Chapter 55: Fifty three

We’d decided to leave digging out the burnt tents until morning, so they had time to cool and because there was only two hours left until we needed to leave for the dungeon. 

After moving our salvaged belongings into the lab, I spent some time smoothing out the jagged glass. While I worked on making the lab less spiky, Kip left to find bedding to replace what was destroyed. The other three women of my team took advantage of the dwarf's absence to change into their armor. I’d also changed, as my clothing had been scorched by the fire, and was heavily scented with the unique smell produced by sulfur. 

“Zosimos, I’m going to close the entrance of the tunnel so Leo doesn’t go off causing mischief. Do you want to go out?” I asked the crow as the team readied to leave. 

Caw. 

Leaping off the perch I’d formed for him on the wall, Zosimos took off for the tunnel. I wasn’t surprised by his desire to leave, if I was him, I wouldn’t want to be left with the kitten unsupervised either. Leo’s tendency to destroy anything he could get his claws on, was why I’d created a sealed storage room for the things we weren’t taking with us.

The Leosaur cub had his basket, a bundle of blankets to nap on, full food bowls, and his leather ball, which was almost falling apart with deep bite marks over its surface. I wouldn’t risk bringing Leo into the dungeon, or any combat situations, until he’d grown larger, and had shown he could properly behave. The last thing I wanted was for him to go running off while we were inside the tomb, which had been described as a trap filled maze. 

After double checking I had everything I thought I’d need, I turned to observe my team who were finishing their own preparations. Seeing Victoria’s two massive tower shields, I was yet again taken aback by the sheer size. Both, when set on the ground, were taller than me, with three large spikes on the front of each. I’d offered to coat the spikes in poison for the Kijo, and she’d laughingly informed me her foes would be dead before any poison would affect them. 

Both Pia and Kip had taken me up on my offer, not surprising considering I’d offered to do it for free as a way to apologize for the whole burning down the tents thing. Pia’s weapon was a spear with a jagged blade, which she gleefully informed me was designed that way to tear open her foes when she yanked the spear back out after stabbing them. Kip was a little less aggressive with his choice of weaponry, and used a pair of broad daggers that looked more like short swords when wielded by the Dwarf. 

Rainy on the other hand, didn’t appear to have any weapons, and when I’d questioned the lack of weaponry, she’d simply given me a sweet smile while informing me she was the weapon. I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but guessed I’d learn the answer soon enough. 

As we left the underground lab, I sealed the entrance leaving only a few holes in the stone door to allow for air to flow through, while still keeping a certain reptilian feline inside. 

“Aren’t we going to get our horses?” I asked as Victoria led the group through the encampment in the opposite direction of the animal pens. 

“Don’t need em.” The Kijo grunted, carrying one of her heavy shields on her left arm, while the other was strapped to her back. 

“Isn’t the dungeon almost an hour’s ride away?” 

“Don’t worry Kadia, we have a ride.” Rainy said, as Pia and Kip exchanged grins. 

The expressions on the Faun and Dwarfs faces had me narrowing my eyes at the pair, who just grinned wider in response. 

As we walked through the encampment, we passed the commander’s tents. Seeing Darius standing with Corvus, I asked Victoria to wait a moment so I could speak with the guild leader. 

“Darius,” I called, bounding over to my fellow beast Yōkai with a smile. 

“Kadia, heading out?” The guild leader asked, seeing the others standing behind me. 

“Yup, I just wanted to give you this before I left.” I told the guild leader, giving him a jar filled with red jam. 

“Jam?” 

I nodded, giving him a sweet smile, as I pulled out a second jar, which I handed to a narrow eyed Corvus. 

“I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier. Both the fire, and throwing a smoke bomb at you Corvus.” I said, giving the lion Bakeneko a contrite look. 

Corvus’s expression made it clear he wasn’t buying into the act, and he proved it by swapping his jar with the one I handed Darius, while giving me a suspicious glare. 

“They’re both the same,” I told him with a giggle, as he swapped them for a second time when I showed no reaction. 

“You done, Foxy?” Victoria called, and I gave both guild officers a bright smile before skipping away to rejoin my team, tail wagging happily as I imagined the expression Corvus would make if he dared try the jam. 

