Chapter 19: Chapter 16 – Back to the Dungeon

Jake and the demoness woke up quite late, with their abnormal sleeping schedule. Late enough that the Valkyrie was already awake, and was pacing around, clearly unsure what to do without direction.

[That was wonderful, and I would love to bask in this feeling for a bit longer, but that poor thing is going to wear out the floors with her pacing.]

It really was wonderful. Jake felt like a million credits, finally able to relieve the tension that this demoness built in him. Still, Jake was a little concerned. He had received notifications while they were going at it, that he had ignored.

 

Just what was Jake’s life? Well, those were some skills that were going to get some extra training, forever, he realized. Still, it was time to get up for the day. There will be many nights to enjoy going forward, as the demoness has made quite clear. They head out the room, and set about their day. They set to a schedule that was more of a repeat of the first full day with the Valkyrie: spear training and practice, followed by practicing and learning Runic Magic, working on Ophelia’s core, and now that Jake knew that they could block their thoughts, they did so for the purpose of playing games.

They played various card games, and mixed game nights between movie nights. They even got to play Jake’s console games together, which was completely new to both the Valkyrie and the demoness. A week flew by in a blur, and the three of them had finally succeeded: the Valkyrie managed to form her core.

She had gotten just as emotional as Jake did, and thanked them both profusely. The mana core really was something special, and would allow her to reach new heights going forward. The effect on her core was the same as Jake’s, giving her fifty percent more total mana, something that only mage classes could enjoy normally. Jake and Fhesiah had devoted dozens of hours helping her form it over this last week, keeping their promise to help her be successful.

Not only that, but their work on [Runic Magic] was really starting to bear fruit. Jake was now able to make a ball of ice, a strength buff, and a shield, to which the Valkyrie was able to match. The strength buff was quite effective, but it only lasted a few seconds and Jake could not figure out just how to make it longer. Both his and Ophelia’s Runic Magic had reached level two, though, so he was quite happy at their growth, considering they had not yet used it in combat. Her mana control had reached level three, as well.

During the week Jake discussed with Ophelia many things, learning about her past. Jake learned that her mother in fact did die: when dungeons landed on her world, making it contested. Her mother had not yet been initiated into the framework, and so she would not be revived. Jake had wondered how death worked with families for those that had been initiated into the framework, and it appeared that the rich and powerful would have no problems paying the resurrection price, to prevent their loved ones from becoming servants. Families could otherwise pay the dues by working hard, but if they died while working hard in earning it, it would only make things worse.

He also learned that she did not worship a god currently as she had not yet made her choice on who to worship for her Valkyrie powers; she was a little bitter that the gods did not protect her home world, they failed her and her mother, as well as the rest of the world. Jake learned that a Valkyrie’s powers were not all granted by Odin or Freyja, and she had various to choose from; they didn’t even have to be Nordic, so they really felt similar to paladins when it came to that.

Jake told her that she could choose whomever she wanted within [The Alliance] and he wouldn’t mind, but if she wanted his help in picking them, he would help. He thought that they would need to pick a patron God or Goddess, along with a guild in the future anyway, so they might as well do some research while they were at it. She agreed to his help, and thought that she would pick the same God or Goddess to worship for her powers. Jake put a Book of Gods in The Alliance on his “things we need to buy” list. It wasn’t that expensive at only fifty credits, but they could not make much use of it at the moment.

Ophelia would need to be able to visit a temple to gain her Valkyrie powers, anyways, or make their own temple in their [Refuge]. They would really need to wait until they completed the [Trial] and could access the multiverse, or saved nearly 50,000 credits before they could choose her God or Goddess formally.

Looking over what Jake could find on the [Alliance Wiki] for free, there was information there on the Gods or Goddesses, but mostly about their domains and general information.  Jake figured they would need to gather more information, and preferably from multiple sources, when it comes to something like this.

If Jake was to choose a god or goddess based on just their domain though, he was looking at Hestia, the Goddess of hearth, home and family. He felt that these things resonated with him, and even the demoness agreed with him for her own reasons. It appeared the hearth and her flames were agreeable, and if he caught the thought that sped by in her mind rapidly right, the fact that she was a Goddess helped put her on the short list in the demoness’ mind.

Jake and Ophelia’s spear training had come a long way during the week. They even practiced working in tandem against a training dummy that Jake purchased for only 25 credits. Positioning of her shield and both their spears was important to providing an opening, allowing Jake to perform flanking maneuvers even from directly behind the Valkyrie. They did their best to coordinate so that when they get into a fight, they are not stepping on each other’s toes or getting in each other’s way.

