Dungeon Salvation

Elias was so stunned by the sudden kiss that he froze for a long moment, and it felt as if time itself had stopped along with him. The world around them faded away, leaving only the sensation of her lips pressed against his. As they finally parted, the look she gave him electrified his heart, making it difficult for him to remember how to even breathe. He tried to pull Rebecca into another kiss, but she was already moving, her hand firmly gripping his.

The pair spoke little as they cruised around the Temple, having borrowed Vivian’s suspiciously unguarded canoe. He rowed them slowly through the decidedly more romantic spots he had noted over the past days. Despite the calm beauty of the sites they visited, he would find his eyes constantly refocusing on hers. She would send his heart racing all over again with a small smile or a teasing smirk.

He stopped them at a spot where standalone arches and pillars emerged from the water like a garden of stone trees. Their beautiful engravings embellished the area around them while the glowing runes carved onto their surface provided a dim lighting. A jet of water fell from the ceiling nearby like a waterfall, spraying up a thin mist.

He drew Rebecca into a sideways embrace, using the cold as an excuse. She glanced at him with raised eyebrows, signaling she was onto him, but allowed herself to be pulled closer. They stayed like that for a long time, talking about whatever came to mind.

“Is this the part where we were supposed to kiss?” He had in fact been planning on giving her his first kiss here, but the second was fine too.

“Maybe,” Elias said, pulling her it. She obliged and they held each other close, kissing once more. When they parted, she gave him a final peck and leaned on his shoulder.

*******

Rebecca was delighted with how her first date with Elias had gone so far. His romantic itinerary made her feel like she had chosen her partner well. She worried about moving too fast, fearing she was too forward, but she liked him a lot and had gotten to know him well over the past few weeks. Knowing he liked her too, she decided he was worth the risk.

She could have waited until the end of the date to give him her first kiss, but she stood by her decision. The kiss alleviated much of the tension and nervousness between them, and there was no way of knowing what he had planned. Besides, she couldn’t help herself at that moment. It just felt right.

There was no resistance between them, nor was their moment awkward or forced. It just felt natural, meant to be. She was genuinely surprised with how smitten she felt throughout it all. They both clearly had feelings for each other, but realistically, they hadn’t known each other long enough to be this close. It made her all the happier they were.

A swirling, black hole-like portal suddenly opened behind Elias as he rowed them back to camp. A large hand emerged from the portal, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and pulled him in. Rebecca was left alone in the canoe, staring at the empty air where her boyfriend had just been, her mouth agape.

Vivian is not going to believe this.

*******

Elias had no idea what had just happened, but he was not happy about it. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on his face then punched him in the gut. He’d been having the date of his dreams with Rebecca just moments ago when he was suddenly yanked backwards. Now, he was staring at a tall and imposing bear of a man with broad shoulders and a thick beard framing a rugged face. Maybe all of this was a dream after all.

“Hello Elias, my name is Hager. It’s about time you and I had a talk,” said Hager. Contrary to his wild and formidable appearance, Elias saw a doting kindness and quiet intensity in his eyes. The man deposited him on the ground with thick, and hairy arms, and Elias gulped.

Those arms are bigger than my head!

“Um, hello Hager, I’m Elias. Wait, you already know that… How can I help you, sir?” Elias hid his alarm as best he could and greeted the man cordially. He wasn’t foolish enough to act entitled in front of someone powerful enough to snatch him out of nowhere, as if plucking flowers from a field. Hager just chuckled warmly.

“Relax Elias, I mean you no harm. Sorry for the rough treatment, but I couldn’t risk the wrong people knowing we spoke. I have plenty of people watching my every move,” said Hager. Being told to relax, Elias grew even more anxious, only slightly tempered by Hager’s clear effort to appear non-threatening. The man sighed, fiddling with a cheap-looking bracelet made of dark-bronze beads. It looked like a knockoff version of the sage bracelets.

Around fifteen years ago, Sage Ethan of the world government opened a company that manufactured and sold high-end magic items. The most popular product they launched was the sage bracelets. These enchanted bracelets were composed of up to twenty beads, each separately enchanted. Since each bead could hold a different enchantment, the bracelets could have up to twenty different effects. Never once, however, had he seen such a cheap-looking sage bracelet as the one Hager held.

It must be a design choice. There’s no way such a powerful-looking man would own any cheap knockoffs.

“Sit down Elias, let me tell you a story,” said Hager, motioning to a pair of comfortable-looking chairs. Between them, two glasses and a bottle of expensive scotch appeared on a table. The man poured himself and Elias a glass, taking a sip and sighing sadly before speaking. “This is the story of Vanessa and Patrick Smith. Two of the best people I ever had the pleasure of meeting in my long life. Your parents.”

