Sofia still did not dare to look away from the Veik King, and with the lack of air, she could not speak, so, for a lack of a better option, she used her back as a writing board. She flattened the back of her bone armor and let her words carve themselves upon it.
‘Hello. Yes. Please help.’
The sunless laughed. Her chuckles were light, almost musical in nature. Sofia felt her coming closer, she stopped at a reasonable distance. Any closer and Pareth might have probably decided to come out on his own.
Again the sunless spoke. There was an ethereal, melodic quality to her voice, something almost enchanting, Sofia could almost feel it wrapping around her brain like a silken veil.
This good King has called me to be the middleman, quite the honor, that, she explained with another chuckle.
Oh thank the lords, this situation can still be salvaged.
He must have seen something in ya. Hmm. Yes. I smell Tarren’s magicks on you, did you enjoy the dance?
She can smell that?!
Again, Sofia reshaped the bone armor to send another message. ‘I would rather it not be my last.’
Ahahah, now, now, turn around, Veidrenth is not going to eat you. Not yet.Reassuring…
Sofia carefully turned around, mindful not to make any abrupt movement. She could finally lay her eyes on the appearance of her new lifeline in this uncertain situation. This Sunless was a lot like Tarren. A mostly human-like shape, in the characteristic dark black and oily substance of the Sunless, with a few white highlights. She was about twenty centimeters shorter than Sofia. From her outlines, she seemed to be ‘wearing’ an oversized vest of some kind with long sleeves hiding her hands, and some kind of slanted cut skirt. She had long, messy ‘hair’ that seemed to have a life of its own, squirming around behind her back like a basket full of eels. Other noteworthy features were two ‘horns’ to the side of her head, though from Sofia’s perspective it was hard to tell if they were not more akin to pointy Vampire ears, and her legs ended in sharp pointy tips instead of feet.
Unlike Tarren whose three white highlights had been a singular eye, a glove, and the ribbon of a hat, she had seven. The main one was a ‘necklace’ with an eye ‘pendant’. The ‘eye’ sitting on this Sunless’ chest was looking straight at Sofia. The other white highlights were white rings at the end of her long sleeves, three on each arm. They were all packed with large amounts of mana, at least two hundred thousand points each.
[Sunless Mage - Lv.250+ - Imprint power : 10 000 - Effect : + 1 000 000 Mana]
Holy fucking shit, what?!
Well? The polite thing is to at least remove your helmet, you know?
Removing my helmet in such hostile territory is… Ah, whatever… It would be hard to defend against just her, let alone the giant crab behind me…
Sofia’s bone helmet was seamlessly absorbed into her skin, revealing her face and her blonde hair tied into a thick bun.
Oooh, we caught quite the looker today. And a Saintess to boot. What are you doing running around with two mana hearts, though, I wonder?
Yeah, of course she would notice…
Creating another bone tablet in front of her, Sofia wrote yet another message. ‘I can show you. Promise the Veik will not attack.’
Again the Sunless chuckled. I can hardly promise such a thing. You are a trespassing intruder, after all. I hear that you even blew up an entrance of the hive.
The words on the bone tablet rearranged themselves. ‘Mistake on my part.’
Or was it? Everyone here knows what you came for. Let us see what Veidrenth thinks, he’s the one who will decide your fate, I’m just a translator.
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Following this was a worrying silence. Focusing on her surroundings, Sofia understood how the Sunless and the Veik king communicated, they were using ground vibrations. For the Sunless, they were made through magic, while the Veik king was simply rapping one of his legs on the ground. Of course, despite noticing that, Sofia had no way to know what was actually being said.
After two long minutes of back and forth ground vibrations, the communication stopped. Sofia anxiously stared at the Sunless’ eye which had been unfocused during the exchange. It looked at her again.
Lucky you, it seems Veidrenth is willing to let you go on account of the little damage you did to the hive and since you have not harmed his successors. The Sunless explained, sounding genuinely happy for Sofia.
