TDH Vol. 2 pt. 3

We managed to make it to the stairs leading to the tenth floor without any issues, and that meant we were about to go up against the boss as soon as we could find the door to its room.

But a familiar portal opened up before we could reach the bottom of the stairs. Me and Elanah found ourselves back in the dungeon master’s usual room with options on the table ready for us to choose from.

“Ah, welcome back,” he said while resting on a couch off to the side, his feet kicked up on the side as he ate grapes off of a plate sitting atop his chest. “Want a grape?”

I feel like I should say no. Some grapes sound nice right now… but only a single grape? What’s that going to do other than make me want them and probably make me feel even hungrier than I already do? Yeah, bad idea. Resist the temptation. It’s only going to make things worse if I—

“I… I… I do,” Elanah said as she held up a shaky hand. Looking up at her, I saw a face that she usually only made whenever she was looking at me.

Is she a grape addict or something?

The dungeon mater picked off one of the grapes and flicked it over to Elanah. She grabbed it with the utmost care possible and popped it into her mouth before squealing with delight.

I seriously didn’t know it was possible for her to make those sorts of noises without me being involved.

I almost felt a tiny bit jealous.

Wait… don’t get jealous over a grape. That’s just weird. Seriously weird. Nobody wants to date somebody who gets jealous over something that stupid.

Fortunately, seeing her enjoy the grape that much helped my decision to refuse a grape. If anything, I didn’t want one out of spite for them at that point.

“Ah… so good… can—can I have another?” Elanah, the woman who previously acted cold to the dungeon master, asked—no, she begged.

“No,” he answered.

“You don’t even need food! You’re a core!”

“So? I may not need food, but I still enjoy eating it, and I will make sure to enjoy every last one of these. You should be grateful I offered you a single one.”

While Elanah tried convincing him to give her another one, all I could think of was how right I was to refuse it in the first place. One was all that it took to make somebody want more. By refusing that first one, it was possible to avoid getting hooked and needing more.

Eventually, the dungeon master snapped his fingers to make the grapes disappear so that Elanah would shut up about them. “Go and pick one of the options so that I can go back to eating in peace,” he said.

With the grapes gone, Elanah was back to her usual self and looked at the dungeon master with nothing but disgust.

There’s my Elanah.

Three options were presented to us like always. The first one was a bracelet with red gems surrounding it. The second option was a shield with a fancy design that I doubted either of us had any interest in using. Then there was the third option which was an ability that looked like it was probably tied to wind magic.

“Burning Bangle,” the dungeon master said. “All of your attacks will set your targets on fire. The flames won’t be too strong, but they will be there. The middle option is a shield dropped by an adventurer who once wished to destroy me. It has an enchantment that will knock back any who are blocked by it. As for the ability, that will give you Vortex Blast, a spell capable of directing the raw power of a tornado into a single attack that will blast your target away. It can even rip apart weaker targets.”

All of those sound good. Seriously good. I don’t think either of us would get much use out of the shield, but that bracelet and ability… those could be perfect. If that bracelet makes attacks light targets on fire, Elanah can be pretty fast and relentless. She could cover somebody in flames… but would that work with her void magic? It sounds like it would. If it does, that’d basically be combining fire and void magic together for something seriously impressive. But that wind magic is something either of us could probably get a ton of use out of. Depending on how big the blast is, and how narrow the tunnels are, it could potentially wipe out groups of enemies for us. Or at least blow them over and give us an opportunity to easily wipe them out.

There were two seriously good choices, and I had no idea which one to take.

Elanah looked like she wasn’t sure, either.

“I got this ring, so you can have this one,” Elanah said. “Which one do you want?”

When I had that fire bite… it was alright, but it didn’t actually do much damage. And that’s something that would definitely be better for Elanah than me. Not to mention that it would probably be less useful in normal fights where our enemies die a lot faster. That spell would be great against normal enemies and bosses, plus it sounds like it can be used at range. I don’t have any way of attacking from a distance right now, so if I’m getting something, I should go with that. Or I could let Elanah take the bracelet… but we should try and spread these between us instead of giving them all to one or the other. Then again, I’ve already got some leather armor and a sword. All Elanah has is that ring. Not to mention that she’s in better shape than me right now… which might just be even more reason for me to take it. If we want to try and get as far as possible, me having a way to help from distance is probably better than her being able to catch enemies on fire.

I made my choice and stood up on my back legs to signal that I wanted picked up. The expression that Elanah made when she saw me do that reminded me that, no matter how much she loved grapes, she still loved me more. She picked me up and covered my head in kisses before placing me down on the table, leaving her fingers to trail across my back as I walked over to the ability and placed my paw against it.

“Interesting choice,” the dungeon master said. “Good luck with that.”

The way he said that made me worry a little.

Before we could leave, Elanah placed all the gems she’d been collecting on the table and said, “Save these for our next run.”

The dungeon master waved his hand and caused the gems to disappear. “They will be waiting for you. Now, off you go.”

The portal appeared for our exit… but it wasn’t able to suck us through it before the dungeon master brought his grapes back for Elanah to see. She held out a hand as if to reach for the grapes as he popped one into his mouth just as we went through the portal.

