DD1 ASC - Chapter 27 - Bawdy

Typhoeus finished etching the last rune into the icebox, his iron chisel easily carving the short, sharp line that subtly varied in depth as it rose with the wood grain to form an angular point beneath the sweeping arc above. Satisfied with his work, he pushed a drop of his mana through the working, just to be sure, and was rewarded with a pulse of golden light. The small room started to drop in temperature noticeably as his runes admirably performed their simple task. He got up off his knees, groaning slightly as he stretched out the tight knots that had already formed in his lower back during his hours of focused labour. He was certain that his work wouldn’t start to fail for at least a few months, and that was good enough for his client. So he reluctantly took one last lungful of the delicious smelling air before leaving the back room of the butcher's.

"Okay, I'm all finished. The icebox should be working properly now," Typhoeus said pleasantly to his client, a middle-aged man with a slightly overhanging belly who went by the name of Paulson.

"Are you sure? You were a lot faster than the last one they sent over… lower level too," Paulson enquired, clearly giving Typhoeus the opportunity to go back and double-check his work.

"I'm sure, but it won't last more than a few months before you need them redone. Regular wood simply can't handle a continuous mana flow like that without degrading," Typhoeus said.

"I know I know, you lot say the same thing every time, but runescribes are cheap compared to magical wood, it's a long way to the Endless forest, and the Dragonspines are known for its rocks and metals rather than its trees,” the butcher complained, waving his hands in the air to dismiss Typhoeus’s comment.

"Why don't you just get a metal icebox?" Typhoeus asked. "Or at least a metal frame? Iron bands around a wooden chest wouldn't be too expensive, it would be a bigger inscription job, but even with mundane iron, it would last for a few years before needing any touch-ups." he suggested upon seeing the look of hesitation on the man’s jovial face.

"Huh, I wonder why no one else suggested that to me," Paulson said, looking surprised.

"They probably like the repeat business," Typhoeus suggested with a shrug.

"But not you?" the man asked sceptically.

"Not particularly. I'm an adventurer; I’m just doing this part-time while my partner enjoys some rest. Speaking of—I really do need to get going," Typhoeus said, seeing how long the shadows were growing outside the shop's window.

"Okay well, here's your payment, and considering your sound advice, I'm giving you a little bit extra. You come back now, my meat is the finest in all of Rhelea, and adventurers like yourself need to eat right if you're going to make it into the triple digits someday,” he said with a practised smile, handing over a handful of bronze obol and chalkoi coins.

"Thank you, I appreciate that," Typhoeus said, quickly counting the money as he stuffed his payment into his coin pouch. The dragon only taking a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary to repeatedly turn the cool metal coins over in his small hands. His pulse quickened with the contact, although not as much as it would have if he had been touching silver instead. His self-soothing ritual complete, he swiftly exited the shop and began running down the street, weaving through the late afternoon crowd as people slowly drifted from their places of work to the taverns and alehouses that were scattered across the large town.

They had been back in Rhelea for five days now, making it a full week since Typhoeus had been forced to display a fraction of his true magical might to Arilla, and things between them had been strained ever since. After Arilla had seen him swat away their close brush with death, the warrior had been in a definite funk, unwilling to meaningfully engage with him as she instead preferred to while away her days in a bard-friendly tavern, rather than train her skills or enjoy the town, now that they finally had a small amount of money to play with. Arilla had known for some time that he was much stronger than he pretended to be, but in all of their conversations, he had deliberately downplayed his strength, and for him to have so easily reversed what was essentially a death sentence had fundamentally shaken his warrior's resolve.

He had hoped that some time to relax would have helped get her back to normal, but so far, all she had managed to do was drink her way through the silver that he had stolen from Galen's tent. Typhoeus had been forced to get a temporary job as a runescribe in order to support them both while Arilla enjoyed her new favourite pastime, listening to songs and drinking. He approached the entrance of the Illustrious Harp, a tavern very much unlike Julian's where they still shared a bed, even if it was seeing very little use, and scanned the crowd with his skill before heading directly over to Arilla's table. Music was playing as it always was at the Illustrious, where a bard who was levelled in his low twenties was entertaining the crowd with a bawdy ballad of some adventuring party or another's latest feats of exaggerated heroics set to the glorious sound of a slightly out-of-tune lute.

