Elfin started to crawl out of bed and donned her fox mask.

“You cannot tell me all that and make me leave,” she complained, while I gently pushed her towards the exit.

“Answers are always in short supply, miss Hero.”

Elfin tried the doorknob, but I motioned for her to wait.

“Do not let the royals and nobles use you. You do not belong to the Kingdom of Velia. You belong to the whole world. Do not be confused by priests. You do not belong to Velian Church, but to Heavens themselves. If anyone treats you harshly find us again or contact the Heavens. Good luck, it is a brand new day and adventure awaits!” I perorated.

With this mentioned I gave a GO sign for Elfin with my hand. Elfin turned the key and opened the door. I pushed miss Hero onto the arms of many courtiers. A very distraught Queen was among them. I waved and smiled at her. My mask was covering most of my face, which was an unfortunate detail.

The courtiers were not even properly armed. They had the likes of guards with them, but they clearly prioritized the safety of their royalty over charging over here. That itself bode ill towards the military readiness of this nation. If they cannot deal with a fake demon on their own in the middle of their (current) capital..

I ended everything with a theatrically deep bow. Elfin shut the door and I turned the key.

“Master?”

“Yes, darling?”

“What happens now?”

“We either go back to bed or start a new day early.”

“I am no longer sleepy, master,” answered my slave politely.

“I thought as much. What a ruckus!”

Something still bothered me. I felt mighty uncomfortable with the way she addressed me. Sometimes she would call me by my new name, but mostly she would call me master. It was nice at first, to hear it from her, but it felt demeaning. I would prefer her to call me by my name, like a friend would call a friend.

“Except when we roleplay,” my thoughts slipped my mouth.

“What is role-play?”

“It is adult stuff, you would not know.”

“I am 30 years old! Of course I know adult stuff.”

“Oh, right. Kind of forgotten that”

“Though I still do not know what roleplay is.”

“Forget it. I will not corrupt your pure soul. Too much.”

“Damn. Why is master keeping yet another secret from me?!” she mumbled to herself.

I sighed.

“What your master thought, I will share now.”

She beamed up at the prospect.

“Master!?”

“I wish to be called by name if you can do that,” I spoke my reasonable request.

“But master,” she said and stopped noticing my glare, “Lynx,” she tried saying and I smiled at her, “Lynx’.. master’s dignity will be tarnished.”

“How so?”

She went on to explain the societal norms with a fervor. I kind of lost her in the middle. I was never one to care much about what others think of me. The gist of her speech was that..

“So it is okay to call me whatever as long as we are alone?” I summed up.

“Yes! No!” she confirmed and denied.

“I see, I see. Please call me Lynx whenever we are alone or in an informal situation then,” I compromised.

“Master! Lynx!”

It sounded like a protest to me.

“Do you not like it?”

Maybe it was too much to try to get her to be more informal. Maybe she needed the formalities as a psychological barrier? I was but a stranger that met her a few days ago.

“This slave will follow the will of the master,” she said and sighed.

Did I do something inherently wrong?

I started to make up the bed. It still ended up a mess, even when she helped. Some people are not destined for chores.

The bed had a fancy curtains that converged near the ceiling. The construction had 4 columns that first went straight up and then diagonally up to the wooden circle akin to a wheel. I think this type of the bed was called a polish bed in medieval era on Earth. Or renaissance or whatever.

“The bed was heavenly, ma.. Lynx,” she admired.

“It was soft indeed, but wait till you visit Heavens, where they sleep on fluffy clouds.”

“What a nice saying. Is it a saying from your home, Lynx?”

“Not really,” I replied absentmindedly, “I hope we can keep occupying this room. We will have to find out who sicced the Hero on us. They will need to learn to respect our privacy and resting hours or we will need to..” I stopped my speech abruptly.

Elfin looked at me with curiosity gleaming from her beautiful eyes.

“I could set up a teleportation trap on the entrance to send any guests far away.”

“What about cleaning staff? Maids?”

“You are right!”

