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PW Chapter 27: A Strange Encounter
🕑 Added 2025-06-03 21:09:12 +0000 UTC“There’s nothing against it.” Grom shrugged. “Don’t know if I could call it a good idea, but it’s not an explicitly bad one. Maybe it’d be something that can keep some people from losing all desire from delving? So if you can find somebody to help you out with that, then go ahead.”
“All right, thank you.” Astrid replied.
It hadn't taken long for her to come to the conclusion that, even though she was stiff and tired, she needed to get back into the Dungeon, into delving, even if it was just to kill the weakest monsters that existed on the surface now due to the surge. since Grom had told her that she could go ahead and do it, that's what she decided to do. Turning back to the inn, it didn't take long for her to get into her armor and then back out the door.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Svana asked as she saw Astrid. “Are you stupid or is there something that I just don't understand?”
“Maybe I am a little stupid,” Astrid allowed, tamping down the anger that threatened, “but the longer I take before I get back fighting them, the harder it will be for me to delve at all. That being the case, there's nothing for it but to do it.”
It took a while for Svana to respond to that. Then, eventually she nodded a little. “It’s a little stupid for sure, but I don't think you're wrong… you make me feel like all the worries and very rational fears that I'm feeling are childish. But dammit, count me in. If you'll have me, at least?” Svana’s voice trembled a little at the end. Astrid shrugged.
“No real reason for me to say no. you know,” she said with as much of a grin as she could muster as she ignored the painful history she shared with the deceitful Scout, “except for the reduced experience rates.”
Svana didn't deign to respond to the stupid joke. Instead, she flitted into the end where she very quickly got herself outfitted and then came out for a brief expedition.
“Before you ask, yes, I asked. Unsurprisingly,” Svana supplied, “Tobias is not at all willing to come along.”
“I wouldn't worry too much about it. Anywhere we go and anything we do for the next couple of days is going to be pretty heavily observed by at least the Iron parties. They’ll have a vested interest in not letting us die after they showed up. And that's saying nothing about our mysterious third party that's making everyone else relax.”
“I've asked around,” Svana said, seizing on the topic “and nobody seems to know who or what this other party is… you have anything?”
“Nothing that I can share.” Astrid shrugged. Svana perked up, wanting to follow through on that line of questioning, but Astrid continued talking, keeping the other woman from speaking. “And before I would talk about any of these other things, I want to know what your and Tobias’s reasons are for hating me so much.”
“You’re just going to bring that up and casual conversation?” Svana asked, disbelief obvious in her tone. Given the uncomfortable body language, she didn’t want to talk about it, but Astrid didn’t let up.
“When else would I? It's not like we have some sort of relationship that will allow me to sit at the same dining table as you. In fact, we’ve been commanded not to and the surge is the only reason why we’re anywhere near each other.” Astrid's tone was bitter despite her efforts to make it more casual. “You both deliberately tried to destroy my future as a delver. Tobias, regardless of everything else, has deliberately mistreated me and prodded me and tried to make me angry whenever possible. I don't think that, regardless of how good of an experience we had saving each other's lives during the surge, that we'll ever have a relationship that isn't at least a little combative.”
“I…” Svana had the decency to look truly ashamed for the first time. After allowing herself to stew in silence for nearly a minute, she looked up. “Honestly, in retrospect, it's all stupid. A little bit of fear, a bit of prejudice, and feeling like we were the bottom of the barrel, and we decided to establish ourselves as ‘superior’ to someone who was lower than us in the hierarchy. I know that Tobias is, quite frankly, a prig and a genuinely meanspirited person, and he didn't need any reason to hate you. I just decided to follow that, because… I guess I'm weak.”
That was it. That was it? This was all for such petty, stupid reasons… it left Astrid feeling like she either needed to laugh or scream. There was no reason at all for them to have treated her that way? A part of her had expected that they'd experienced some sort of trauma or abuse at the hands of a Barbarian, and though that would have been stupid to compare her to them, it might have made some measure of sense. Instead… it was this garbage? She continued walking in silence, unable to know how she could even respond.
