“I’d never imagined they have freshly baked buns here!” I said, eyeing the breakfast happily for a moment. But I knew very well the buns would be hard, making them somewhat of a chore to eat even if the baker did everything right.
“They have so much stuff!” Louis added right away, quite happy that nobody actually bring him back towards the castle for another day.
“Personally, I like the marmalade …” Ellie said, but went quieter and quieter while looking behind me. She did have a rather conflicted expression on her face, so I wasn’t surprised at all as I turned my head and noticed a stunned Schwarz, his hand at the side of a seventeen year old girl.
He froze immediately as he spotted me, but the girl by his side kept on giggling a little bit until she noticed he stopped in his tracks. Letting go of her, they both walked over to us who waited for him in utter silence.
“Hey … Lucy.” He started, scratching the back of his head and looking everywhere but at me. “I didn’t know you would visit us today.”
“Hmm. I thought about joining you on your training once in a while.” I said and smiled a bit. Both of them sat down at the only free chairs right next to each other swiftly.
“So you are Lucy? I have heard so much about you from the others.” The girl said, hugging Schwarz arm who was less then comfortable with her actions tightly.
“I hope they didn’t say anything bad. And your name is? How did you two meet? Tell me everything!” I said, staring right into her love filled eyes.
“Chloe. Schwarz and I met in the dungeon … I was trapped and couldn’t do anything. I had already given up on life but then, he stormed into the room full of demons and saved me.” Chloe said, leaned over to the side and kissed his cheek. His eyes glowed up in love as well, even though he wasn’t entirely happy with the situation.
“It is always warming my heart to hear such nice story.”
“Hey, my gear needs some maintenance, so I really need to go now.” Ellie explained, standing up abruptly right away.
“Yeah, me too.” One by one, they all found excuses why they needed to go, until Louis was dragged out of the room by Hannah.
“Lucy … this doesn’t change my …” Schwarz said, but was way too scared to continue.
“Schwarz has a big heart, Lucy. He can love both of us together.” Chloe said and grabbed my gloved hands on the table eagerly.
“Only the king is allowed to have multiple wives though.” I commented without any emotions in my voice.
“It doesn’t matter who marries him. We can all love him the same. And he will love all of us.” She said, making me wonder if she was drugged or something. Even though Schwarz’s made it very clear he wasn’t just interested in me by chasing skirts at the academy, I could hardly believe he would ever find a woman who was happy to share him with others.
“I fear I cannot act on my feelings right now.” Otherwise that girl would die at this point. “The times are too uncertain for me to take a step forwards with anyone, but I am thankful about your offer.” I said and even though Schwarz was incredibly happy about this opportunity I gave him, Chloe was more than confused.
“I thought you two were close?” Chloe asked after a while.
“Close … in the sense of friendship.” Schwarz admitted slowly and poked around in his scrambled eggs lethargically.
“But you told me you would marry her in the future … Lucy, you haven’t accepted his feelings yet? Even though he is so brave, strong and kind?” Yup. She was definitely drugged with some shit i didn’t know existed.
“No. I will not give him my answer until the demon king is dealt with.” I said and stood up slowly with the empty plate. “I believe its time to get ready.”
“Why can’t you accept him? Even though he did so much for you? Do you even know how happy that would make him?” She asked once I had turned my back towards them. As soon as I turned my head, she was breaking down into tears. Schwarz patted her back right way, not really getting what was going on with Chloe either.
“Did I … do anything wrong?” I asked, waking towards her and kneeling down right beside her.
“No … it’s just a bit too much for me right now. The demon king … Schwarz conviction to fight him … I don’t want to lose him. Not now …” She muttered, slowly wiping the tears out of her face. Patting her back a little, I stood up slowly and sneaked out of the room, knowing this was not my task, but rather Schwarz’s.
Stepping into the hallway, I met Hannah gazing at me questionably.
“Drugged. Definitely drugged.” I whispered quietly while walking past her.
“You sure?” She asked, following after me right away.
