El’el’s room was much smaller than his. There was no fake-gold anywhere, and the furniture was more on the functional side. She had a simple bed – nothing fancy like the one in his room. There was a writing desk with a chair beside it, and an unassuming wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. That was it. She didn’t even have a TV, or a separate bathroom. In comparison to the one he woke up in, her room was spartan. More like a big closet where someone lived than an actual guest room. It was probably a servant’s room or something like that.
Made sense that in a mansion in which the previous owner clearly tried to show how rich they were by throwing opulence in everyone’s face, the actual room that belonged to people who worked here was made out of financial stinginess. No point in impressing the servants, after all.
Dennis was slightly jealous. Her room felt much cozier than the one he picked for himself. He could almost imagine mold growing on the walls. The smell of dust. The shelves of comics…
On the bed, El’el opened her eyes. Her gaze was unfocused at first, pupils dilated like she was still having a dream, before she blinked and shifted her sight towards him without moving a muscle.
“Hey,” he said, leaning back on the chair and fidgeting with his sword. “Good morning.”
She didn’t answer him for a while, just studied his face in what appeared to be curiosity.
“Didn’t I already wake up today?” she asked.
“Well, yes,” he agreed. “Presumably.”
“Then why am I in the bed again?” she asked. “Also, another question that I have for you – were you sitting here and watching me sleep? I admit I find myself to be somewhat confused. And alarmed.”
"Yep,” Dennis admitted shamelessly. “You look nice when you’re asleep.”
“I see…” she said carefully, still not really moving, just lying on the bed on her back. “And why was I asleep again?”
“I knocked you out and brought you here.”
“I…” El’el seemed slightly lost for words. “See…”
Dennis started to wonder if he hit her head too hard, with all of those questions she was asking. Like, most of them had a pretty obvious answer, so there was no reason to act so stunned, in his opinion.
“Is this a human custom?” she asked carefully. “I have to admit I don’t think I want to partake. The man before was infuriating enough. Is he alright? I might have overreacted slightly in our disagreement.”
“The fat one?”
“Yes, him.”
“Yeah, he’s fine. I moved everyone out of that building. It’s on fire now, by the way,” he said casually. “Because you have set it on fire. That was a thing that you did. Why did you try to throw a fireball in his face? That’s, like, murderous.”
She winced.
“It wasn’t that strong. He was supposed to deflect it,” she said, somewhat ashamed as she sat up. “And anyway, he started it first, by throwing that chair at me.”
“Uhuh.”
“It’s not polite to throw furniture at people,” she pointed out. “I think.”
“I guess not,” Dennis agreed. “Why did he do that, though?”
“I think he was under the impression that it was my fault that his family died during the start of the System Integration.”
“And he thought that why?”
“Well, I was the one who started the integration?” she half-asked, as if it was obvious. “With Tar’en. To be fair, I mostly assisted while he did the bulk of the work. As an Overseer, it wasn’t exactly my range of responsibility, but–”
Dennis was slightly zoning out on her speech as he was reminded again that El’el wasn’t just a random elf whom they had stumbled upon. She didn’t look evil, and something inside of him was getting somewhat attached to her awkward demeanor, but he had to admit that he didn’t really question just how much ‘evil’ she was actually partaking in before they rescued her.
She did sound repentant. She did blame her teacher.
Still, throwing goblins at people was not a good look.
Was not caring the same as forgiveness? Dennis didn’t really care. For him, the only thing that mattered was that she wasn’t evil anymore. Villains switched sides all the damn time, and the amount of atrocities that could be forgiven was laughably big, when he thought about it. Maybe El’el was slightly racist, kind of bigoted, and terribly sheltered in a bad way – but she also was in the ‘redemption’ part of her backstory, as far as he understood her situation.
“I don’t think you should throw fireballs at people anymore,” he muttered. “Unless they somehow deserve it?”
“That man was really infuriating.”
“Then I guess it’s fine,” Dennis shrugged. “As long as you don’t kill anyone. That’s, like… bad.”
“I will strive to uphold the rules you’ve set on me,” El’el nodded seriously.
Dennis nodded seriously back.
After a few moments, her expression grew more worried.
“I did not cause any problems, did I?” she asked quietly. “I do not wish to be a burden…”
“Nah, it’s fine.” Dennis paused, thinking for a moment. “Maybe don’t tell anyone that you burned down that guy’s house? It sounds like something that would bite us in the ass.”
Her eyes widened.
“B-but–” she sputtered. “I didn’t! It was just a simple blast of fire. Surely they were able to put it out!”
Dennis stared at her blankly.
“They weren’t,” he said without elaborating.
All of those knocked-out people were very much incapable of putting out any fires.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “That’s not good.”
“It’s fine. That guy is rich or something, so having his house burned down is probably just an inconvenience for him.”
“He said so?”
Dennis remained silent again.
El’el shifted in place, fidgeting with her fingers nervously.
“I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you,” she said quietly, completely ignoring his reassurances that burning down some rich guy’s mansion was no big deal. “Though, if it’s okay for me to request…”
“Hm?”
“Please don’t knock me out, put me in bed, and watch my unconscious body anymore,” she said shyly. “It is… Um...”
It was Dennis’ turn to look away sheepishly.
“Um…” he muttered. “Right. S-sorry.”
Shit.
He was being creepy.
For every time he felt like he was getting the hang of the whole ‘human with a soul’ thing, there were times when he did something completely dumb without even bothering to think about his actions. Like, there was a limited number of ‘good decisions’ he was allowed to make during the day, and it wasn’t big.