With no further words spoken between them, the two women quickly arrived at the edge of the territory being patrolled by the Iron tiers. A couple wargs’ roars could be heard somewhere nearby, but before they could figure out what to do or where they would go, a voice called out.
“Hey, what’re you up to?”
A woman Astrid thought she recognized stepped out of the forest. After looking for a moment, she realized that this woman wasn’t the member of the Flechettes that she’d seen before, but was probably a party member. She had a larger crossbow held in her hands, and her dark armor blended in well with the unnaturally dark forest.
“We’re delvers. Just making sure we don’t lose our nerve. Figured we’d get some experience while we were at it.” Astrid supplied. “I’m Astrid Warrior, and this is Svana Scout.”
“Gotcha.” The woman nodded as she stepped forward with an outstretched hand. “I’m Lisandra, the Ranger of the Flechettes. I’m happy to accompany you and dispatch any wargs that’ve passed the first watershed for you, if you’d like. With everyone working together and the strongest wargs around only being level 12, we’re just all patrolling and making sure that, now that the initial uncontrolled surge is taken care of, none escape. It’s pretty boring, to be honest.”
“We’d appreciate that.” Astrid nodded, hiding her surprise and fear at hearing that there’d been an over 100% growth in strength from the surge. “Svana, I didn’t ask, but do you want to scout out at all, or just fight as a skirmisher finisher hybrid? I’ll take a frontliner role.”
“That’s fine.” Svana nodded, not looking or sounding at all like herself. Astrdi had to fight down a scoff. What a tragedy, there were consequences to people’s actions. And she was being particularly forgiving too! She cast the Scout’s idiocy from her mind and instead rolled her shoulders back and groaned. She’d realized recently, when she’d checked over her Status idly, that she’d pushed herself so hard the day before during the surge that she’d gained another point in Fortitude. That didn’t help her feel any less sore or pained, though.
“Alright.” Lisandra nodded. “I won’t give you any advice or whatever, so good luck. I’ll be nearby and making sure none of the stronger ones show up.”
The two delvers readied themselves, and Astrid looked at Svana.
“I don’t know what Skills you’ve got, but if you have anything that’ll let us know where the nearest wargs are, let's use that.”
“Nothing quite that miraculous, but I have an inkling of where they might be. Follow me, keep an eye out.”
Astrid wanted to snap at Svana, but instead, she kept herself as patient as possible and just nodded in response as she extended the mental invitation to become a party. Svana accepted. They stalked into the forest, and the closer they came to the Dungeon’s entrance, the darker and darker the forest became. The bright colors of spring bled away until the shadow combined with the deep colors of the forest made their path tread through darkness. Fortunately, Svana caught Astrid’s attention and pointed into the forest. With the warning, she heard a pair of wargs stalking forward.
Before they could throw themselves into the fight, Astrid hefted her hammer and strode into battle. With only two wargs, it wasn’t difficult to deal killing blows to them in the brief moments Svana drew their attention.
Warg slain. 8 Experience gained, split among party.
Warg slain. 7 Experience gained, split among party.
Astrid bent down and cut their ears free. As she stowed them, Svana groaned. “In this case, you’re the frontliner as well as the finisher. I’m more of a distraction than anything else.”
“You’re a Scout.” Astrid raised her eyebrow. “That’s your job—find things, engage when you can. Right now, because of our position and how dangerous our surroundings are, you’re not scouting, just skirmishing. It’s nothing to care about.”
Svana shrugged, seemingly unwilling to give a straight answer to Astrid. Not wanting to deal with her, Astrid sighed and continued on her way. Just a couple more and she’d pass 1,100 experience. The progress… was so slow.
“Well, let’s keep moving.” Astrid said, pulling the attention back on their fighting. “If we get ambushed by a couple wargs because we’re over here whining, then I don’t think our unseen ally will save us from our stupidity. Now come on.”
***
“I’m done.” Svana panted, wiping some of the too-dark warg blood from her cheeks.