Sofia hurriedly reshaped the bone tablet to say ‘Thank you very much for your help.’
Internally, she was thanking the entire pantheon of the divine that she hadn’t gone through with her idea of grabbing the Veik Princess to try to communicate.
Heis even willing to help you complete the dungeon. The sunless woman continued, nonchalantly putting her hands on her hips.
Now, that sounds a lot too good to be true…
For a price, of course.
‘And what would that price be?’
Let me explain, girl, you might not like his conditions.
Sofia learned a bit more about this Sunless and what the Veik king wanted from her as the Sunless escorted her out of the throne room and into another room in the Hive, walking past the imposing Veik guards and Royal guards without any issue.
The girl’s name was Everelle, she openly told Sofia that she was the manager of another dungeon hidden on this moon, and that she was always the one who had to bail out people from the Veik Hive. That was by design. Finding the King’s secret exit was almost impossible. To begin with, getting that far within the hive without getting captured was already a rare occurrence.
There was supposedly a way to clear the dungeon by creating enough chaos to make the Veik too busy to deal with a single invader. But that required finding enough hints and spending enough time to get a deep understanding of the Veik society, communications, and chain of command, to unleash ‘Ragnarok’ upon them. And it was quite dangerous as that would turn the King and Queen hostile, so one had to either find a way to escape their detection or to divert their attention by essentially kidnapping their children without harming them.
When asked if there was no issue with telling her all this, Everelle laughed it off, saying that Sofia wouldn’t be able to share it with anyone due to the censor, and as she was already caught, it was all useless information. And Sofia had to admit that even had she known all that before stepping foot into the hive she still might not have been able to pull it off.
Then came time to explain the Veik king’s request. As a repayment for the dead Veik from the angel bolt, and for the right to easily clear the dungeon, Sofia just had to accept to go kill a few of the Veik’s enemies on the moon. A simple request. Mr Scribe even took the time to make it a ‘proper’ quest for ease of tracking.
That being said, there were a few caveats. First of all, Sofia was never actually given the opportunity to reject the offer even had she wanted to. And secondly, a small centipede-looking Veik parasite was put around her neck as an ‘insurance’.
The Veik parasite was actually level 250+ and supposed to cut her head should she try to leave the moon without completing her mission.
Sofia accepted without being too worried. She let the Veik parasite crawl around her neck like a choker. It just stopped moving there, she could hardly even feel it.
Worst case, I just lost some health. Even without healing I can still reattach my head and my nerves are already all light so severing my spine is as good as doing nothing.
I just can’t reattach my throat so speaking and eating will be out… I might also lose a bit in terms of head mobility… Still nowhere as bad as the death sentence they think this is.
[Congratulations. You have received a mandatory quest!]
[Veik King’s request: Do not harm any Veik; Kill at least 1000 ‘Adult Moon Worms’ and 1 ‘Moon Worm Matriarch’]
[Advance rewards : Leave the Veik hive alive and through the Veik King secret exit]
[Reward : Veik Token of Friendship]
[Time limit : Upon leaving the moon]
[Penalty for failure : Beheading]
Could the Sun Warrior title work here?
[Sun’s Warrior]: Complete a deathly wager quest from Sun.
Effect: No penalty is applied in case of a quest failure. This title must be worn and kept from the moment you accept the quest for the effect to apply.
/Ephemeral/ : This title will be lost upon negating one failure.
Ah, probably not, since I can’t actually ‘accept’ the quest…
It’s not even a proper system quest, just Mr Scribe being helpful…
Everelle had a good look at the parasite. She eyed Sofia curiously.
People are a bit more reluctant to accept this usually. Are you not worried at all? I suppose you won against Tarren so it must not be groundless confidence. I’ll be waiting for ya in my dungeon after you’re done with this, don’t make me wait, alright? Now let’s get to that ‘secret’ exit.
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