“No … maybe she is just crazy.” I admitted, opened the door and breathed in the fresh morning air. “I just hope that doesn’t develop into a problem …” I muttered, leaning onto the wall of the inn. I couldn’t easily get rid of her anyway because Schwarz would look over her like a hawk. And so, the best option I had was to ignore her.
Ten minutes later, Sofie arrived outside first, clothed in her leather protectors. Next was Luna who came from down the street, carrying a slim book she directly showed Hannah. Slowly, the others got outside as well while we chatted about useless stuff.
“Let’s go.” The last ones to arrive were Schwarz and Chloe, arm in arm and surprisingly enthusiastic. Wondering why she was here, I looked into the round, only to be ignored by the others right away. So that was what was going on. She was already tagging along for quite some time.
And so, nobody complained as we put on our backpack and strolled towards the dungeon as a group. Except for Hannah and Luna of course. I needed them to unlock Luna’s ability as fast as possible.
Going through the streets, we met hundreds of adventurers, preparing to dive into the dungeon alongside with us.
The first signs of the dungeon were the destroyed buildings around it. Wood was piled up in these places, sometimes spilling onto the streets as well. Nobody seemed to bother though, instead they all headed straight to a freshly formed hill with a crypt on top of it. I couldn’t feel any death emanating out of it, which felt weird.
“Your badges please?” Everyone in front of me showed their guards their respective adventurer badge right away. As it was my turn, I fumbled a little bit with the string around my neck, but still presented the silvery object to the guard. Luckily I did have two vampires who either knew how to metalwork, or how to forge basically every document there was.
And so I was let inside without any issue and quickly found myself in a large room with fifteen ominous black obelisks.
“What are these for?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“You are going to be awestruck.” Louis said and smiled brightly. He directly took my hand, pulled me over to the eleventh one and placed his palm onto it. Before Louis did his thing, he waited for everyone to get in touch with each other and then activated it.
“Teleport.” The obelisk glowed in a blue light and then, we were flung through space faster than I could blink.
Looking around dumbstruck, I noticed the huge hall we were in with nothing but glowing moss at the ceiling. The walls were made out entirely out of crude stone, making this whole place visually boring to look at.
Well, that wasn’t why I was a bit stunned. This dungeon should be teeming with undead … but I couldn’t feel any more death than usual. If anything, it was less than on the surface.
“Shall we?” I may have dallied around a bit too long, which was why Ellie looked at me a bit concerned.
“Sure thing.” I said, grabbed my daggers and positioned myself in between the frontline consisting of Ellie and Schwarz, and the back line where everyone else was. Sofie was additionally tasked with mapping this floor out, which was why she could guide us through the beginning without issues until the first squad of skeletons spotted us.
Stupefied, I only watched as they shot arrows at us from the distance. But their somewhat intelligent behaviour wasn’t even what stunned me. The didn’t emit any death at all.
With their rickety frame and bones devoid of any flesh, they did indeed look like my undead, but they weren’t. Even as I tried to do my bidding, I didn’t succeed as there was nothing to control.
They were puppets. Not dead or alive, just like a stone wasn’t.
“Holy fireball!” I heard behind me and noticed a bright, yellow fireball flying past me at breakneck speed. It hit one of the five skeletons before they could be engaged by our frontline and incinerated it right away.
Shortly afterwards, one was hacked to pieces by Schwarz and another one had its skull being pierced through by Ellie’s spear.
“Holy light.” And the others quickly vanished as well under Sofie’s spell, leaving not even dust behind.
“You were amazing Schwarz!” Chloe said loudly, storming past me and throwing herself into his arms. Stunned, I looked at the scene straight out of a romance novel and shook my head a little. The two lovers were inside their own world though, which made it quite hard for anyone so say something … except Louis. He didn’t care.
“Let’s go. We do have a long way ahead of us.” He said a bit annoyed and walked past me. I heard Sofie approaching me as well, but she stopped right beside me for a moment.
“Yup … it has been like this for weeks.” She admitted and strolled past me, completely nonchalant about the scene.
