Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen — Inquiring Mind Wants to Know
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen — Inquiring Mind Wants to Know Once the last of the Colourless was down and fading into little motes of-was it mana?-we took a moment to look around us and make sure that we were safe.Well, I did that. Emmanuel stretched his shoulder and started trotting towards the other Colourless in the room.“Hey!” I said out loud. Then, when he didn’t even slow down, I called out, a bit louder. “Emmanuel, what are you doing?”The cervid stopped and half-turned. He gestured to the other Colourless, as if it was entirely obvious. “I’m going to fight those?” he said.“Why?” I asked.“Because... they’re monsters?” He tried. I think he noticed how that didn’t work very well on me. “It would be irresponsible for a knight like myself to allow such fair maidens to come to danger because I left some beast alive when I could so easily dispatch it.”I put my hands on my hips, and noticed that Amaryllis looked just as unimpressed as I felt. “Mister Emmanuel,” I began.“Emmanuel Aldelain Von Chadsbourne.”“Yes,” I said. “We might be fair, and we might all be maidens, but that doesn’t mean we’re defenceless.”“Well, yes, I suppose,” he said. “How about we split them, then? I’ll take the largest and strongest, and you ladies fight the smallest and weakest. Sirs Howard and... the sylph can take care of some of the others while I’m otherwise preoccupied.”I shook my head. “No.”“No?”“No,” I said.“I see... the experience-”I shook my head even harder. “No, Emmanuel, it’s not about the experience. It’s about doing the right thing.” I gestured to the Colourless. The tentacled creatures were ambling about, moving with slow, gentle motions around the room. Sometimes they’d pick up a small rock or pebble, inspect it, then lower it back down. There were dozens of little piles dotting the room. I’d failed to notice those earlier.“The right thing?” Emmanuel asked. “Putting down monsters is hardly the wrong thing.”“It is when those monsters aren’t bad,” I said. “Look, those Colourless aren’t hurting anyone and... oh, nevermind.”I was still a bit grumpy, and I was maybe taking it out on Emmanuel. He might have been a bit of a pain in the butt, but it wasn’t fair to take out my own anger on him. I had to chill out.Awen came up next to me and pulled me into a quick hug. That helped a bunch.“Just... don’t fight people when you don’t need to,” I said.Emmanuel hesitated, then sheathed his sword. “If the lady wishes.”“You still haven’t learned our names, have you?” Amaryllis asked.“I am reluctant to admit it, but I am somewhat poor at retaining names. But worry not, fair harpy, I will forever remember the beauty of your eyes, and yes, the ferocity of your glare.”I held back a giggle. Amaryllis had a look that I wouldn’t describe as merely a glare. If I was Emmanuel, I would be worried. But then, if I was Emmanuel, Amaryllis probably wouldn’t have to glare as much.“Howard, you know the way into the castle?” I asked to get us back on track.Howard agreed to lead us in. We followed, of course, eyes on a swivel, searching for trouble. Howard didn’t seem concerned though.I don’t know what I expected the interior to look like, but it wasn’t what I found.Neat corridors, with straight-cut walls and holes where windows would be. Here and there, rocks were stacked up one atop the other, carefully balanced and held up by seemingly nothing but their own weight.They were where I might have expected potted plants or statues to be in a proper mansion.It only took a bit of walking around for Howard to bring us to a big room. A dining room? Carved arches lead way, way up to a high ceiling. Hanging down on a chain was a strangely shaped rock, covered in glowing mushrooms and trailing long streams of luminous moss. A chandelier, maybe?In the centre was a table, curved around like a big crescent moon, with cups before all six of the chairs on the outside arc.“This is it,” Howard said.He reached the table, and picked something off the surface. A bell? He rang it, but it didn’t make any noise.