“Gliding Spider, Aranea Lapsa-an arboreal species of spider that lives in the Great Verdant and a few forested aerlands. It is a territorial spider that loves to glide over the top of trees using its silky webbing that is woven using Aer mana. This is how it gets around despite its heavy bulk and makes for a very cunning predator; you'll never see it coming until it’s too late. It is as big as a horse and is considered a Steel level threat for adventurers. However, its Aer attuned silk is a very valuable component for making aership sails and is always in demand. Due to the difficulty in obtaining it, it is only used on top of the line aerships. It's alternative is obtained from the Slyphid Silkworm that also spins Aer attuned silk…” from Philiarz Warnerskemander’s Bestiary for Adventurers: ‘Exotic Beasties and Where To Find Them

Arkron of Clan Nightcrawler was his name. He was the head honcho so to speak, serving as some kind of leader for his settlement and even had a class to show for it—[Chieftain]. What kind of chieftain he didn’t say as he mentioned to Arthur that such things were better kept close to one’s chest. But Arthur noticed that he had an inclination towards making merchant-like bargains, so perhaps it was not his highest level class.

After dispensing with the cloak and dagger posturing, Arthur and Arkron sat down to negotiate over tea and an assortment of the desert clan’s staples. They even had cheese; these Arkron explained were products of trade for their moon flowers, dates and other alchemical ingredients that were hard to find elsewhere. They also subsisted on a little bit of vegetable farming in their oases.

Arkron explained that the oases, for one reason or another, had their own seasons which were in tune with elsewhere in Alkerd therefore, occasionally, part of the settlement would leave for another oasis where the season’s bounty was plentiful.

Then came the pitch that was posed to sway Arthur’s decision to provide help. Along with Venera and Livierre the artificer, Nora the healer was also present. It would have been a tad intimidating for Arthur, feeling like he was in a lion’s den but he'd lived with a dragon so there was that.

Nonetheless, the clan head drove a reasonable if not hard bargain. He wanted Arthur to see if he could stabilize the weather enchantments for the oasis because it was an old form of magitech. Akron wanted to expand the oasis or at least make it more permanent so that the clan could lead settled lives. Eventually, they wanted to build a city from their trade treasury and with enough time, they would have a foothold of their own

Not only would a settled way of life be stable in the long run, but he mentioned in passing that dwarven prospectors had been sighted coming to the desert. He intuited that more often than not, they’d brought in their aerships.

Given the ease with which their aerships could skirt the caravan routes, business had taken a hit because they undercut the transportation costs and bought at lower prices. Which kind of explained why bandits were becoming desperate in the desert.

Arthur could see the allure of making a permanent outpost; if they established it in time and gained a foothold, sooner or later they would have the first towns bordering the Dust bowl. With no other attraction worth prospecting, according to the clan head’s information sources, the best guess was that dwarves were looking for something beneath the sands. Which again had the cascade effect of attracting adventurers.

When he’d asked why Akron thought he was the right person to fix enchantments that were so ancient they worked before the desert had become the Titan’s Dust Bowl. They claimed that Arthur was as close to a [Weather Mage] as people could get. As for their people, their bloodline heritage predisposed them to Ter, Pyr and Nox affinities so mages with Aqer and Aer affinities were very rare.

“Ho, it was easy to see that you were an aeromancer once we saw the lightning flowers scarring your arm and hoverboard, you called it? So you see, my skill identifies the right person for the right job. It’s like Oonaris herself dropped fortune and fate at our doorsteps.”

So Oonaris is a goddess of Fate and Fortune. The first moon’s named after her. Eh, maybe the gods are meddlesome in this world…explains some things…maybe.

And he could see why they drew that conclusion so quickly, for one, the healers had seen him bare-chested and probably been the ones to mention it to the clan head. While the Lichtenberg markings on his hoverboard were a result of the magic that’d happened after he’d been incapacitated by poison.

“So what do I need to do to fix this thing?”

“What do you know about dungeons?”

“Huh?” Arthur didn’t want to give away his ignorance. He’d read the adventurer’s guild bestiary but still couldn’t get his head wrapped around the enigmas that were dungeons. All he had to go off were the stories that snippets that dungeons contained treasures and traps.

The tiefling was only too generous to explain that dungeons were areas with strong concentrations of mana which sometimes attracted monsters.

According to the little common knowledge they had so far, those who studied dungeons posited that monsters coming to inhabit such dungeons was pure happenstance and wasn’t in their maker’s designs.

Rumours also put that the origins of some of the more undocumented monsters were because there was a working translocation gate left behind. Some gates malfunctioned and consequently opened to unknown realms.

At the mention of translocation gates, Arthur was interested but not for the reasons that Arkron thought when he caught on.

“ I know that translocation gates enamour many people; I can attest to that myself. However, some of my people who scour the sands for some of the relics we sell off view them as a bad omen.”

“Mmh?”

“ They contain relics that the Antecessors…what we call the dungeon makers, deemed too valuable that they warranted hiding behind pockets of reality.”

