stones dropped by the monsters match the element of the floor." Nanael expined.

  "That is insane. What kind of dungeon has multiple elements?" Evie stated, the revetion of the dungeons properties intriguing her.

  "That was the guilds response as well. Anyways, they are keeping its existence a secret, letting us use it as a private area for us to help John level up for now. We want to see if we can push you all to level one hundred or more in the next year. I know it sounds impossible, but with a healer with us, downtime for recovery will be minimized.

  I had a simir option when I was training with Galba, which pushed me from thirty to one hundred and twenty in just over a year, and that healer was in town. If I had a healer with me, I suspect it would have even been faster." Nanael expined the pn to everyone, and revealing to John a little more about her past. She was a happy bubble of joy most of the time, but would close up whenever he tried to learn about her past. He hoped she would tell him more someday.

  They continued to chat for awhile longer, but John was starting to get tired, his st dose of Substance X worn off long ago.

  Probably should have brought a barrel of it with me.

  "So do we need to set up a watch or anything?" He asked. He had to stand watch in the army, so it made sense to him.

  "No... no need. Snaggle... watch us." Iris said, her stutter returning when she addressed him directly. The big owl hooted, then took off from her shoulder, disappearing into the darkness.

  Shallia spoke then, diverting his attention from Iris. "Its one of the main reasons for bringing a tamer along in a party. They can help out in the fighting AND they can have animals guard the party at night. A nocturnal animal like an owl is usually happy to watch all night for the cost of a bit of food, and they are better at it than a person."

  "Yep. Tamers are great! My old party had one. He wasn't a strong fighter, but the utility they could provide makes having one in the party a great boon." Evie added. "With a bow like Iris's I am sure she will be even better in battle."

  "That is good to hear. Well then, I am going to sleep. See you all tomorrow." John said, giving Nanael a kiss before heading to their tent. They all wished him a goodnight, the girls staying up a bit more before going to sleep. He wanted to join them but was exhausted, barely able to strip his armour off before crawling into his bnkets, falling asleep immediately.

  In Bottaculli's office...

  Three men sat around the oversized desk, one of them giving the other two an update on what their familiar had discovered.

  "They are located in the foothills to East, Lord Bottaculi. They appear to be at an unknown cave that is emitting magical energy. I suspect it is a newly discovered dungeon." The man in a bck cloak said, a crow sitting on his shoulder.

  "Just the six of them? The Rabbitman is strong, but the rest seem fairly weak." Another man, this one wearing a steel breastpte and one spiked pauldron. "My mercs shouldn't have any issues taking them out."

  The third person, Bottaculi, wrung his hands for a moment, a nervous twitch he had when thinking. He sighed, then nodded. "Do it. Kill that healer but keep as many of the others alive as possible, we need more sves this month. If someone dies, so be it, I know how chaotic a battle can be."

  "No promises, but the boys will know there are bonuses for capturing the women alive." The armoured man said, then stood up from the table. "We will bring them to the usual drop off, give us a few days to get there and back."

  Bottaculli just nodded, dismissing the two mercenaries. He leaned back, closing his eyes. He had done some unsavoury things to save his daughter, but this was the first time he ordered someone's death. It was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He wondered how much deeper this hole he kept digging would get before it all colpsed in on itself.