Chapter 21: Chapter 21 – Walking in the Dark

Chapter 21 - Walking in the Dark

“Or sort of, anyway,” Sherr Hess continued. “You see, the problem is that each Word that a person finds is theirs and theirs alone. They can’t spread that information to anyone, not really, so if the Quester dies, what knowledge they’ve gathered dies with them. The Athenaeum’s purpose is to try and preserve what Questers discover for future generations.” She hiked up a leg and scratched at her inner thigh before going on, “We haven’t been around very long, though. Only a few years. Right now, most of us, and that includes me, just go around looking for Mouths and recording what that particular one looked like and what Word we found in it. We keep what we get from the Dungeon, and we get paid for the information. It’s not a bad gig.”

“Not bad?!” Jax exclaimed. “And what exactly be the survival rate o’ this little venture o’ your’n?”

I also had some doubts. Like, how would this organization get funding? Who provided the payouts? Although, she did say that it was still a young group. Maybe they were still in that bright-eyed and naive phase of boundless optimism… or maybe the mafia-like government that people had been describing was bankrolling it. Yeah… that seemed the most likely.

“I’m not saying that it’s a safe line of work,” she replied. “But at least this way, we get a little extra for our trouble and serve something of a grander purpose.” She looked down, and continued more quietly, “Believe me, that helps some people.”

“Okay…” I said slowly, thinking. “Why want do this? Uh… Mouth shape get. What is goal?”

She grinned, “We do it because the payout is fantastic, that’s why. If you’re lucky, a single run can get you enough to live off of for five to ten years… or a few months, if you’re not. That, by itself, is enough for most. But, if you’re asking about what the big picture is…” She shrugged, lightly, “I’m really just being paid to gather info. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m not much of a scholar.” The way she delivered that line was so absolutely deadpan, that I was not at all sure that she was not pulling my leg.

Jax, however, was having none of that, “I’d be havin’ an easier time believin’ me whore mum’s arse boils ‘ad learned ter sing the harmonies o’ the Faen themselves than that ye were a scholar, Hess.”

“Why, Jax,” she said, with a playful pout, “if you keep talking like that, I might just start to think that you don’t like me.”

He only snorted in reply.

“So, you not know reason?” I asked again. “Why group want Mouth info?”

“Oh, I know some of the short term projects. Like… well, you see, we’re nowhere close to finding the whole set of them. There are many thousands, ya know?”

I did not know, but I nodded anyway.

She continued, “And if you don’t know what Word you’re going to get when you jump in, it may as well be random. So, by reporting it and keeping track, we Questers can start being more choosy with what Mouths we decide to go into. Some Words are lot more useful than others, after all.”

That was news to me. “Why? What Words?”

“Oh, certain verbs…” she said musing, “Pronouns, for sure. Oh, if you could get the full set of pronouns, that would be ridiculously powerful!”

I blinked, “Powerful, why?”

She looked at me curiously, “Because Words empower your abilities, of course. If the Word is in your ability, anyway.” She pursed her lips, “I suppose as a Mono, you wouldn’t know that yet.”

My eyebrows bunched together as I processed what she had just told me. “Abilities? Like… spells? Those is… are Words?”

She nodded, “Sure. Why do you think they’re so hard to say?”

That… made a degree of sense, now that I thought about it. Every single time I tried to spit one of those things out, it was like trying to wrestle with sentient silly string. But… if they were Words… why could I say them at all? I could not even come close to saying the Word I had earned aloud.

“Right, so anyhow, that is one of the ways we’re trying to ‘write down’ the Words. One of our projects is in making an Ability Catalog. List what it does, how to get it, and such. But most importantly,” she slapped a fist into a palm, “list what Words are in it.” She seemed quite enthusiastic about this.

An ability catalog with detailed instructions on how to later improve them? That sounded like an excellent idea. Even with my own admittedly limited exposure to the way the Lady of Power operated, I would be absolutely overjoyed to get hold of such a thing! Then again, given the rather extreme disparity between my own class and my two companions… I mean, Jax’s class was basically just a warrior sub-type, but Hess? Some kind of jack-of-all-trades type with a hedonism based power requirement? Plus, I knew from previous conversations that there were all sorts of trade classes. I was not sure that you could even make a comprehensive set classes, much less abilities.