‘Ah, like my inventory space?!’ Arthur raised his brow in interest.

“ However, the monsters that covet the areas near such gates—,” Arkron seemed to pause to frame his next statement. A grim look crossed his face before he said “ are some of the most dangerous creatures that some of my people have been lucky to get away from with their lives.”

“Some were foolhardy,” he shook his head. “ The treasures one could find behind such a gate are enough to set someone for life, even if we do not know the purpose of.”

“ Huh?”

“Some dwarven merchants had in the past paid us handsomely to deliver to them, anything even remotely alien. And it had been a good arrangement for a while until their prospectors started coming around.”

“ Oh…” ‘ I see now, maybe they deemed the Bowl too valuable a source of artifacts to just leave everything to the Clans. I wonder what changed…’

“ However, such endeavors come at the cost of many lives and as clan leader I try my best to curtail such pursuits. If we have a place of our own, perhaps my people will stop braving the unknown if they have something else that promises stability.”

Arthur kneaded his brow. It sounded to him that he’d just had a socioeconomic discourse on the realities of dungeons and tiefling trade relations. But he got the gist of it all. Bottomline was, the tieflings wanted to carve out a place for themselves and leave their dangerous way of hunting for precious artifacts under the sands.

Akin to the way adventurers earned their keep, the tiefling clans ‘delved’ into old ruins as a livelihood because they could scant grow any crops, or depend on the few rare materials that were found nowhere else except for the Dustbowl’s desert.

“ So why tell me this?” Arthur cupped his cheek in contemplation.

“Besides protecting artifacts, treasures and magical items of ancient peoples. Dungeons were also measures put in place to deter intruders from tampering with important magic—like the enchantments that power the weather magic of the oasis for example—”

“I see where this is going, so you want me to go into a dungeon, at the risk of my own life to alter unknown enchantments. Of course what else could go wrong? You drive a hard bargain, Mister Akron.”

“I was just getting to that. Even though you are a powerful mage yourself, it would be tactless of me to send you into a dungeon alone” he said, looking at some of the people in the meeting room with them. Arkron added, “Therefore, I will have you accompanied by people you are already acquainted with.”

“Yea, I am not exactly confident in my own power. I almost got my keister whooped by bandits.” He folded his hands.

“Perchance you would be interested in acquiring some training as part of a trade? I heard that you are a dagger user.”

Raising his gaze to meet the clan head’s, Arthur enquired, “Assuming I take you up on your offer…what is the rest of the package?”

“I swear by [Favorable Bargain], besides training, we shall give you a portion of the artifacts or other treasures you find in the dungeon. Which also leads me to my proposal for a long term accord,, if you are open to it. And as a gesture of my confidence, I shall give you one of my girls as a companion.”

“Hold up! Not so fast,” Arthur flushed as his eyes widened to the size of saucers. “The first part I get, but the second. Is it really necessary?”

“ You wear your emotions on your sleeve young master Arthur,” Venera cooed as she batted her eyelashes. She even folded her arms under her chest to emphasize her bust. Nora looked like she wanted to hide behind her hands as her pale skin turned red under the hood. Arkron merely cleared his throat in a mock cough as Arthur attempted to compose himself.

“Venera, it would not do make our guest uncomfortable.”

“Ha-ha, I was just teasing.” Venera chortled, covering a mischievous grin with her palm. “Oh, to be young.”

“You are hardly old yourself,” quipped Arkron with a smile that did not reach his eyes. His left eye was twitching. Turning back to Arthur he continued, “As I was saying, it is a custom of us desert clans to strengthen our pacts this way, through partnering.

I might have worded it incorrectly, partnership does not imply marriage for tieflings, as it implies for your kind. Even though it has not been done for outsiders, there are, let’s say, some circumstances that make it favorable.”

“So,” he coughed to the back of his palm, “Who is this partner? And why are things favorable at such a time.”

“One of us has always felt like an outsider; they felt that they belonged to human society. Doubly so, when some of our own people have not been receptive because she’s too different from us.” His features softened. Even Livierre and Venera were sending curious looks in Arkron’s way. On the other hand, Nora jerked and started fidgeting with her hands.

“It is fortunate that such a person also happens to be very proficient with daggers, though she still refuses to take a combat class,” Akron went on. “Therefore, Nora will be your companion.

““What?!”” Both Arthur and Nora echoed.

“Oh, Nora, you had this coming. Do not pretend it just occurred to you,” Venera teased.

“So...so Nora will be my trainer?”

“Correct. She will train you in daggers, and will go wherever you go. She has always lamented that her world of sand here is too small and you look like someone who will be traveling around.” Venera added jokingly as she sent a stare Nora’s way. Nora flinched and tried to avoid her gaze. Arthur couldn’t even look at her in the face either.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a swordsmanship trainer would you?”

“Oh backing out already are we? My, we haven’t even started yet. I will train you in swords then.”

“You Venera? I thought you were the healer…” Arthur protested.