“Why does it have to be like this?” I whispered quietly, stepping forwards to follow them right away. Suddenly, a gentle green light appeared behind me visible for nobody but myself.
“Hey, I have bought board games with me!” Utterly amazed, I turned around to look at Irminsul who smiled at me brightly.
“Your sense of time is horrible. And your timing is even worse.” I said right away, but was still somewhat happy to see her. Looking behind me, she noticed it was apparently not the best place to play games and threw everything she was holding in her hands above her shoulders where they vanished right away.
“It’s not Saturday yet?” She asked, clearly out of the blue.
“It’s Friday.” I said, still walking behind the others with a healthy distance in between us.
“Time goes by differently on Elysium …” She said right away.
“Excuses after excuses…” I giggled a bit, which drew the attention of Louis and Sofie to me.
“Everything alright?” Sofie asked and looked a bit concerned towards me … as if I would get lost somewhere.
“Yup yup.” I said right away and gave her my thumbs up.
“Want to grade their moves?” Irminsul asked, exactly as a single skeleton with full metal armour turned around a corner.
“Sure …” I said and waited for Schwarz to make the first move, without any issues, he stabbed the sword into the undead’s skull, forcing it to stumble backwards. “Three out of ten.”
“Ten out of ten. I liked how he looked back for approval afterwards.” Irminsul commented, as fixated on the battle as me.
“Don’t tell me you are okay with him loving different girls?” I asked in wonder. Irminsul was such a chaste lady that I had a hard time imagining her with even one person.
“I’m totally fine with it. It is indeed possible to love a whole lot of others.” She explained, winking towards me as the skeleton was devoured by blue flames.
“How many …” I muttered, not believing what I had heard there.
“Well, I certainly do love everyone of my thousand three hundred forty children.” She said, not in the slightest realising that this amount of children is a bit over the top.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked quietly as the others had finally managed to make the skeleton vanish.
“I am the goddess of life. What did you expect?” Well, not that? But on the other hand, I never thought about her family before.
“Whatever …” I mumbled quietly in resignation.
“I’d never imagined they have freshly baked buns here!” I said, eyeing the breakfast happily for a moment. But I knew very well the buns would be hard, making them somewhat of a chore to eat even if the baker did everything right.
“They have so much stuff!” Louis added right away, quite happy that nobody actually bring him back towards the castle for another day.
“Personally, I like the marmalade …” Ellie said, but went quieter and quieter while looking behind me. She did have a rather conflicted expression on her face, so I wasn’t surprised at all as I turned my head and noticed a stunned Schwarz, his hand at the side of a seventeen year old girl.
He froze immediately as he spotted me, but the girl by his side kept on giggling a little bit until she noticed he stopped in his tracks. Letting go of her, they both walked over to us who waited for him in utter silence.
“Hey … Lucy.” He started, scratching the back of his head and looking everywhere but at me. “I didn’t know you would visit us today.”
“Hmm. I thought about joining you on your training once in a while.” I said and smiled a bit. Both of them sat down at the only free chairs right next to each other swiftly.
“So you are Lucy? I have heard so much about you from the others.” The girl said, hugging Schwarz arm who was less then comfortable with her actions tightly.
“I hope they didn’t say anything bad. And your name is? How did you two meet? Tell me everything!” I said, staring right into her love filled eyes.
“Chloe. Schwarz and I met in the dungeon … I was trapped and couldn’t do anything. I had already given up on life but then, he stormed into the room full of demons and saved me.” Chloe said, leaned over to the side and kissed his cheek. His eyes glowed up in love as well, even though he wasn’t entirely happy with the situation.
“It is always warming my heart to hear such nice story.”
“Hey, my gear needs some maintenance, so I really need to go now.” Ellie explained, standing up abruptly right away.
“Yeah, me too.” One by one, they all found excuses why they needed to go, until Louis was dragged out of the room by Hannah.
“Lucy … this doesn’t change my …” Schwarz said, but was way too scared to continue.
“Schwarz has a big heart, Lucy. He can love both of us together.” Chloe said and grabbed my gloved hands on the table eagerly.