More over, now that I thought about it, I was having a hard time seeing just how that counted as ‘writing down’ the Words. I mean, it was useful, sure, but… at most, it was more ‘making reference to them’. You still would not be able to actually write out the Word. Mentally, I shrugged. I had to suppose you just had to work with what you could, and a scholar would be grateful for anything they could get.

Still, making a catalog would not do any harm. Probably. For all I knew, there was a reason that the Lady did not give you a list of options. It might even be possible that Bline or her church would get offended? But that was just base speculation. Really, I did not even know if she even had a church… Well… no, I knew the Lawmaiden did. Jax had said so. So… it seemed plausible.

“You say… one way? What others?” I asked, my thoughts returning to our original subject. “Uh… Write down Words.”

“Oh, that’s the other big project. I’m less involved in that one,” she said. “We have a few teams working on translating the Steles. Or trying to, anyway.”

“Steles? Like the Stele of the Fourth Creation?” I said, making the connection. “Has Words on it?”

She nodded, “Yes, that is one. And yes, it does. Most definitely. There are several others, though. Just don’t ask me to list them. I’ve always been terrible at that sort of thing.”

I smirked, “Have in common that.”

“Hess…” Jax cut in, “Did ye not say the Stele were a great roaster of an egg what would destroy the world or some shite?”

She looked at him askance, “I did?! When?”

I nodded thoughtfully. Now that he mentioned it, I remembered that, as well, “In Kemry-in-the-Moors. Tailor shop?”

“Kemry-in-the-Moors?” she said, confused. “When was I in Kemry…? ‘Snails… I must have really been on a bender.”

Jax and I shared a look. This whole conversation had almost made me forget who exactly I had been talking to. It really pulled a fog of severe doubt over everything she had just told us. What sort of organization would even hire this woman? They would have to be extremely desperate to even consider it. And we had to rely on her to get us through this Dungeon alive? I scraped my fingernails through me hair. We were so dead.

Unfortunately, the time for questions was over. We had arrived at the town.

Or what looked like a town, anyway. There were certainly a collection of buildings, perhaps a dozen or more, scattered about. Each had one or two stories and were of simple design with shallowly sloped and thatched roofs. The houses themselves looked to be made from primitive mud bricks with bits of straw sticking out of them. Surrounding all of this was a low stone wall, perhaps chest height, with two gaps on either side for the road to pass through. Other than that, I could see no sign that anyone had lived here for quite some time.

“Well…” I started, but Sherr Hess shushed me. Motioning silently, she pointed ahead of us.

Just then, I saw something move off toward the village center. It was hard to make out details in the darkness, but whatever it was seemed enormous. Moving forward hastily, Hess ducked below the wall. Hiding seemed like an excellent idea to me, so I rushed over to join her with Jax right behind me.

“What be we lookin’ at?” Jax said in a scant whisper.

Shushing us again, Hess leaned over to look around the edge of the opening in the wall. There had, at some point, been a swinging wooden gate set into the gap of the stone fence, but it had long ago been shattered. What remained was but a few rotten boards that had tumbled into a loose pile.

After a moment, she fell back, resting her back to the wall. “I dunno what it is. Weird looking thing. Skinny, spindly looking legs. Looks maybe thirteen… fourteen cubits tall,” she said quietly.

I looked over at Jax and mouthed, “Cubits?”

He nodded. Tapping his elbow, he ran his hand up his arm to his fingertip. I nodded in understanding, but then I frowned, trying to picture something fourteen half arm-lengths tall. And was that supposed to be Jax’s cubit or Hess’?

Setting aside the mental calculation, I asked, “Can you fight thing?”

“Doubt it,” she replied, after a moment of consideration. “I don’t think I can punch that thing to death, and it’d take more than a few Concussive Howlers to take it down. Right now, I don’t think I can do more than one, and that’s my cheapest spell.”

Jax nudged me, “What about yer spell, mate? Have ye tried it on ‘er? Might pack quite a wallop!”

I shook my head, “No, I not tried. But have not eated more than day. Pass out last time.”

“What’s this?” she asked, curiously.

“His healin’ spell. Fer some reason, it makes me almost stain me breeches every time.” I looked at him slightly askance. He had gotten quite a bit more open with all of this. I supposed that once things had elevated to prank levels, a person would get a bit less self-conscious, but still, I was surprised that he would admit it to Hess. “What kin ye do if’n yer randy ‘nough?” he asked, pragmatically.

