Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Pekari bricks tumbled with carved stone as Iona finished punching through the wall. I slapped my forehead as I stepped back.

“Oi! That could’ve been structural or something! I was going to [Blink] through it!” I said.

Iona shook her head.

“I’ve made myself very, very familiar with what’s structural in underground lairs and what isn’t.” She firmly said. “That was nowhere close to being supportive. Plus, I wanted to come as well!” Iona stepped over the rubble, Auri zipping over her shoulder.

“BRRRPT!” Auri staked her claim as First… and also dibs on whatever we found. I was dead curious, and hurried through with them.

Auri’s natural flames lit up the room, and it was immediately obvious that we were in a chapel, and Iona looked a little unsteady on her feet.

“Whoa! Are you alright? What’s wrong?” I took a few experimental sniffs to see if the air was bad or something, if Iona and Auri were being poisoned.

I flared healing just to make sure, but Iona still gripped my shoulder for support.

“You didn’t mention this was a holy place!” She hissed at me.

I looked around the room, taking in the ethereal aesthetic. Colorful clouds were painted on the walls, giving way to swirls of colors. Tapestries had been preserved, no little insects available to nibble on them, and they were filled with whirling colors, forming bizarre and unreal shapes. A deer with eyes on the ends of his antlers, a yawning maw with gemstones for teeth, a ruined city clearly hanging upside-down. It was like they went to great lengths to make the pictures nonsensical. The seating was deep and plush, like people were expected to sit for hours on end, and a pair of heavy incense burners were still hanging next to the altar. Runes of a long-dead language dotted the walls at regular intervals, positioned in a classic lighting arrangement.

Not that I’d trust the arrangement to tell us what the runes did. Lighting arrangement spacing was the same as murder spell bolt arrangement. Not that I’d expect to find that in a chapel. Not unless it was dedicated to the god of psychedelic slaughter or something like that.

“Icelus, goddess of dreams.” Iona told me, striding to the altar. She didn’t take a knee at it, unlike when she was praying to Selene and Lunaris, but bowed her head respectfully.

‘Don’t desecrate places of worship’ was one of the Divine Decrees, and I didn’t think accidentally breaking into a long-deserted chapel counted, but hey. Why take the risk? I joined Iona in front of the altar and bowed my own head.

Hey Icelus!

Sorry! Didn’t know it was a chapel! Please forgive us. We’re going to see if we can find out what happened to your faithful worshippers who made this place.

Cheers!

Elaine!

I wasn’t great at the whole prayer thing, double when it was an unknown and strange goddess. Still I hoped my prayer helped and counted.

The world… didn’t quite twist or anything, but it was like there was a heavy, wet, unhappy sensation dribbling down my back.

“I think we’re off the hook.” Iona said. “Might have a bad nightmare but that’s it.”

“Do you think I should avoid [Vivid Dream Reading] or am I good?” I asked the resident religion expert.

Iona shook her head.

“Avoid using the skill for a few nights. If Icelus thinks you’re dodging her displeasure, you’ll end up actually pissing her off, and that’s a bad place to be. Please don’t make me fight other [Paladins].”

I nodded my understanding. Embrace one or two nightmares, let the goddess get her pound of dream-flesh, move on with life. I wasn’t some meathead who’d spit in a god’s eye out of a misplaced sense of pride or anything.

“Let’s keep exploring?”

We left the chapel, and ended up in what was obviously a large dining hall, the room dominated by three large tables around a central area. A couple of kegs, big enough for Iona to comfortably stand in, were strategically scattered around the room.

It was also where we found the first skeleton, a skull and arm on the table, hand still clutching an ale mug even in death, with the rest of the bones a fallen mess under.

“Interesting.” I went over to investigate.

“Brrrpt?”

“A few things don’t quite add up for me.” I explained. “What this place is. Why. But more interestingly, how the body decomposed. Need airflow, usually pests, otherwise it would’ve just mummified.” I got close enough for [The World Around Me] to completely envelope the skeleton, and studied it from there. “But there’s no bad air, no horrid stench, implying airflow and cleaning. The body didn’t get cleaned up, and the tapestries are intact. Half of what I’m seeing says this place should be open, the other half implies the place is sealed. It takes effort to remove a full body worth of flesh, but I don’t see any bite marks on the bones, from rats or anything else.”

