DD1 ASC - Chapter 21 - Home

Typhoeus shed a single tear as he consigned his dress to the flames, the metallic golden fabric shimmering brightly as the spreading fires within the shallow pit rapidly consumed the delicate garment. "I will miss you," Typhoeus said, his voice wavering with emotion.

"Typh, that dress stank," Arilla commented dryly, her hands resting on her hips as she waited patiently for him to finish.

"I could have gotten the smell out eventually,” he protested, his words falling on deaf ears as his sworn sword merely rolled her eyes.

"You tried, Gods know that you tried, but it was hard enough getting the smell out of your hair, let alone the dress as well, and Julian was insistent that either the dress left or we did,” she said, clearly unsympathetic to his plight.

"I still think we should have moved," Typhoeus pouted, his suggestion causing Arilla to giggle incessantly.

"What?" he asked, annoyed that her laughter was ruining the otherwise solemn moment.

"It's nothing; it’s just you're usually so miserly. To think that you'd willingly give up a free room just to keep that dress,” she said, giggling some more.

“On credit isn’t free,” he grumbled, the corners of his lips twitching upwards despite himself as he was happy to see Arilla finally getting back to her usual self, even if it did require the loss of his favourite item of clothing. With the dress burned, they walked back inside The Huntsman's Rest, Arilla treading gingerly on her newly healed ankle. They had elected for the cheaper but still vastly accelerated healing spell that ensured she would be fighting fit in a couple of days rather than months. They could technically have afforded to have had it healed instantaneously, but Typhoeus thought that they could do with the excuse to take it easy for a few days and if they saved a few drachma in the meantime, who was he to complain?

"Is it done?" Julian asked, his gruff manner doing him no favours in Typhoeus’s eyes as the young dragon held him solely responsible for the destruction of his much-beloved dress, rather than Boscoe, who had irrevocably stained it with an unpleasant mixture of his molten tissues.

"It is this time, I watched her burn it," Arilla said, looking down at her toes and blushing rather than risking meeting Julian's eyes. The man grunted out a short acknowledgement before going back to work, taking no time at all to find something new to clean, his perpetually immaculate washcloth likely maintained through some sort of innkeeper skill.

Ever since finding out from Typhoeus that the gruff innkeeper was bedfellows with Caeber, one of her childhood heroes from the Shining Swords, Arilla had been utterly unable to meet the middle-aged man's eyes. Instead, she blushed furiously whenever she was forced to interact with him, something that Typhoeus found to be very cute, and so he bent over backwards to ensure that Arilla was tasked with requesting whatever they needed on any given day from the surly innkeeper.

They had two items on the agenda for today. First, they needed to see a smith; despite taking it easy, Arilla had managed to level her [Heavy Blows] skill up to 5 after some particularly exciting bed play that left Typhoeus unable to comfortably sit down. Her newly ranked up skill [Sworn Blows] was three times as powerful as her previous ability. However, it had the added restrictions of not only requiring Arilla to remain on Typhoeus’s good side but it also required much to his warrior’s chagrin, the use of a sword.

Their second stop was arguably far more important. Typhoeus was now down to his least favourite dress and an ill-fitting shirt and pair of trousers. He was hoping that after Madame Vanje had been given almost two weeks, that she had another scintillating garment ready for him to try on, following his profound disappointment the last time he had visited in order to get Arilla something to replace her stained rags.

They ate their breakfast by the bar in silence, Arilla smirking between large mouthfuls of well-seasoned stew as she watched from her bar stool with obvious enjoyment as Typhoeus instead conspicuously leaned up against the polished copper countertop where he ate his meal standing upright.

Arilla had managed to sell their looted jewellery and ogre tusks to a merchant the previous day for the grand sum of twelve drachma. When she had returned bearing the thick silver coins, it had taken all of his self-control not to snatch them out of her grasp and begin rubbing them euphorically against his body. Typhoeus had left the entire sale to her as he was unwilling to go anywhere near the bazaar. Especially with the Royal Alchemist Guild so close now that news of Azoths disappearance had finally made its way to the guard who were now cracking down on the vaguely defined 'unruly element' within the town’s walls. Merchants seemed to be complaining about the increased checks at the gates, and there were fewer beggars and footpads on the streets, but if there was a backlash to be had from the increased policing, Typhoeus was unaware of it.

