DD 203 Ch 15

Chapter 15

Tish and Miriam moved as if they were a black streak through the dungeon.

"Where is your contact?" Tish asked, turning to the older elf.

Miriam was an odd one, very mercenary in everything she did. She had a strange class that relied on her making money to retain her enormous strength. 

The older elf had only recently rejoined the censors after being dug up from the Underroot, where she had been operating as Madam Root.

The emperor had originally removed Miriam from his services and put a bounty on her head, causing her to go into the criminal underground of the Elven World.

So it was no surprise that when they needed to build a group of informants among the human sections of the dungeon, Miriam performed fantastically. She worked her way through the seedier adventurers, creating a network of people that would look out for assassins after the princess. 

Miriam led Tish through the crowd, slipping past the pristine United Guilds establishments that lined the front of the streets and into the back alley of the dungeon safe zone. She paused at a door, knocking in a strange beat.

Tish raised an eyebrow. 

"It's some famous song," Miriam shrugged. "I don't make this shit up." 

The door cracked open an inch. A man with spiky green hair poked just his eyes through the crack. "What do you want?" 

"You're the one who sent me a message," Miriam retorted, putting her hands on the door and shoving it open.

The human adventurer was no match for her strength, and she plowed right through into the room. 

"Hey," the man hissed. "Damn it." His head whipped back and forth as if to see if anyone had seen them. 

Miriam closed the door behind them and sat down, pulling a chair over to sit in front of the door. "This is Tish," she gestured to the other elf. "You said there were high-level adventurers moving through?" 

"Yeah, earlier today," he replied, looking to the side as if he suddenly didn't want to be in the space. "Look, if it's alright with you, I would just like to get my money and get out." 

Miriam laughed in his face. "Yeah, you get the money after we confirm the details." She slapped her hands together with urgency. 

"Fine. There were four of them. They met up with the professor from the royal college," he said. 

Tish leaned forward when the informant mentioned the professor. "Are you sure they weren't with the college?" 

The man with spiky green hair shook his head. "No, I know the type. They are not good people." 

"Well, neither is the professor," Miriam muttered. "Then again, shit tends to attract flies." 

Tish sighed at Miriam's use of language. Try as she might, the older elf was never going to be anything but brash, unless a lot of money was involved. At that point, Miriam could be the sweetest woman on earth. 

"So, four of them," Tish tried to get the man to continue talking. 

"Yeah, four. Three guys and a girl. They met up with the professor. Some things traded hands. I couldn't see what they were passing. They did it all with their CIDs. And then they vanished." 

"Vanished?" Miriam asked. 

"Yeah, they were fast as fuck or it was a stealth ability. Whatever ability they used was very quick." 

"You mean they're already gone?" Tish slammed a hand down against the door. "They're already fucking gone. Why are we here, Miriam?" 

"Information," the older elf chided her. "I doubt they're going to sprint down there and attack the princess without any information. Besides, Broken Blade's there." 

"Don't call her that," Tish sighed. 

"Crimson does." 

"Yeah, Crimson can get away with calling Neldra Lyntean whatever she wants. You and I cannot," Tish retorted. 

Miriam shrugged with a smile on her face. "Maybe you can't." 

Tish rolled her eyes. How she had become the junior one amongst the censors was anyone's guess. It was her fault that she was paired with two old monsters on this mission to protect the princess. 

"All right, four of them. Crazy fast. Any more information?" Miriam looked at the man. 

"I told you I got it. I had information," he held out his hand for money. 

Miriam threw out two black mana stones. "For this level of information, that's all you get." 

"What?" The man slammed his hand down on the table as he stood. 

Miriam didn't even get out of her chair before she grabbed him by the lapel of his shirt and lifted him off the floor. "There's nothing here. They met the professor. That’s all you gave me.”

The man was trying his best not to be intimidated. But any normal human would be very much intimidated by Miriam. "Look, I've told you what I know. They wore masks. You need to pay me appropriately," his voice shook slightly. 

Miriam sighed a little more. She pulled out a single red stone and put it in his palm. "Just remember next time to get more than this before you call me." Miriam stood up, still holding the man, and set him down before whipping her chair away from the door. "Tish, let's go." 

But before Tish could activate her ability to zip them out, the ground shook underneath them.

The vibrations were a low rumble for just a moment before they escalated to the point that Tish had to hold onto the door lest she fall over. On the other hand, Miriam stood there with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. The man, on the other hand, fell on his ass. 

"What did you two do?" He asked accusingly, ducking under a table.

"This isn't us, idiot." Miriam stared down at the ground and kicked hard enough to break the floor of the building before sticking her hand in the hole and feeling the ground for the dungeon. The whole dungeon floor was vibrating. 

"Some big fight?" Tish asked. 