I never thought of that. It is not like I should have my slave do that if we had palace servants to take care of it. She needed to concentrate on fighting and spell slinging, not housekeeping.

Nevertheless I made the Throne monitor the room for any suspicious activity. I had a hunch the Queen and that priestess I borrowed the dress from were somehow both involved in summoning the Hero. The Heroine. It was my fault for not turning the option itself off.

That priestess must have been so mad at me for keeping her locket. I even had the dress ready already. I sighed and started dressing myself. I noticed at that point that I faced this night visit in my lower pajamas only. I wonder whether there is an auto-equip spell recorded somewhere. After helping my slave get into her combat gear I discussed this night’s research.

“I managed to get the teeth-cleaning sap free of dyes. We can use it after meals.”

“Woah. M.. Lynx is an alchemist!” she exclaimed.

“Only a chemist at most. I do not have knowledge of any of the alchemical transmutations. Even the most basic of potions are far from my grasp.”

She was confused, but a much more important matter soon replaced her other thoughts.

“Where are we eating breakfast today, Lynx?” she asked.

“Good question. I think all the inns and restaurants should be still closed at this hour. Maybe we should check the palace kitchens?” I wondered and pondered.

We put our masks back on and teleported there.

“Out! I said out!” shouted an obese female cook.

“But,” I tried to interject.

“Kitchen is closed. I do not care what kind of titles you have/ Leave!” she said and threatened me with a roller pin.

Me!? With a roller pin?

“What about breakfast?”

“In half an hour in the main hall with everyone else! Out!”

We went out of her territory and sight and teleported back to our room. I was kind of down to not be able to start a day with a healthy breakfast. Elfin turned down the snacks I offered and we headed towards the Divine Dungeon entrance with empty stomachs.

Since this would be our first time entering the dungeon I decided to go through o proper entrance. In the future we would probably teleport directly to a floor we desired.

The entrance was a mini castle with two towers and several gates for human and wagon traffic. All made from various shades orange, red and brown bricks. On top of the walls something glinted in the morning sun. Glass shard perhaps?

All of those fortifications seemed to protect the dungeon entrance from the city instead of protecting the city from it. City guards and golems were dotted everywhere and that included posts outside those gates.

The golems seemed to be less defaced than those in the Guild. Not that they had faces in the first place. They simply had much less graffiti scribbled on them. What a tight security.

We went up to one of the pedestrian gates. I greeted the guards but all we got in return was a nod. I shrugged and caught my companion by the shoulder. We trotted inside.

We were early today, but there was already a small queue. It lead to one of the several go-though booths. Each was manned with at least one guild employee and two tough-looking guards. There were side entrances to warehouses that were currently barred. Booths varied in size – there were some small one and half meter wide and others were big with three meters of width. Each was designed like an airlock. A gate made of crisscrossed metal bars was placed on each end.

One of the booths was freed and the next adventuring party went forward. The entry gate rose, while the exit one closed. Gates themselves hang on thick chains. I thought that they were probably connected underground to utilize each other as counterweights. Adventurers flashed their guild cards and put them in some kind of a box.

I could not clearly see the insides, but the guild employee handed them back out shortly thereafter. The gates switched their states and the party marched on into the gaping maw of the dungeon. The gate closed behind them and the entry opened once again.

The process repeated itself a few times until it was finally our turn. We entered a narrow booth.

“Hello,” I greeted the worker – a dwarf with short grey beard and a peg leg.

“Put the cards in the box.”

“Sure,” I replied and put mine into a box that had some carvings on the inside. It was mostly wooden with some metal here and there.

The card glowed green.

“And the lass?”

“She is my slave. They would not issue a card for her.”

“Make sure she knows the rules and dangers here,” the dwarf said and squinted his eyes. A kind dwarf, but the tone sounded like he said that every time and it had become a routine for him.

“Of course. That much is obvious. What does the box check?”

“Dungeoneering knowledge.”

“Ah,” I exclaimed as I had realized what he meant, “the obligatory course we had to take.”

