Dungeon Raider System

It was only when Uriel turned to leave that Artemis realized that she actually was tasked to help him by her bestie and she stopped him.

"Hold on, I will guide you where you want to go." She said flustered.

"No need, we can do just fine without you." Uriel replied to which Nika butted in.

"Not really."

"I don't feel comfortable getting freebies. It's an implicit debt and I don't like being indebted to anyone." Uriel continued after directing a meaningful glare to the sunkissed huntress who really wanted to avoid falling into the shadow side of the forest.

"You did pay me, though," Artemis showed the beer and instant noodles she received when she was summoned. "it's not much, but it'll probably get you where you want to go."

Uriel distrusted a good deal almost as much as he did a freebie, but he knew himself to be an over thinker which is why he said nothing when Nika jumped at the opportunity and agreed. Thankfully for them, it turned out to be the right decision as entering the Schwarzwald was much easier than exiting it, but Artemis knew the way like the back of her hand.

She led them through narrow passages they would have missed towards hills they didn't even notice and before they knew it, they had found their way to the Rhine river known by the locals as the 'Rhein'.

Artemis watched them take off their boots and walk upstream enjoying the freshness riverbed and although she could have warned them about the dangers of doing so, she limited herself to watch with a cocky grin hoping that the unsuspecting hunters would be caught by surprise by any of the many dangers dwelling on the river.

Needless to say, the Dungeon Raiders were anything but novice hunters and getting their feet wet was only one of the reasons why they decided to walk bare feet. They not only expected the danger, but were actually eager to face it.

Unfazed by the large creature that passed as a rock, Uriel finished it with a single magnum round without bothering to pick the monster level flux orb up and that task fell upon Nika who used her shadow tendrils to do so. Then, the exact same thing to whatever cryptid showed up and even though they were beast and monster rank only, Artemis was still shocked by their efficiency.

At first Artemis assumed it was just a fluke and they spotted the cryptids out of sheer luck, but when the same thing kept happening she understood there was something different going on. They were not hunting but harvesting the cryptids and she wanted to find out how.

Her first suspect was Medusa because her eyes had a constant flux output, but eyesight had nothing to do with their success. She then thought it could be due to Nika's ability to sense the shadows, but even the cryptids that remained burrowed would still be spotted before they could trigger their ambush which effectively ruled her out.

Her next suspect was Uriel since he was the son of none other but Thanatos herself and it would only make sense that his senses would be sharper than those of a regular hunter, but then she noticed him bobbing her hair up and down.

"Are you listening to music?" Artemis asked.

"I can play it out loud if you want." Uriel replied eager to share his music interests.

"Come on, this trip is tiring enough on its own. We don't need to add listening to your 'classics' to our suffering." Nika complained.

"Suffering!? Those are old rock classics!" Medusa defended Uriel as they had a similar taste in music.

"No, can't be done. I need to focus." Luna sentenced and while that brought the discussion to an end, it also informed Artemis of who the culprit was.

Being disabled, albeit temporarily, Luna was the last person Artemis would have suspected of being responsible for their success. However, now that she knew it became apparent.

Luna's acute sense of smell helped her identify oddities such as still waters and the muddy aroma left after rocks were moved from the riverbed. But that was only the beginning, she spotted the cryptid hiding spots with uncanny precision which made Artemis assume Luna had to possess an ability that let her see the future.

"May I know where are we going?" Artemis asked with curiosity.

"You're not one of us, so no." Uriel said.

"I'm your guide, I need to know." Artemis insisted.

"We're not going anywhere in particular, we're searching for something." Uriel said.

"Maybe I know where it is." Artemis said playfully, but Uriel didn't engage.

Artemis loved a good hunt and she would find any excuse to join whichever hunting party under the guise of being a regular human being, but so far every interaction with Uriel and his people left her with a deep sense of frustration. They didn't follow the steps of the hunt which were tracking, stalking, attacking and then retrieving and that took the fun out for her.

Not just that, without knowing what they were doing in that place she was growing impatient and to top things off, this was wasn't a group of merry people having fun in the wild. They acted as though they didn't even like each other that much.

Uriel was usually mean to Nika, who in turn had a begrudging attitude when performing her tasks. Medusa seemed nice enough, but for some odd reason it seemed as though she wasn't on speaking terms with Uriel which cut their communication and Luna, well, she was being Luna.

"Fine! I give up, just tell me what the hell it is you want and I'll guide you to it." Artemis blurted out when she felt she couldn't take it anymore.

"No, thanks." Uriel said with a grin.

"Actually, we're here already." Medusa stopped walking and pointed at a steep slope at the distance.

"Guess there's no point in keeping it hidden anymore, but since you're not one of us you should wait here." Uriel said to Artemis.

"You can't tell me what to do, I'm a goddess." Artemis scoffed and looked the other way.

"Sure, you're a goddess, but aren't you interfering in human affairs pretty much directly? Isn't that forbidden or at least frowned upon?" Uriel said in the most annoying tone of voice he could muster in a clear attempt to find more about the gods' culture.

Realizing she had no means to answer, Artemis clicked her tongue and vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Do you think she's still around?" Asked Nika and Uriel replied by shaking his head.

"Saint Germain taught me this nifty trick to identify angels, but it works on gods too. You just need to clear your head of any thoughts and the true nature of things is revealed. That's why I'm sure she's truly gone."

"Finally! Now you can tell us what we're doing here." Nika let out.

"There's not much to say. There's an old poem that mentions a creature living in the lake above where the Rhin is born."

"The lorelei, they're really dangerous... to men. Women are completely safe." Luna informed.

"Really!? And you just mention it now!?" Uriel huffed.

"Their song leads people to their doom." Luna said.

"Like sirens!" Nika jumped in excitement as she usually didn't know much about the myths Luna mentioned.

"Not really, siren songs are meant to be pleasing, but the lorelei is different. Its song causes the deepest feelings of sorrow, it's like it can bypass all logic and go straight to emotion causing people to self harm." Luna explained.

"Then I guess I'll be safe." Uriel shrugged and grabbed Luna like a sack of potatoes before starting the climb, inwardly thankful that his emotions were numbed after what happened to him on Chichén Itzá.

At that moment they had no means to know they were being observed, though it wasn't Artemis but the rest of the gods who looked at them by means of the glass orb produced by Hermes. Dana had long left the Olympeon, but it wasn't like they had much else going on.

After centuries of being revered by thousands and offered all sorts of sacrifices, humanity had long forgotten them making them technically unemployed and that made the glass orb the same as a TV. A trinket to pass the time.

Watching a group of humans struggle to climb a hill was not necessarily fun, but some of them knew what lied above the Rhin river and couldn't wait to see what would happen when the hunting party met with the lorelei, a cryptid with an ability so vile only those with Aphrodite's blessing could survive its encounter.

Or that was supposed to be the case, because the moment Uriel reached the top, saw the lake and laid eyes on the beautiful creature grooming its head on top of a rock he didn't so much as bat an eye before opening fire.

"That is impossible! He's supposed to be in love with the lorelei, even some gods would willingly give their lives for her!" Aphrodite stomped her feet.

"He could be into men." Bacchus shrugged his shoulders dismissively and so did other gods, but none understood love like the goddess of love herself and she could not withstand a measly human defying the entire logic of the concept she ruled over.

Needless to say, Uriel's days were about to become a lot more interesting as now gods knew of his existence. And they found it to be a nuisance.