His sworn sword was tipsy, a half-empty bottle of wine taking centre stage at her small table, and Typhoeus knew from the unfocused look in her eyes that it was unlikely to have been her first. Arilla had left her armour behind and was dressed in her casual clothes. If it wasn’t for her zweihander leaning precariously against the table and the System itself declaring her a warrior, then she would have blended in perfectly with the usual crowd of trade and craftspeople that frequented the tavern.

"Pour me a cup, would you?" Typhoeus asked as he took the vacant seat next to Arilla's.

"I thought you hated wine," Arilla replied, not skipping a beat as she poured from the bottle into a clay cup for Typhoeus.

"I don't hate it; I just prefer whisky. Besides, wine is far cheaper than the stuff they sell here," Typhoeus said, his eyes narrowing in frustration as he took the offered cup, ignoring Arilla’s chuckle as he took a sip of the sweetly acidic drink.

Black fruits, pepper and the earthy taste of the poorly fired clay filled his mouth as he savoured his sip, carefully watching Arilla out of the corner of his eye as she knocked back another cupful. The red liquid made its way down his human's throat, likely without ever gracing her tongue as she all too quickly emptied the bottle by refilling her cup. A hand was waved, and with practiced efficiency a waitress smelling of peaches and ambition hustled over to refresh the now dry table.

"So, did you have a good day?" Arilla asked cautiously, causing Typhoeus to drink deep from his cup.

"I fixed even more runework on mundane wood of all things. I swear that the runescribes in this town are running a racket. I got some decent tips for advising people to move over to metal, but not enough if your tab is as bad as last night's,” he said, scowling at the waitress whose hips swayed just a little bit too much for his liking as she approached their table.

"Last night was an exception!" she said, jostling their cups as she raised her hands in her defence.

"Yes, I know we had company, but next time we're splitting the bill. We can't afford to be that generous on just my income. Another night like that, and we'll have to go hunt something valuable," Typhoeus said as another bottle of wine was quickly placed on the table by a hastily retreating waitress, the brown haired human having caught his eye and deciding not to stick around to make small talk.

"I know, I know…" Arilla said, trailing off. "I saw Galen at the Guild today."

"You did? How was he?" Typhoeus asked, curious as to how the noble was faring after how sedate he had been on the long trip back from the tamed dungeon.

"Not too bad actually, once he saw me, he made a point of staying far out of my way. One of his people started trash-talking you, you know, calling you a 'Leech' to anyone who would listen, but Galen shut him down pretty quick,” she said, taking a deep drink from her wine cup.

"It looks like you might have been very wrong when you criticised me for threatening him,” he said smugly.

"I didn’t criticise you, I just said that it might have been a bad idea, and even though he got the Guild off of our backs, it doesn't change my mind. I get that you’re confident that you can kill him if he tries anything, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be afraid of his family. They have more than enough wealth to pay for adventurers to bring you to heel,” she said, chastising his smug expression as she punctuated her statement by finishing her drink. She went to refill it, but paused when reaching for the bottle as Typhoeus locked eyes with her.

"What,” she asked, her tone indicating that her words were more a challenge than a question.

“There are better ways to sleep through the night than drinking yourself into a stupor,” he said.

“Typh, we’re not having this talk again.”

“Why not? We talk all about my many flaws. You’re drinking too much, and your nightmares about the stone scarabs aren’t getting any better!”

“You’re not my mother. It’s not up to you to decide how much I drink or if I’m getting enough sleep. And I’ve told you before, I don't have nightmares about bloody scarabs,” she barked back angrily.

"No? I call waking up screaming in the middle of the night a nightmare,” he said, raising his voice to match hers.

“I said, they’re not about the scarabs!”

“Then what are they about then?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about anything! You don’t even want to touch me anymore!”

"It’s... because you scare me! You scare me Typh!" she yelled back, slamming her hands down on the table, the wood creaking ominously beneath the blow. “The nightmares, they’re about you.”

"Oh…" he said, feeling his face fall as he realised what should have been obvious from the way she had been avoiding him this past week.

"Oh? That's all you can say? I thought we were both going to die down there! I said my prayers, and I was ready to meet my maker. I thought that maybe I could die happy because I met you. And then you saved us. You killed them like it was nothing, like we were never in any danger to begin with,” she said exasperatedly. "I knew your hidden class means you're stronger than me, but I had no idea that stronger meant pant-shittingly terrifying!"

