The Pinnacle Warrior

“Usually, I’m of the opinion that each party member gets a fair share, with the support getting a double share, like it always is. In that case, we’d split the earnings in half, half to you two and the other half to us. Right now, though, I will ask that we not give an extra share to you two. We have a debt that’s under control, but the interest is painfully high. It’d be better if we could pay it off faster instead, as such, we’d like to ask that you let the party, for now at least, take equal shares of the total payout. Opinions?”

“I’m fine with that.“ Benedict shrugged noncommittally. “I really don’t have a whole lot that I need to buy right now, and I’m gonna assume that once this debt is paid off, I’m going to get the regular double share?”

“If you believe you deserve it.“ Muti squinted her eyes as she effectively accused the Bard of not meriting the double share almost all supporters received. “If you do not, you can share it with the more deserving who are on the front lines.”

“How else will I make sure that my flute stays shiny, than to waste every copper piece I get on polishing it! And besides, I need to find some brightly colored leather to match with my new fellow backliner, and I’ll need to start stockpiling at some point to get there.”

“Don’t bring me into this.” Skandr said from his position between the two groups. He served almost as an intermediary between the two newcomers and the two more seasoned fighters. “If you take the double share, that means I get less, and I wouldn’t say no to making more money.”

“I’m wounded! But, in all seriousness, I’m really not too worried about it. You three are obviously going to help us two more than we’re helping you right now, so I’m happy to take just a regular share. Even if it’s in the longer term as well, I’m pretty confident I’ll still come out ahead.” As Benedict spoke, he shrugged a little helplessly, but still smiled.

“For both of your information,” Astrid said, “We are happy to pool our funds together if there’s something that comes up that would really help the party that’s equipment only for one of you. An example of that is my shield, which is what we’re paying off right now.“

“So, if we saw a really good pair of gauntlets for me? You’d be willing to pay to buy me them?” Felix asked.

“If it was sometime soon, probably not.“ Astrid answered honestly. “We just barely bought the shield, and all three of us are pretty eager to stay out of debt. If we have a little bit of time to build up our reserves again, we’d love to. I can see that if you had a pair of gauntlets that I was quite interested in a couple months ago, you’d be able to do even more, so I’m more than happy to plan on ensuring that you get good equipment sooner rather than later. So long as we keep delving together, you know.”

“I appreciate the honesty.” Felix said. “I have no problem even with giving you a half of my share on the condition that it gets paid back to me later, because I really don’t have any expenses right now. Just happy to help pay off your stuff and keep the payments from stretching out longer.”

Muti stepped forward, put her hand on the much shorter man’s shoulder, and nodded appreciatively. “I knew you were my kind of man. I will not doubt you so quickly again.”

Felix looked around in a panic for a moment, and after trying to figure out how to respond to that, he looked at Skandr in a panic. The Lightningmage waved him off and explained, “I don’t think she means that I’m quite the way you seem to think she is. Muti, are you trying to say that you’re romantically interested in Felix?”

“He is too skinny.” She answered without giving any more explanation, and Felix squinted, looked at her, and then laughed to himself. Or perhaps at himself.

“Fair enough. Now, we’re just going to go back to town now?”

The three higher level party members spoke in unison, “Yup.”

***

“We’re not going to make any progress on our debts without getting back onto the third floor.“ Skandr said while pointing at Astrid with his spoon across the table.

“And we knew that before we went down there.” She replied. “Even so, it’s just one day, so we should be fine. After all, we can pay for our food today, and still have enough to pay off today’s interest.”

“Only because Felix gave us half his share.” Skandr shrugged at Astrid‘s quick answer, continuing, “Just because I know that doesn’t mean that it’s not frustrating to be stuck in a holding pattern, even for a day. We can barely pay for our expenses, splitting it this way, and, you know, I get a little worried at the thought that we won’t be able to do anything but watch our debts accumulate and grow higher.”

“We’ve had this conversation 1000 times, Skandr. I don’t know what else to tell you. We’re doing OK, we’re going to continue to be OK, and before long, we won’t be in debt anymore. I’m not gonna say it again.” Despite herself, Astrid knew that she would, in fact, say this again. Whether it was in the next few days, or maybe only after the next time they decided that it was worth it to go into debt to buy something, she couldn’t say. Even so, it was an inevitability that Skandr would get nervous about something, and it was similarly inevitable that Astrid would say something about it when he lost himself in negativity and Muti either considered saying something directly or merely sat behind them and grumbled something about how “Humans are all worried about stupid money that doesn’t matter.”

