71

--Enclave--

“Guin, heads up!” Drakov shouted in an unusually commanding voice. Shadow Stepping behind the screeching wraith, Guin executed a [Back Stab] with her claws as Drakov let off a thought-cast [Magic Arrow]. It struck, and the wraith broke into ash. “Yes!” he cheered, holding his bow up in the air.

“We’ve got some Skeles on our tail!” Star yelled, speeding past them on her broom. “Inc!”

BronzePaw followed her, barreling toward them on all fours and, skidding to halt, made a sharp turn before she reached them. “Drakov, ready a silence for the mage! Star —”

A wall of flame burst forth from the ground before Paw could finish.

“I’ll have a magic missile read to go on that mage, too!” Star went with a wink from Guin’s side. “Anymore of those ghost things you guys are after?”

Drakov shook his head as he rose his bow up. “If one show’s up, we’ll let you know.”

“How many are incoming?” Tea asked as he strummed his loot, calling forth a defensive buff for the whole party.

“A Skeletal Mage, two Skeletal Archers, and a warrior,” Paw reported, and readied herself to pounce over the flame wall. “I’ll take agro. Keep me healed, would you?”

Tea’s face didn’t look confident. “I don’t know if I can heal that amount of damage that fast!” he told her. “Why did you guys pull so many?”

StarShine grinned. “How else would we keep things entertaining.

“Don’t worry, Tea,” Guin said. “I have back up heals.”

“I want you on the Archers, Guin,” BronzePaw instructed.

“Roger, that.”

“Here they come!” Drakov yelled, and let his silencing arrow fly. BronzePaw leaped and toppled the warrior, her tail whipping out and wacking the two archers off balance before they had the chance to even aim. Guin placed herself in between the mage and the archers, and executed one of them with a fair amount of ease.

However, it seemed that Drakov’s arrow had missed.

The creature’s teeth clattered together as they voicelessly flung a large ball of water at their flaming wall, causing it to die out.

Cursing, Guin kicked the other archer to keep it down. “Drakov, Star, would one of you silence that thing?”

“I think it’s immune!” Drakov said, loosing another arrow. “This is the third one I’ve sent at it, and I still don’t think it took!”

“Great,” Guin mumbled, then ducked as ball of electricity flew in her direction.

Cries of shock and pain came from Drakov and Tea, causing Guin to shoot up in alarm. She had dodged the attack, but it shouldn’t have headed in their directions.

“What’s going on?” Guin asked as BronzePaw crushed the warrior’s skull and came to deal with the other archer.

StarShine was looking at the two in alarm from atop her broom stick. “I-I think it was an elemental reaction!” she said, in shock. “The floor is wet from the water ball… t-then the lightning ball… Guin, don’t let that thing cast again!”

She didn’t need to say it twice.

With BronzePaw taking care of the other skeleton, Guin quickly tripped the mage behind her and swiped at it with her claws. As it found its footing again, a barrage of magic missiles lit up the dungeon, and an arrow broke through the creature’s skull. Wishing that she could use her spear for the higher level creature, Guin settled on keeping it interrupted by trying to disarm and trip it when she had the opportunity.

Of course, with the concentrated fire, it was bound to die sooner rather than later, and with a final ramming from BronzePaw, it died without a sound.

“Well that was… something,” StarShine went, tilting her head.

“That hurt!” Tea cried. “When did the AI get smart enough to do that?”

“It is a higher level,” Drakov pointed out. “Maybe we should be prepared for more of that in the future?”

“Good news is, if they can do it, so can we, in theory,” BronzePaw said. “Guin, how much is left on those quests of yours?”

Exchanging a glance with Drakov, Guin looked over at where the wraith they had killed was.

“Do you think…?” he went.

Tea’s feet started to dance as he looked at them. “C-Could it be? Is that it? Did that do it? Are we, perhaps, finished?”

Stella yawned and put her hands behind her head. “God, I hope so,” she whined. “It’s so boring when I can’t see what we’re fighting. The skeletons are ugly, but at least I can kill them.”

“It’s something we may just have to get used to,” Bahena told her. “I think we should consider ourselves lucky that we have two people in our regular group that have Veil Sight — think of all the extra experience we’ve gotten.”

“That’s true, I guess,” the young woman went.

“Well? Well?” Drakov leaned over to watch the chest appear. “Did we do it?”

Grinning, Guin knelt next to the chest that the wraith had left behind. “You wanna loot it, Tea?”

“Oh, can I?” the little garule asked excitedly, kneeling down next to her. “But, but, but…”

“No ‘buts’,” she said. “You’ve been our healer. You’ve earned it.”

It had, thus far, been a good run. After some effort and negotiation, she had successfully gotten Drakov and StarShine to stop relying solely on the voice-cast system, and had even gotten them talking to one another without bickering.

They had found the gremlins and exterminated them quickly; they were about as strong as mice. Though Guin had been fearful that she would lose all sorts of reputation for killing the creatures of the Veil, it seemed as though monster-spawned types of spirits that didn’t count as NPCs didn’t affect her standing with the spirits as a whole, but rather, just with the individual species — and she hadn’t lost much.

Her [Spirit — Wraith] and [Spirit — Gremlin] reputations were in the negative, as she had never had a positive relationship with them, but losing about 1 reputation per kill, didn’t seem to have put her in a position where she wouldn’t be able to crawl back up once she found a way. If she found a way. And if she didn’t, maybe it wouldn’t be so important after all.

Tea hovered over the chest and licked his lips. “Can I really?” he asked again, but Guin scowled. “A-Alright,” he went. The chest creaked as he opened it. Pulling out two little jars of Spectral essence, he gently handed one to her.

And the notification bell rang out:

———————-

[Quest Offered: Dust and Essence]

[Bone Dust] - 100 of 100

[Spectral Essence] - 100 of 100

[Death Moss] - 100 of 100>

This quest is optional. It can be skipped. (Difficulty: C)>>

———————-

“That did it!” Guin exclaimed.

The group clapped and cheered.

It had taken them about three hours of hard work, but all the remaining tasks in the Catacombs had been completed.

Tea collapsed on the floor. “Mother Mountain has mercy on us after all,” he sighed as he rolled over onto his back and stretched out. “We did it! We finished the Scribe’s quest!”

“Does this mean we can get out of this dank place now?” Stella asked Guin. “I can’t say that I am the biggest fan of the underground.”

“Are you a fan of anything?” Drakov asked.

“Clothes, hair dye, nail polish, makeup, and blowing things up,” the young woman answered. “Any further questions?”

“Nope, not really,” Drakov answered, obviously regretting his choice to feed her the opportunity to make her smirk at him in victory the way she did.

“So, what’s next?” Stella asked. “Are we going to turn in what we have and then go back to the area where those really powerful monsters were? Bet we could take them without a problem, now!”

Drakov flexed off to the side.

“Yes,” Guin answered. “I think we all have the quest from the High Priest, and then Tea and I have to turn the quest in at the Bone Quill, but that shouldn’t take too long. You guys want to meet up at the Hunter’s Guild again?”

BronzePaw nodded. “Sounds logical.”

Guin looked over her shoulder as the others started discussing the route back. Should she try to go back and see the inscriptions again? Make sure that there was nothing she had missed? Though the thought tugged at the back of her mind, Tea tugged at her hand from where he was laying.

“Are we going?” Tea asked.

“Yeah,” Guin nodded. “Let’s go. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can start the corruption quest.”

Though the regret at not pushing toward the inscriptions ate at the back of her mind, Guin was happy to finally be making progress again.