“Do you know how she died?” Iona asked.

“He.” I absently corrected. Enough of the pelvis was intact for that. “Elf. The most obvious sign is the horns. Which is also weird, elves are hard to bump off and he just died… at the table? And to answer your question, no, I don’t know how he died. I’m mostly a [Healer], not a [Mortician] or [Investigator] or… who tries to find the cause of death usually?”

Iona gave me a Look.

“Usually it’s pretty obvious. Monster stepped on a person, hanging, the fact that their chest is missing, the dozen arrows sticking out of them…”

I winced.

“Alright, fair point.” I conceded. “I don’t see any freshly broken bones, although there are some minor cracks that imply the bones were cracked a long time ago, and healed naturally.”

“Not gross violence.” Iona said.

“Aye. What direction do we want to go next?”

There were four doors to the dining hall, one of which had been the chapel we’d come out of.

Iona pointed to a door.

“Let’s go there next.”

We kept exploring the underground home, which rapidly morphed into an underground fort in my mind. Skeletons were found in various places, in various positions, all elves, each telling a story. A skeleton curled up in a corner, arms around legs like they’d just curled up and waited for the end to come. A skeleton on the floor, next to a stool and a noose. She’d clearly known the end was coming, and had decided to go out on her own terms. A pair of skeletons on a bed in a loving embrace.

Iona poked the mattress they were on, and pulled a face.

“Still full of… fluids.” She said.

“Yeah, decomposing bodies - wait, I’m an idiot.” I smacked my forehead. “If stuff is defeating my common sense, it’s because there’s a bunch of magic involved.”

“Castle Valkyrie has - had - a number of self-cleaning runes. Complete lifesavers, I’ll tell you what. Most large buildings have them… we just spent five years living with them, remember?”

Auri did a backflip without me saying anything. I stuck my tongue out at Iona.

“I think I know what this place is.” Iona said. “It’s an Immortal’s hideout. They built this place far underground to try and sit out an Immortal war, or something. Large enough to support a number of people. Not sure on all the details, but that’s the initial vibe I’m getting.”

Made sense. If people who could throw cities were fighting, the best defense was to be invisible and hidden, out of the way. The dwarves and I had dived underground to avoid Lun’Kat fighting with the Guardians, and it looked like I wasn’t the only one with that idea.

The rooms were just as interesting as the people, and told a story on their own. The kitchens had a dozen ovens and three firepits, which was an excellent way of guessing how many people were expected to live here. They were next to deep granaries, buried even deeper into the ground. Auri and I flew down one, and to my great surprise they were still filled with wheat and potatoes, and it was the first of three. I had no idea how far down the stores went, but given the size of the fort, and the number of skeletons we’d seen, I had to imagine it just kept going and going and going, enough for a few hundred people to last decades.

Living quarters held the bedrooms we’d seen the couple in, and a couple of rooms just had a few chairs or games in them, clearly meant for leisure. Then we started getting to the interesting rooms.

By interesting, I meant they had loot. I’d needed to remind myself quite a few times that I was no longer a Ranger, no longer a Sentinel, and I didn’t have the responsibilities or rights as one. I couldn’t just flash a badge and have all my troubles go away.

The inverse was true as well. I was no longer a Sentinel. The prohibition against looting no longer applied, and nobody was going to miss anything I grabbed.

“This stuff has to be valuable, right?” My eyes were practically sparkling as I looked through what had to be the fort’s armory. Racks of full plate armor, barrels of arrows, rows upon rows of small, heavily inscribed balls, swords and bows and pikes and spears and way more weapons than I’d expect a place this small to have.

Unless there were layers to the place, but the kitchens and granaries had implied a single layer, and we hadn’t seen any stairs one way or another and [The World Around Me] showed solid stone turning to solid dirt, and-

I spun that thought process off to go enjoy musing about the place, while the rest of me refocused on the armory.