“Quite a bit,” she said, cryptically. With her left eyebrow lifted in intrigue, she looked at me, “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

I sighed, considering being evasive about it, but there really was no point. Jax was right. We were in the Dungeon, and we needed to use what tools we had available. Funny, I never thought making someone horny would be a combat strategy I might need to account for. “Side effect. Work different on some people. And too hungry now. No Life Energy.”

“Hmm…” she mused. “It wouldn’t hurt to try it, though. If it works like that…” she paused in thought, but after a moment she shook her head, “I’d still need a weapon to really put it to good use. And we need to get you some Life Energy. Can’t have you wasting away on us. So we have two problems.”

“What about these?” Jax asked, juggling a few of the Gems of Power we had taken from the fallen Zombies.

Hess shook her head, “Those are all Lesser Gems of the first Rank. It’d take hundreds of those for me to gain a layer. Although…” she looked at us, “it wouldn’t hurt to get you two a layer or two if we can. It might open up a few options. How does that work, by the way? Do you share Gem Layering?”

“Uh…” I said slowly, “we can. But…”

“Also, makes me stain me breeches,” Jax said with a bit of a wryly suffering smirk. “Ain’t gotta do it that way, though, thank Maeve.”

“Oh, really?” she said, lightly biting at her lower lip. “That sounds… interesting. Can I watch?”

Jax’s face fell.

 

We had decided to move away from the wall some distance before doing it. Sherr Hess was fairly sure that the beast in the town would not move past that perimeter — something about domains — but we did not want to risk it. So far, we had not encountered anything out in the grassy area between the graveyard and the town, so it was probably safe.

Hess had taken a moment to bring us up to speed on some ‘layering’ mechanics, as she put it.

“How close are you to the next layer?” she asked.

Jax and I just looked at each other, “Uh…?”

She sighed, “Yeah, I was afraid of that. Look, you’re going to need to start keeping track of what Gems you’ve consumed, or else you’ll need to get the ‘Gem of Power Requirement’ skill. A lot of people consider it kind of a waste, though. It’ll tell you the Gem strength you need to get to the next layer. If you don’t, you may end up wasting Gem potential. If you hit your layer cap, whatever is left of the Gem’s strength is wasted. You’re better off selling a Gem that’s too strong and buying a less powerful one to cap you.” She paused a moment to consider, and then added, “Normally.”

When we asked how much and how many of what Gems we would need, the answer was… confusing. Apparently, as long as the Gem was of the appropriate rank, it would take: slightly more than a Grand, definitely more than a Greater, probably two Averages, slightly less than four Lessers but for sure more than three, or something like ten Minor Gems to get from one layer to the next. I had to wonder if whoever had invented this system had ever heard of regular old experience points and if they might consider making the switch.

“It’s a little unfortunate, but we only have Lessers to work with. Just take one at a time until you reach the cap,” she said to me.

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“Are ye sure this’ll help ye?” Jax asked again.

She grinned widely at his discomfort, “Oh yes. Like I said, I can store up the energy to use later. It does degrade over time, but it’s slow enough not to matter in here.”

“Fine,” he huffed, before mumbling quietly, “Bloody weapon.”

I was sitting in the grass a few paces away with my back turned to them. At this point, there was not anything that the two of us had not seen of each other, but I was determined to give the man what privacy I could. I knew that if our situations were reversed, I would be embarrassed to death. Especially with Hess over there enthusiastically watching.

“Quit yer mopin’ an’ get this shite over with,” Jax said to me in English as he pulled his pants down. “She be a fair enough wench ter look at. I don’t want yer guilt ta be meltin’ me wally.”

Averting my eyes, I blinked anyway a few times at the euphemism. “What? Are you saying now you’re into this?”

“Look, mate. I think we’d both agree that what we’s got goin’ is a bit o’ the hamshanks. And yes, maybe puttin’ on a peepshow ain’t what I woke up thinkin’ I’d be doin’ today, but at least, this be kind of normal. Lot’s o’ people do this shite on the daily. Now, away ‘n raffle yer ownself.”

As usual, I only picked up on about seventy to eighty percent of what Jax was spewing out at any given time. I was still waiting on some of his prolific swearing to loop back around so that I could make a second attempt at them, but I got the gist of it this time. Messed up situation? Make the best of it. Not a bad philosophy, all in all. Likely, Jax’s background as a street urchin and bandit had a lot to do with it.

