A door in my soul and a book on an altar, not too different from the other memory books around. Finally, I had gained access to my soul realm once more but it was sadly rather short lived.
I still couldn’t open the door or get close to the book and was thus exactly where I was the moment I had noticed these things.
Irminsul couldn’t help me with that either. She knew something about the book judging by the reaction she showed me as I explained her everything, but she couldn’t tell me.
And with that I woke up a bit disgruntled on my back, my head on the chest of the man I called my husband. He must have woken me up by tickling me a bit as his left hand was roaming my body quite aggressively. Grabbing his hand, I kissed its back and then wriggled myself free from his embrace.
“It is rare for me to be awake while you aren’t.” The reply to his statement should be rather simple. Truthfully it was because I didn’t like to cuddle with him at all and viewed our time more like a chore.
“But sometimes I do … have you seen my skirt?” I asked, placing the sunglasses I found in a drawer on my nose.
“It’s behind the desk we stated out on.” He commented drily, not even bothering to cover himself with the duvet. Strolling over to the desk, I looked on the floor around it and indeed found my white skirt there.
“Thank you very much.” I said and directly walked towards the bathroom linked to this bedroom. After cleaning myself a whole lot, I was back in pristine form and strolled into the bedroom once more, this time clothed. “Will you join the festivities tomorrow?”
“I’ll look into it.” He explained while I already headed towards the door right away.
“Okay.” I answered nonchalantly which he didn’t seem to take well at all.
“Hey, wa-“ He said, but the door slamming shut muted him completely. That was the extend to which our relationship went after all. Neither he nor I were interested in any romance at all. He merely wanted to possess me while I was using him for my own goals until he had enough of me of course … but that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. I made sure of that.
And so, he shouldn’t be too bummed out when I was cold to him. Whistling quietly, I asked the first maid I noticed to guide me back into my carriage right away.
I had no time to lose after all. That day was my homecoming and I made sure to plan it all through. Hopping into my carriage, I waited a little for the horses to pick up speed until I changed attire into my usual leather amour with white undergarments. Lifting up the heavy katana with one hand, I realised that swinging this would be hard, but definitely necessary once I had reached purgatory.
And so, I was honestly quite eager as I sat down on the table where Hannah and the idiots had their breakfast. Excluding the necromancer who would wait for us at the crypt, we were all there and chatted about the mysterious last floor nobody had managed to reach yet. Only Schwarz was a but bummed out because he hasn’t seen his girlfriend in more or less two weeks. But at least he was focused and well rested which wouldn’t have been possible with her around.
“I can’t believe we made it this far!” Ellie exclaimed happily nonetheless … and I had to agree. I couldn’t have imagined that they would get this close without my support at all. They were the first one to reach floor nineteen, possibly because they spent a lot of time in there after they had all decided to ditch school for good.
“Hmm … you did great.” Hannah said munching on her bread a bit bored by waiting there for so long. Raising my eyebrows a little, I pinched her side right away which made her put on an enthusiastic expression right away.
“We have a long day ahead of us, so let’s get going!” Even Sofie was strangely thrilled to hurry up and so, they all hurried up with their preparations and we met outside the inn a few minutes later, armed to the teeth and ready to fight of an army if needed.
Faster then ever before, we arrived at the checkpoint and quickly met up with the necromancer who looked like a handsome thirty year old prince. He did have a staff in hands which turned into a rather sharp blade at the end, but I knew for sure he would need neither of these.
“Lucy.” He said, bowing deeply in front of me.
“Leopard. This is the group I told you about.” I explained, pointing over my shoulder.
“Just a quickly question. How do you know anything about the twentieth level?”
“I’m an historian. I study prophecies for the most part and there are several ones about this place. One of them is that terrible unique monsters roam this special level, which makes it very hard to find anything except stones and bones.” He said sounding like a nerdy person right away.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.” Schwarz said, took my hand and went to the teleporting crystal of the fifteenth floor right away. Sighing quietly, I took Louis’ as well, just before Schwarz activated the magical device.
Right away, I found myself inside the labyrinth this place was and Sofie directly rummaged in her backpack to retrieve the map of this level.
The four of them immediately charged ahead through their usual route while the necromancer and I walked behind them side by side with only Hannah behind us. We had to keep an eye on Nezar after all.
He and I even chatted about the place we were about to visit quietly while the others splayed a few ghosts … creatures who had a body but no soul, but looked like white vaguely humanoid figures.