As an adventuring town, Rhelea had an overabundance of craftsmen who catered to the myriad of esoteric needs that adventurers typically had, much more so than a typical human settlement of its size normally would. Given that Rhelea was one of the few places where people had unrestricted access to classes, the number of craftsmen had truly swelled, creating a flood of skill-forged weapons and armour that easily outperformed their more mundane counterparts. These pieces of equipment were then shipped throughout the country by a series of competing merchant caravans who made a healthy profit selling high quality, low cost ‘Rhelean Steel’ to more restrictive provinces and cities that had to make do with only a handful of classed craftsmen, who were generally in the exclusive employ of their local noble dynasty.

The sheer quantity of these craftsmen and craftswomen resulted in what was affectionately called the ‘Crafters’ Village’, or simply 'The Village', where the majority of alchemists, blacksmiths, tanners, bowyers and runecarvers all plied their trades. In theory, this was to keep the residential and commercial parts of town free from the noise, smoke and noxious fumes associated with the heavier industries, but in practice, this was where the poor within the walls of Rhelea were forced to live.

As they walked through the cobbled streets of the Crafters’ Village, half-naked children played in the streets only a scant handful of feet away from the roaring fires of a skill-stoked forge, the human infants taking in great lungfuls of the black choking smoke as they splashed each other in puddles of oddly coloured water, liberally thrown out onto the roads by local tanners or perhaps more concerningly alchemists. As a whole, he supposed that the air was choking and foul, although to Typhoeus, the burning scents of powdered charcoal and hot metals was vastly preferable to the more human stink that the rest of Rhelea was typically bathed in. With their recently acquired wealth, they should have no trouble outfitting Arilla with a large sword and given her build; Typhoeus was hoping for a two-hander, but in spite of the fierce competition, swords and other long blades remained prohibitively expensive, their prices highly inflated by the prestige that so often was associated with the distasteful weapons.

The smithy that he had painstakingly chosen was only a couple of streets over from where Caeber had arranged for Typhoeus’s initial line of now exhausted credit. This particular forge was clearly struggling financially; not having the patronage of one of Rhelea’s more famous adventuring teams simply meant that it had a lot of stiff competition leading to very tight profit margins. As a result, the workshop was looking more than a little dilapidated, with the shopfront where merchandise was displayed suffering the most from the lack of attention. Broken shelves and undusted surfaces gave the shop an unappealing aesthetic. Still, beneath that fine coating of dust, solid well-crafted steel weapons and armour were neatly arranged on wooden racks and padded mannequins.

“What about this one?” Arilla asked, pointing at a heavy-looking greatsword, having spent less than five minutes inside the shop before finding what was quite possibly the most expensive weapon inside.

“Ah, I see you have excellent taste. That blade is called a ‘Zweihander’, and it’s forged in the traditional Steinian style from the finest black iron sourced from the Dragonspines itself. I believe that the local ore retains excellent mana conductivity that boosts all blade enhancing skills.,” the salesman said, his words stoking the fires of Arilla’s lustful gaze as she caressed the overly large weapon.

“Can you even pick it up?” Typhoeus asked, looking at the heavy sword sceptically.

“I’m sure the young warrior will be able to effortlessly wield the sword. It is classic Rhelean steel forged by a level 39 blacksmith and weighs a respectable 30 pounds. It will see a strength based warrior through early to mid pewter until such a time when heavier materials are typically required,” the salesman said, holding the sword outstretched hilt first to Arilla after a discrete grunt of exertion. “Would the lady care to try and get a feel for it?”

Arilla looked at Typhoeus pleadingly, her hazel eyes pulling him in as much as he tried to resist. He tore his gaze away, instead focusing his attention on a much more modest looking greatsword.