Jake was also getting quite fond of her. Their daily games together with the demoness had been a lot of fun, and he could tell that she enjoyed them very much. She nearly always had a beaming smile on her face, and Jake found it easy to respect her focus and determination when it came to fighting and training. It was hard not to like such an earnest and hard-working individual. It certainly didn’t hurt that she was so beautiful, as well.

Truth be told, Jake was glad that the demoness was wanting to share Jake with her. Her body was like that of a fitness model, and her face was pretty enough to be on the cover of any magazine. While her body was firm with muscle, she was soft and had a welcoming smile on her face at all times other than when she was doing or preparing for battle. She was very different from the demoness, and Jake was sure he wanted to keep her by his side. 

He could see from how she looked at him that she respected and was fond of him, too. The summoner’s bond had improved over the last week with her, and he sometimes could feel some emotions coming from her. Of course, fond is not the word that the demoness would use to describe how the Valkyrie feels about Jake.

[She already sees you as her hero, or her chosen Jake. She already knows that we are together, what with us sleeping in the same room, and I already had a talk with her about sharing you with her. She is still trying to understand her own feelings, but her desire has not diminished; it is only a matter of time before she approaches you herself.]

Jake was content to let her wait a while longer, they had only known each other for such a short period, him wanting to let her get in touch with her feelings and for her to feel at home. On top of that, it had only been a week since he had started “sleeping” with the demoness. During this past week, the demoness had been completely insatiable, once even putting the Valkyrie on a convoluted task so they could disappear for an hour, and that’s not even including the nightly and morning activities. The valkyrie had lived a sheltered life, and had very little experience with romance outside of stories and mostly the movies that Jake had them watching.

Her mother died before she was five, and her father had not taken it very well. Her father had kept her in his forge to help him and keep him company, but he was filled with grief. She had started training herself, her desire to be like her mother great, and eventually got her father to send her to a boarding school that included a sort of adventuring training. There, she was ostracized for being a Valkyrie with the last name of Smithsdottir, and her being poor at magic. She then avoided her classmates at the boarding school, only interacting with them the bare minimum that she could. Her martial talents were impressive, but she was poor at nearly everything else, not having had proper schooling from her smith father.

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In many ways her life was not dissimilar from Jake’s, but he had managed to fit in much better than she had. Once she completed her training and was introduced to the framework, she died not long after that, never getting a chance to gain her confidence.

He can hardly handle the demoness; how could he possibly handle the Valkyrie’s needs in that way as well? The demoness snorted over their bond, and replied [Didn’t I tell you I would take care of everything? But if you are hesitant, that is fine, I will not push things further for now. Teasing the both of you has been enjoyable enough as it is, so I will give you two some more time to stew on it. I do think that when you start fighting you are really going to see her desire for you.]

Jake guessed that as well. He had seen it somewhat on that first and only day they had entered the dungeon and fought gnolls together, that she paid great attention and interest to his actions, and seemed overly excited about everything he did, though, that was when she thought he was a commander. There was one moment while fighting one of the groupings of gnolls, where he stepped in and stabbed one of them in the throat as they were busy, focused on her. The look of awe in her expression was like he showed her fire for the first time. Yet, she had six other gnolls dead at her feet by her hand.

The demoness was now in top fighting form as well, now. Jake would consider her some kind of pyromancer, but one that could only cast a few spells per day. She was able to use the gout of flame attack many times, but she explained that her tools should only be saved for the larger fights. Her regeneration of heavenly energy took a long time, so her ability to use her spells in each fight until they could regularly supply her with crystals was severely limited. However, her role in most fights is now completely different.

Jake remembered having a thought; that what they needed was a badgerdillo in humanoid form. As it turned out, he had one floating next to him the whole time. From the store, they purchased some wicked looking gauntlets with claws on the fingers for two hundred credits. Jake had protested that if she was getting into the thick of the fighting, she would need to wear armor. She proved this statement incorrect by showing how her robes were actually stronger than the armor that Jake himself was wearing, now that she was able to infuse them with heavenly energy. 

Jake was still worried about the situation where she would run out of heavenly energy, but her rebuttal was that if that happened then Jake or the rest of the party had already failed enough that this flaw would be small potatoes. They should have long since left the dungeon to recuperate back at the refuge, or if they were on a longer run brought heavenly crystals. Or-

[Or, you can just fill me to the brim like you always do, Master.]