This dungeon was seriously strange, especially as I was introduced to the concept of reviving enemies a level later. Seriously, they just waited for the enemies to revive so they could kill them once more before going on. But even I had to admit that dungeoning was seriously their thing … even though most of them took it like some sort of game and proclaimed loudly whenever they levelled up again.
“Are they alright? They seem oddly motivated about a mere number.” Nezar commented noticing their odd behaviour right away.
“I think they haven’t realised yet that level isn’t even close to everything.” I muttered quietly, hoping that they wouldn’t hear my voice twice at the same time. “But don’t take that from them …” Albert assumed they would be taking this aspect of their new life like some kind of board game just on one of these screen things. Whatever that meant, I had to agree that they were really playful about their level and such.
Well, their casual attitude changed as soon as we arrived floor eighteen though which was apparently one of the nastier ones. First off all, the previous labyrinth structure was no more, replaced by an open field of bones covered in mist. Here, it was insanely cold and skeleton knights along with their mages roamed the area, creating death zones whenever these groups managed to reinforce each other in battle.
But even they were no real challenge for the idiots anymore as they blasted through them with firepower even the necromancer couldn’t ignore.
“You sure this is the same guy who I fought against?” He asked which made me laugh a little. But even I wasn’t so sure he was the same at this point. His lovely fireballs incinerated each and every skeleton easily and Louis could easily deal with groups on his own as well. As such, Hannah the necromancer and I had nothing to do until we went through the glowing portal of light to the nineteenth floor which turned the air insanely hot.
There, the necromancer humoured us with a nice cooling spell which covered us three while the rest of the group missed out on it completely.
But otherwise? The flaming undead of various species in the floor were taken care of by the others, even though they were slower than before. Truly, they had sped up their progress considerably in the last few weeks after it had been announced to the world that the saint would be selecting the best warriors to fight by her side.
They really did have a hero complex … all of them. But hey, they did manage to get to the boss room without hurting themselves which was apparently a first for them. But … they didn’t enter and rather looked at us as a group.
“We want to know what he is capable off. Any mistakes down here are deadly and we aren’t sure if we can protect him on the twentieth floor.” Ellie said, placing both of her hands on her hip. That they only said that now was a little … concerning? But hey, that could only mean they didn’t perceive all the floors until this point as dangerous.
“Sure.” The necromancer said completely unbothered and stepped into the large room where some kind of bone dragon rested, staring out of its hall with no emotions whatsoever. At least, I couldn’t perceive any.
As the necromancer stepped across some invisible line though, the skeleton dragon stood up slowly and spread its wings wide. A thunderous roar echoed through the hall and Louis stepped back a few times while Ellie put her hand forwards.
Crashing through multiple columns supporting the ceiling, the dragon trampled towards the necromancer surprisingly fast.
“Barrier.” It didn’t seem as if Ellie had any faith in Nezar whatsoever as she created a barrier right in front of him, blocking the dragon off for a second or so. But even her strongest barrier broke afterwards and left the mage completely defenceless.
“Get away from there!” Sofie screamed in an attempt to get his attention which failed miserably as the dragon roared a second time. Nezar merely stood there once more, grabbing his chin in thought until he lifted up his other hand.
The dragon swiped across the floor with his right hand, ripping up the floor in the process and standing stones flying everywhere. Schwarz and Ellie were already dashing towards him at this point while I merely watched with interest.
And suddenly, as the dragon made contact with Nezar’s hand, a bright light appeared from the mage’s palm, stopping the dragons attack right away as his bones turned into ashes immediately.
Cautiously, I stepped behind Hannah and rather watched the whole spectacle from behind her. Even I didn’t want to be hit by that attack which proved to be quite deadly as the light brightened even more and enveloped the whole dragon, turning it to ashes instantly.
“Is that satisfactory?” Nezar asked, smiling far too smugly in my opinion.
“You …” Schwarz mumbled, clearly expecting something else entirely. “That was alright. I could have done the same.” He explained which may have very well been the most obvious lie of all.
“Actually … we took two hours to defeat that thing last time and since then, it might have become stronger.” Sofie explained, a bit shocked by what just happened. “You know level ten light magic?” He didn’t. That was ancient magic perfected to a degree that I had never thought possible.
“Ehh … yeah.” He explained a bit bored and nodded over to the dark portal appearing in the middle of the room, spewing death out right away. Nobody could see what was behind it at all, which was why nobody approached it at first. The circling dark ring gave off quite the ominous feeling for everyone but me, because I was honestly exited.
Exited about going home.