“How much does that one cost?” Typhoeus said, pointing at the clearly much cheaper looking weapon.

“That sword isn’t fit for such a magnificent warrior like Miss Arilla here; while there is nothing wrong with it per se, it lacks the gravitas of the Zweihander here simply by being of style more typical in Epheria,” the salesman said, sounding considerably more at ease as he gave his non-answer.

Typhoeus groaned in frustration at the realisation that Arilla had already taken the much larger, much more expensive sword off of the salesman. The young warrior had lifted the sword with great difficulty and she was now holding it close to her chest like a lost child rather than the deadly weapon that it was.

“I see…” Typhoeus said. “We were hoping to at least get some plate boots and gauntlets as well, but something tells me that after you tell me what that monstrosity costs, I’m going to be leaving here with substantially less equipment than I intended.”

“He is not a monstrosity; he’s gorgeous,” Arilla said.

“It’s a he?” Typhoeus asked incredulously.

“Of course, it’s a sword. Doesn’t get any more phallic than that,” she said sagely, the salesman offering a weak smile of reassurance as he resumed his sales pitch.

“Uhh, yes. This gorgeous sword has a price of twenty drachma, but for you two, I would be willing to let it go for eighteen,” he said, looking a little nervous for having named such an exorbitant price.

“You can’t be serious; it isn’t even enchanted!” Typhoeus said, scandalised.

“No, but the prestige associated with merely owning such a beautiful weapon more than makes up for that, besides with the quality of the steel, it will hold an enchantment excellently,” the salesman continued as he began extolling the many virtues of the overpriced weapon while Typhoeus drifted off.

Regardless of what the man said, he did not want to buy the sword, or any sword in particular; he had long since developed an innate dislike of the things born from how many times he had been stabbed by them. Still, Arilla needed one for her class, and she seemed to have her sights set on this one in particular.

“I’ll pay you ten, for your price I’d expect you to throw in your firstborn as well," Typhoeus said, half-seriously as he folded his arms defensively over his chest.

The salesman looked over at Arilla, obviously able to tell by the possessive way that she was holding the sword that he was practically guaranteed a sale provided he didn't push the price too high.

"Ten drachma would be an insult to the smith. If I let that sword go for such a low price, I'd lose my job. If you can’t afford eighteen drachma I suppose I could sell it to you for sixteen, provided you promise to return here first for your future purchases,” the salesman offered, starting the business of haggling.

"I can agree to that, but only for twelve drachma," Typhoeus responded.

"Fifteen."

"Twelve."

"Fifteen."

"Thirteen."

"Fourteen."

"Deal!" Typhoeus exclaimed, his joy of 'winning' the negotiation rapidly fading as the salesman seemed to be far too content with the much-reduced price for his liking. Still, they quickly exchanged the heavy silver coins for the Zweihander and even managed to trade in Arilla's old Warhammer for a nondescript arming sword before leaving the shop considerably poorer. Arilla was barely able to strap the large sword onto her back, its unwieldy weight causing her to overbalance as she lurched forwards down the road, awkwardly dodging the fast-moving children who Typhoeus had to carefully wave away from his now much depleted coin purse.

"Thanks, Typh. I know we spent a little more money than we meant to on it,” she said apologetically as they walked.

"It's fine; you deserve to have something nice,” he said. "Although, we just spent the entirety of our nest egg. I have a few chalkoi left for food but not nearly enough to get myself a new dress. We can eat at the guild for a while yet before my credit runs out, but we'll be in trouble if we don't take on a well-paying job soon."

Arilla nodded, determination on her face as she continued to march down the road, huffing loudly with every step, leaning slightly to one side as she favoured her weak ankle.

"The sword's too heavy for you, isn't it?" Typhoeus said after watching her struggle for some time.

"Maybe… just a little… bit,” she huffed, causing him to chuckle with delight.

"You'll have to get [Sworn Service] and [Warriors Strength] to level 5 soon and hope that you get something good then," Typhoeus said, sounding unworried.