"No," Miriam answered quickly. "Even when Crimson was going ballistic, all it did was small little vibrations. No, this would be like a thousand Crimsons going all out. This isn't anyone. This is the dungeon itself." 

Miriam picked her hand up and opened the door. The earthquake was still happening, but the older elf walked with stable footing out the door. Tish grimaced, activating her ability to scoop up Miriam and herself before zipping through the safe zone back to the princess.

But as Tish reached the staircase that would lead them back up the dungeon, she was met with a moving stone wall. She canceled her ability, landing halfway through the staircase. 

For once, Miriam was speechless. She reached her hand out to touch it and jerked her hand away. 

"It's hot," Tish frowned. It must be from the friction of movement, which meant they were traveling quickly.

"I think this safe zone's moving." Miriam's words echoed Tish’s thoughts. 

"No shit," Tish frowned. "The question is, where are we going?" 

Miriam crossed her arms and tapped her foot. The woman was still stable despite the shaking dungeon floor. Tish, on the other hand, was bracing herself in the stairway. 

"Maybe we should get out of the stairs.”

“It's just right here." Miriam tapped at the space that was currently filled with quickly moving stone. A moment later, another opening blurred past, and Miriam took a step back. "On second thought, let's take a step back." 

After about five minutes of movement, the stairway connected with another and stopped abruptly.

Miriam rushed up the staircase, past the boss room, to the floor, only to see an unfamiliar landscape of the dungeon. 

"Maybe we should keep going," Tish offered. 

"No." Miriam's tone was grave. "We have to go down as deep as we can in the dungeon, recruiting elves along the way. Finding the princess is a priority, but we shouldn't run around on our own." The older elf had a rather grim expression on her face.

Tish nodded. Now that Miriam was serious, Tish wasn't going to argue. Miriam rarely got serious. 

"Alright, let's go." Tish activated her ability, swallowing Miriam in darkness and zipping through the dungeon, going as deep as they could. 

***

Professor Sai and Gafar were nearing the 35th floor safe zone.

Professor Gafar continued to fiddle with his CID. It seemed he had made some sort of connection, so he started typing a message out to send back. Lily Sai checked her own CID for connectivity, but found nothing. Rather than question the cantankerous professor, she continued their journey to the safe zone. 

She reached the boss room first and halted, seeing something she had not been expecting in her wildest dreams.

Three Naga were exiting the boss doors, clearly talking and holding up loot.

The professor froze, grabbing Gafar and pulling him to the side.

The environment did not make for the best hiding, but they were far enough away that Lily hoped they could hide behind the thin palm tree. 

Professor Sai's heart raced seeing the Naga. The last time she had seen them was at the fight at the end of last school year. Despite all her efforts, she felt her pulse race and her skin prickle. She was scared for both herself and the students. 

"Who are you talking to?" Professor Sai glanced at Gafar, who was engrossed in his own CID and not even looking at the Naga ahead of him. 

"None of your business." The Royal College professor shifted his CID so she could not see the screen. "I wouldn't worry about those Naga though," he said. 

Professor Sai, glanced at him, a frown of confusion on her face. "Of course we have to worry about the Naga. The elves barely hold them at bay. If they've made it here, then we have a massive issue on our hands. Not just the safety of the students, but of all of humanity." 

Professor Gafar gave her a broad smile. "Oh no, I just mean you need to worry about yourself." 

Pain punched through her lower back, and she couldn't even breathe. She couldn't even take a breath with how sharp the pain had been.

A masked man appeared behind her, holding onto her shoulder. He had come out of nowhere, likely using some sort of stealth ability. His dagger punched into her kidneys twice more, and she could feel herself blood rushing down her back and over her hips. 

Another man reappeared next to Professor Gafar. The professor smiled at them. "Good, I see you were able to not get caught in whatever this is." The professor gestured around at everything. "You have a job to do, and currently we have enough chaos that now might be the perfect time."

Professor Sai felt her life as it bled out her back. "What have you done?" She spat, blood welling up in her throat. 

"We've come to settle a job," the man said, and dropped her on the ground. 

"Leave her and alert the Naga as we go," Professor Gafar said. "You've wounded her badly enough that she won't survive. Besides, Ken has an ability to detect lies. I’d like to put him at ease." The man gave Lily Sai a slimy smile before directing his attention back to the assassins. "We have other things to take care of. Have you investigated the safe zone?" The professor asked the two masked men. 

"It's full of Naga, though they aren't an extremely high level like the ones that invaded Haylon," the man who had ambushed Lily reported. 

"Good, then let's get the job done. Then you can get out of here." Professor Gafar raised his hands and shouted wordlessly towards the Naga, causing them to look in this direction.

The two masked men grabbed the other professor and faded into nothing, disappearing before Lily's eyes. 

She spat on the ground, watching sand shift as they rushed away. The Naga hurried towards her. Lily worried the assassins were the type to be thorough, but she needed them to think she had died.