A door in my soul and a book on an altar, not too different from the other memory books around. Finally, I had gained access to my soul realm once more but it was sadly rather short lived.
I still couldn’t open the door or get close to the book and was thus exactly where I was the moment I had noticed these things.
Irminsul couldn’t help me with that either. She knew something about the book judging by the reaction she showed me as I explained her everything, but she couldn’t tell me.
And with that I woke up a bit disgruntled on my back, my head on the chest of the man I called my husband. He must have woken me up by tickling me a bit as his left hand was roaming my body quite aggressively. Grabbing his hand, I kissed its back and then wriggled myself free from his embrace.
“It is rare for me to be awake while you aren’t.” The reply to his statement should be rather simple. Truthfully it was because I didn’t like to cuddle with him at all and viewed our time more like a chore.
“But sometimes I do … have you seen my skirt?” I asked, placing the sunglasses I found in a drawer on my nose.
“It’s behind the desk we stated out on.” He commented drily, not even bothering to cover himself with the duvet. Strolling over to the desk, I looked on the floor around it and indeed found my white skirt there.
“Thank you very much.” I said and directly walked towards the bathroom linked to this bedroom. After cleaning myself a whole lot, I was back in pristine form and strolled into the bedroom once more, this time clothed. “Will you join the festivities tomorrow?”
“I’ll look into it.” He explained while I already headed towards the door right away.
“Okay.” I answered nonchalantly which he didn’t seem to take well at all.
“Hey, wa-“ He said, but the door slamming shut muted him completely. That was the extend to which our relationship went after all. Neither he nor I were interested in any romance at all. He merely wanted to possess me while I was using him for my own goals until he had enough of me of course … but that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. I made sure of that.
And so, he shouldn’t be too bummed out when I was cold to him. Whistling quietly, I asked the first maid I noticed to guide me back into my carriage right away.
I had no time to lose after all. That day was my homecoming and I made sure to plan it all through. Hopping into my carriage, I waited a little for the horses to pick up speed until I changed attire into my usual leather amour with white undergarments. Lifting up the heavy katana with one hand, I realised that swinging this would be hard, but definitely necessary once I had reached purgatory.
And so, I was honestly quite eager as I sat down on the table where Hannah and the idiots had their breakfast. Excluding the necromancer who would wait for us at the crypt, we were all there and chatted about the mysterious last floor nobody had managed to reach yet. Only Schwarz was a but bummed out because he hasn’t seen his girlfriend in more or less two weeks. But at least he was focused and well rested which wouldn’t have been possible with her around.
“I can’t believe we made it this far!” Ellie exclaimed happily nonetheless … and I had to agree. I couldn’t have imagined that they would get this close without my support at all. They were the first one to reach floor nineteen, possibly because they spent a lot of time in there after they had all decided to ditch school for good.
“Hmm … you did great.” Hannah said munching on her bread a bit bored by waiting there for so long. Raising my eyebrows a little, I pinched her side right away which made her put on an enthusiastic expression right away.
“We have a long day ahead of us, so let’s get going!” Even Sofie was strangely thrilled to hurry up and so, they all hurried up with their preparations and we met outside the inn a few minutes later, armed to the teeth and ready to fight of an army if needed.
Faster then ever before, we arrived at the checkpoint and quickly met up with the necromancer who looked like a handsome thirty year old prince. He did have a staff in hands which turned into a rather sharp blade at the end, but I knew for sure he would need neither of these.
“Lucy.” He said, bowing deeply in front of me.
“Leopard. This is the group I told you about.” I explained, pointing over my shoulder.
“Just a quickly question. How do you know anything about the twentieth level?”
“I’m an historian. I study prophecies for the most part and there are several ones about this place. One of them is that terrible unique monsters roam this special level, which makes it very hard to find anything except stones and bones.” He said sounding like a nerdy person right away.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.” Schwarz said, took my hand and went to the teleporting crystal of the fifteenth floor right away. Sighing quietly, I took Louis’ as well, just before Schwarz activated the magical device.
Right away, I found myself inside the labyrinth this place was and Sofie directly rummaged in her backpack to retrieve the map of this level.
The four of them immediately charged ahead through their usual route while the necromancer and I walked behind them side by side with only Hannah behind us. We had to keep an eye on Nezar after all.
He and I even chatted about the place we were about to visit quietly while the others splayed a few ghosts … creatures who had a body but no soul, but looked like white vaguely humanoid figures.