"And the worst thing was afterwards. You said ‘you wanted to pretend for a little longer’, like my mortal danger is just a game to you. It’s why you’ve had me take the lead with the ogre, the goblins and the bloody beetles. It’s all so you can stand back and pretend to be a normal mage while I make a fool of myself, thinking we could be equals. How are we supposed to have any kind of relationship when all of my actions are so utterly inconsequential to you?"

Typhoeus was silent; he had nothing to say to that. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry, that she was his equal, and that her actions mattered to him, but instead, he couldn't help looking over his shoulders despite [Sovereign's Perception] telling him that he was in the clear as he asked, "Can we discuss this elsewhere?" The resulting look of disappointment on Arilla’s face told him that he couldn’t have said anything worse.

"You and your fucking secrets,” she said, slowly shaking her head in dismay. “No one cares Typh, everyone here is paying attention to the bard; nobody gives two shits about a spat between two clay ranks still in the single digits."

"Still, they are my secrets, and I'd rather not disclose them in a dingy pub,” he said defensively, his anger at himself for being unable to fix their failing relationship manifesting as obstinance as his mind tried to desperately come up with any kind of a response to Arilla’s outburst.

They sat there in silence as the bard's bawdy song washed over them, and by the time the music had finished, Typhoeus had finally plucked up the courage to say. "You know I'd never hurt you, right?" he said quietly.

"I know you'd never knowingly hurt me, Typh, but I worry that you might by accident or that you’ll just get bored of this game and move on. When I look at you, I feel like a bug standing next to a giant. Why are you even wasting your time on me?” Arilla asked, the pain in her voice apparent to even Typhoeus’s less-than-stellar social instincts.

"This isn’t some game to me,” he said softly.

"How am I supposed to believe that when I don’t know anything about you?"

"You know more about me than anyone else does."

“That must be pretty fucking awful for you to live like that, seeing as how you've barely told me anything about your past. I know more about the waitress over there than I do about you.”

"That can't be true."

"It is Typh. Normal people talk about themselves. I don’t even know your sibling’s names, let alone why you are so scared of them. We’re registered as adventuring partners and I don’t even know the tag of your main class or its rank.”

“I—” he started before falling flat. “Well obviously it’s higher than pewter.”

“Obviously,” she said, her flat tone signifying how unimpressed she was with that admission.

Typhoeus took a deep breath to try and settle his nerves. He hated this. He hated how she would come to him with earnest emotion and all he could ever muster was flatfooted surprise at the intensity of her pain. He wanted to make things better, to soothe her fears with the truth, but he knew that to her the truth would not be soothing. She wasn’t ready, not yet. With their proximity and her focus, he could feel some of her more vivid emotions travelling through the link between their classes. The power he held over her as her oath holder, clear in his mind along with half a dozen spells that would wipe away her worries and leave her more pliable to his lies. It would be as easy as it was utterly abhorrent, but he supposed that was her point.

She was afraid of him, and she was right to be.

Moving his thoughts swiftly away from his darker and more selfish impulses, Typhoeus summoned what little courage he could muster. Willing to trade another slither of his secret for just a little more time with her. “Okay, well you see—”

“Gods, of all the bloody taverns. We should go," Arilla said abruptly, cutting him off.

"I thought you wanted to talk. What’s wrong?" he asked, baffled by her sudden shift in tone.

"Nothing’s wrong, but we should go. Now!" she said, standing up from the table as she looked towards the exit, her sword already being slung over her back.

Typhoeus was confused and more than a little disappointed that she wanted to cut short the dreaded conversation that they had both been dancing around for a week. Although, he would be lying if he didn’t admit to being a little relieved as well. He opened his mouth to ask another question, when he heard it. A seductive, velvety voice that washed over the crowd, grabbing their attention and holding it as the woman practically purred each skill-laden syllable. It was complete overkill, but immediately every conversation in the tavern died, the weight of her charisma score practically forcing all eyes and ears to focus solely on the bard.

