DD2 Ch9: New Arrivals

The train jostled Rhen awake, sending splitting pain through his skull. The light was a nuisance, the sound was grating, existence was pain.

Ugh, why had he done this to himself?

Jakira was still sleeping, her head rested on his shoulder as she snored gently. Rhen tucked a stray strand of brilliant red hair behind her ear and smiled.

He remembered why he’d done this to himself.

Flashes of the four of them singing at the top of their lungs—well, Aki at the top of his projection range—came back to him. They’d gone to a little tavern nearby not long after the Silver Mark, but that was no fun, then made their way to a karaoke bar after that where they spent a fair amount of coin. They knew the realm classics and more. Jakira had even graced them with a Cadrian anthem in her native tongue.

“It was a good time,” Aki commented.

Rhen looked at the seat across from his where Aki held Arannet’s jacket between his several limbs as a sort of net for her face. She’d apparently slid against him, too, but with Aki’s body being entirely water, there wasn’t much there to support her.

Rhen smiled, despite his splitting head. “Yeah.”

He leaned back and let the train rock him to sleep once more, only waking when Aki splashed him with a bit of water. They were at Yu. Rhen rubbed the sleep from his eyes and gently shook Jakira up.

She wiped at her mouth and cleared her throat. “Home already?”

They were all moving slow, except Aki of course. Rhen couldn’t convince him to have even one drink—he wasn’t sure how the Prelusk would consume it, anyway. Through his mouth… but then he also breathed liquid? It was far beyond his thought processes at the moment.

“Mr. Zephitz!” an older woman called from somewhere in town.

Rhen shielded his eyes to see a bedraggled looking Matilda running up to the train platform. “What’s wrong?”

She caught her breath for a moment. “They’ve all been ripped down. The post-its!”

Rhen glared into the distance.

Welsh.

Trying to stop his progress at every turn… when would he give it a rest? When Rhen enacted some sort of vengeance? Surely that would get him in far more trouble than it would be worth.

It didn’t matter at this point. The signs outside Yu, the news spreading quickly, there would be delvers, diggers, and dungeoneers of all sorts showing up in Yu soon enough. It did peeve him to now end. He didn’t want to just roll over and take abuse after abuse from this fluffer.

“What happened?” Arannet asked sleepily.

“The post-its you put up around town have all been ripped down. I tend to take pride in my work being displayed so, of course I checked. Not hours after you left ‘em they were torn down! Didn’t see anyone though. Would you like to make some more?”

Matilda was obviously hurting for money running all three businesses with little patrons. She seemed the good type, though.

“Yes, please make up forty more and deliver them to the insides of the businesses to be displayed at the counter.” Rhen pulled up his coin pouch, which was dreadfully light. He shook free the last five coins.

“Uh, I have more. We encountered unexpected expenses in Desedra,” he explained.

Matilda waved it away. “You’re good for it. Just get me another three later and we’ll be square. Two-mark fee for my personal delivery.”

“Thank you,” Rhen passed her the last of his coin. He was desperate to get home, get some stew in him, and water.

The staggered their way down the trail to the waiting tree where Rhen found their boat cart destroyed. Insult to injury. This was a bridge too far. Welsh needed to be punished.

“Vengeance will not bring back the boat,” Aki said, resting a tentacle on Rhen’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m sure Barrek and Wyland can build another boat,” Jakira comforted.

“A better boat!” Arannet added.

Rhen growled. “But still he gets away with antagonizing me, setting me back, trying to destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build!”

They were quiet, staring at the wreckage of the boat.

“You can’t prove it,” Arannet whispered sadly. “They can do all sorts of things but without real evidence, you’re powerless—at least in the eyes of the guild.”

She spoke as if from experience.

Before Rhen could ask, Jakira thunked her club into the dirt before him. “That’s not going to stop you, is it? Killer of gigafish, founder of a new realm, friend to the low, lover of the delve. If a burned inn didn’t stop you, if a tiny raid didn’t stop you, if stacks of paperwork hasn’t stopped you, will a tiny broken boat?”