This dungeon was seriously strange, especially as I was introduced to the concept of reviving enemies a level later. Seriously, they just waited for the enemies to revive so they could kill them once more before going on. But even I had to admit that dungeoning was seriously their thing … even though most of them took it like some sort of game and proclaimed loudly whenever they levelled up again.
“Are they alright? They seem oddly motivated about a mere number.” Nezar commented noticing their odd behaviour right away.
“I think they haven’t realised yet that level isn’t even close to everything.” I muttered quietly, hoping that they wouldn’t hear my voice twice at the same time. “But don’t take that from them …” Albert assumed they would be taking this aspect of their new life like some kind of board game just on one of these screen things. Whatever that meant, I had to agree that they were really playful about their level and such.
Well, their casual attitude changed as soon as we arrived floor eighteen though which was apparently one of the nastier ones. First off all, the previous labyrinth structure was no more, replaced by an open field of bones covered in mist. Here, it was insanely cold and skeleton knights along with their mages roamed the area, creating death zones whenever these groups managed to reinforce each other in battle.
But even they were no real challenge for the idiots anymore as they blasted through them with firepower even the necromancer couldn’t ignore.
“You sure this is the same guy who I fought against?” He asked which made me laugh a little. But even I wasn’t so sure he was the same at this point. His lovely fireballs incinerated each and every skeleton easily and Louis could easily deal with groups on his own as well. As such, Hannah the necromancer and I had nothing to do until we went through the glowing portal of light to the nineteenth floor which turned the air insanely hot.
There, the necromancer humoured us with a nice cooling spell which covered us three while the rest of the group missed out on it completely.
But otherwise? The flaming undead of various species in the floor were taken care of by the others, even though they were slower than before. Truly, they had sped up their progress considerably in the last few weeks after it had been announced to the world that the saint would be selecting the best warriors to fight by her side.
They really did have a hero complex … all of them. But hey, they did manage to get to the boss room without hurting themselves which was apparently a first for them. But … they didn’t enter and rather looked at us as a group.
“We want to know what he is capable off. Any mistakes down here are deadly and we aren’t sure if we can protect him on the twentieth floor.” Ellie said, placing both of her hands on her hip. That they only said that now was a little … concerning? But hey, that could only mean they didn’t perceive all the floors until this point as dangerous.
“Sure.” The necromancer said completely unbothered and stepped into the large room where some kind of bone dragon rested, staring out of its hall with no emotions whatsoever. At least, I couldn’t perceive any.
As the necromancer stepped across some invisible line though, the skeleton dragon stood up slowly and spread its wings wide. A thunderous roar echoed through the hall and Louis stepped back a few times while Ellie put her hand forwards.
Crashing through multiple columns supporting the ceiling, the dragon trampled towards the necromancer surprisingly fast.
“Barrier.” It didn’t seem as if Ellie had any faith in Nezar whatsoever as she created a barrier right in front of him, blocking the dragon off for a second or so. But even her strongest barrier broke afterwards and left the mage completely defenceless.
“Get away from there!” Sofie screamed in an attempt to get his attention which failed miserably as the dragon roared a second time. Nezar merely stood there once more, grabbing his chin in thought until he lifted up his other hand.
The dragon swiped across the floor with his right hand, ripping up the floor in the process and standing stones flying everywhere. Schwarz and Ellie were already dashing towards him at this point while I merely watched with interest.
And suddenly, as the dragon made contact with Nezar’s hand, a bright light appeared from the mage’s palm, stopping the dragons attack right away as his bones turned into ashes immediately.
Cautiously, I stepped behind Hannah and rather watched the whole spectacle from behind her. Even I didn’t want to be hit by that attack which proved to be quite deadly as the light brightened even more and enveloped the whole dragon, turning it to ashes instantly.
“Is that satisfactory?” Nezar asked, smiling far too smugly in my opinion.
“You …” Schwarz mumbled, clearly expecting something else entirely. “That was alright. I could have done the same.” He explained which may have very well been the most obvious lie of all.
“Actually … we took two hours to defeat that thing last time and since then, it might have become stronger.” Sofie explained, a bit shocked by what just happened. “You know level ten light magic?” He didn’t. That was ancient magic perfected to a degree that I had never thought possible.
“Ehh … yeah.” He explained a bit bored and nodded over to the dark portal appearing in the middle of the room, spewing death out right away. Nobody could see what was behind it at all, which was why nobody approached it at first. The circling dark ring gave off quite the ominous feeling for everyone but me, because I was honestly exited.
Exited about going home.
