As Tannyr dug and worked to reinforce the new mining area, she was relieved that Fife kept at her side every step of the way. She thought back to the days of her previous life. She'd always been the smallest person in the room then, too. Now, though, she drew strength and comfort from having the huge woman nearby. "This'll mean a lot more resources, and a lot more chances for divinium nodes."
Fife let out a bark of laughter. "You bet your tail we'll have divinium. We'll have so much I will get a stool made— Cave!" She practically stepped over Tannyr, bringing her shield up at the hole that had been uncovered.
Unasked, Katelyn snapped her claws to summon motes of burning embers that floated in the air. With a gesture, she sent them forward to illuminate the area.
"No one in front of me until we identify the threats. Liv, come up and take my side when I'm past this choke." Clanging her sword against her shield to get the attention of anything inside, she advanced.
Liv's excitement almost boiled over. She moved up to Fife's sword-side, the big adamantine siege shield on her left arm held steady and not blocking Fife's weapon arm. She'd done a little training with Fife, since the war, and had spent time with her during the month of waiting for Travis to recover discussing shield tactics. Now, though, rather than get overwhelmed with excitement, she felt a focusing roll of emotion from the other woman.
With the lights hovering above her head, Fife could see clearly without being blinded by them. What she saw, though, didn't make sense. "There's nothing else in here, unless it's invisible to our sight."
Matching her steps to Fife's, Liv kept her eyes moving—searching for threats. "This place reminds me of the library."
Fife smirked under her helmet. "Kate, hold back please. I know you want to see this, and I can practically feel your breath on the back of my neck, but you shouldn't be in front of me."
"At least," Katelyn said, doing her utmost to not be stereotypical, "try not to burn any books that might be in there."
"If it is a library, and if something does poke its head out, I promise to try asking nicely if it'll leave before breathing fire," Fife said, stepping deeper into the room. "It does look like a library, but also something else. A library that is half building and half rock walls. That's— This isn't a library; it's a temple!"
Focusing inward, Brayden felt for his god and asked for confirmation. Strength filled him with confidence and he opened his mouth. "This is a temple to she who is the Bookkeeper: Goddess of Dungeons and Cities." He wavered a moment before regaining full control of his faculties. "That was Brogdar speaking…"
A familiar rush of energy poured through Astrid. She stepped forward, and again, even walking past and ignoring Fife's complaints. The fire that had burned inside her since Fife had breathed it into her combined with this new energy and she let out a roar not of flame, but raw power.
"C-Can you hear me?"
Astrid nodded, shocked at the timid voice in her head. "I can. You are Bookkeeper?"
"Y-Yeah! I wanted to give Travis something special, so I set it up so you'd find this temple. Now you have it, you can come here to get boons from me, and so I can add strength to the whole dungeon."
A touch taken aback by the personality behind the power she'd been using, Astrid straightened herself and nodded. "I'll tell him when this area is part of his"—she froze as she felt the familiar wash of Travis' dungeon pour into the room to absorb it—"dungeon. Travis, the goddess you have been working with gave us a temple."
Travis had been waiting and worrying the moment the entrance had been uncovered, but now that he could see inside, he felt relief washing over him. "That's great. I was going to build one of—"
"Travis!" Bookkeeper reached into her favorite dungeon's headspace like a hurricane and, realizing she was in too banal a reality to manifest so much, she dialed it back to her normal communications.
Hi! I saw you gave a temple to Breeze, and thought I'd do the same for you. Sorry if I was a bit intense just now.(?っ?′?ω?`?)???(?╥?ω?╥?)?
Barely coherent after being blasted with more energy than he'd ever felt before, Travis wavered a little and clung to the solidness of his dungeon to keep himself centered. Slow, measured breaths of mana stabilized him. "Sorry, Bookkeeper, I need a moment."
His former life, and most of his days since then, hadn't prepared Travis for being so overwhelmed in another being's energy that he almost forgot who he was. Deliberately checking over his memories, Travis slowly established that he was still completely himself, even if he'd done something recently he wasn't exactly proud of. "Okay," he said, "I'm good now."
I forgot you're all the way down there in the normal world. You were so solid in the In-Between, too. Maybe I could adjust things so you have more of your own energy? (?????? -?????)?
"Can we mess with that a little later? I need to reassure my friends." Turning his attention to where Astrid was still staring into space sightlessly, he made a soft noise like clearing his throat. "Sorry about that. Bookkeeper was a bit much for me. Is Astrid okay?"
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Oh crap. Holy fucking bingle. Uh, this is why I have backups!
For Travis, it once again felt like too much magic stuffed through him, but this time it wasn't radiant mana, but a projectile. The shaped nature of the divine power made it easier, and when Bookkeeper herself helped to guide it through him and into Astrid, he felt relief that she seemed to know what she was doing.
Just… There! (?*?′?▽?`?*?)?
Astrid shook a moment and then had to grab at a table to keep from falling over. She'd felt something—like the world itself was pulling her away and guiding her to the final drinking halls of the afterlife. Then she was here again; solid and once more part of the world. "What happened?"
