[Schemes]
Freya lounged gracefully among the beauty of her garden. The plush duvet shifted with her weight as she reached towards the plate of confections that had been so meticulously prepared for her.
She sat back with a frosted puff clutched between delicate fingers, observing the riotous display of whites and purples and blues that filled the scenery before her. Her garden was in full bloom and as beautiful as ever. It was truly a shame she never found the time to come out here more often.
She bit into the pastry, letting the sweetness dissolve on her tongue as her thoughts drifted to matters far more interesting than confections.
Her precious Bell Cranel was doing wonderfully. Such a pure soul—untainted, earnest, and growing with a swiftness that delighted her to no end. The hardships he had faced and even the people around him had shaped him beautifully.
Freya longed for the day he fully matured, when that brilliant light would reach its zenith and she could bask in its radiance without reservation, but she knew better than to rush such things. Patience was the greatest virtue a goddess could cultivate, and Freya had cultivated it over millennia.
And while she waited, she could turn her attention to the other soul that had caught her eye, at least for a moment.
Tanya Degurechaff... What experiences shaped your soul, I wonder.
It was a question that had nibbled at the edges of her thoughts since the first time she’d laid eyes on the girl and had only grown more ravenous since. Such a uniquely beautiful soul in someone so young was a rarity, and it begged the question of what laid in the girl’s past to have spawned said beauty.
Did it have something to do with her skills, or her strange mannerisms? Had Freya been anyone lesser, she might have mistaken the girl for an aged Pallum, molded by decades of experience that honed her to a fine edge. But Tanya was undoubtedly human, and a young one at that. If this was naught but the beginning of her life, what could possibly lay ahead for her?
Freya shivered pleasantly at the thought. Tanya had already managed to impress half the city with her defeat of one of Apollo’s endless sycophants. If she were to receive a blessing, what else could she do?
Ah... But therein lied the crux of the problem.
The poor girl despises us, doesn’t she? Freya reached for her tray of treats once more. And even worse, soon there will be no reason for her to return to the dungeon, much less receive a blessing.
Freya drew her hand back to her lap, her appetite momentarily diminished by the turn her thoughts had taken. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a silk napkin, thinking.
Chantless casting. The very notion was enough to set Orario’s adventuring community alight with greed. Every mage in the city would clamor for such a tool, and Tanya stood to benefit and gain exactly what she wanted.
A comfortable life, free of the Dungeon, of the gods, of anything that would push her to become more…
How utterly tedious.
“She could be magnificent,” Freya murmured to a butterfly as it drifted past. “If only she’d let herself.”
She watched the butterfly drift lazily from flower to flower. It landed on a bloom of violet, a ray of sunlight glistening on its wings, and stayed there as if it had all the time in the world. Freya eyed the ray, and smirked.
Perhaps it was time she stepped in.
The Hard Armored hit the floor in two pieces, its rocky carapace cracking apart and dissolving as the creature writhed in its death throes.
Azalea stood over the dissolving remains, chest heaving and sword arm trembling. Blood trickled down her arm onto the floor, the quiet drip-drip of her life blood against the cavern floor echoing in her ears alongside her pounding heartbeat.
“Azalea?”
A hand touched her shoulder from behind and she spun, ripping them off of her with a snarl. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Garrik stepped back, his hands raised and a small scowl on his face. “Calm down. I was just checking if you’re alright.”
“I’m fine.” Azalea flexed her sword arm, wincing at the sting of the gash that ran from her elbow to her wrist. “Let’s keep moving.”
“Azalea—” another voice started, and Azalea turned a glare on the woman perched on a nearby rock.
“Don’t start with me either, Maren” Azalea cut her off, wiping blood from her blade onto her thigh. “I said I’m fine.”
Maren’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t argue, glancing at the forth member of their party, a boy whose name Azalea honestly couldn’t even bother to remember. She called him Kid, and he answered to it.
“We should head back,” Maren said, standing and slinging her crossbow over her shoulder. “We’ve been down here since dawn and everyone’s hurting. We’ll die if we keep going for too long.”
“I said we keep moving,” Azalea repeated, turning to face Maren with a hard expression. The woman flinched but rallied quickly, jumping down from the rock and crossing her arms.
“You can go if you want, but we’re done. It’s a miracle none of us have died get. That Hard Armored almost turned us into mulch.”
Azalea’s jaw clenched so hard she could feel the muscles in her temples twitch, and Maren’s hand strayed towards her sword as she saw the woman’s temper flare.