[*ding!* [Parallel Thoughts] leveled up! 173 -> 174]

Iona looked at the armor critically, her gauntlets retracting as she knocked on them experimentally.

“Ish.” She replied. “I think there’s some magic metals in all this that are extremely valuable, and they’re obviously not conjured. At the same time, armies in this part of the world like consistency in how they outfit their troops, so unless we want to found our own mercenary company and use this as a start, they’re basically worth scrap metal. A smith will pay a pretty penny for them, then melt them down and reforge them. Oooooooooorrrrrrrr….” Iona drew out the last word. “Adventurers and the like would buy them as-is, with a significant premium because they’re already made and formed into a useful shape.”

“BRRRRRRPTTT!!!!” Auri flew in front of Iona and started shaking her head back and forth as hard as she could. “BRPT! Brrrpt! Brrrr…rrrrpt?”

I smacked my forehead as Auri either concussed herself, or made herself dizzy with her shaking, and took a step forward to catch her as she started to careen around the room.

“Also, I don’t know local rules about bringing lots of weapons to a place. That’s generally a restricted behavior, and of course, Fenrir doesn’t have unlimited carrying capacity. No, what might be more useful is if I can find anything for myself…” Iona trailed off, moving deeper into the armory. She picked a weapon off the shelf, hefted it a few times, shook her head, put it back, and moved on.

“Need any help, or should I keep exploring?” I asked.

“Ehh… on one hand we shouldn’t split up. On the other, I’m going to be here a while, and the place is clearly empty and deserted. Don’t get lost.”

I tapped my head.

“[Astral Archives]. Perfect memory.”

“Right. Meet back at the chapel in about an hour or so?”

“Will do.”

The rune for light had been the first spell I’d ever cast, and I cast it again, giving Iona a hovering ball of light to help her see.

With that, I went off, cradling a dizzy Auri in my hands.

I retraced a few steps, then went off in a different direction. Large imposing mostly empty room, large imposing room filled with tapestries, oh hey, was that a book!?

[The World Around Me] let me spot the spine and a glimpse of the pages of a book through a wall, and I took a sharp turn in that direction. The place was a little maze-like, but it also had a practical layout, because a bunch of people used to live here.

What was nice was I didn’t see a single trap in the entire place. Nobody wanted deadly swinging blades going at a kid running around, there was no point in poison dart traps hitting the [Maids] cleaning up. Traps and practical living spaces just didn’t mix.

I quickly found my way to the solar, the private office of whoever used to live here. A quick skim of the surviving books let me know they were almost all written in High Elvish, although the turns of phrase and spellings of nearly every word threw me for a bit of a loop.

No sense in letting good books go to waste here, and it wasn’t like we had logistical concerns like with the armory.

[Imbue], [Cosmic Presence], and [Bookwyrm’s Hoard] let me yoink the entire bookshelf in one go.

[*ding!* [The Very Hungry Bookwyrm] leveled up! 82 -> 86. +80 Dexterity, +80 Vitality, +80 Speed, +240 Magic Power, +240 Magic Control, +240 Mana, +240 Mana Regeneration per level from your Class! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration per level for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power per level from your Element!]

I - what? Why’d I get so many levels!?

It took me three minutes of thinking and reviewing my actions before I facepalmed with understanding.

I wasn’t a [Bookwyrm] anymore. I was [The Very Hungry Bookwyrm]. I considered the modifier to be mostly fluff, but I’d just eaten an entire bookshelf of books. Of course the System rewarded me for it!

Martin would’ve had my head on a pike if I tried that at the School’s library. Even if I took them all out after, someone would still need to reshelve them all, and I didn’t think I could reshelve a book with the same combination of skills.

That, and the System just knew when I was doing stuff for experience and levels, and when I was doing it ‘for real’. Yoinking an entire library shelf and immediately putting it back wouldn’t be worth nearly as much as claiming it all for myself.

Just to try, I picked the first book in my [Hoard] and tried to ‘teleport’ it back to the shelf. To my great surprise, it sort of worked. It appeared near the ceiling on the other side of the room, and I quickly pulled it back into my [Hoard] before it could fall.