I wasn’t worried about Darius, the guild leader was a spice addict, and I’d once seen him eating fire berries as though they really were the strawberries they appeared to be. He’d even been adding the fire berry powder I’d ground to use for my choke bombs to his meals during our trip through the sand sea. If anyone would appreciate a jar of the fire berry jam, it would be Darius, and if Corvus was fooled into trying it by the guild leader’s lack of adverse reaction, all the better. 

“What was in the jars?” Pia asked, glancing back at the guild leader and commander who were watching us leave. 

“Just some berry jam. I felt bad about the fire,” I said, twisting my words to ensure my statement was completely truthful incase the officers could still hear us. 

As we reached the encampment's exit, I saw my brother trudging towards us with a bedraggled-looking hunting team following along behind him. Well, half a hunting team, I realized as I noticed they appeared to be missing Roderick, Bastian and Dorian. 

“Hey little bro, looking a bit rough there.” I called out, getting a grunt in response. 

“Want a tincture?” I asked, wiggling a vial at him and he grunted at me again. 

“Words, brother.” 

“Need more than a vial, gonna take a damn jug to feel better.” He grumbled, snatching the vial. 

“What happened?” Pia asked, eyes roving over the group with interest. 

“Got run over by a boulder.” 

“Did you get my plants?” I asked, eyeing the pouch at his waist. 

“I’m beat to the point I can barely move and you’re asking about plants?” My brother complained, handing me the pouch. 

“Oh please, if you were really hurt you’d be sulking more. You’re a whiny brat when you get hurt or sick.” I scoffed, taking my pouch, and tossing him a second vial of pain relieving tincture, along with a jar of wound salve. 

“Rub that on, it’ll help heal any bruising.” I informed him, then gave a vial of tincture to Killian and Conrad who were giving me pleading looks. 

“Let's get out of here before these pointy eared mooches con our alchemist out of any more freebies.” Kip interjected, as the elves downed their tinctures. 

This earnt the dwarf a pair of glares, and a cuff over the back of the head from our team captain. 

Bidding the two elves and my brother goodbye, we continued on our way through the settlement. 

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“You shouldn’t just be handing stuff like that out on a whim Kadia, you need to take the cost of production into account at the very least.” The dwarf lectured, and I rolled my eyes. 

“I’m not stupid, Kip.” I snapped defensively, pulling my accounting book out of my bag and waving it at the dwarf. “They’re all on a tab, if they don’t pay up it’ll be deducted from their guild stipend.” 

“Ah, well, that’s good then.” Kip coughed awkwardly, looking a little embarrassed. 

“I may not have any interest in business, but it doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of how it works.” 

“I apologize Kadia, based on our earlier conversation with the guild master regarding the sale of your products, I thought you’d been handing them out for free until now.” 

“For free? I’ve been at the guild hall in Caruan since I got to Kaledon. You think I’d be able to just hand things out for free while in the vicinity of Noctus? Darius meant I wasn’t interested in directly being involved in the sale of products. I don’t have time for half the things I want to research, let alone dealing with all that other stuff.” I clarified, even the thought of spending my time dealing with all the things that would come with having to market and sell my work made me feel exhausted. 

 

“I see your point.” Kip admitted, giving me a broad grin. “As I told the guild leader, I’ll happily help with this, for a cut of course.” 

“That's not my decision to make, it’s between you and the guild leader.” I said, not wanting to get involved in whatever agreement Darius was working out with the Dwarf regarding his potential position as my 'sales manager'. 

I’d already signed an agreement with the guild that I would get a thirty percent cut from all sales for alchemic concoctions I made, and five percent of what was made by other guild members using my recipes that weren’t publicly released. I would also get an eighty percent royalty for the sale of my books. The reasoning behind the lesser profit from my alchemic concoctions, being that most of my ingredients were supplied by the guild or brought with the money allocated to me monthly for the purchase of supplies. 

“I’ll be taking five percent of profits, with the chance to negotiate for more at a later date.” 

“Five percent isn’t bad. Before handing the task of making basic tinctures and salves to Taurie, I was making five thousand gold a week just through selling to the guild.” 