“Only the king is allowed to have multiple wives though.” I commented without any emotions in my voice.
“It doesn’t matter who marries him. We can all love him the same. And he will love all of us.” She said, making me wonder if she was drugged or something. Even though Schwarz’s made it very clear he wasn’t just interested in me by chasing skirts at the academy, I could hardly believe he would ever find a woman who was happy to share him with others.
“I fear I cannot act on my feelings right now.” Otherwise that girl would die at this point. “The times are too uncertain for me to take a step forwards with anyone, but I am thankful about your offer.” I said and even though Schwarz was incredibly happy about this opportunity I gave him, Chloe was more than confused.
“I thought you two were close?” Chloe asked after a while.
“Close … in the sense of friendship.” Schwarz admitted slowly and poked around in his scrambled eggs lethargically.
“But you told me you would marry her in the future … Lucy, you haven’t accepted his feelings yet? Even though he is so brave, strong and kind?” Yup. She was definitely drugged with some shit i didn’t know existed.
“No. I will not give him my answer until the demon king is dealt with.” I said and stood up slowly with the empty plate. “I believe its time to get ready.”
“Why can’t you accept him? Even though he did so much for you? Do you even know how happy that would make him?” She asked once I had turned my back towards them. As soon as I turned my head, she was breaking down into tears. Schwarz patted her back right way, not really getting what was going on with Chloe either.
“Did I … do anything wrong?” I asked, waking towards her and kneeling down right beside her.
“No … it’s just a bit too much for me right now. The demon king … Schwarz conviction to fight him … I don’t want to lose him. Not now …” She muttered, slowly wiping the tears out of her face. Patting her back a little, I stood up slowly and sneaked out of the room, knowing this was not my task, but rather Schwarz’s.
Stepping into the hallway, I met Hannah gazing at me questionably.
“Drugged. Definitely drugged.” I whispered quietly while walking past her.
“You sure?” She asked, following after me right away.
“No … maybe she is just crazy.” I admitted, opened the door and breathed in the fresh morning air. “I just hope that doesn’t develop into a problem …” I muttered, leaning onto the wall of the inn. I couldn’t easily get rid of her anyway because Schwarz would look over her like a hawk. And so, the best option I had was to ignore her.
Ten minutes later, Sofie arrived outside first, clothed in her leather protectors. Next was Luna who came from down the street, carrying a slim book she directly showed Hannah. Slowly, the others got outside as well while we chatted about useless stuff.
“Let’s go.” The last ones to arrive were Schwarz and Chloe, arm in arm and surprisingly enthusiastic. Wondering why she was here, I looked into the round, only to be ignored by the others right away. So that was what was going on. She was already tagging along for quite some time.
And so, nobody complained as we put on our backpack and strolled towards the dungeon as a group. Except for Hannah and Luna of course. I needed them to unlock Luna’s ability as fast as possible.
Going through the streets, we met hundreds of adventurers, preparing to dive into the dungeon alongside with us.
The first signs of the dungeon were the destroyed buildings around it. Wood was piled up in these places, sometimes spilling onto the streets as well. Nobody seemed to bother though, instead they all headed straight to a freshly formed hill with a crypt on top of it. I couldn’t feel any death emanating out of it, which felt weird.
“Your badges please?” Everyone in front of me showed their guards their respective adventurer badge right away. As it was my turn, I fumbled a little bit with the string around my neck, but still presented the silvery object to the guard. Luckily I did have two vampires who either knew how to metalwork, or how to forge basically every document there was.
And so I was let inside without any issue and quickly found myself in a large room with fifteen ominous black obelisks.
“What are these for?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“You are going to be awestruck.” Louis said and smiled brightly. He directly took my hand, pulled me over to the eleventh one and placed his palm onto it. Before Louis did his thing, he waited for everyone to get in touch with each other and then activated it.
“Teleport.” The obelisk glowed in a blue light and then, we were flung through space faster than I could blink.