Elias listened dumbly to the fantastical story that the large man before him weaved. All things told, the man was an excellent storyteller, his calm and deep voice soothing to the ear. Yet, the story was just that to him–a story. He spoke of the love and sacrifice of people he had never met. He’d known his parents his whole life, and there was no way he would allow this Santa Claus knockoff to convince him otherwise. Even if Vivian and Peter weren’t his biological parents, which he wasn’t convinced of.

Why weren’t they here telling me these things, instead of Hager?

When Hager said that the bead bracelet he was holding was a Divine ranked soul weapon, Elias actually scoffed. That is, until Hager handed him the bracelet. As soon as he touched it, his eyes widened, and he gasped. He could feel the unbreakable bond between it and himself. It was undeniable, like it was a part of his body that he had never noticed before–an extension of himself.

Sensations he could hardly understand flooded his senses. They spoke of the warmth of companionship, all the more appreciated after the cold detachment of loneliness. The joy and exuberance of loving another, even when all they feel was hate. He heard angels sing the hymn of Salvation for an eternity. For the briefest of moments, he understood it.

The sensations he felt slowly receded, and Elias came back to himself, whole but changed. He would remember nothing of what he saw the moment he touched the bracelet for the first time in years, but his soul would never forget the sacred truths it witnessed. Hager used a napkin he conjured out of nowhere to gently wipe Elias’ tear-stained cheeks.

“I-It’s all true, isn’t it? What you said, I mean,” asked Elias weakly. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he held the bracelet, feeling raw and drained in body, mind, and spirit.

“It is, child, it is. I have been keeping track of you as discreetly as I could as you grew up. Your parents would be proud of the man you’re becoming, I think. I know I am.” The large man put a comforting hand on Elias’ shoulder, steadying some of his tremblings. A bright green light flashed from his hands, and Elias felt his pain soothe. “Keeping a wielder apart from their soul weapon is a daunting prospect, especially for such prolonged periods of time. It was a necessary precaution to hide the fact that you have it in the first place, but still. I cast the spell Primal Regeneration (Artifact) on you, which should allow you to recover from the trauma of reuniting with the item with relative ease.”

“Additionally, the spell will make your body grow to fulfill any untapped potential, leaving your foundation perfect. In fact, with the ‘experience’ of reuniting with your soul weapon like that and experiencing the touch of Salvation, you’ll likely reap the benefits from today far into the future as well.” Hager shrugged at that, as if to say “no pain, no gain”. It definitely sounded like a moto the hulking man lived by.

Truly perfecting one’s foundation is rare, but not unheard of. The benefits of it compared to a nearly perfect foundation were only marginally better. In fact, the only significant benefit was that having a perfect foundation was a requirement to step into the Master ranks. By then, it would be much harder to improve the foundation, with attributes at level sixty instead of at level ten.

At this point in the conversation, Elias was severely numb to any of the ridiculous things Hager said. You cast an Artifact rank spell? Sure! So you must be a Grandmaster? Of course! Elias had spent the better part of the last month suffering through his mother’s training sessions to improve his foundations, but you did it with one spell!?

“It is important that you keep the fact that you have this weapon hidden, Elias. The Sage still hasn’t been able to find Jack in whatever hole he buried himself under, and we have no reason to believe he has given up on the weapon. Vivian and Peter already knew about it from the beginning, of course, but it was decided not to tell you until you were old enough. Kids aren’t very good at keeping secrets, after all.” The man shifted in his chair slightly, turning serious to deliver his warning.

“That being said, we’ve developed many counterintelligence strategies to deal with this situation,” said Hager with a self-satisfied smirk and a wink. “One of which is the sage bracelets that Sage Ethan started selling a while back. They were designed to look like a more expensive version of your soul weapon, to draw attention away from the real thing. Plus, others won’t be able to use Analyze on a soul-bonded weapon. That, coupled with its simple appearance… Most people will assume it is an ordinary bracelet.”

Elias put the bracelet on his right wrist, and the beads seemed to shrink in size to fit him perfectly. He shook his hand this way and that, but it only had a slight give. Overall, it was pretty comfortable since the beads were very light.

Elias and Hager continued to talk for many hours, even eating lunch together. He was sure his mother and Rebecca would be looking for him, but he couldn’t waste this opportunity to learn what he could from Hager.

They mostly talked about his biological parents, the kind of people they were, what they liked to do. There were snippets of some of their adventures, jokes they liked to tell, and everything in between. Hager even provided him with a small photograph to see what they looked like. They sounded like amazing people from Hager’s stories, but all things told, he considered Vivian and Peter to be his parents, and he said so. Instead of becoming upset, the large man gave him a reassuring and proud smile.