Alright, interesting. It worked, but best I could guess, since [Cosmic Presence] was an aura, it just made things appear anywhere in the aura. I tried a few more books, getting the same result. Random spot in the room.

I tried with [Kaleidoscope], and it worked! The butterfly flew over to the shelf and popped the book out. [Imbue] plus Spatial being an expensive element made the move expensive… relatively to what it would cost otherwise.

I fucking loved having tons of stats. In the time it took me to breathe, I’d regenerated all of the mana I’d used.

Also, wow. Looting stuff was AWESOME! Just… walk into a room, use a skill, and BOOM! A couple dozen books were mine. Just like how we walked into the armory and, finders keepers, we could take as much of it as we wanted.

This place had to have more books! Oh! Or even a library!

Just… bam! A few hundred, a few thousand books would be mine!

I took a deep calming breath, and blew it out explosively.

Alright. Calm down.

I could 100% see why there had been a ban on looting as a Ranger. It was a heady experience. Just all of that stuff was now mine, and it was all too easy to imagine becoming… aggressive in my enforcement if stuff just went straight to my pocket. An amazing way to open the door to corruption. How horrible would the guards be if they could simply seize and confiscate goods and money from people? They’d make up whatever crime and accusation they thought they could get away with!

Goddesses curse it, why was I empathizing with adventurers so much!? If this is how they felt every time they nicked something, no wonder things being nailed down was only a minor deterrent to them!

The thought almost had me put the books back.

Almost.

With my head screwed on a little straighter, with the heady drug of LOOT gone, I allowed myself to get excited again.

Books! Books for the taking! Books that were all mine! Books to read!

I let myself have a small cackle, one that echoed through the dead stone passages.

“Brpt brrrpt!!” My good mood was infectious, and Auri flew around the room. “Brrrpt?”

“Yeah, we’ll get you something if you like.”

“BRRRPT!!!”

With LOOT on the line, our exploration pace stepped up, became faster. A row of cells, designed to hold people who weren’t being good community members. I approved of their forward thinking nature - not everything could be easily solved, not in a large community, and cells implied a mindset of rehabilitation and correction, as opposed to more… permanent measures. The skeleton half-hanging out of one of the cells was a grim reminder that somebody needed to be alive to let people out.

Hallways and rooms eventually led to a large garden-like place. We were still deep underground, but this segment was dirt, not stone.

It’s also where most of the bodies were. Skeletons were strewn thick upon the ground, dozens of picks, shovels, and other digging tools mixed in liberally with the decayed clothing and bones. Piles of rock and dirt were pushed against the sides of the ‘garden’. I hovered with [Scintillating Ascent], slowly drifting over the skeletons to see what they’d been working on.

A passage. A tunnel, sloping steeply up, collapsed only a handful of feet into the digging.

“What do you think, Auri? Did some Classer create an earthquake and bury them, and they couldn’t dig out fast enough?”

Auri tilted her head, then shook her beak.

“Brrpt. Brrpt, brrpt, brrrpt.”

“Good point.” Auri had brought up the granaries, but more importantly, the fact that there were no windows anywhere. This place had been built underground.

With nothing else to explore here, we went back in. More rooms, more books, and the holy grail itself.

A library.

I had enough mana and power to mass-[Imbue]-yoink the small office worth of books earlier. I didn’t dare try it here. Slowly, reverentially, like I was walking up to an altar, I walked down the length of the bookshelves, my finger trailing over the spines of books. I had time to see what each book was, but why discriminate? As quickly as I moved, as quick as thinking, I pulled each one into [Bookwyrm’s Hoard], rapidly filling up my collection with dozens, hundreds of books.

[*ding!* [The Very Hungry Bookwyrm] leveled up! 86 -> 90. +80 Dexterity, +80 Vitality, +80 Speed, +240 Magic Power, +240 Magic Control, +240 Mana, +240 Mana Regeneration per level from your Class! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration per level for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power per level from your Element!]

Om nom nom nom! Tasty books! Delicious levels!

Too soon, I was rudely interrupted when my skill stopped working.

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