Looking around dumbstruck, I noticed the huge hall we were in with nothing but glowing moss at the ceiling. The walls were made out entirely out of crude stone, making this whole place visually boring to look at.
Well, that wasn’t why I was a bit stunned. This dungeon should be teeming with undead … but I couldn’t feel any more death than usual. If anything, it was less than on the surface.
“Shall we?” I may have dallied around a bit too long, which was why Ellie looked at me a bit concerned.
“Sure thing.” I said, grabbed my daggers and positioned myself in between the frontline consisting of Ellie and Schwarz, and the back line where everyone else was. Sofie was additionally tasked with mapping this floor out, which was why she could guide us through the beginning without issues until the first squad of skeletons spotted us.
Stupefied, I only watched as they shot arrows at us from the distance. But their somewhat intelligent behaviour wasn’t even what stunned me. The didn’t emit any death at all.
With their rickety frame and bones devoid of any flesh, they did indeed look like my undead, but they weren’t. Even as I tried to do my bidding, I didn’t succeed as there was nothing to control.
They were puppets. Not dead or alive, just like a stone wasn’t.
“Holy fireball!” I heard behind me and noticed a bright, yellow fireball flying past me at breakneck speed. It hit one of the five skeletons before they could be engaged by our frontline and incinerated it right away.
Shortly afterwards, one was hacked to pieces by Schwarz and another one had its skull being pierced through by Ellie’s spear.
“Holy light.” And the others quickly vanished as well under Sofie’s spell, leaving not even dust behind.
“You were amazing Schwarz!” Chloe said loudly, storming past me and throwing herself into his arms. Stunned, I looked at the scene straight out of a romance novel and shook my head a little. The two lovers were inside their own world though, which made it quite hard for anyone so say something … except Louis. He didn’t care.
“Let’s go. We do have a long way ahead of us.” He said a bit annoyed and walked past me. I heard Sofie approaching me as well, but she stopped right beside me for a moment.
“Yup … it has been like this for weeks.” She admitted and strolled past me, completely nonchalant about the scene.
“Why does it have to be like this?” I whispered quietly, stepping forwards to follow them right away. Suddenly, a gentle green light appeared behind me visible for nobody but myself.
“Hey, I have bought board games with me!” Utterly amazed, I turned around to look at Irminsul who smiled at me brightly.
“Your sense of time is horrible. And your timing is even worse.” I said right away, but was still somewhat happy to see her. Looking behind me, she noticed it was apparently not the best place to play games and threw everything she was holding in her hands above her shoulders where they vanished right away.
“It’s not Saturday yet?” She asked, clearly out of the blue.
“It’s Friday.” I said, still walking behind the others with a healthy distance in between us.
“Time goes by differently on Elysium …” She said right away.
“Excuses after excuses…” I giggled a bit, which drew the attention of Louis and Sofie to me.
“Everything alright?” Sofie asked and looked a bit concerned towards me … as if I would get lost somewhere.
“Yup yup.” I said right away and gave her my thumbs up.
“Want to grade their moves?” Irminsul asked, exactly as a single skeleton with full metal armour turned around a corner.
“Sure …” I said and waited for Schwarz to make the first move, without any issues, he stabbed the sword into the undead’s skull, forcing it to stumble backwards. “Three out of ten.”
“Ten out of ten. I liked how he looked back for approval afterwards.” Irminsul commented, as fixated on the battle as me.
“Don’t tell me you are okay with him loving different girls?” I asked in wonder. Irminsul was such a chaste lady that I had a hard time imagining her with even one person.
“I’m totally fine with it. It is indeed possible to love a whole lot of others.” She explained, winking towards me as the skeleton was devoured by blue flames.
“How many …” I muttered, not believing what I had heard there.
“Well, I certainly do love everyone of my thousand three hundred forty children.” She said, not in the slightest realising that this amount of children is a bit over the top.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked quietly as the others had finally managed to make the skeleton vanish.
“I am the goddess of life. What did you expect?” Well, not that? But on the other hand, I never thought about her family before.
“Whatever …” I mumbled quietly in resignation.