She appeared to be in her late twenties, but Typhoeus could tell from the look in her brown eyes that she was much older, likely having invested heavily in her vitality stat at some point. The bard was level 41, which was reasonably high for Rhelea, reinforcing his belief about her true age. She was attractive, taller than him—but that wasn’t saying much—and she was slender where he was all curves. Her face was angular with a copper tinged complexion that contrasted sharply with her long flowing jet black hair. The way she held her smile was predatory enough to remind Typhoeus of the dragons he had known in his youth, and while was undeniably beautiful, he couldn't get past the casual disinterest in her eyes as she looked over the gathered faces in the room that she had seized as if they belonged to her.

"Now, let me tell you a very true and slightly risque story. I believe that you fine folks may have already heard it! I give you my latest original piece, the ballad of Typh the Dragon's Wife!" the bard sang out to much applause as she launched into a flurry of motion. Her horsehair bow dancing over the strings of her violin as an upbeat tune filled the room with the power of her skills filling each note.

The dragon ranged far and wide,

As he searched for a maiden fair,

‘Till he found himself a nice young girl

To take back to his mountain lair!

Oh her hips were wide,

Her tits were firm,

So young and full of life!

And so the dragon thought,

That he could make her his wife!

Ohhhh Typh the dragon’s wife,

Ohhhh Typh the dragon's wife!

He had her for a thousand days,

He had her for a thousand nights,

And every night she spread her cheeks

‘Cause she's Typh the dragon's wife!

He railed her hard,

he filled her up,

Breaking her in with his big dragon cock!

Hung larger than a horse,

He stretched her wide

Used her like a well-worn sock!

Ohhhh Typh the dragon’s wife,

Ohhhh Typh the dragon’s wife!

He had her for a thousand days,

He had her for a thousand nights,

And every night she spread her cheeks

‘Cause she's Typh the dragon's wife!

…

It was a very long song, and it did not at any point get any better. Instead, it descended into depths of vulgarity that would have made Typhoeus blush if he hadn’t been already vibrating with rage. In the ballad, the Shining Swords eventually made an appearance and chased the dragon off, but by that point in the story, ‘Typh’ was little more than a brain dead meat puppet than a person. Arilla kept trying to get him to leave, but Typhoeus was determined to sit through it till the end, a decision he wasn't sure if he regretted.

The crowd applauded, whoops and cheers ringing out through the small tavern, as the bard took a long, exaggerated bow before her audience, while a deep looking hat made its way around the room and steadily filled up with bronze coins, with more than a few glints of silver.

"Thank you. You’ve been a wonderful crowd! My name is Eliza the Bard, and I can be found wherever there is good ale and people smart enough to know the difference! Now I'm going to take a quick break to wet my whistle, and then I'll sing you another one of my songs!"

"Arilla, I take it you've heard that thing before?" Typhoeus said, unable to call it a song as he squeezed his cup so hard that spidering cracks ran through the clay causing red wine to leak out onto the wooden table.

"Yeah, I've heard that version,” she admitted, sounding guilty.

"There are versions?" he said incredulously.

"Yeah, that one is actually considered relatively tame. The one where you're caught gargling the dragons cu—" She started.

"Stop. Just stop. The Typh in that song has nothing to do with me. How does it even exist? The only people who know I was even with the dragon are you and the Shining Swords,” he said despairingly.

"Well, Eliza the Bard is one of Riyoul’s better-known paramours. Their relationship lends weight to her songs. Especially the ones like that, where the Swords are present,” she said knowingly.

"Are you telling me that all of Rhelea thinks that song is true?" he said aghast.

"I'm sure most people think it's exaggerated. I wouldn’t worry too much; while it's a popular song, it's too bawdy by far to go mainstream, everyone will have forgotten about it in a few months," Arilla said, her critiques going unappreciated by the incensed dragon.

"Great, first 'Leech' and now 'The Dragons Wife’. Just perfect. This is exactly what I need on top of everything else," Typhoeus said, standing up from the table, his eyes firmly locked onto the back of the bard’s head as she queued up at the bar to get a drink.

"Typh, don't—" Arilla cautioned.

"What? I'm just going to have a quick chat,” he lied.

"Typh, let it go. You don't want to piss off a bard,” she said.

“Why?” he said through gritted teeth. Images of popping Eliza’s pretty little head like a grape were running through his mind and giving him some small sense of satisfaction to combat his growing mortification.

“Because if you think that song was bad, you don’t want to know what they’ll sing about you if you hurt her,” Arilla said sagely.