“Vivian and Peter are your parents Elias. They raised you, cared for you, and loved you. I’m not telling you all this to diminish the bond you have with them. I just wanted you to know the kind of people that Vanessa and Patrick were,” said Hager, his voice breaking for a second, and he sniffed emotionally. The large man’s eyes were brimming with tears while reminiscing about his old friends. “I just wanted you to know that they loved you too.”

The two of them stayed quiet for a while after Hager said that, each lost in their own thoughts. Elias would be lying if he said he didn’t get caught up in the large man’s nostalgia. It was hard to grasp the amount of pain these people went through, how much they must have loved him, how much was sacrificed to save him.

Elias imagined what it would be like to lose a child, a newborn, and found that his mind couldn’t comprehend something so tragic. It simply had no frame of reference. He thought about how it would be like to lose his sister or his parents, and he knew deep inside that it would break his heart. He looked at the bracelet on his wrists with complicated thoughts swirling in his head.

Some part of all this that he couldn’t quite grasp struck a chord in his soul, reminding him of the vision he experienced when he touched the bracelet. Something about the love and sacrifice of Vanessa and Patrick Smith demanded to be acknowledged, something deeper than the facts of what happened. Like an itch in the back of his mind, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, no matter how hard he tried.

Eventually, the pair moved on to lighter topics of conversation, such as what Elias was like as a baby. It was a particularly embarrassing moment to find out that Hager had changed his diapers.

How does a man this large even change diapers?!

Hager was very interested in hearing about Elias–his childhood, his aspirations, his goals, and anything else he offered up. The other man already knew a surprising amount of information about him but was more interested in Elias’ perspective on the events. He did note how happy the man was that he wanted to be an adventurer, like his birth parents.

“Well, you would have been required to become strong anyways, to keep yourself and the soul weapon safe from Jack,” said Hager with an awkward laugh. “I’m glad it’s something you actually wanted as well!”

He could see sadness and compassion in the man’s eyes when he spoke of the difficulties he had growing up due to his frail body. There was genuine joy there when he spoke of his interactions with his family. There was even a bit of anger in the man when he mentioned Melinda, going as far as to express that he did not think that the girl was good company.

They spent a while talking about the bead bracelet as well and what it would mean for his future. Elias hadn’t considered it before, but being bound to the weapon would really put a dent in his plans. He had no idea how to use a bracelet as a weapon. Hager seemed to think that it would function similarly to the sage bracelets but had no way of knowing for sure. They would only truly know when he gained his Skills and awakened the soul weapon, activating the Weapon System Interface. He could only hope that it would actually be useful in battle.

Contrary to Hager’s expectations, Elias wasn’t upset at being forced to become a weapon user type. He had been undecided on what path he would take as an adventurer for a while, and becoming a weapon user type was one of the options he was considering. Of course, he had planned to bond to actual weapons like machetes or even a double dao eventually. There was no use in worrying about it now; he would just wait and see what the bracelets had in store for him.

Eventually, the pair wound down from their conversation, and Hager asked if there was anything else he could do for him before sending him back. Apparently, the man had used a large pedestal to generate the portal that brought him here and would send him back the same way. Elias considered the offer seriously, even if it was given out of hand. It wasn’t everyday that you got to make a request of a Grandmaster, after all.

“Well, when you snatched me, I was on a date with a girl I like, and she’s a member of my party. You wouldn’t happen to have something that will perfect her foundations as well, would you?” Hager gave him a goofy grin and waved his fingers. A crystal bottle containing what looked like a green aurora appeared on the table. The swirling liquid danced gracefully as if choreographed by a talented ribbon dancer.

“This is a potion holding a single use of my Primal Regeneration (Artifact) spell. The visual effect costs me little and allows me to charge much more for each bottle,” said Hager, giving him a wink. “I grabbed one of the more impressive-looking ones so you can impress your girlfriend. Before you ask, I’ll also arrange something for your sister when she is old enough. Your parents already have perfect foundations, so they won’t be needing it, not that this potion can perfect the foundations of peak Experts.”

“They do?” They couldn’t be far from reaching the Master ranks if that was true, and he didn’t doubt that it was.

“Yes, I’m certain. They were very close to breaking into the Master ranks the last time I saw them, and that was years ago. They were vetted by the Sage himself, so it’s only to be expected that they are talented.” Without further ado, Hager pointed to the pedestal, and a swirling portal formed atop it after a small delay. The large man gave him a warm hug and a pat on the back before sending him on his way. This time, he got to walk into the portal himself, instead of being dragged in.