“Don’t sit yet,” Howard said. “And keep calm. He isn’t hostile.”The ‘he’ in question slithered into the room a moment later. A pair of heavy double doors at the end of the room, each one probably heavier than our entire group, slid open and from the darkness beyond came a strange creature, with a form that was hard to explain.No matter how hard I stared, my eyes seemed to peel off and away from his form. He was like the Colourless, I figured, though he was much larger.Unlike the Colourless, whose heads looked a bit like a hat, his was covered in a real but rather small bowler hat, right above all of his many, many eyes. “Greetings, guests. Please, sit, if you would. Let us talk!”I stepped forward, in front of all of my friends. “Hi! I’m Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch, and these are my friends. Maybe we can be friends too?”Jim, The UnknowableDream: To know.Desired Quality: Someone who will answer.That was pretty simple. I could work with that!“Greetings, Broccoli. I am... Jim!” Jim put a bit of a pause before his name, almost as if there should have been something a little more impressive there. That was a bit silly though, Jim was a perfectly pretty name.I grinned at my friends and found mixed reactions. Awen and Amaryllis seemed pretty happy, Bastion was guarded. Emmanuel looked downright confused and Howard... moved past me to take a seat on one end of the table.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.“I hope you don’t mind, the tea is just black.”I blinked and noticed steam from the cup.“I don’t,” I said as I pulled up one of the seats in the centre of the table and sat down right across from Jim. “So, it might be a little impolite, but I want to know, what’s it like being a dungeon... creature?”“It is quite enjoyable,” Jim said. “I get good conversation, and a nice place to reside. Though lately there’s been some trouble. Weeds, you see.”“I think I do,” I said.“Wonderful. So, Broccoli, what is the thing you feel most guilty about to this day?” Jim tilted the upper half of his body to the side, and his colourless surface changed in hue and tint in a wave that almost read as ‘curious’ to me.I looked away when my head started to hurt a bit.“Um, something I feel guilty about?” I thought about it really hard. What was something I still felt guilty about? A bit embarrassing, but not that bad. Howard had said it could be awkward to answer Jim’s questions, but we had to be honest. “When I was in sixth grade, a girl called Flora offered people some gum, and I accidentally took two pieces instead of just one. I should have given one back, but I chewed on it instead. We couldn’t really afford gum and candies at home. But that’s not a good excuse for stealing.”“Really, Broccoli?” Amaryllis asked.“What?”“That’s what you feel guilty about?”I shrugged. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but that was something I did that was wrong, and I knew it was wrong when I did it, and yet I didn’t fix it.”Awen laughed and patted my head.I spun to her and pouted. When did Awen become so rude?“Truth,” Jim said. “A wonderful truth! Do you have more questions, Broccoli Bunch?”I nodded. “So many! But if you need to ask more, that’s okay too. Will you ask one to each of us?”“Indeed. Perhaps even more than one. Not all questions are weighted equally,” Jim said. He winked and tipped his bowler hat. Or... many of his eyes on one side closed at once, and a tentacle tapped the brim of his hat. I think it was a wink and tip though.“That makes sense,” I said.“Wonderful,” he said. “Sir Sylph, you seem a respectable gentlebeing. Tell me, do you love your country? Your king and queen?”Bastion didn’t hesitate. “I do.”“How wonderful. Oh, everyone, don’t be shy with the tea. It isn’t poisoned. By the way, Sir Paladin, would you betray your nation for your companions?”Bastion was silent for a long time. “I...” he began, then paused again.I didn’t want to pressure him, so I stayed quiet and fiddled with the tea cup before me. It was made of delicately shaped rock, and was nice and warm.Black tea, makes the drinker more alert and anxious, and has a mild bone-fortifying effect. Brewed plainly.Bastion swallowed. “I would,” he said.Oh no. I knew how important Bastion took his whole paladin thing, and if he was willing to abandon that for his companions... for us... well, I’d have to do something nice for him. He still seemed conflicted.My heart felt strangely heavy. It was a really nice gesture.“That’s nice,” Jim replied. “Little human miss?”Awen stared back, wide-eyed and with her cup hovering just before her mouth. “Yes?”“Are you enjoying the tea?”Awen looked down, then back up. She took a small sip. “Um... honestly? It’s good tea. I had worse tea at nice parties and balls. But it’s not the best tea I’ve ever had. So... it’s enjoyable, but it could taste a little better? Maybe some honey?”“It hurts my many hearts to hear that, but the truth can be unkind,” Jim said. “And no, I don’t have honey. I’ll make note of it, though!”I held back a laugh. Was Jim trying to lighten things up? After asking such a serious question, he came in with one that was easy to answer? It was nice of him.