She always managed to find the words that teased Jake, but they had found that Jake’s mana transfer did in fact restore heavenly energy, though at a very poor rate. It took several of his mana pools, or several hours, to fill her own core for combat, and she could even use it somewhat for improving her own cultivation. This was also the reason why his skill was now level 3; She would have him use it during both their daily and nightly activities, or during movies, or, just all the time really. He was wondering if she was becoming addicted.

They had many spars over the last week, and Jake and Ophelia had both found that when Fhesiah was going all-out with her heavenly energy, they could not deal with her speed or her strength. She could not keep up such overwhelming power for long, but she could use bursts of speed or strength to throw them off completely, overcoming their guards or sidestepping their attacks. How could such slender arms produce such power? Jake knew that at the very least, the gnolls did not stand a chance against her. She was plenty fast and strong without using much heavenly energy; much stronger or faster than Jake.

So now, they had a pretty impressive formation with the Valkyrie often fighting front and center, with Jake behind or to the side, and the demoness often on the other. Jake was really starting to feel unable to keep up with the girls in melee combat, and wondered if he should just stay back and cast spells. Keeping up the girl’s buffs and keeping himself with the same ones was also a major cost, reducing how much mana he had available for spellcasting.

The summon beast would now be only marginally useful between the three of them now, but Jake would keep using it. He had to increase the skill, and when it improved, they might eventually get something better or allow him to choose much more specialized creatures. The demoness could still fly and float, something that surprised Jake. He thought the only reason that she could float without flapping her wings was because she was not very different from a ghost, but being a dragon, or at least part-dragon enabled her control over her personal flight in that fashion for only a modest cost.

However, her ability to become insubstantial or invisible were both from her previous state as a soul flying around. So now she would no longer be an invisible scout, and they were needing something else to take on the role. Jake knew that he would soon have a spell that could handle this, but for now they just had two party members that could fly and scout.

After one whole week, their various purchases had made them quite poor, only a few hundred credits left. With that, they would head out to clear the gnoll dungeon, and focus on leveling up and earning what they could. The goal to complete the [Trial] to unlock multiverse travel was firm in their minds.

When they entered the dungeon, they found that many of the patrols had returned. Killing them had really become no challenge at all though, them showing the fruits of their labor. The Valkyrie had taken to the sky, and was able to scout them out before working together with Jake and Fhesiah to take them down rapidly.

For the third time, they reached the bottom of the hill, and once again there were eight gnolls at the top. Jake summoned the dog, but knew that it was only a small force multiplier for the upcoming fights. Jake decided to start the fight at range with the Valkyrie also firing balls of ice, using Runic Magic.

They cast their runes forming a ball of ice about the size of their heads, and were then able to fling them at their enemies like a bolt out of a crossbow. When the two gnolls were struck with the balls of ice, they were bowled over from the blows, but still stirring on the ground, ice spreading where the ball of ice hit them. The six remaining gnolls were charging, so Jake and Ophelia just targeted two others from that group. Even though they were running towards them with their own momentum, the balls of ice still struck hard enough to knock them down, letting them meet the remaining four in a melee.

Because they were going to have to fight many packs like this one, Jake wanted Fhesiah to limit herself in combat for now, but Jake still saw she moved much faster than the gnoll could keep up with, slashing their throat in mere moments after parrying their weapon with her claws. Jake’s target went down just as easily, using his spear extended using [Mana Blade], he was able to slice off one of their legs, and deliver a killing blow. The Valkyrie slammed into the closest gnoll running towards them, bowling it over using a burst of speed from her wings, then engaged the other gnoll with prodding thrusts of her spear. The dog pinned down the downed gnoll by latching on to one of their legs with its jaws.

The demoness snuck to the downed gnoll and stabbed her wicked claws into its kidneys from behind as it tried to get up, and Jake moved to flank the Valkyrie’s target. It ended up being unnecessary though, as the Valkyrie quickly bested and took down the gnoll she was facing; being much faster and stronger than it was. The four ball of ice struck gnolls were now moving together as a group, and Jake could see the effects of a single spell. The ice had really spread from where they were hit, the damage being quite more than he had imagined. All four gnolls were moving slowly like they had bruised or damaged bones, and some appeared to have trouble breathing.

They quickly dispatched this group and moved to loot their victims. Jake could feel the excitement from the two women, their training pushing them forward to where these enemies were now trivial. Most likely, they could have taken these enemies out completely at range.  They would now move into the village proper, and start clearing it out.

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