Dungeon Raider System

After their conversation, Emma went straight to her room, which she shared with Amy, to get a much needed and deserved rest. She went above and beyond not only to find out what happened to her family, but she also went out of her way to investigate Uriel's origins, although she believed she failed completely in that regard.

Nothing could be further away from the truth as Uriel was starting to fill in the pieces of the jigsaw that was his life inside his mind. And while he still could not understand the particulars about his abandonment, he got to a point where he didn't care about it anymore and decided to put his curiosity at rest for the time being.

But this didn't apply to Dana, who still could not decide if she wanted to reap Emma and interrogate her shadow or just torture her and interrogate her. It was a difficult choice because the former was irreversible while the latter alternative would allow her to continue living a normal life, except for the trauma due to being tortured by the god of death herself, of course.

"I'm against it." Said Jon taking a gulp from his flask.

"I didn't say I'd do anything." Dana defended herself.

"I can see it in your face, whatever it is you're thinking it'll likely ruin your chances of having a mother-son relationship with your child." Jon said casually, making Dana question herself for the umpteenth time how was it possible for a mortal to read her like a book. It was one of the reasons she liked Jon, but also one of the reasons she hated him. Nothing too different from any marriage as the things people loved about each other would often times be also the most annoying.

"Then what do you propose? I can't just forgive and forget. Whatever the Sage family did, it caused me to lose my child and him to be abandoned."

"Some things just need time." Jon rebuked.

"You still don't get it, Jon," Dana shook her head. "I'm old, really old. I've lived through countless generations of men and in all that time I never had a child. He is my only son and the most precious thing to me."

"See? You say that like it's endearing, but you saying he's a 'thing' worries me. I knew you were strange from the moment we met and that is what make me fall for you, but now I know you're a goddess lots of things have changed. To you, humans may feel like very intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless. You may still feel sad if they get hurt or love them, but as pets rather than people."

"Is that the reason why you've taken your distance from me?" Dana looked him in the eye.

"Actually, there is someone else." Jon admitted.

"I knew it! You unfaithful bastard...," Dana growled, then fell silent and turned to look through the window as the ship set off. "what is her name?"

"So you can reap her?" Jon scoffed.

"No, I just wanted to see what kind of woman could make a mortal man stray from... well, from me."

Somewhere in England, a heavenly rank huntress with a rather voluptuous chest felt chills coursing through her body. The chills grew in intensity from goosebumps to nearly a seizure and Seiren thought she had gotten the flu and was ready to go to the hospital, until she remembered she was a heavenly rank huntress and completely immune to sickness.

That moment came and went without any consequences, which allowed Seiren to compose herself and continue cleaning Jon's collection of artifacts unaware that none other than the god of death had taken a silent vow to reap her soul herself when the time came.

Aboard the Pegasus, Uriel had stumbled upon a conundrum of the likes he didn't particularly enjoy. It was not a matter of archaeology or any academic subject for that matter. Despite the urgency with which Emma begged him to participate in the auction, it was not going to take place anytime soon which meant he needed to decide what to do.

Continue doing business like usual would translate in amassing a fortune that would likely make it easier for him to acquire whichever artifacts Emma wanted to recover from her family, but although Uriel may have forgotten about leaving Alice behind he had not for a second forgotten about his debt to Scoundrel.

Killing him was meant to be an act of mercy, a gesture any hunter would appreciate considering how lengthy their deaths could be. If regular humans were resilient and could take days to die in agony, it was way worse with hunters whose bodies attempted to self repair at a cellular level which sometimes allowed them to survive the unthinkable, but most often than not it was just meaningless pain.

The worst part, though, was that they didn't just feel physical pain but also a kind of pain particular to hunters. The regeneration process required energy, but if the hunter in question did not have enough energy to recover their own body would be consumed little by little causing the most excruciating pain while remaining conscious through most of it.

And if that suffering was awful, Uriel did not want to even think about the suffering Scoundrel might be enduring inside the book of the dead. Even if it was only his shadow, shadows had shown signs of understanding and remembering, which meant that they were essentially the closest thing to a 'soul'.

There was also the subject of Water warlock, which Uriel did not want to even start to think about because the more he learned the more confused he became. Now he did not know if Water warlock was a god, a titan or something different. The only certain thing about Water warlock was that he wanted to bring his people back from wherever they remain in exile, which was something Uriel could not allow.

The problem with that was that in order to deal with Water warlock, Uriel would need to face Sam, his former best friend whom he called a brother. To say their relationship was complicated would be oversimplifying things and Uriel had yet to figure out if what he needed to do and what he wanted to do would align some time in the future. That was the proverbial can of worms he did not want to open, because the moment he did, he would need to decide on the spot.

"I wish he remained buried in the salt pan." Uriel sighed as he had a hard time deciding on what to do and he decided to seek enlightening from asking his friends. One thing he had learn was no matter how powerful he became, there were things he could not do by himself. But even if he was perfectly capable of doing them, did not necessarily mean he had to do them on his own.

His first option was Nika whom, despite not being academically inclined like Medusa or Luna, had proven time and time again a spark of wisdom in the most trying times. Though, she was also an airhead most of the time which is why she was his first option solely because of proximity since she was quite literally his shadow.

"You're asking me what to do? We should go to Ibiza." She said after a few seconds of careful consideration.

"Is there a dungeon or something?" Uriel asked.

"No, but I've heard parties get really wild in there." Nika replied earning herself a bump on the head that sent her straight back into the shadows in a pout that would extend for the rest of the evening.

"I don't know what was I expecting." Uriel fumbled to himself as he made his way to Medusa's workshop where she was hard at work in her new project.

"Hi! I wasn't expecting you to show up." She flinched like she had been caught red handed, though the reason why she became flustered was due to her overall hanging loose below her waist leaving her upper body bare except for a bikini.

"Where you expecting somebody else?" Uriel squinted his eyes.

"No! No one, actually," She stuttered as she finished buttoning up the greasy overall. "it's just that... I've been trying to reverse engineer the rock engine you brought me and it's not going well." She said with a smile that contrasted with her words.

"Nothing at all?"

"Well, that is not entirely correct. I don't want to jinx it, but there is a chance that this is a perpetual motion engine... and if that's the case... I'm sorry, I need to get back to work." Medusa's reply left Uriel with no other choice but to consult Luna, though he could already anticipate her shutting the door in his face which is exactly what happened five minutes later when he knocked on her door.

Little did Uriel know that his trouble deciding on what to do would be solved the moment they landed. Not because of a revelation, an epiphany or some ground breaking revelation, but because the decision would be taken out of his hands the moment he stepped outside and he was struck by lightning.