“They?”

“The other bards, they look out for each other. Just let it go. It’s not worth it.”

"You’re… right,” he huffed, noisily sitting back down at the table. "I hate this, feeling so powerless."

"So why are you putting up with it?" she asked, catching him off guard as he raised his wine cup to his lips.

"Huh?" he grunted, unsure what she meant.

"People only treat you like trash because they think you're level 8, and you let them because you're trying to keep your real level a secret,” she said, "Everyone in Rhelea already knows your name. Between 'The Dragons Wife', 'Leech' and what you did to Boscoe the Red Axe, there's not an adventurer in town who doesn't know about you."

"What's your point?" Typhoeus said grumpily.

"You're already famous, so why not choose to be famous for being a powerful adventurer instead?"

"Because it's dangerous. People are looking for me, but nobody is looking for a low-level mage, I've told you before. So long as I'm patient and take my time, then I’m safe."

"You’re safe until the next noble takes a fancy to you, or anyone with half a brain actually looks into your history for more than 5 minutes. You literally came from a cave with a dragon in it, you have no formal training despite being an expert on all forms of magic, and you know things about monsters that nobody is supposed to know. So what's the real reason that you don't want to level?" she said accusingly.

"I—I don't want to lose you,” he confessed, finally verbalising what he had already known for some time.

"What?" she asked, sounding unsure of herself.

"It’s your stupid oath. I'm going to have to tell you everything before your next rank up, and I'm scared that once I do, you'll leave me,” he admitted, feeling a weight leave his shoulders with the admission.

"I wouldn't,” she said

"You might."

"I want to level."

"I know, but can't we take it slow? We could spend months, maybe even a year working towards 20 together, and it would still be faster than most,” he said, well aware of the desperation in his voice.

"With your strength, we could do it in weeks,” she simply stated.

"I don't want that. I need more time,” he said, feeling crestfallen, well aware that he couldn't deny her words as much as he wanted to.

"Typh, I can't let you dictate the pace of my growth to match what you’re comfortable with. I get that you’re at least high bronze or low iron and think you know best, but if you try to slow me down just so you can spend more time with me, you're going to force me to leave. I need to level. I need to be strong like you are. I can't stay with you if I feel like I'm some kind of patronised pet."

He thought about what she was saying. He really did; she was infuriatingly right about everything, except maybe her excessive drinking. They obviously weren’t really equals, and if he was being completely honest with himself, then he didn't really think of her as one either. Which was something that would never change for as long as she remained so many ranks below him. Her contributions to their team ultimately didn't matter; if Typhoeus had instead taken the lead on their adventures, the only thing that would have changed is maybe they'd have spent less money on a healer, and his level might be a little higher than 8.

He ground his teeth in frustration. At the end of the day, she was offering him a choice; He could help her level and hope that she wouldn't leave him as soon as she was no longer being lied to, or he could keep trying to play pretend, knowing that she would certainly leave him long before that. He wanted to tell himself that she was forcing him to choose between the safety of anonymity or a chance to be with her, to be mad and to argue at being issued an unfair ultimatum. Except as she correctly pointed out, his low level had already failed to keep him anonymous. So it was more accurate to say she was making him choose between the certainty of eventually being alone again later or giving her enough agency to make her own choice and hoping that despite everything, she would choose to stay.

"Okay fine, but we're doing this my way," Typhoeus said, his choice finally made as he stood up from the table where he looked at Arilla expectantly. "Well, are you coming or not? You're going to need your sword. Let's go level to 20."

Arilla quickly stood up, and together they left Rhelea within the hour. The pair briefly stopping off at The Huntsman's Rest to collect their things and let Julian know that they would no longer be needing the room. Regardless of any outstanding credit, Typhoeus pointedly refused to ever sleep in the same inn frequented by Riyoul. Which was apparently a conversation that the older innkeeper was quite accustomed to having with young women. With that done, they set out through the town's western gates, turning off into the foothills after walking southwest for a couple of miles along the Old Road just as the sun was finally starting to set behind them in the east. Their twin silhouettes stretching out ahead of them as they walked, their fingers entwined—albeit loosely—as they once again left Rhelea, walking shoulder to shoulder as they began their long journey deeper into the wilds under a moonless starry sky.