“Miss Harpy,” Jim began.“Yes?” Amaryllis replied.“Is there anyone you love?”“Romantically? No,” Amaryllis said.Jim hummed. “A partial answer, but truthful.” A tentacle wrapped around a cup and he pitched the cup itself back down a mouth that only appeared when he moved some tentacles aside. “What about non-romantic love?”I turned towards Amaryllis, then stared as her feathers puffed out, almost as if she was angry, but her face was the wrong sort of red for that. “I love my sisters, of course. They’re both quite annoying, and in entirely unique ways, but I love them all the same. My parents too, though... they are distant.”“I see, I see,” Jim said encouragingly.“And... I suppose I love my friends as well,” Amaryllis said. “E-entirely in a platonic way, of course.”I squealed and crashed into her from the side.“No! No! I knew this would happen! Get off me, or I swear on the World I’ll zap you.”“But you love me!”“I’d love it if you weren’t such an idiot, more like!”I shook my head, coincidentally rubbing up against her floofed feathers. “Nope! You had to say the truth. Your feathers even fluffed.”“Because I knew you’d ram into me like some drunkard!”Jim chuckled. “How nice. How about you, Sir Cervid, any friends that are that close?”“No, no, I’m afraid not,” Emmanuel admitted. “I may have had some close friends once, but that was a long time ago.”“It was, wasn’t it,” Jim said. “Why did you kill them?”
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Chapter Two Hundred and Nineteen — Guilt
Chapter Two Hundred and Nineteen — Guilt We were all silent. I think you could have heard a pin drop.The silence stretched, and the only sound was Awen’s clothes shifting as she reached around and grabbed my hand for a squeeze.“Care to explain?” Amaryllis asked.Emmanuel worked his jaw. “I... could you repeat that?” he asked.Jim the Unknowable shifted, his little bowler hat slipping to the side a little. “Oh! I don’t mind that at all. I merely asked why you killed your fri-”The dungeon creature was cut off as Emmanuel bolted, hooves clattering on the top of the table as he shot forwards.I only had time to gasp as the cervid’s sword came swinging out of its sheath and cut an arc through the air, aimed right at Jim’s head.The creature raised one large tentacle to intercept the blade. Bright steel dug into the blubbery surface of the tentacle, spilling black blood in a splash as the sword bit and cut through the limb.“Wait!” I shouted, far too late.Jim screamed, not in surprise, but in anger. His body flashed and his tentacles reared up, the ends bunching up into big rubbery balls while others shot down and grabbed the edges of the table.“Back!” Bastion called. He grabbed Howard and flung the fishman behind him just as the table flipped towards us.I stumbled backwards, pulling Awen with me just far enough that the huge stone table missed our toes.“Damn it, you idiot deer!” Amaryllis shouted before stabbing a hand forwards. Lightning crackled ahead of her, slicing through the air and stabbing into one of Jim’s tentacles that was crashing towards her.The creature screamed again, and one of his smaller tentacles whipped out of him with a crack and smacked Amaryllis back. She squawked as she flew.“Amy!” I took one step her way, then froze. No. “Awen! Look after Amaryllis!”“A-awa!” Awen agreed before bolting off.I spun to save Jim and Emmanuel.The monster had switched his focus back onto the cervid, tentacles swinging towards Emmanuel from every direction, while others speared out towards the deer to try and stab him.Emmanuel was holding his own. Sweat matted his fur down, and his teeth were grit, but his arms worked like machines, swinging this way and that, slapping tentacles away, and slicing at others while he side-stepped those he couldn’t parry.If I interrupted him now...“Jim!” I called out. “Jim, stop, please! It was a mistake, please, we don’t need to fight!”