Letting out a chuckle, the dwarf gave me a broad grin. “My dear fox, that is a mere pittance compared to what we’ll be making from those pretty little orbs.” 

“Like I said before, I’ll make the glass, but you can do the rest. I’m not going to stand around making orb after orb for you.” 

“That's why we’ll make a production line out of it. You make the orbs, the girls will help fill and then you jump around to seal em shut. We can easily get a few hundred done that way.” 

“We’re not filling anything without pay, shortie.” Pia chimed in, getting an eye roll from the dwarf in response. 

“You’ll get paid in accordance to the services rendered.” 

As Pia and Kip argued over whether they should get a percentage cut or set fee for helping with the orb production, we arrived at the outskirts of the settlement. 

A line of people could be seen trudging across the sand, some on horseback, but many traveled on foot. In the distance, more tents could be seen at the location of the newly discovered dungeon which was under the control of the Whispers guild.

Having been the ones to discover its location, the Whisper guild sent a contingent of guild fighters to the dungeon who guarded the entrance. For those not in a guild who had an agreement with the Whispers as my own did, they would need to pay a percentage based fee on the calculated value of items looted in the dungeon. Eternia was on good terms with the Whispers guild, and had been allied with the other guild in Avalon. 

Eternia, along with the Whispers guild and the Silver Arrow guild, once shared a guild city, working together to defend it from other guilds in the former world. As far as I knew the alliance between our three guilds was still as strong as it once was. 

There’d once been a saying in Avalon, which I suspected would still prove true here in Kaledon. 

Need someone killed? Speak to the Arrows. Need information? Ask the Whispers. Want something made? Seek Eternia’s crafters. 

While Eternia had members who were only fighters, the guild was one that encouraged all its members to also work on a profession. We’d once been known for having the best craft masters of every profession in Avalon, a title I knew the guild was working hard to reclaim. 

“So, how are we getting to the dungeon? You said we have a ride, but I’m not seeing any horses.” I complained, not wanting to walk over an hour in the desert to the dungeon. 

“Not keen on walking Foxy?” Pia asked with a giggle, and I shook my head.

“Not particularly.” I drawled, crossing my arms over my chest. 

As I spoke, Victoria released the shield she was holding and to my surprise the large tower shield began floating in place. When the Kijo lifted the second shield from her back, it began floating on the red-skinned woman’s other side and seeing my expression Victoria winked at me, punching a fist in the air. 

Whoosh. 

The shield floating on the Oni’s right shot forwards through the air in response to her motion. When Victoria shifted her arm into an uppercut motion it shifted with it, flipping to fly upwards. Bringing her arm back to her side had the shield returning, and I was finally able to see the brightly glowing scripture covering the inside of the shield. 

“That was amazing,” I breathed, kind of wishing I had a magic shield of my own. 

Chuckles sounded from my gathered team. Victoria gave me a knowing smile, as the shields flipped themselves over so they were horizontal with the ground, spiked fronts facing down.

“Get on,” Victoria ordered.

“Choo, choo, all aboard the slaughter express!” Pia cried out, jumping up onto the closest shield followed by Kip, and Rainy. 

“Foxy, you're with me.” The captain ordered, poking my shoulder when I didn’t move. 

“Er, is it safe?” I asked as I moved towards the shield, letting out a startled squeak when the Kijo picked me up and deposited me onto the shield. 

“Safe enough,” Victoria grunted. “Sit like Pia does.”  

Glancing at the shield the other three were on, I saw Pia kneeling at the front of the shield, one hand clasped around the shield's handle, the other holding her spear. Behind her, Kip knelt with a hand on Pia’s shoulder, and Rainy sat with her back to Kips as she faced the rear, legs hanging over the edge of the shield. 

After kneeling, and grabbing onto the handles with both hands, I felt the shield dip slightly as Victoria stepped up behind me, and knelt with a hand on my shoulder.

“The Slaughter express is now leaving the station. Please stay seated, keeping your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, unless killing someone. Next stop, dungeon central.” Pia chirped as the shields shot forwards across the sand. 

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