“Are you two finished gossiping? You know it’s rude to leave someone out of the conversation,” Hess cut in. “Can we get this show going now?” She was sprawled on the ground with knee to elbow and her chin in hand, looking bored. Demure was not a word I would use to describe her posture. Though, at this point, I would be shocked if I could.

Seeing no reason to delay any longer, I quickly switched the Core Layer Gain sharing feature back on, and popped the Gem into my mouth. As ever, the sweet substance entered my veins slowly as it dissolved in my mouth before eventually settling somewhere below my diaphragm. The bleed-off to Jax was subtle at first, but it was not long before I heard a little grunt.

“Oh~? Starting to see something now,” I heard. “Tell me, what’s exciting you more? The power you are getting from your Master or me watching you?”

“Stuff yer head, ye manx!” he growled, “He ain’t me bloody Master, an’ I ain’t a drippin’ fourteen year old peepin’ the whores in the windy!”

“Oh, come on… at least pretend you’re into it?” she said, amused. “I need this!”

I did not hear anything for a second, and then he said, “Ooh ooh, yeah. It be so good,” in the flattest monotone I had ever heard.

She cackled heartily at his delivery, “That works, too!”

For all that Jax claimed that he was at least a little into this whole situation, he certainly was acting as if he did not want Hess to know about it. I could only wonder why. Maybe he was playing hard to get?

Just then, I got a familiar pop-up.

<bing!>

The Gem was still dissolving in my mouth, though. I briefly wondered how that was going to work. She had said that any extra Power from the Gem would be lost once I had hit the cap. It was then that I remembered that Jax should have been slightly behind me in experience, having saved one of those little Gems for nostalgic reasons. The power swirling about my center seemed to be searching for somewhere to latch onto, but finding no purchase there, it somehow found the discrepancy and shot straight over to Jax.

“Oh, hairy cow, ta fuck?!” he shouted.

My attention drawn by his exclamation, I turned around in my startlement. Jax’s back had seized into an arched position, and he was flailing with his arms to try and support himself. After a moment, his strength failed him, and he collapsed to his side, trembling. I could not exactly see from my angle, but I definitely caught rope after rope of his seed flying out from where it was obscured by his body. This continued for several seconds while he gasped for air until the energy from the Gem tapered off and then finally stopped. Jax was still quivering and groaning from what had looked from here to be the mother of all orgasms. At that moment, I experienced just the tiniest shade of envy.

Hess, meanwhile, had been watching all of this with rapt attention. The moment he fell over, she had scrambled back to get out of the way of his wildly out of control ejaculate and was crouched on hands and knees, staring at Jax’s slowly calming form. After a while, she finally breathed, “Wow…” Looking between the two of us, she then said, “Can you do it again?”

“Give us a minute, love...” Jax laughed weakly from his position on the ground, “Oh, I think I’ve bruised me bawbag.”

Chuckling at her pout, I shook my head, “My layer finish. Need sleep.”

“Aye,” he affirmed, “me layer has also uh… come to completion.”

 

After Jax had cleaned himself up to the best of his ability, we had a brief debate over whether we should make camp to finish the condensation process. Jax and I were really not comfortable just bedding down in the middle of a wide open area, but Hess seemed confident of her ability to keep a lookout. We did not share that confidence, but we were not going to tell her that. What ultimately settled the matter, however, was our empty stomachs. Or mine anyway. It had been well over a day since any of us had eaten, though Jax, of course, had other requirements. Meanwhile, I had sacrificed quite a bit of Life Energy in the battle on the hill and after. I was starving.

Unfortunately, that was tough cookies. There was no food, we had no weapons, and the only things we had seen that even moved out here were Zombies — a non-starter — and some giant monster in the middle of town. I, however, had an idea. It was a stupid idea, I will freely admit that. There is no way that something like this would or oven should work, but if I were a gamer — and I was — there was only one reasonable thing to do.

Take advantage of exploits.

“Jax, what are chance that skill of yours… uh…” I paused, “What skill called? One where drain Life Energy?”

“You have a draining skill?” Hess cut in.

“Aye, and never you mind what it be called,” he said sharply. “What do ye wanna know about it?”

I blinked. Now, I was curious. “Uh… what chance it work?”

He shook his head, “She don’t say. Just that it do go up with me own skill.”

I grimaced. I had expected as much. “Well… why not go practice?” I suggested.

“On what? Them flamin’ Zombies?” he asked, incredulously. Seeing my look, he made a face, “Bugger me… that do be what ye mean.”