“...Fine,” Azalea ground out after a long, ugly silence. “We head back.”
Maren and Garrik’s scowl lightened though he still didn’t look happy. The kid just looked relieved, the useless little…
“Let’s move,” Azalea said, sheathing her sword and pressing her uninjured hand against the wound on her arm, feeling the ripped flesh there and using the resulting pain as an outlet for her anger.
They reached the surface in the late afternoon, ten hours after they originally went down. They got some looks, Azalea especially thanks to the wound dripping blood down her side, but they ignored them.
“Drop the stones at the Guild,” she ordered without looking back. “Split them however you want. I don’t care. The Hard Armored’s mine, though.”
“We were going to grab a bite after all our hard work. Aren’t you coming?”
Azalea stomped off without answering, heading straight home.
An hour later, Azalea sat on the edge of her bed, naked from the waist up as she wove bandages tightly around her arm. The gash beneath throbbed with every heartbeat, but the numbing ointment was already doing its work and her attention was barely on the pain.
She eyed the piece of paper sitting on her lap, the words written across its surface illuminated by candlelight.
Azalea Quinn
Level Two
Str 402→ 435 (E)
End 599 → 652 (B)
Dex 556 →569 (C)
Agi 653 →690 (B)
Mag 0 →0 (I)
Her stats weren’t bad, especially for how long she’d been a Level Two, but after working her ass off day after day—eating in the Dungeon and rarely sleeping more than a few hours—it didn’t feel like enough. She was the strongest person in the familia by far, but it wasn’t enough.
“How am I supposed to kill her like this?” She gritted, crumpling the paper in one hand. Pain lanced up her arm, but she ignored it in favor of the anger pouring through her.
She had been hearing about the Little Bitch more and more lately, and every single time that damn name touched her ears, it burned her very soul. She couldn’t stand the fact that the little girl who ruined her life was rising high and, if the rumors were true, about to make a fortune.
She reared her hand back, preparing to throw the piece of paper, when the door suddenly opened. Azalea’s eyes snapped up and her mouth opened, ready to tear the intruder a new one, but the words died in her throat as she caught sight of golden eyes.
“What do you want?”
Her God stepped through the threshold without invitation, closing the door behind him with a soft click and a gentle smile. “You’re upset.”
“No shit,” Azalea spat.
Her God paid the venom no mind, crossing the room and setting himself upon her bed. At his passing breeze, Azalea suddenly remembered she was topless, but he paid her nakedness absolutely no mind, crossing one leg over the other like some kind of noble.
“You’ve been pushing yourself hard,” he said, folding his hands in his lap. “The wound on your arm is evidence enough of that. If you continue at this pace, you’ll burn out before you ever reach your goal.”
“I don’t care,” Azalea said through her teeth. “I don’t have time to sit around and—”
“Patience,” he said slowly. Azalea wanted to punch him in the jaw. “I know you’re tired of hearing it, but it is necessary.”
“I don’t have time,” Azalea repeated, the words scraping against each other on the way out. “Every day I spend crawling through these floors, she’s up there getting stronger. Getting richer. People are talking about her like she’s some kind of saint, and I’m down here in the dirty working my ass off for nothing! It makes my fucking blood boil!”
Her God watched her steam in rage, and slowly turned away as if he couldn’t stand the sight. He heaved a great sigh. “Then perhaps a change of course is required.”
Azalea eyed him. “What?”
Her God shifted closer on the bed, and Azalea immediately leaned away, her good arm bracing against the mattress while the other covered her chest. "Back off. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing but—"
She froze as his eyes caught hers, glowing a deep, molten gold the shade of the sun. Azalea’s words caught in her throat, her body locking up as a strange sensation crawled through her, invisible hands clawing through her chest and grasping at her very being.
"Hold still," her God said, reaching to her forehead and placing a palm there. "And be silent. This requires far more concentration than usual."
Azalea wanted to say something but her lips refused to move. Her body wasn’t responding at all, in fact. All she could do was sit there as the warmth spread from her chest and rippled outwards like flowing water. From her fingertips to the tips of her toes, the presence seemed determined to envelop her completely.
The candle on her bedside flickered wildly, its flame bending toward the God as though drawn by an unseen current. Azalea’s vision swam, the edges of the room blurring until the only thing in sharp focus was the pair of burning golden eyes before her.
"Hopefully, you will fare better than she did," she heard, and then the warmth crested, and the world faded to black.