“Me too.” Astrid answered as she yanked the hammer from the dead warg’s flesh with a squelch that was becoming worryingly commonplace to her. With Svana, they’d killed almost 20 of the monsters, and she’d gained another 69 experience. 1,160, now. 840 until level 3. Then 3,000 to level 4, 4,000 to 5, and 5,000 to 6. At that point, she’d finally move on from this one-note Dungeon entrance. She couldn’t help but think about other, more exciting monsters to fight. Even though it’d been just a bit over a day since she’d fought the Boss with the help from her talisman, Astrid wanted more variety than this rookie-focused entrance offered. Maybe there’d be a troll or orc in her next one, or maybe more than just one type of monster.
That said, a part of her felt guilty wanting more exciting things to kill, considering what’d happened just the day before. Was there something wrong with her? Petr was dead! Dozens more were too! And she… wanted to kill stronger monsters. Her goal in the long run was to protect her country, but a part of her insidiously whispered that she deserved to have fun getting there.
She pulled the head of her hammer through the thick grass, wiping the worst of the gore from it as she looked around.
“It’s that way, right?” Astrid asked, pointing to where she thought Schteldt was.
“Close.” Svana adjusted the direction nearly a quarter turn. “But we would have come across the road that way, so it’s close enough.”
Astrid grunted in dissatisfaction. She wanted to be able to take care of herself in the wilderness, so she was trying to have Svana teach her how to orientate herself in a forest to limited success. She turned to walk in that direction when their unseen ally showed herself. Lisandra still held her large crossbow and nodded.
“Glad you came. It’s a lot more fun to only identify the strongest ones and pick them off than to just kill them all without any real limits. Seems like you got some good kills, too. Take these, have a drink on me.”
As she said as much, the Iron tier delver tossed over a half dozen ears with a string holding them together. They were significantly larger than those that were already in Astrid’s pouch, but before she could say anything else, the Ranger had disappeared into the forest.
“Do they all always do that?” She muttered to herself as she put the ears away.
“Stealthy Classes disappearing?” Svana asked as they continued walking. “It’s a point of pride. Showing off, that there’s something important that we can do. It’s just something people like to do.”
“Huh.” Astrid replied. She didn’t feel that same thing, but she supposed there wasn’t anything she could say to that except that she disagreed. Instead of possibly beginning another fight, she just nodded and continued walking. Before too long, they stepped entirely out of the forest and they made their way towards the town. Then, as they made their way into the inn and Astrid passed the ears on to Grom, she suddenly heard something. A high pitched whine or whistle.
“You hear that?” She asked Svana.
“Nothing, really.” The Scout replied.
Astrid nodded once. “Ok.”
“Here’s the pay.” Grom pushed two small silver pieces over, and Astrid cocked her head. Before she or Svana could ask, he continued, “Those other ears were past the second watershed. They’re the bulk of the value there, since they’re given triple worth during a surge.”
“We’ll have to give our thanks to Lisandra, then.” Astrid said. Svana nodded, collected her coin, and walked away. Wanting a bath, Astrid was going to go up the stairs and take off her armor, but when she tried to open her mouth to say something else, she couldn’t. Instead, she nodded without willing to do so herself, and turned to walk down the hall towards her room. Step after step, terror rose in her heart. What was happening? What was doing this? Was she going to die?
Her bedroom’s door opened without her touching it, and inside, there sat two women. One wore a full body of black leather armor, so finely tailored and stitched that it seemed to be all one piece. A faint pattern on the armor itself revealed that whatever creature the materials had come from had scales which’d been largely removed in the tanning process. A bandolier stretched across her chest, the knives there transparent and faintly glowing. Her black hair was pulled back in a thick french braid, and her plain face sported a couple scars.
The other woman was sunny in every way that the first was gloomy. Her hair was a fair blonde and hung around her face in a lightly curling curtain, and her teeth seemed to glow in the faint light coming from the single small window. She wore leather armor as well, but hers wasn’t dyed a dark color. Instead, it was a light tan, and consisted of bracers and a fitted chestpiece over a generous bodice. Underneath, she wore a flowing sky blue dress, the bustles and petticoats showing a little under where she sat primly on Astrid’s bed.
“Hello!” The blonde woman spoke, but her companion cut her off.