On one hand, usually Dennis simply wasn’t bothered by the way his actions were perceived by other people, so actually recognizing his own ‘creepiness’ was a new thing. Progress, in other words, though he had absolutely no idea towards what. On the other hand, Dennis didn’t feel like he was making any kind of ‘progress’ towards anything. Mostly he just felt slightly dumb for not considering the consequences of his actions. Again.
“Do you prefer Ellie?” he suddenly asked. “Or El’el?”
She blinked, slightly confused from his sudden change of topic.
“Either is fine,” she finally said after a few moments of consideration. “Lily started calling me that because my name was too ‘tongue-twisting’ for her, and Mary found it cute. I do not mind. It is endearing, in a way. Was this really the reason why you were watching me? You were waiting for me to wake up to ask me… that?”
“Oh, right.” Dennis actually remembered the reason for this whole thing. “I have a hobo living in my basement.”
El’el nodded.
“Okay,” she said simply.
An awkward silence stretched between them.
“That’s a problem,” he elaborated.
“Are they really homeless, if they have a place to live?” El’el asked out loud.
“Huh,” Dennis muttered. “I guess not.”
El’el nodded confidently again, looking sort of smug at the way she immediately solved the problem.
“No, wait–” Dennis waved his hand, dispelling the feeling of a job well done. “That’s not it. Damn, I– I kinda suck at explaining things, don’t I? Ugh. So, there’s a hobo named Gareth. I met him in the Echo, and he is living in my Echo basement now because that’s a skill place so it kind of protects him from nothingness, and there was this thing where I promised to come back for him because he’s kinda stuck there and–”
“Dennis,” El’el stopped his rambling. “It’s okay. You don’t have to rush. I am listening.”
“Yeah, it’s just– People usually don’t really listen for long before getting annoyed, and this is kind of important, so I guess I’m trying to speak faster so I can fit in more info before you inevitably get bored or something and–”
“Dennis,” she interrupted him again, gently placing her hand over his own. “It saddens me that you are so used to people not listening to you. I promise, I will listen. Just breathe, and explain to me what troubles you.”
“Y-yeah, right,” he muttered under his breath. “So…”
He told El’el about Gareth. How Dennis met him, half-crazy and confused. How he killed an Arm to give the guy a few points in Mind to help him. That there was a skill space in the mirror of his basement – and Gareth was there. At least, he was supposed to be there.
“When you put everyone back,” he said, catching his breath. “Does that mean that the people who were stuck there, but, you know, not floating, also got back? Or did you move just the floaters? Because if it’s just the floaters, well… I don’t know how many people are left in there, but there has to be quite a few. Though most of them are already dead, I guess–”
“They weren’t supposed to be able to get there in the first place,” she said. “Those cracks you were talking about… When an Overseer performs their duty, things like that shouldn’t happen. Tar’en was stretched thin, it seems… I digress.” She shook her head. “You are right. I moved everyone who was ‘accounted’, meaning only the people in the Sea of Stillness. If there was anyone else… they were practically invisible to me. I guess if they noticed the process, some of them could’ve just… jumped in the portals. But…”
“Gareth sits in my basement,” Dennis finished for her. “He literally wouldn’t have seen that. I need to go back there. Is there a way?”
There was a way. Regrettably, it wasn’t as simple as just casting a spell to make a portal.
“You will need to manually destabilize a false god,” El’el explained.
“Sounds ominous,” Dennis said, thinking. “The fuck is a false god?”
Weren’t those cracks that portaled him to the Echo for the first time whispering about something like that?
“A malicious Concept that developed awareness,” El’el explained. “They seek to consume, picking the path of slaughter. They are–”
“Ah.” Dennis felt the light bulb light up in his head. “A dungeon. You’re talking about a dungeon. Like a church place, or an art place. Like a skill emergence, but in this world, and murderous.”
Hesitantly, she nodded.
“We need to put a spell on it?”
“It can be converted into a temporary gate,” she said. “Not for too long. And it’s only possible because there are no authorities on the other side.”
“What if there are?”
“They’d notice us. Without a permit, it’s considered minor heresy.” She seemed to be lost in thought about something. “However, with properly working authorities there wouldn’t be any ‘dungeons’ in the first place, so I guess in a way that problem solved itself.”
“Okay,” Dennis nodded. “Then we need to find a dungeon, you’ll do some magic with the core, make a portal, and I’ll go in, grab Gareth, and go out? Seems simple to me.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll need to grab a cart. If there’s anyone else, my skill will probably notice them. And they may be fat.”
For a moment, he considered how it all looked for El’el.
“Is this okay for you?” he asked. “I mean, if doing that is a small heresy… You can teach me the spells, maybe, if you don’t want to do it yourself.”
She chuckled.
Her smile was really nice.
“Laws hold no meaning if the letter goes against the spirit,” she said gently. “Do not worry. I will have no regrets in breaking the Law for a noble cause.”
Maybe, Dennis thought, she was never evil.
AN:
So, um… I’m toying with the idea of starting a second book, but for that to realistically happen I’ll need to put speedster back at 2 chaps/week schedule. There are lots of goodies for me with that plan – namely not being dependent on one novel, which is good since I actually want to be able to finish it one day, and you can’t just finish writing your source of food. More freedom to write what I want. I mean, I want to write speedster, I love it, but I also want to write other things too. You’ll get, well, a second novel. Which may turn out to be good!
Anyway, I’m not committing to anything yet, just wanted to throw the thoughts in the air and see what you guys think.