"Yeah… What if… I don't?" Arilla asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I wouldn't worry. The System always provides. I'm starting to suspect that you wouldn't have gotten the sword restriction on your class if you weren't so obsessed with your big ‘phallic’ symbols," Typhoeus said, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he teased her.

The Zweihander was a massive 6 foot long monster of a sword, which as advertised, weighed in at a respectable 30 pounds of heavy unadorned metal. Starting from the tip of the pointed sword down to its encapsulated red quartz pommel, you had to first travel past 4 feet of a perfectly straight, double edged blade. Next were a pair of prominent parrying hooks which separated the sharp end of the sword from the ricasso, a foot long section of blunted metal where its wielder could place their hand without fear of losing any fingers. Next was the sword's broad guard, giving the weapon a strong resemblance to a large metal crucifix, and past that was a foot long hilt, the handle tightly wrapped in black leather that ended in the aforementioned decorative sphere of red quartz bound within a steel cage. The black iron used in its construction gave the entire weapon the same corresponding colour, the polished blade catching the light just enough to give it a hint of menace without making it seem shiny. It was clearly made to be as heavy as it could be, with the blade about as wide as Typhoeus's admittedly thin biceps, the pitch black coloured steel being a far heavier alloy than was strictly necessary for the sword's construction.

That it was a weapon forged for high strength adventurers was obvious, and whether or not you cared for the prestige effects, Typhoeus couldn't deny that it looked good strapped to Arilla's back. The zweihander was noticeably taller than either Typhoeus or Arilla, and without her substantial early investment in her strength score it would be completely impossible for her to wield, the heavy weapon simply being too ungainly for active use. As it was, the huge sword was currently just a massive burden for Arilla. Her much cheaper arming sword would remain the far more lethal weapon until she could level up her stat-boosting skills to a point where she could finally handle the weight of the zweihander.

From her few experimental swings outside the weapons shop, Typhoeus could tell that she was far too slow with the sword; every strike was clearly telegraphed as it took her precious seconds to set up each blow. While this was fine for exercise, it was a massive problem that would quickly see her killed in any kind of serious fight. She could mitigate this issue to an extent, [Sworn Blows] allowing her to drastically improve her strength score for a single strike, but it cost stamina to use every single time. Pushing her skill to the max, she could burn 5 stamina per swing, giving her an immediate boost of 20 to her strength score and causing the massive blade to swish quickly through the air. The only issue was that she could only handle 12 such strikes before emptying out her stamina pool.

But this was the easiest of Arilla's sword-related woes to solve. The massive blade was heavy, and Arilla ultimately was not. Each swing, skill-enhanced or not, threatened to overbalance her as her centre of gravity rapidly shifted with every minute movement of the massive weapon. Short of getting a new skill or modifying an existing one, the only real solution was for her to wear much heavier armour to compensate for the increased weight of her weapon. And last but by no means the least was that Arilla had no training whatsoever with a blade. Hammers were relatively easy to use by comparison, but swordplay was a discipline that took decades to master. For animalistic ‘monsters’ her inexperience wouldn't be the biggest deal in the world as they rarely had the ability to feint or parry in response to attacks, but when it inevitably came time for her to fight against an intelligent enemy, it was her most easily exploitable weakness.

Arilla needed to level her skills, buy heavier armour and find a sword tutor in that order. Considering their recently worsened financial situation, only one out of the three was currently attainable. In the low levels, improving class skills didn't take all that much time, with their improvement being keyed off of whatever resource pool the ability was tied to. Typhoeus had been able to quickly grind his mana based mage skills by using the mana pool of a level 199 dragon, an option that Arilla sadly lacked. Instead, she had 60 stamina that fully regenerated with 10 minutes of uninterrupted rest, although emptying her pool several times in the same day would eventually start to drain her health, a resource that was much slower to recoup. With each level of a skill requiring exponentially more experience, Typhoeus's strategy of grinding his skills up would only remain viable for so long, as already Arilla was going to have to drain her stamina over and over again with gruelling exercise in order to get [Warriors Strength] to 5.