“My turn. Listen, I don’t want you talking about this to anyone, got it? If you do… well, there won’t be a whole lot more words to tell.”
“Makes sense, Miriam of the Golden Fist.” Astrid nodded slowly, the hold over her body slackening enough for her to do so. “And this would be Isana?”
“Oh!” Isana let out a couple excited claps. “We were right! She’s real clever! I like her. Do you want to join our party? I like your Skills. Plus, we could mould you into the best Warrior ever. You already know who we are, so it should be an easy decision, right?”
Astrid didn’t know what to say to that one, though after meeting two Dungeoneers, now, she was pretty sure that the Class itself either only came to… particular individuals, or it broke something in the people it chose. While she thought about what to respond with, Miriam, the Golden Fist’s Assassin, spoke as she reestablished control over Astrid once again.
“No, she’s not even Iron, much less Adamantium.”
“That’s the point! We’d help her get the perfect Class evolutions and—”
“No. We have things we have to do, and she’d die long before that happened. And just… whatever.” With a flick of Miriam’s wrist, Astrid was free, as if she’d never been unable to control herself. “Look I’ll be honest. Isana here picked up the scent of an interesting Skill somewhere around here, so we took a break to investigate. She wanted to check it out, see if there’s anything she could learn from it and then we saw it was you who had the mysterious Skill. Alek got a good impression of you too, so we figured we’d see what’s going on and evaluate you.”
Astrid’s heart dropped despite herself. She’d been pulled into this with no warning, had no idea what was going on, and two members of the party she’d looked up to ever since she’d heard about named parties were testing her. The panic and fear that’d subsided a little as she’d gotten enough information to know who was doing this to her surged, and she stood with her mouth open. Nothing else to do, she settled into parade rest, as her mother’d taught her, and then asked, “Well, how am I doing?”
“Oh, it’s long since over!” Isana giggled. “You passed. That’s why I want her to—”
“Shhh. Isana.” Miriam sighed and set her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “I’ll talk for a minute.”
The Dungeoneer sighed, then demurely put her finger over her lips and pretended to be sworn to secrecy. Still on the back foot, Astrid turned her attention fully to Miriam, who crossed a leg over the other with a creaking of leather.
“So. After the terrible first experience with a surge, you got back out there. That’s good. Then, you got along well with that Scout, even though you’ve got a nasty history with her, which was another positive for you. You were willing to have a conversation that was difficult, in a place where other emotions or performative actions were possible. After she explained her stupid point, you didn’t argue or accuse.”
“Wait, how do you know this?” Astrid interrupted. “We were—” she cut herself off. “You were following us?”
“Yeah.” Miriam was wholly unapologetic about it. “So, as I was saying. You do well interpersonally, even if you didn’t do a whole lot of work to mend bridges, that’s not a requirement. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and you’re flexible in combat. Pay attention when you’re in a dangerous environment, and you took leadership pretty easily. Then, there’s your Skills. Two Bronze and one higher value assigned at the Bestowal is probably the best thing you have going for you, and everything else about you is outstanding.”
“What… what does this all mean?” Astrid asked, confused.
“Honestly?” Miriam shrugged. “Not much, in the grand scheme. You’ve got everything laid out for you to be better than we are, but you’re still a baby rookie, so there’s no way to say how far you’ll go. Even so, we’ll get you something to help grease these first levels. They’re the slowest, and lots of people end up disappearing during them.”
“I… what?” Astrid didn’t know what to say, but before she could, Isana shrugged with a massive grin and they both disappeared.
“This is garbage.” She said aloud, fairly confident they could hear her. “What is this supposed to mean??”
There was no answer.
Comments
No_Creative_Name
Seeing the living, breathing makeup of the world as a whole touches the mind maaaaaaan
Mel
I love that the Dungeoneers are all bananas.
No_Creative_Name
I enjoyed writing them haha
Gilded Goblin
Honestly funny. Getting nearly abducted by possibly one of the strongest Parties in the region, cause you got a certain skill and the Dungeoneer though it was neat. Instead getting told, rather ominously, that they're gonna power-level you with minimal interference. Honestly I'd be lost too.