“We keep moving to spend more and more time in the Dungeon. Doesn’t that… worry you?” Skandr suddenly asked. Before Astrid could say anything in response, he shrugged, continuing, “I know I just talked about this, but now that I’ve said it, I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that the light of the Dungeon will be the only one we see for days on end. Already, once we get to the fifth floor and start clearing the Boss, then we’ll have to spend a couple days in the Dungeon to make it worth it. Then there’s the Iron and Steel tier Dungeon entrances and getting into the Dungeon itself. Weeks and months can be spent in the Dungeon, and…” He trailed off, looking at Astrid.

“It’s what we signed up for, Skandr. I don’t know what else to tell you.” The Warrior met his eyes directly, unwilling to bend. “Changing topic,” Astrid said as Skandr seemed to want to continue the conversation, “how many more delvers do you think are going to leave?“

It hasn’t been long since Markus‘s party was ambushed, and already there’d been six delvers that decided to give up on their path. There were about 80 of them at this point, so it wasn’t nearly as impactful as it’d been in Schteldt directly after the surge.

“I don’t know.“ Skandr sighed. “Most people who have gotten this far have spent so long delving, at least most of a year, that they hesitate to leave. After all, just about everyone who ends up a delver has always wanted to be one. If there ends up being something really scary that happens, then they’ll probably leave, but death was already a possibility, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Astrid answered, thinking of how many people had fled from delving in Schteldt again. 

“Those who leave do not deserve to delve.“ Muti‘s answer was as it usually was for her, brusque, rough, and direct. “The Dungeon has always been an enemy, and anything you encounter in there desires to harm you. If you are unwilling to confront that which wants to kill you, you should not enter places where everything hates you.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Astrid answered, thinking about the few times they’d run into strangers in the Dungeon, and how they’d been unfriendly at best. “Now eat your fill, and I’ll train with you before long. After all, we’ve got plenty of time before we can get back in the Dungeon.”

Muti grinned widely at the mention of training. Astrid felt her own face twist up a little, knowing that the Rogue took a twisted amount of pleasure in lording over her “leader“ any opportunity to teach, remonstrate, or generally act superior. Despite herself, Astrid felt no small measure of satisfaction in the growing humility that Muti’s training forced on her. That paired with everything else she had gone through in the past nearly year helped her to feel somewhat confident that, were she to be confronted with someone like Tobias deliberately needling and provoking her, she would be able to keep from doing anything that would harm her own future prospects. No attacks that could be construed as a murder attempt, More and more, as she looked back on that moment of petty rage, she cursed herself, cringing and insulting her idiocy. Whether she would be able to keep herself from doing something stupid again in the future was unimportant.

While she was thinking as much, Astrid noticed Muti stuffing more and more in her face, eating her soup so quickly that small bite marks appeared in her spoon’s handle. Then, less than a minute later, the Barbarian put the spoon to the side, lifted her bowl to her face, and slurped down the rest of the stew in record time.

“Now we train.” She grinned with dribbles of broth coming from the corner of her mouth which she quickly lapped up. “I will wait.”

***

“Both of you are insane.“ Benedict called down from a short ways outside of the training arena. “And you’re no better, Felix.“

Astrid grunted as she twisted Muti’s arm painfully and the Rogue reluctantly hissed out the sound of surrender as they both ignored the Bard. Astrid smiled as she stepped away and allowed Muti to gingerly touch at her elbow. After maybe half a minute, Muti seemed satisfied in thinking that she hadn’t been permanently damaged and grudgingly accepted Astrid‘s hand up.

Felix had already been put through his paces by the other two women, but because he was 2 levels lower than them, there really wasn’t anything that he could do in direct combat with either of them. The attribute difference between them was simply insurmountable, and try as he might, he didn’t have the Skill quality to overcome that difference. Even so, he was earnest in attempting to train, and he took to every instruction that was given to him without complaint or hesitation.

“I’m probably going to have to be insane to keep up with these two.“ Felix said as he dodged a slow rain of lightning bolts. As Skandr’s magical Skills flashed past him, Felix forced himself to evaluate which ones could be dodged, and which ones needed to be braced against. It didn’t take long for him to take several hits that he shouldn’t have, but Astrid watched as he forced himself to continue working, to continue improving, and she nodded appreciatively as he struggled through the pain and effort. Before long, though, she turned her attention to Benedict, who just watched the other four as they pushed themselves in training.

As she stepped away from the stretching Muti and stood comfortably, Astrid walked up to the edge of the arena, where she stood in front of Benedict. “So, what are you doing?“

“Watching the hard work of my party members, of course! Learning how you all fight, that’s going to be very helpful for me. I need to make sure I see how you’re all doing, right?”  He grinned, and Astrid again was struck by how the man was constantly grinning, posturing, and acting as if there wasn’t anything serious happening. Even so, he was throwing in with their party, so he had to be willing to work hard in the Dungeon…

“OK, that makes some measure of sense.” Astrid allowed, still squinting a bit in suspicion. “However, I know that Healers get experience when they heal people and just about every Class that isn’t a combat Class does something like that, though I don’t know if I’d consider Bard much of a combat Class. Obviously, you’re getting levels from delving, do you also get experience from healing people?”