“Hmm, she is one of the best swordswomen in the clan. It’s her main class, her healer class just came naturally because of her bloodline traits and skills.” Arkron intervened.

Arthur felt cornered. Was this Arkron’s way of buttering him up? Or smothering him so thoroughly he couldn’t make sound decisions? If so, he was rather calculating and having Nora train him was just like asking him to get to know her; of all the people.

“Fine…even there are things I cannot do,” Arthur threw his hands in defeat “… traveling alone is very troublesome when you cannot watch your own back.”

“Well, what do you say little Angustifolia? Here is your chance of a lifetime.” Said Arkorn as he addressed the white haired girl.

Nora seemed to clench her hands and bite her lips. Her fangs bit enough to draw a little blood which flowed back into the wound, then sealed it back up like it never happened.

Like she’d gathered her resolve, Nora puffed out her cheeks and released a resigned breath. Then she pulled back her hood, raising her face to meet Arthur’s eyes with her crimson ones. Her lips were a thin line and brook no emotion as was the rest of her porcelain like face.

“I accept, in the interim. Assuming he doesn't forfeit his life in the dungeon, or suffer the training.” she huffed.

‘What’s she got against me anyway? I only touched her biceps!’ Arthur was pulling out his hair internally.

By the time they got things out of the way, they’d looked over the map of the dungeon they would be delving into a week from then. It was the location where the Oasis’ weather enchantments were safeguarded and it was not so far from the fortress itself; only some quart’s walk thereabouts.

Arthur was treated to an afternoon meal in the same room while making casual talk with the clan head concerning the other part of their deal. That was, Arthur was going to be their middleman for trading artifacts in Aldmoor and he’d get part of the proceeds.

They couldn’t do it themselves after getting a sour deal and the chance that they might attract attention from greedy adventurers; the Guild had no jurisdiction in the Bowl yet. Unless they built a defensible city, that would have been the safest option. That part of the deal was also contingent on Arthur getting a foothold there though, like getting a place of residence and so forth.

He’d have to assimilate to society and build a background which could vouch for him if he went somewhere. His career as an adventurer seemed to be surer the more he thought about it; he really wanted to get that swordsman class like yesterday.

Besides the weighty discussions, there was light banter. The occasional teasing from Venera, at which Arkron didn’t even bat an eyelid. Outside of business, Arkron was relaxed like a cool uncle sort of way as they talked.

Arthur even got to know that Nora was a part vampire; the sun didn’t affect her given that she was already in the desert. However, she was still sensitive to it and that’s why she went around in a hood.

Short of a sunburn due to her pale skin, overexposure to the sun did not affect her bloodline traits. Apart from the rare blood affinity, which Arthur hadn’t seen in any of his magical studies, one of her affinities was Nox just like the tieflings. She didn’t say if she could learn another even though she was a mage-born.

“So, when do we begin training?” Arthur said as he dabbed his lips after they’d finished lunch. “And do I stay around the camp or the fortress? I have my own supplies by the way.”

“I think it would be prudent to stay in the fortress. Other clans are not exactly receptive towards humans and your own people may not look favorably towards your association with us.” Akron said as he swirled his wine in a glass made of a hollowed out crystal.

“Training will begin tomorrow. Unless you are not fully recovered?” Verena asked gleefully. “I am looking forward to it. I shall train you in the mornings while our little Angustifolia will train you in the evenings when she is at her peak. Sounds good?”

“Well, yes I guess.”

“Nora will take care of your sleeping arrangements,” Akron added.

“Why me?!” Nora

“Hold on Arkron, I think I’ll take this one.” Venera smirked, “Let the girl gather herself first; she’s still processing you dumping the revelation on her out of nowhere.”

‘Whatever is this woman’s game again?’ Arthur grimaced like he’d bitten into something sour.

Arkron nodded as he stood to leave, “Then, we shall convene soon for more arrangements regarding the dungeon. You have free rein in the fortress but do not go into any area not guarded. I trust Venera will show you around.”

Thereafter, Nora also left. The artificer also requested for some of Arthur’s time before leaving, with the Azure Surfer having been returned. And Arthur was left in the room with a woman whose demeanor made him want to scale walls.

“You don’t have to feel cornered you know,” Venera put down her drink. “I asked to show you around because there is something that I need to address with you.”

“What might that be?” Arthur asked, uncomfortable.

“While it is understandable my [Charm] and [Lower Inhibition] skills failed to get hold because of your mental resilience, one of my bloodline skills still tells me that your mind is in turmoil.”

“Oh, and what might that be?,” Arthur put his guard up.

“As a person with natural empathetic traits because of my traits, I have [Mind Healer] as one of my consolidated classes.”

“Oh, so you are a therapist then? Never mind, what has that got to do with anything?”

“The burden of repressed memories you carry may sooner break your neck if you don’t relieve yourself of it,” she gave him a reassuring smile. “Walk with me while we talk—”

She got up and walked out, implicit that Arthur would follow. Unless he had plans for alternative accommodations, Arthur had no choice but to go after her.