Kaia the Argent Wing

A second after the boss died, a minor tsunami of attribute orbs erupted from its chassis. A couple of us laughed at the absurdity of the spectacle for half a second, until we realised why so many orbs were pouring out of the boss. Hundreds of people had lost their lives in this dungeon—A dungeon that we’d all but obliterated with our overabundance of experience and power.

“Jesus Christ,” Quinton muttered, crouching to pick up a handful of the orbs.

“Something tells me he stopped listening a while back,” Mel replied grimly. “What do we do with them all?”

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, but looking up, I noticed Scott and Ben were more confused than horrified.

Ben caught my eye and cleared his throat. “What's wrong? Why are there like, six or seven hundred orbs there, and why are y’all acting like it's bad?”

Quinton and I shared a brief look, and I saw him decide to let me explain.

“So… when we went into the other dungeon, we noticed that the final boss dropped exactly the same number of orbs as people who entered the dungeon… including those who died there,” I said carefully. “So… each one of these orbs here represents one lost human life.”

Both of the younger boys’ eyes widened, even as their complexions grew pale.

“Oh,” was all Ben could muster in reply.

Biting my lip in thought, I turned my attention back to Quinton. “I'm fighting a battle against greed here. On the one hand… dividing these equally amongst us would boost us all instantly into demigod status compared to all other survivors. On the other hand… it's a fucking vile way to profit, and I am not going to be the one who gives in to temptation. I think we take them all back to the Captain in secret and then allow him to decide how to share them.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, although some were more adamant than others. Chloe and Scott each had a conflict of thought raging across their faces, which didn't surprise me, although their reasons would undoubtedly be vastly different.

“What if the Captain decides he wants all of them?” Mel asked quietly, as if voicing that hypothetical doubt had cost her considerable emotional labour.

“Then I kill him,” I said simply and sincerely.

That got a reaction from everyone. Chloe nodded approval, of course. Despite her hatred of the religion, her sense of morality had a tendency to veer into the biblical.

“Concerning…” Quinton said after everyone had thought on it for a moment, “But understandable.”

“We don't even take a single one for ourselves until we get the Captain's okay, though,” I said with a smile that I hoped would calm everyone down a little. “Someone should get to packing these into a bag. The rest of us should probably search all these dead books for useful texts.”

With clear objectives established, we got to work… although I was a little distracted. I might not have gotten any orbs yet, but I had finally reached level 8—Actually, I’d blown right past it and two thirds towards level 9. Nothing new was actually given to me in the level, but I could feel how my power had increased by a noticeable amount. I wonder if I got anything for my crafting class? I couldn’t actually check it right now, of course.

Shaking my head at the thought of swapping right then and there, damn the consequences, I focused back on the pile of dust and soiled books— Oh!

“‘Ultimate Guide to Skinning and Tanning’!” I exclaimed, grabbing a book out of the detritus. I held it aloft like I’d pulled a survivor from the rubble and grinned over at Chloe.

The look she gave me was hilarious, and just as baffling to me as my actions probably were to her. Either way, I had what I came for! Now, if we could—

“‘Plate and Scale: An Analysis of Armour throughout History’!” Ben blurted, holding up his own excellent find. Then he laughed and added, “Oh, and three books about knitting for some reason.”

“‘The Art of Whittling’?” Mel called. “Is this useful?”

I nodded and ushered her over to my pack with a wave. “Absolutely. Stick ‘em in my bag.”

Chloe, it seemed, wasn't quite having our luck. “All I've found so far is six different bodice rippers.”

She emphasised the point by waving a book in the air. That particular one featured an extremely ripped man undoing his jeans. It bore the title, ‘A Beach Holiday Dream’.

She flipped it open and scowled at the page. “The whole romance is, by my reckoning, awkward and problematic. I mean, what self respecting woman would actually be interested in sex on horseback?”

“Dunno, but… you might want to bring them. The target audience for that genre is currently cooped up in the gym and classrooms with hundreds of other people. They might need the, uh… distraction,” I said ruefully.