A soft whine reached my ears as we found ourselves on the tenth floor, and that whine came from none other than Elanah. “I… I want more grapes,” she whined before letting out a long sigh. “S-sorry for letting you see me like that back there, Woofen. I just… I really love grapes. We grow them in the enclave, and all the ones the winemakers don’t need are up for grabs to the rest of us. I… I turn into a horrible person when grapes are involved. I remember… one of the boys in the enclave had a bowl of grapes… but he had to get up to use the bathroom… and I stole his bowl while he was gone. I could hear him crying while I ate all of his grapes and I didn’t feel bad at all. Can… can you still love such a terrible woman?”

That’s… screwed up. Seriously screwed up. You actually stole food from a child and ate it while listening to him cry without feeling bad about it? Seriously? Just how obsessed are you over grapes? It sounds like you love grapes even more than you love me!

Elanah might have been unhealthily obsessed with grapes, but I still placed a paw on top of her foot and nodded while looking up at her.

Too bad she had pants instead of a skirt. I was in the perfect position to look up a skirt.

That aside, I already had a chance to try out my new ability. There were a couple of hounds coming down the tunnel toward us, and it looked like they spotted us already as they picked up their pace and began running at us.

And that was when I discovered a problem.

Unlike the other abilities I got that seemed to sort of always be “on,” this one wasn’t. I had to actually cast the spell.

I had no idea how to do that.

I knew that Elanah never had to really say or do anything when it came to using her magic, so maybe I just had to think about it?

Focusing my attention on the first hound, I thought about blasting it away with a burst of air… and it worked.

Just, not in a completely controlled way.

A twisting spiral of air shot out from in front of me toward the hound. However, there was so much force in it that it also knocked me back, sending me flying backward into the barrier that prevented me from going up the stairs.

And that barrier basically felt as hard as a solid wall when being thrown into it with the force that I was.

I landed, in even worse pain than I was already in, just in time to see the wind reach the first hound. I didn’t score a direct hit or anything… but I didn’t need to. The wind went right by the side of the beast’s head and was close enough that it pulled on the beast, twisting its neck with enough force to instantly break it before slamming into its body and knocking it away while contorting its back.

My expectations for the spell were probably wrong. I expected something powerful enough to tear through an enemy. Something like what Elanah did with her magic. Instead, it looked like the spell didn’t do any direct damage in the sense of breaking through a body. It didn’t exactly do blunt damage, either. It was more like it just exerted a huge amount of force on anything it came close to. Anything in front and behind the wind got blown away while anything near the sides got sucked into it, and it could get sucked in violently enough to break bones.

Also, I felt like I was dying.

“Woofen!” Elanah shouted before creating two daggers to throw at remaining the remaining hound. It managed to dodge one of them, but the next went right between its eyes to kill it.

The battle was short and the hounds never even got a chance to attack us.

Too bad I basically attacked myself.

Elanah crouched down next to me and stroked my side. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Well… it feels like something inside of me got stabbed by something else. And I might have broken another rib. Not sure. All I’m sure of is that I feel like I’m about to die.

If I wasn’t about to die, then I was about to suffer until I died.

Damn it… every time I get something, I end up dying right after it.

“Even—even though I know you’re going to be alright… I hate seeing you like this,” Elanah said, clutching her shirt over her heart. “Seeing my fated in so much pain feels like somebody is twisting a dagger in my heart.”

I’ll be fine. Worst case scenario, we die and we’re back in here tomorrow starting from scratch.

“Do… do you think you’re going to make it? Do you think you can get back up?”

It took all my strength to shake my head, and I followed up the shake by coughing out some blood. Yeah, that’s not good.

“Then… do you want me to help you? I don’t want you to suffer. Even if it means temporarily killing my fated… I would rather kill you so that you can be healed and revived sooner than let you suffer in pain.”

Probably a good idea. Also, stop crying. We’ll be back to normal after this.

I nodded. Fortunately, that was easier than shaking my head. All I had to do was slide my head a little up and down over the ground.

Elanah then sniffled and wiped her arm across her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll do myself after so that we can stay together, alright?” She slipped the ring off from her finger and threw it behind her, looking like she was glad to get rid of it.

I wondered when she’d tell me about why that ring upset her so much.

Next, she created a single dagger and held its tip right over the side of my head. “I’m sorry. I—I’m doing this for you! I don’t want you to suffer! I promise! And—and I know you’ll be revived after! If we were in any other situation, I’d do everything I could to fight to keep you alive!”

I know. Don’t worry about it. And stop being so loud. I’m already in enough pain. Don’t need a headache to go with it.

“I promise I’ll join you afterward, okay? I—I won’t leave you.”

You’re being way too dramatic. Seriously too dramatic. Also, can you please kill me already? Kind of tired of being in pain already.

Elanah, with eyes full of overly dramatic tears, bent over to place a kiss on the side of my snout.

I opened my eyes and yawned.

It took me a few seconds to realize what happened like it always did after I died in the dungeon. The last thing I remembered was Elanah kissing me and then… nothing. She must have killed me while kissing me.

Not the worst way to go out in the dungeon.

But something bothered me about my current situation.

I wasn’t in my cell. Instead, I was on some soft mattress with red sheets in what looked like a pretty fancy room. Almost fancy enough to be on par with the dungeon master’s.

And that wasn’t all.

I didn’t notice it at first, but there was a pale, white arm in front of me on the bed, and there was… a soft warmth behind me pressing against my back.

I turned my head to see what it was and realized I must have been dreaming. Dreaming because there was a mountain of cleavage in front of my face.

Looking a bit higher to see who said cleavage belonged to, I saw none other than my new sponsor smiling down at me. Zurie.

“Good morning, my hound.”