He murmured something affirmative.

“What are the big booths for?” asked Eflin.

“Big parties and return trips with larger pieces of dungeon loot,” answered a bored guard.

The guild worker only harumphed, handed me my card back and asked, “Yer first foray into the Dungeon?”

“Pretty much,” I answered.

“Be careful. Do not stray too deep,” he warned us, “now make place for the next customer,” he said and shooed us away with his free hand.

The gate to the dungeon started rising and the one towards city closed. I have just noticed that the booths had a special wooden plates attached from the direction of the dungeon. They had a single palm drawn in red. There was only one different – with green plate with some kind of spoked wheel drawn. Was that the exit booth?

Between the booths and dungeon entrance there was only one building containing some kind of facility. Through an open door and several windows I could spot priests, mages as well as some commoners inside. We strutted over and peeked inside from a closer spot. It smelled of blood, disease and rot, herbs and everything in between. There was a lot of empty beds.

“Are you hurt, dears?” asked a commoner lady standing by the entrance.

“No. We were just curious about this building.”

“It is a place for healing, dears. Come here if your wounds get too severe. Please remember that the guild charges for healing, but you do not have to pay immediately.”

“Thanks, miss!” I replied.

That was good to know. I did not intend to train so hard as if to require visiting this place ever again, though.

“Miss Annabelle, you can call me Annabelle,” she corrected me.

“Oh, right, miss Annabelle. Goodbye!” I said somewhat absentmindedly and we left.

“Bye, dears.”

I wonder if the Church also takes some money for services of those priests. The healing facility was quite unguarded. Maybe those priests were there to actually protect it? Nope. Their levels were shitty. Not that they healing magic skills were shitty. Just normal levels and that correlates with low combat ability. Would the monsters chasing fleeing adventurers not attack here or what?

On the other hand the entrance of the dungeon was guarded by two glorious angel statues. Their right hands were raised, pointing their longswords toward the sky. They carried bucklers on the left. It kind of broke the symmetry, but it was still epic.

Wings were mostly embedded into the bedrock and they created an arch over the entrance. There was not a single sign of wear and tear on them despite being ancient works of art.

Truly magnificent.

On side not they were pretty realistic. Trust me I would know.

“It feels as if they were frozen in time,” I said.

“As if their swords would strike down heretics at any moment,” finished my elf.

“You are in a morbid mood today, are you not?” I asked and continued, “is it because we had no breakfast?”

“I think it is a little bit of the reason, master,” she replied, “but mostly due to the nature of the facts regarding the impending doom, that master shared with me in lieu of breakfast.”

“Should I not have told you about it?” I asked, “I should have not,” I answered myself before she could, “you could have still lived weeks, maybe months in bliss ignorance. I did promise you all the truth I could handle sharing on the other hand.”

“Hopefully we can prepare appropriately and survive for a long time,” she said in response, stopped and then added, “I was going to train hard anyway,” she said, “for master,” she finished much more quietly.

“I hope so, too. And I am sorry for putting an additional burden on your shoulders.”

She forced a smile.

“Master. May I be impertinent and point that we should concentrate on the dangerous task at hand?”

I nodded.

“The first monster of Ythall Dungeon is..” she started to explain.

“Dazed Jackrabbit,” I finished, “it should be as fast as a normal Jackrabbit, but prone to getting confused.”

Even if we both attended the same classes it was great to actually review everything we had learned.

“Still we do not know actually how fast it is.”

“No, we do not. Let’s play it safe today.”

“Master, I have never visited the Cellars in my slave life.”

“I know that, silly. The proper name for those cellars is the Divine Dungeon of Ythall.”

“I do not want to disappoint master,” she said apologetically, “wait, what?” she added shocked.

“Divine Dungeon of Ythall. That is the correct name for it,” I said, “why would you call it cellars?”

“I see. Cellars..,” she said and paused, “I heard that is how adventurers call them.”

How weird.

I shrugged and motioned towards the entrance that was gently sloping down ahead of us.