Benedict waved off the question. “Not for healing, no. Even though it does take a certain measure of… performative ability, shall we say, I can only gain experience outside of combat through performances. There are requirements that I’m not exactly sure about to make the Great One consider it as something to grant experience, but it does need to be more than a few people, and not those who are party members or anything like that.”

“And could you, I don’t know, go into the inn and perform to get experience?”

“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

“We’re all rubbing our faces in the dirt, and we’re not even getting experience for it.“ She said it as reasonably as she could manage, though Astrid did see as Felix’s attention slipped and he took a Lightning Bolt that made him shudder, though he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he shouted out, “She’s got a point there! You can’t hide it forever.”

Benedict didn’t miss a beat as he picked a small pebble up and hucked it at Felix, but the Bodyguard didn’t care enough to react in any way. He merely laughed as he continued trying to recover from Skandr’s attack. The pebble bounced off his forehead, and Felix didn’t move as Astrid narrowed her eyes and looked at Benedict. The man fought to appear unconcerned, but he couldn’t quite manage it. His ever present smile faltered a little while Astrid asked, “And what is it that you can’t hide forever?”

“I know I can’t hide it forever,“ Benedict hedged, “but can I make it more than one day, please?”

“Nope!“ Astrid said with a grin, surprised when Muti suddenly appeared behind the bar and threw her arm around him and held him close. His blood drained from his face as his eyes went wide in sudden terror  and, in a movement obviously born of hours of practice, he turned his face towards hers and screamed wordlessly. AS soon as the sound exploded from his mouth, her head rocked back, golden hair flying in every direction as if her head was caught in a gale force wind. Blood trickled from Muti’s nose as her Self Mastery was overwhelmed by Benedict‘s Magical Potency. She fell to one knee, blinking owlishly, and after a couple seconds of stunned silence from all five party members, the Bard turned his attention to everyone, his hands up in apology.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I really—“

“You are stronger than I thought.“ Muti grinned as she finally gathered herself and rose up while she wiped the blood from her face. She reached that same, bloody hand out and clasped Benedict‘s shoulder, smearing her blood onto him. He winced in disgust as he was forced to accept it, and then, he groaned as he knuckled at his forehead.

“I guess I’ll accept that as the compliment you intend for it to be. Glad to have earned your trust and confidence.“

“Oh no, I am not confident in you.” Muti shook her head emphatically as she said it, “You are too weak. Magic? Trustworthy? Never. You can only trust in the strength of your body.”

“And you don’t trust me? I’m offended!” Skandr said as he stopped tormenting Felix. “We’ve worked together for so long!“

“You cannot fight with only your weapons.” Muti answered with a shrug. “Even with a knife, you need to use your magic to make yourself deadly. That is embarrassing. You cannot even kill a level 6 gnoll by yourself with your weapons.”

“This is a conversation we’ve had before, and frankly, I don’t care.“ Astrid said as she pushed the group’s attention away from the distraction that Benedict was obviously leaning into. “I’m not letting you hide whatever it is that you’re trying to hide. If you’re going to tell us now, that’ll turn out better for everybody. If you’re gonna keep trying to hide it, then I’m going to have to rip it out of you somehow. I’d rather not.”

“Will we torture him?“ With a frighteningly excited gleam in her eye. “I have my knives.“

“Duchess above, I will not trust you with any of our party members like that.” Astrid felt her eyebrows rise as she said as much. “Or captives for that matter. No, social pressure should be more than enough, Muti. That said, I suppose if it’s necessary, I might allow you to bring out the needles.”

“The needles? How cruel. I did not think that you would leap so quickly to some of the most painful of options. Why not the knives?”

“How in the six hells are the needles worse than the knives?” As Muti went to answer the question, Benedict shook his head to stop her from answering his question. “I didn’t wanna know. It was a rhetorical question. Anyways, I guess I’ll tell you to save myself from literal torture.”

Even though he said it, he didn’t say anything for a few short seconds. Instead, his jaw and throat worked for a moment before he growled to himself and whispered, “… ight.”

“You’re gonna need to speak more clearly than that.“ Astrid said as she leaned closer to the Bard.

“I get stage fright.“ He repeated, grinding his teeth as he looked up at her. Muti cocked her head to the side, obviously unsure of what exactly he was saying, though Skandr had no hesitation in throwing his head back and laughing aloud. While Astrid went to join him, Benedict said defensively, “Look, it happens to a lot of men!”