“Chancy,” Hess said. “We might be able to get them to come at us in small enough numbers, but they tend to swarm.”

I nodded. Chance and tactics was all part of pulling, after all. The trick was not to get cocky. Things could go tits up in a hurry. “Too many come, we run. Not take chance.”

She sighed, “I suppose we could try. You two could certainly use the Gems. I’d still rather have a weapon just in case.”

“We might could find one in yon mud-borough,” Jax suggested. “If’n we’s quiet.”

We all stared at one another for a bit at that suggestion. While it was true that I had a helpful spell for this kind of situation, it did nothing about muffling sounds, and we were not particularly skilled in moving about stealthily. If we screwed up… well, none of us knew exactly what the fight might entail, and we were not quite ready to burst that bubble. Even by accident.

“Could we… I know not. Make weapon?” I asked haltingly.

“With what?” Jax asked.

“Hmm…” Hess stood up and looked around. “There are trees out there,” she said, pointing.

Now that she mentioned it, off in the far distance, we were fully surrounded by trees in every direction. I could just make them out, faintly illuminated in the starlight as they were. It would seem that we were in a huge clearing.

I rubbed at my scruffy beard. Trees meant wood. And we had an axe. It was a start.

 

Unfortunately, it took us fully three hours to walk the distance to the forest, and I was starting to feel awfully weak. We probably could have made the walk more quickly, but we started seeing shapes out in the darkness. Not wanting to chance an encounter with unknown creatures in the dark, we decided to give them a wide berth. Whatever they were, they did not seem to see us. For that matter, we could not tell if they were even moving.

“Are you alright, Donum?” Jax asked me.

I nodded, somewhat unsure. I was starting to get used to being hungry. I did not like it, not by a long shot, but experience is the best teacher. Since I had come to this place, I had been hungry, and I mean seriously hungry, more often than probably anyone in my family ever had been in living memory. Still… I knew that a person could go a long time, perhaps a month or so, without eating. I would be fine. As long as no one got injured. Unfortunately, my trembling hands seemed to be giving off other signals. I really needed to invest in that Life Energy meter. This guesswork was not doing me any favors.

Jax’s concerned look did not dissipate with my assurances. “Look mate, just take it easy for now. If we get into it, keep to the back.”

I snorted. What else was I going to do? Sally forth and give them what for? Still, I took his meaning.

“What be that? Sarcasm? Some kind o’… irony, maybe?” he asked.

“What?” I asked, lost.

“What yer feelin’ now. Before, ye were worried. Feelin’ sorry fer yer ownself. Did nay like the taste of it. This… I dunno,” his mouth quirked, “it be… sour? But sweet, too? I dunno if I like it. Might grow on me.”

My eyebrows lifted a bit as he spoke. We had not talked much about his new ability or what it was like for him. I had to admit, I was extremely curious now that he brought it up. What must it be like to feed on emotions? To experience flavor from them? Truthfully, I could not even imagine it.

“It be different, I’ll tell ye that,” he said. “People be feelin’ all sorts o’ things all the time. Some of them taste grand. Others taste o’ pish. An’ I get ‘em all, all the time.”

I just looked at him for a breath. I had not said anything, after all. “Am I so transparent?”

He shrugged slightly, “Nah. But I know yer taste the best. Ye worry a lot. Worry about what people think o’ ye. Worry that ye done wrong. An’ ye think all the time. Tryin’ ter work out what other’ns be thinkin’. But ye ne’er show it on yer face.”

I smirked a bit. He was not wrong. I did worry about a lot of things. Mostly, I had the good sense not to let my concerns overwhelm me, and I had thought I was pretty good at suppressing them. Maybe not to an empath, though. Honestly, it was impressive that he had worked all of that out just from context. Curiously, I jerked my head toward our new companion, walking ahead of us, “What about her?”

His mouth twitched as he thought about how to answer. Finally, he said, “She be curious, mostly. About us, I think. But there be more there than what she lets on. I know that sure. Best be careful.”

“Has she lied to us at any point?” I asked.

“Sure,” he shrugged, “but about little things here and there. Everyone does. Nothin’ major.”

I nodded. Everyone had their secrets. As long as she was playing us straight, I would not worry. I smirked at myself.

“Look there,” Hess called from ahead of us.

Walking up beside her, I squinted to see what she was pointing at. Off in the distance, just at the base of the trees but to the left of our heading, there was a faintly visible blue light.

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