“It’s too late, lass,” Howard said. “Once he starts, there’s no end to it.”I didn’t know what to say to that. My hands worked, and I felt like Howard had just dropped a rock at the bottom of my tummy. “Dang it!” I swore, one foot crashing onto the ground in a protesting thump.Bastion stepped past me, working his arm. “Ranged support,” he said. It sounded like an order.I... stepped back and nodded. It felt wrong, really wrong, but I couldn’t let Bastion fight on his own. I started to create fireballs, little ones, that burned bright and warm and cast orange light across the room.Bastion dove forwards and cut a bloody swathe through Jim’s smaller tentacles, instantly relieving Emmanuel as the tide of battle reversed. A glance revealed that a few blows had slipped past, and Emmanuel was favouring his sternum with his free hand.I heard a loud clunk, and a bolt sprouted out from where I figured Jim’s head was. Awen was helping then, which meant that Amaryllis wasn’t in bad shape.I flung my fireballs forwards and almost felt like crying as they seared into Jim’s tentacular flesh with a painful sizzle.With a screeching howl, Jim started to spin, tentacles flicking around him in a blur of movement that I couldn’t quite follow. Emmanuel and Bastion both backed up, but that only seemed to push Jim to move faster.Then Bastion jumped, wings beating, as he flew over the edge of Jim’s whirlwind, flipped once, and brought his sword up. Magic burst out of the sylph, brilliant blues and yellows that flowed up to the tip of his sword before he brought it slicing down.Jim crashed, his momentum still carrying him around, but without the direction from before. The creature rolled across the room, tentacles thumping against the ground and shattering stone before he rammed into a wall off to the side.I hissed. That had to have hurt.Bastion stood atop Jim, seemingly unhurt, then slashed down twice in quick succession.Ding! Congratulations, you have Sliced the Life from Jim the Unknowable, Level 12! EXP reduced for fighting as a group!Jim started to fade.I stared as the body turned to dust.Bastion moved off, then pulled a rag from a pocket to clean his blade. He was expressionless, but I felt as if that was just a thin mask over a lot of anger. It didn’t take much to follow the direction he was gazing to find Emmanuel at the end.I put that on the backburner for the moment. First, I had to check on Amaryllis.My harpy friend was climbing back to her talons. Her emotions weren’t nearly as well-masked as Bastion’s. “Care to explain?” she asked. Her voice carried across the room.I didn’t like any of this, but I didn’t feel ready to interfere either.Emmanuel looked our way, just a glance before he focused on his sword. He stared at it for a while, staring into his own reflection. Then he slid it back into its sheath and turned our way with a smile. It didn't fit well, like he was trying not to break down in front of us. “Shall we continue on? That was a good bit of experience!”“What?” Amaryllis asked. “You think we’re just going to brush this all aside?”“Miss Harpy-”“Don’t ‘Miss Harpy’ me,” Amaryllis warned. “What. Was. That?”“Amaryllis,” I said. It was just a murmur, but she heard it, and I saw her backing down a little. Still on a low simmer though.I turned towards Emmanuel, aware that my friends and I were all set in a rough semi-circle around him. I... really hoped he wouldn’t try anything. If he did, it wouldn’t be a nice position to be in, not for him.“Mister Emmanuel,” I said. “I... I know it might be a little hard, but I think you need to explain.”Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.Emmanuel’s fist opened and closed, and he looked really distressed for a moment. “There’s nothing to explain. We, we’re quite done here, aren’t we? Shall we move on?”“Mister Emmanuel,” I repeated. “No. I... I don’t know what’s wrong with, with you, but just no. We’re not moving until you explain.”I saw Bastion from the corner of my eye, sword still in hand, and Awen had her crossbow close. My spade was lowered, I didn’t want to fight, but...The cervid looked to all of us in turn, confusion then anger warring in her eyes for a moment before the emotion broke and he looked down to the floor. Then Emmanuel sat down on the ground, a really strange posture for a cervid to take. “Did you want to hear the answer?” he asked. “Why I killed my friends? Is that it?”“I... yeah, we’d like to know that,” I said. My tummy twisted up in a knot. He really did kill his friends? That was... no, that was awful. “Please?”“It’s not a nice story.”“We can imagine that much,” Amaryllis said.He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Ah, I guess from the start?”