Fortunately, Arilla could multitask, and so long as Typhoeus was consenting, she could push through the early levels of [Sworn Service] as well. And so that was how it came to be that Arilla was once again swinging her newly purchased weapon at the magically reinforced training dummies within the courtyard of the Adventurers’ Guild. In the past, when they had used the guild’s training facilities, they were delighted to find them essentially abandoned, but following the graduation party, all of a sudden, a large cadre of about thirty or so level 5 and 6 adventurers were also making use of the guild’s equipment. They were all well equipped in similarly styled gear, primarily composed of thick leathers, with the occasional steel breastplate or helmet thrown in the mix, all of it stamped with the guild’s symbol of stylised sword overlaid over the centre of a blue and yellow heater shield. With all this information, it didn’t take a genius to realise that this was the graduating class of the guild’s taught curriculum. Graduates who were now filling the open-aired training grounds with sweat and the sounds of exertion as they trained in anticipation of their debut bounties.

If that was all it would be a pleasant enough change of circumstances, but unfortunately [Sovereign's Perception] made it impossible for Typhoeus not to notice that everyone was talking about him. Typh and to a lesser extent, Arilla were famous. The events of the graduation party being retold again and again for those who had missed the action, the tale only growing more sensationalised with each retelling. He tried to ignore it, but no matter how tightly he controlled his skill, he couldn’t help but hear his name on everyone's lips. The thought that he was being watched by all of the adventurers in the yard was almost too much for him to bear, and imagined or not, Typhoeus could feel their eyes burning holes into his skin. He breathed unsteadily, trying to shrink behind the pages of his picture book as he watched over Arilla while she trained. Thoughts of being exposed and hunted running through his mind, as he tried to focus on Arilla rather than his growing sense of fear.

Added to the mystery of his growing legend was the fact that all the new arrivals had passively levelled to 5 over a period of a solid year. While it was unremarkable that Arilla and Typhoeus had accomplished the same feat in two weeks, what was notable was the fact that 'Typh' appeared to be a self-taught mage who had at the very least exceptional aura control. Something that was apparently quite rare to see before the bronze rank, as it meant forgoing one of the classic mage skills that were more immediately useful at low levels. That he had then publicly used his aura to so dramatically free himself from the bronze ranked adventurers during the graduation party had only served to engrave the memory of his unusual skills and expertise into the minds of the attending students.

Despite his part in bringing about an abrupt end to the party, few people seemed to openly hold him any ill will for his actions, many of them agreeing that his assailant had it coming. Typhoeus wondered how many of the other adventurers, after months of attending the same classes as Galen, had similar stories to tell of his unwanted advances. While women adventurers were rarer than men, they weren’t all that uncommon and more than a few feminine faces looked back at him with kindness in their eyes when he dared to peek out from behind the cover of his book. He realised that he was being silly and that the attention he was receiving was in no way malicious. Even if it was, there was nothing the crowd of predominantly level 5 adventurers could even do to him, but his rational arguments meant nothing to the anxieties that plagued his every thought.

In his brief time amongst humans, he had largely overcome his fear of crowds, and now he only felt that familiar heart-wrenching terror grip him when he held the attention of numerous adventurers. Why this was the case he couldn’t say. Likely it was a combination of his weak human brain and a decade of near constant battle against adventurers leaving an unpleasant association in his mind that only got worse given the numerous vulnerabilities that came with his pathetic scaleless human form. How, as a species, they had ever managed to accomplish so much with brains that so easily succumbed to mental illness he would never know, but he was hopeful that with his superior draconic will that he would eventually overcome the weaknesses inherent to his chosen form.

"Okay, I think I'm done for the day. [Warrior’s Strength] is still at 4, but I’m exhausted, and I don’t love all the attention we’re getting," Arilla said, jolting Typhoeus out of his introspection as she rested the tip of her new sword in the sweat-stained sand and relaxed her fighting stance.

"All right, then let's get out of here. Maybe we can get you another level in [Sworn Service] at home," Typhoeus said in agreement, not noticing how when he referred to The Huntsman's Rest as ‘home’, he meant it.