Lily waited until the Naga were upon her. The first one thrust its trident into her leg. Rather than scream, she grabbed the trident and thrashed, pulling the Naga to the ground. She hoped that this would be enough, that Gafar and the assassins were gone, because she now had to fight. 

Being a former teacher at Halon, having been replaced by the Harem Queen, and having Crimson as the other teacher present, she was often underestimated.

Then again, compared to those two freaks, she really was not as strong. But she could hold her own.

Golden fire burst from Lily as she wrestled with the Naga. The Naga quickly went up in flames like an oil-soaked cotton ball. 

She put a hand to her back, the golden flames licking into the wounds and healing her as she rolled to her feet. A longsword materialized from her CID as she flicked it back and forth to ward the other two off of her for a moment. Her professional attire was ruined, but it wasn't as if she didn't have experience adventuring. After a few more taps on her CID, ornate chainmail encompassed her torso, and a skirt of blades wrapped around her hips. 

The Naga didn't wait for her healing to take full effect. Two of them came swinging with flambergs. She blocked the first and parried the second, dragging his large sword down to the ground where she could stomp on it to keep him in place. More golden flames escaped her hands, scorching and blinding the other Naga.

It screamed and blindly swung wide.

A radiant bolt of fire then zipped out of her hand, burning the wrists of the Naga whose sword she had trapped. 

"If you think I'm an easy target, you're wrong," she said. Her longsword cut up and through the neck of the Naga who was reeling back with burnt hands.

It wasn’t enough to kill the hardy creature. The blood seeping out of its wound wasn’t enough to put it down.

He had let go of his flamberg, and she cut twice more at him, driving him back, only for the blinded Naga to come in swinging.

She had to dance back, wincing in pain. Her wounds still needed healing. She pulled a potion out of her CID and slugged it back before she unleashed another blinding bolt of fire.

This time the Naga raised its sword, a veil of blue water encompassing both of them and protecting them from her most recent attack. The one who had dropped its sword rushed her in a slithering sprint. 

Lily met the rushing Naga head-on, her feet digging deep in the sand. A golden shell wrapped around her and she slammed into the Naga, driving it back.

The two of them hit with such force that the sand around them exploded, and she was able to follow up with three more swings of her sword, piling on damage to the already wounded Naga. 

The other tried to press her from the side, but she danced around the wounded one, using its body to prevent its fellow from getting into the fight. She chanted quickly under her breath before throwing a burst of golden fire at the ground beneath the two Naga. 

The fire expanded in a ring before a pillar of flame erupted around both of them.

This time the Naga had not been quick enough to protect itself with mobility, and both of them were badly singed. The already wounded Naga fell down and reached for a pouch at its waist. 

With its burnt hands, it fumbled with the strings. Lily was not about to let it draw anything from the pouch and stabbed her sword through its forearm, twisting the weapon and then pulling back. The healthy Naga was mid-swing, and its flamberg cut off the other Naga's arm at the wrist. She pulled her sword out and finished the wounded Naga with another blast of fire before squaring up against the remaining enemy. 

"I know you can't understand me," she said, staring down the length of her sword, "but I'm about to fuck you up." 

The Naga said something in its own hissing language, most likely its own taunt, before charging her with a guttural roar.

She blocked high, only for the Naga to spit a green glob at her face, forcing her to duck and try to twist around its next strike.

The flamberg scraped off her chainmail and was guided away from her flesh by the bladed skirt. It scraped a thin layer off her thigh, but that was far better than it could have been.

She cursed as she came back around, hurling more fire at the naga and following it up with her sword. "It seems you can learn a trick or two," she muttered, stomping her heels on the very tip of its tail.

The naga jerked to a stop, failing to evade both of her attacks. 

Lily drew her sword back and stabbed the naga's tail, pinning it to the ground. She then drew a large battle axe from her CID and ended the fight with a heavy overhead swing.

Despite the naga's strength, the heavy axe was too much for it to block. The weapon managed to cleave its skull open in a single blow. 

Lily swept the axe back into her CID before removing the sword. She held her hand to her hip as golden flames danced along her skin, still healing the injuries that the assassins working with the other professor had caused her. 

"What the fuck?" Professor Sai shook her head, putting away her equipment and changing back into a clean set of blouse and skirt. She fluffed her hair, her expression incredulous. "You would think in a disaster like this, people would put aside their petty attempts." 

She sighed, "I better get back and make sure Neldra is aware of what the Royal College has afoot." She then re-equipped chainmail in her bladed skirt, realizing that it was likely for the best that she had her back armored in case they came at her again. 

However, she had a feeling that the cowardly professor had already gone down to try and kill the low-level students she was meant to keep alive. Bracing, she charged forward despite her body’s protests.

AN - Sorry for some dictation errors, with this one, I got another hand to help me weed those out. We've moved in front of the editor again unfortunately.