Maren’s legs and back aches as they finally got back home. The meal sat warmly in her stomach and her eyes were growing heavy from all the activity that the day had had in store for them. Garrik walked beside her, his own expression haggard, while Damicus trailed behind them
"So," Garrik said as they stepped into the foyer. "What do we do with Azalea’s share?"
Maren had been hoping someone else would bring that up. She glanced down at the pouch on her belt and shrugged
"Toss it at her door," she said. "She can pick it up or not. I’m not handing it to her personally after the way she bit our heads off down there."
Garrik snorted. "Fair enough."
"She’s going to get herself killed," Damicus muttered from behind them. "Or get us killed"
Maren didn’t answer, though they all knew he was telling the truth.. Azalea had been on a war path since the day they met her, but it seemed especially bad now. Maren almost regretted agreeing to party up with the woman, but she had to admit, the payday was usually worth it.
"She’ll calm down," Maren said, only half believing her own words. "She just needs to blow off some steam."
"She’s been blowing off steam for weeks." Garrik shook his head. "I don’t know what to do with her anymore."
They headed up the stairs toward their rooms Maren had just pulled the pouch from her belt, intending to head upstairs and deposit it at Azalea’s door, when it suddenly shot open.
All three of them stopped. Maren gulped as she came face to face with the very woman they were discussing, leaning against the doorframe with an unreadable expression.
"We’ve got your share," she said, holding out the pouch. Azalea made no move to take it, staring at them as if she was searching for something. Maren fought to hold still under that gaze. It made her feel like an ant or something, and she really didn’t like it.
She prepared to just say screw it and throw the bag in the woman’s face, but Azalea suddenly spoke.
"I have a job for you," She said. "All three of you. Tomorrow, we’re going back into the Dungeon, and we’re not stopping until I say so."
Maren blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "The hell? Since when do you tell us what to do? We join you because you’re a good fighter and we get paid well when we’re with you, but you’ve lost your fucking mind if you think you can just—"
"Are you disobeying orders from your captain?"
Maren’s eyes widened and Garrik stepped forward, outrage written on his face. "Since when are you the captain? We’ve all been working our asses off for that position, but as far as I know, he’s not picked anyone to take it."
Azalea’s lips turned up in a smirk, as if she was glad the man had chosen to argue with her on this matter. "That’s not true anymore. Our God has seen fit to restructure things. I’m the captain now, and what I say goes. Do you understand?"
"Bullshit," Maren spat, stepping forward with her chin raised and her jaw set. She’d had about enough of this. The Dungeon had taken everything out of her today and she wasn’t about to cap it off by being ordered around like a servant in her own house. "I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m not having it. I’m gonna talk to him."
She moved to step past Azalea, but a hand shot out and seized her wrist like a vise. Maren’s head snapped toward Azalea, a curse on her lips, but she stopped dead as she looked into the other woman’s eyes.
Aren’t they supposed to be brown?
Maren had stared Azalea down enough to remember the exact shade of her eyes. They were the color of coffee beans, with flecks of green and lighter brown interspersed throughout the nebula of her iris. Maren had admired them, in the sense that she had wished her own boring brown eyes held such depth to them. But those eyes were gone now, and Maren was left staring into a pit of molten gold.
Maren’s knees hit the ground as the floor rushed to meet her. She managed to catch herself with one hand, the other still locked in Azalea’s grip. A cold sweat erupted across her entire body, soaking through her clothes in an instant as her heart hammered in her ears.
"Do you understand now?" Azalea asked from somewhere above her, and it was all Maren could do to nod without throwing up. "Good."
Her hand was released. Maren slumped the rest of the way to the floor, her cheek pressed against the cold wood as she gasped for breath.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Garrik’s hand was on his sword, his expression tense as he stared at the scene before him, while Damicus looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world, his eyes darting between Maren’s crumpled form and Azalea’s looming figure.
Azalea stepped over Maren and Garrik’s hand gripped his sword tighter as she addressed them. "Be at the entrance to the Dungeon at dawn. I don’t care if you’re tired or not feeling up to it, you’ll be there, got me?"
Garrik opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked down at Maren, who was still gasping on the floor, her face pale and slick with sweat, then back to Azalea. He nodded, unable to say anything.
Azalea smirked, and then turned to walk down the hall, pausing only long enough to pluck the pouch of magic stones from Maren’s limp hand. She didn’t even acknowledge Damicus, cowering against the wall.
"Get some sleep," Azalea said without looking back. "You’ll need it."
She ascended the stairs and disappeared around the corner, her footsteps fading into the silence of the hallway above, leaving three terrified souls in her wake.