Emboldened by her words, Rhen picked up the pieces. “There’s good wood here that can be used.”

They all grabbed as much as they could and marched on to their home.

Before they even reached the ashes of their destroyed inn, Rhen could feel something was off. Not a defiler, not a monster, but something powerful. He pulled everyone off the road and dropped his planks, then fell into stealth. He crept through the underbrush, expecting more of Welsh’s goons there to do some sort of dirty business.

Instead he saw a Sephine bard, the very same that Aki had played with a month ago in Yu. Beside her were two fighters, bored and twirling weapons, and a heavy Taalite bruiser covered in pale-pink fur and wearing hardly a loincloth. The bard was singing something, plucking her three-string lyre.

Oh, lord of the inn, the dungeon, the delve,

We wait here, your judgement, withheld,

Are we worthy, fighters who are true,

Or are we dismissed, unwanted by you?

The Taalite bruiser groaned. “My ears can’t take anymore. He’s obviously not here.”

The Sephine shrugged. “Never know. Maybe they were lying. Maybe he’s coming in right now.”

Rhen smirked. A more perfect entrance couldn’t been set up. He emerged from the underbrush, dismissing caress of night, and clapped slowly. “Very nice.”

The party jumped to their feet, trying to look formidable.

“See, he liked my song,” the Sephine said with a cocky swish of her tail.

“I am in the market for one more delving team, as it were,” Rhen motioned for the others, still hidden in the sparse foliage, to come out. Soon, Jakira, Aki, and Arannet all joined him.

The Taalite fell to his knees, hands pressed together in prayer. “Please let us delve! We haven’t eaten in days!”

The Sephine whipped him with her tail, and he jerked back up to standing.

“What my associate meant to say was, we’re an accomplished delve group that’s been on the lookout for the right opportunity, and you have just the dungeon, Mr. Zephitz. I’m Tsu’me, the bruiser is Derk, and the fighters are twins, Alex and Ulecks—don’t worry, we still mix them up too.”

Jakira shouldered her club, looking terribly heroic. “When did you last eat?”

“Days,” Derk whimpered, tears in his eyes.

Jakira gave a questioning look toward Rhen, who nodded. “We can fix that.”

Rhen led the way into the dungeon, patting Derk on the shoulder as he did. “Tell me, Derk, did you grow up on Ptahl?”

The massive, pink-furred Taalite nodded. “I did, sir.”

“No sirs here, just call me Rhen.”

“Or Deo, that’s what everyone else calls him,” Jakira added.

“Yes, and I don’t particularly like that either.” Maybe it was the hangover, but Rhen snapped back without much filter. “Rhen is my name, it’s what you should call me.”

“In any case, tell me how you deal with cold environments, Derk,” Rhen went on.

“Well, if there’s snow, it’s nice to make igloos and play powder attack. But if it’s just cold… there’s not much fun in that.”

They wound down through the mastery chamber and into the control chamber. Derk unsheathed his axe, pointing to the jellybirds in the corner. “Monsters!”

“Yes, we’re farming them,” Rhen said, resting a calming hand on the bruiser’s thick arm.

Wow, his fur was soft. They may have not been eating well, but they weren’t skipping any baths for sure.

Derk holstered his two-headed axe and straightened up. “I knew that.”

The twins rolled their eyes, the flipping and twirling of their weapons unchanged by the bruiser’s comments.

Rhen moved back to stand next to them, letting Jakira lead with Tsu’me. The twins did look nearly identical. They both had blonde hair, blue eyes of a Resplendite, narrow faces, long legs, and the bastards even wore the same black leather getup. But Rhen noticed one had a mole on his left cheek where the other did not.

“You’re Alex?” he asked the moled man.

“No, Ulecks,” he replied, his strange accent thick.