“If that’s what you want,” I said.I saw Amaryllis working her jaw, but I shook my head. We could let him talk. There would be time for questions and accusations after.He thought about it, then nodded. “Sure. I don’t know how much you know about the Republican Army? It’s the main armed force that defends and expands the Trenten Flats. Most young cervid, the men, will join at one time or another, do their year or two of service, and then return to civilian life. It makes our people strong, makes sure everyone is near their tenth level early, and some will remain in the army, getting a new class as they do so. I’m noble-born, I wasn’t going to be some mere private. I went to officer training school, with plenty of other young cervid boys, and then I got a commission.” He smiled. It didn’t last long, but it was there for a moment.“You were an officer?” I asked. He really didn’t seem the sort.“Not a good one,” he said. “I know that now, but at the time I thought I was the greatest cervid to walk on four legs. The brass know what cervid like me are like, I think. They gave me a squad of green soldiers, one sergeant, and a map for an area to patrol.”I nodded, encouraging him to go on. He crossed his arms, hugging himself.“It was awful. I thought they were all just peasants. I treated them the way I did my servants at home, at least at first. My sergeant beat the stuffing out of me one night.” He laughed, as if it was a fond memory. “I could have had him court-martialled, but I think it worked. I started becoming closer to them?”“That’s nice,” I said.Slowly, he nodded. “It was. Hard, or at least, what I thought of as hard then. I didn’t even carry my share of equipment, and I had a nicer tent... I was very stupid. We were returning when we found a dungeon. A small one, near Lavaleigh. It wasn’t on the maps, none of us had heard of it. So I insisted we explore. The first floor was a joke. The second had one of my squad injured when he stumbled over a loose rock of all things.”Emmanuel laughed. It was hollow.“We patched him up, made some jokes about how clumsy he was. It was... fun?”I think I knew what that was like.“Then the final floor. The boss. We were all at or near our class evolutions, level ten. It was the same level. We figured it would be a cakewalk. Except for our sergeant ... he told us to turn back, maybe return better equipped. I ordered a charge instead.”Emmanuel’s shoulder came in.“They died. I was at the back. I didn’t.”“Oh,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Be sorry for them, they had a stupid leader. I was just... such a coward. Do you know what the worst thing is? The boss gave me the Knight class. Knight! It’s a joke. The army gave me a pat on the back and a commendation for finding a dungeon and clearing it, and I left. I decided that I would be a knight, but for real. Like in the stories.”Amaryllis mumbled something, low enough that I couldn’t quite catch it, but it didn’t sound like a very nice comment.I decided not to comment on that. Emmanuel’s story was... rough. It sounded like it was something still fresh to him. He didn’t look very old. Had it happened a year ago? Two?No, the time didn’t matter. For some people it would take a lot longer to get over things, and I imagined that if the army rewarded him, then they never considered how he felt about the whole ordeal.He had tried to become a hero, in his own way. He was not very good at it, but I couldn’t fault the idea behind it. And what had happened to his friends... I winced. That could happen to us. Underestimating a dungeon boss, running into a pirate when we were flying around. Meeting some people that weren’t very nice. We were getting stronger all the time, but my friends and I weren’t all Abraham Bristlecones who could laugh off trouble.I carefully walked across the room, avoiding broken teacups and spilled chairs until I was in front of Emmanuel. Then I tipped forward and gave him a hug. It probably didn’t help very much, but it was the only thing I could think to do.“Please don’t,” Emmanuel said.I sighed and pulled back, then hovered a few feet away. “I’m still sorry,” I said.I heard a familiar sigh from next to me. Amaryllis. “His story is certainly sad, but he still put us all at risk. And he killed Jim. That creature might have been a dungeon creature, but it was a peaceful one.”“I know,” I said. “Just... this is hard.”She huffed, a surprisingly neutral sort of huff.“What do we even do?” I asked. “Tell Emmanuel to go away? He made a mistake.” Amaryllis gave me a look. “A few mistakes, but I don’t think he means to be, um, troublesome.”“I think,” Awen said. “Maybe Mister Chadsbourne isn’t as ready for this kind of adventure as he thinks. At least, not the part where we work together as a team.”“But what can we do about it?” I asked.Awen came a bit closer and touched my shoulder. “Broc, it’s not us who need to do something about that.”“Oh,” I said.
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