"If it was anything like what hit me," Travis said, "you just got a goddess worth of mana slammed into you for a moment. I had a whole dungeon to keep me from being wiped out by it. Bookkeeper just, uh, rebuilt you I think. Astrid, are you alright?"
Looking at her hands, Astrid only vaguely sensed Travis' words. She could hear them, but akin to facing a difficult opponent in battle, she only had time for her own person right now and tucked the words away for later.
To say she felt different was an understatement. She was more solid and real than she'd ever been before in her life. She could feel the magic still within her, running like a river now where before it had been a small creek. The magic wasn't hers, but her body had learned to work it all the same.
Before placing herself under Travis' banner, she would have been deathly afraid of it all. Having magic was anathema to her people. Closing her eyes and directing it, she spread Bookkeeper's magic around the temple. Glowing runes on the walls flared to life, shelving that had stood empty now sprouted books like leaves on a branch, and the cold was pushed back by a blue-glowing fire in a nearby fireplace.
The only place before this temple that had felt so much like home before was the room Travis had specifically built for her and her pack. Now this temple rivaled it. "Yeah. I am fine."
More than fine, or so she would say if she was more inclined to talk about it. She did resolve to discuss it more with Travis and her pack, but there were better places for that. With just a thought she directed a small sliver of that mana into her body and straightened up.
"Brayden," Travis said privately, "don't say anything. I am not sure what it is, but I think we both know that Astrid won't talk about it until she's ready." After a moment he noticed Brayden nod very slowly. "Thanks."
Walking forward, Brayden interposed himself between Astrid (who had her pack gathered around her) and the rest of the dungeon's inhabitants. "From what Travis has told me, Astrid and her pack members are the closest Bookkeeper has to dedicated followers in the dungeon. Let's give them some space to make more formal introductions with her. We have other areas to dig, after all."
Fife could tell something was going on, but let it pass. Interpersonal issues weren't her strong suit—was something she'd said even back when she made questionable bedroom decisions. "Okay, so where now? I was all worked up when I saw that cave open and got nothing to beat up!"
With the group leaving her and her pack, Astrid grunted with relief. "What did you mean, she 'rebuilt me'?"
"Hang on, I'll translate. I think she'd bring the roof down if she tried to speak directly again." Travis waited, hopeful that Bookkeeper had heard him. "When she manifested too much of her power here, it channeled through two things: the temple and by extension me—and you. Not to brag, but I literally breathe mana, so there were ways for me to purge it all and maintain myself, as myself, outside that magic.
"You didn't have any protection. The magic blasted through you, scouring you and destroying everything that made you Astrid, replacing it with a tiny extension of Bookkeeper."
"So," Hreti said, cutting in, "it killed her?"
Relaying the question to Bookkeeper, Travis continued to translate. "Yes. Completely and utterly, leaving nothing remaining that could be reintegrated with her body. But you aren't just a human and wolf anymore, Astrid, you're a dungeon monster. You're tied to me and, more importantly, Bookkeeper herself.
"She fashioned you anew, using the last image she had of you as the basis. That was from moments after you walked into the temple. But there wasn't any of you left to make the new you, so she used part of herself."
Astrid was jerked from her mental self-investigation by the statement. "Part of Bookkeeper?"
Liv asked, "Does that mean anything?"
After a moment to relay the questions, Travis said, "It means that Astrid is… I don't know if this word is right, but avatar? Maybe something like— Oh, she said no. More like child."
The silence in the temple was deafening. No one spoke, not even Travis. Finally, Astrid asked, "Does that change anything?"
Travis relayed again. "Bookkeeper said it means you're going to have a lot more magic of your own to use, but it's up to you how to use it. None of this has to leave this room. That's not Bookkeeper talking, that's my word. If you want this to never be spoken of again, it won't be."
It was small relief amid the shock. Astrid felt one hand after another rest on her shoulders. There were layers of adamantine, leather, and steel between each of her pack's hands and her actual flesh, but she could feel a connection with each of them nonetheless. "I would appreciate that, Travis. When I accepted your offer, I thought life might become simpler for me. Following orders had been my working life, and now I was giving you complete control of my future."
"Bookkeeper says that, with the power you carry now, you could probably ignore a command I give and walk away from here. I hope you don't leave, though." Travis wasn't surprised his voice was heavy with emotion. Astrid had become important to him. He'd offered her a chance to leave all her old prejudices and judgments, and she'd decided to accept him. He adjusted his mental voice and spoke in her own language, "Your bravery has honored me and brought safety to those I wish to protect."
Her ears flicking, Astrid shook her head. "I have simply grown stronger. If I don't uphold my oath when I am my strongest, what hope have I of doing so when weakened?" It felt a little odd to Astrid to speak the Northern language, but once she'd started doing so, it rolled easily from her tongue. "We are bound, one to the other—as friends, if nothing else."
Travis was getting a little emotional about it, but snapped out when he heard something from beyond his primary focus. "If you want to test this new strength out, Fife found something she called a wyrm."
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