“Where do you two come from?”

“Wenyu,” Alex said with a quick twirl of his dagger.

Wenyu was one of the earliest realms to be founded, and devoid of sapient life. While many beasts of land and sea were discovered there, nothing that resembled civilization had been discovered in the decades of searching. Wenyu was a farming realm, with a nearly year-round climate that was amicable to most of the crops that were grown in Shin’Bara and Resplendare.

“How did you get in the delving business?” Rhen followed up.

They both shrugged simultaneously, saying, “Accidental.”

Alex provided more context at Rhen’s puzzled expression. “We were playing in the forest, stumbled on a dungeon.”

“Fought our first monster together and won,” Ulecks said, and they high fived.

“Made enough money from the discovery to get some basic gear.”

“Farming is boring.”

“We wanted adventure.”

Rhen nodded. “How old were you?”

“Twelve,” they chimed together.

They made it to the inn and Jakira ran to the back to conjure something up. Rhen brought them all to one of the long, group dining tables.

“Why is Zephitz dungeon appealing to you?” Aki started right in with the questioning.

Tsu’me hummed, smiling. “Haven’t you heard? There was a realm discovery.”

“Yes, we discovered it.” Aki said, the sarcasm going right over him.

Tsu’me blinked long and slow, but never lost her smile. “We like to be where the action is. A new realm is the hottest action one can get.”

Rhen grunted. “But you know we won’t be allowed in for months, right?”

She waved the question away. “We know. Be we’d like to help get you to that point, and secure ourselves top of the list to get in when access is granted.”

“For the money?” Aki probed.

“For the adventure!” Alex and Ulecks said at once, their eyes sparkling and grins broad.

“But I wouldn’t turn down the money,” Tsu’me added.

“And you, Derk?” Aki turned his gaze on the fluffy Taalite.

He had a vacant, open-mouthed stare. “What was the question?”

“Why do you want to be here, at Zephitz I?”

“I… I like to be with my friends.”

Aki looked to Rhen. “Does this meet our standards?”

The Sephine was definitely more in it for the money than the love of the delve, but the twins seemed genuinely engaged, and Derk was just along for the ride. Perhaps they wouldn’t become permanent members, but if they had the skills to back up their depth of experience, Rhen wasn’t going to say no to their help.

Derk could be instrumental in navigating the alpine chamber, and if the twins had survived their first monster attack at twelve years old, they weren’t something to be trifled with either. He knew the bard was skilled, he’d experienced her songs before, but he wondered how that would play out on a battlefield.

Jakira returned to the table with a fat loaf of bread, sweet cream, a massive pile of bright orange scrambled eggs, and some terrocken thigh meat sliced thinly and seared. It smelled divine.

“Are those terrocken eggs?” Rhen asked, his mouth watering.

Jakira beamed. “Yep! Valine was able to… tame some of them? I’m not sure tame is the right word, but she, Barrek, and Leslie set up a paddock where there are several less-hostile terrocken laying some eggs for us every few days. We protect them from the long dark, they give us eggs. Pretty fair exchange if you ask me.”

The four new delvers stared at the arrival of food with desperation. Rhen stood and helped Jakira doll out the first servings. He sat, slice of sweet-creamed bread in hand, happy with how his life was going despite the obstacles ahead.

The eggs were… different. The hakir salt helped for certain, but they were rich and gamy at the same time. It would take some getting used to compared to normal chicken eggs, but he’d adjust fine, he was sure. The terrocken thigh had some sweet berry glaze that made it crispy, and the smoke of the coals infused it with a depth of flavor he didn’t think possible. It was delicious.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Jakira,” Rhen managed through a mouthful of the crisped meat.

Her cheeks glowed with gold and she smiled in response, but kept shoveling in the food. When all the plates were cleared, and the new delvers happily satisfied, Rhen hopped to his feet.

“All right, let’s sign some paperwork and get to the test.”