Chloe grimaced. “Six books isn't nearly enough, then. They'll eat the damn things alive.”

“We could grab a bunch of fiction titles we see, assuming we have room,” Quinton mused. “Then, we could get the school library open again. That might help with morale.”

“Definitely something to float past the Cap,” Mel agreed. “I checked the library out earlier and man but that place is watered down. The range is between like, fantasy retellings of the bible and math textbooks. Not exactly what I'd call entertainment.”

I grimaced. “They gutted the library of anything interesting a couple years back, when book banning was all the rage.”

“Pretty sure some of that was my fault,” Chloe said sheepishly. When I looked askance at her, she grinned. “I kept sneaking gay smut onto the shelves.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you did.”

Our looting continued, culminating in me taking not just the gem-studded disk from the machine inside the booth, but every piece of brassy metal I could pry away from the bolts that held it to the floor. Oh, and the kitchen knives from the boss. Our cafeteria folks would love them.

As for the boss and the printer themselves, they were… tough to dismantle. I decided against bothering, since we could only carry so much out of here.

We ended up absolutely packing our bags with books and other crap, and as we did so, it became more and more evident that there was something fishy going on with the book loot. There was a lot of trash, but it felt strange that we got so many useful books. The breadth of subjects we found ‘historical analysis of x’ books about was crazy. That, and the frankly hideous number of romance novels.

It wasn't until we began to walk towards the exit that we realised why our loot had been so focused. The area where we fought the boss had been the border between the ‘Arts and Crafts’ section, and the ‘Romance’ section. We theorised that if we killed monsters in other sections, we'd get books mainly from the genre in that section. The only exception was reception, which held a variety of subjects.

We ran into one band of foes on the way out, but they were easily cut down, and we escaped the creepy library intact! When we left, the door to the library sort of rippled, shuddered, and the darkness inside the building redoubled, as if it were resetting or settling back into its default configuration. I guess that answered the question of if these things were repeatable. Goddess, the implications of the mechanisms behind the resetting of a dungeon were intriguing. That was all shit to think about another day, however, because warmth was in our future and I was excited.

The walk home was a little sketch, though, with a periodically chill wind sweeping ice and snow into our sides. Goddess but it sucked, and the sneaky assholes that inhabited the snowy landscape sucked just as hard. By now we were used to dealing with them, though.

Our return through the makeshift wall of our settlement came with tired cheering from the guards on duty. One of them quickly hurried off to find the Captain while we shuffled into the waiting room outside admin. Packs were dumped unceremoniously on the floor so we could flop into armchairs and sofas. Adventuring was exciting, but it was also exhausting.

The Captain and, to our surprise, his wife both arrived shortly after we sat down. The Cap’s wife was a short, motherly, and slightly plump woman with extremely pretty eyes and rosy cheeks. She exuded matronly halfling energy and it was a good look on her.

“You made it back, and with full backpacks, I see,” the Cap said, his face set into a broad grin. He seemed happier than usual. I hope the double-edged news we were bringing wouldn't dampen his mood.

“That's right, sir,” Quinton agreed wearily. “I'll give my report, but there are several things you'll want to keep on a need-to-know basis.”

Our leader’s expression darkened slightly, but he nodded. There was nobody else around right now, so I guess Quinton figured it was safe to start. He gave a full breakdown of events as they happened, while the Cap and his wife only occasionally interrupted to get further information or clarification about certain details. When the story reached the boss’ death, Quinton paused and glanced at me.

Clearing my throat, I grabbed the bag that held the six hundred-odd orbs and stared at it. “Cap, you know how when we defeated the boss in the redcap lair, it dropped one orb for every person who entered the dungeon?”

His frown deepened, but the cap nodded anyway. “Yeah. I remember.”

“Well… the library was designated as an emergency shelter. Cap, over six hundred people entered the library dungeon.” I said softly, staring at him and his wife for emphasis. Slowly, I passed the bag over to him. “I didn’t let anyone use any yet. We figured the only person with the temporal and moral authority to hand these out was, well… you.”

He took the bag gingerly and, like it was full of one day old kittens, stared inside. His face drained of colour, and he shook his head in a mix of horror and wonder. “So many of our… our friends and family, reduced to these.”

“At least their deaths will mean something—help those of us that survived,” Chloe said, expression hard as stone. Now that I’d gotten to know her a little better, I knew that she wasn’t pissed, she was sad—sorrowful, even.

I had the sudden urge to comfort her, especially when I remembered that she’d had a situationship with Estelle, who’d died pointlessly in her home to monsters.

The Cap grunted and turned to his wife. They had some sort of silent conversation, consisting only of subtle expressions and eye contact. Then he looked back at us all and carefully began to pull orbs out and place them on the table. He continued to do so in silence, until sixty orbs were on the small coffee table. Then, he sighed, “Ten each, for your efforts. Thank you for— Thank you. I’ll see about giving these to folks who need them. Crafters, the kitchen workers, folks like that—The ones who won’t be seeing many of these otherwise.”

I relaxed slightly into my seat and nodded approvingly. It was a good idea. People like Charles and April could do with some orbs to help make their work easier.

Then I remembered something else that’d been hanging around in my head. “Another thing, Cap. We mentioned earlier that the dungeon was easier than what we’re used to dealing with, monster-wise. I was thinking, it probably wouldn’t be a bad place for newer teams of combat focused people to get some experience. The rank and file monsters themselves were, honestly, a non-threat. The only ones that posed a more significant challenge were the mini-boss style enemies that arrived with each large wave, and the main boss of the dungeon. Even that thing was… impotent, as far as tough baddies go.”

The leader of our little settlement nodded thoughtfully, then glanced at his wife, then Quinton, “Quint, can you get some paper from the admin folks and write down everything you remember about the dungeon itself and how it works? If we can get a comprehensive guide going, then Silver’s idea is solid.”

Quinton smiled, which lifted his moustache in strange ways. “Absolutely, boss. I’d even be willing to take some newbies in so they have supervision. Compared to the redcap school, it was a breeze. If you can convince Silver to take folks in, you can be all but guaranteed they’ll return in one piece.”

The Captain raised an eyebrow and shot me a curious look. “Is that so?”

Oh dear. Quinton hadn’t gone into detail about the fights themselves… I guess now he was going to spill the beans.

“Ah, yeah,” The moustachioed squad leader grinned. “That girl is vicious. I watched her pin one of those suckers under her boot and rip it in half with her bare hands. Oh, and one of those ‘mini bosses’ we mentioned, she practically beat that thing into the ground with her shield, then treated it like so much wood to be chopped.”

Flushing, I reached out and scooped up the ten orbs destined for me. “It was nothing, I was just having fun in a risk-free environment.”

“See?!” Quinton laughed, waving a hand at me. “‘Risk free’, she says.”

Ah! This was so embarrassing! I— what did I even say here? How did I get them to stop… to stop saying all these things… Leaving. I could leave. Time to get out of dodge.

“Thanks for the orbs, Cap,” I said, still fighting a losing battle against a full-blown blush. “If it’s okay, I’d like to escape and relax for a bit. It was still hard work, after all.”

Shaking his head with wry amusement, he waved for me to leave, “Absolutely. Thank you for your help, Silver. The list of tasks I’d like to throw you at is a mile high, but you’re not beholden to me, and you deserve rest for what you and everyone here achieved. Thank you, all of you.”

There were smiles all around, even if some of them were still laced with the sombre tone from earlier in the conversation. Since it seemed we were done, and the Cap was chill with me leaving, I stood and walked awkwardly out of the room, then the school. I really was looking forward to getting out of this armour and flopping onto a sofa in private, where nobody would be around to want something from me.

Goddess, but the armour was showing its flaws now, too. The damn thing was rubbing me in all sorts of uncomfortable places, and pinching me in others. I’d be pointing them out to April at the first opportunity, because although it was effective at stopping blows, it was far from being perfect. Later, though. Later.