Xander groaned “I’m seriously not though! Christ, is it illegal to have a sense of gothic fashion or something? And I’m not a mistress of anything, it would be 'Lord' if I was a master of undeath, which I’m not.”
“No, it’s not unlawful, as far as I’m aware,” Rheagan snorted, “But are you seriously trying to tell me that those bones are just… fashion choices?” he asked dubiously.
“Well, no they’re not only about aesthetics,” Xander replied defensively “The bones are also protection. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options, you know” he replied.
“Liar!” hissed the masked person, pointing the still glowing staff in his direction “You and your unholy abominations will die in fire!” Xander tensed, getting ready to run even though he would probably have to leave his two creations behind to buy him time. Rheagan quickly stepped in front of the glowing staff without turning around, using his body to block the mage’s shot. “Calm down Ignaris,” he commanded with a firm tone, “And use your eyes and your brain. She’s a damned dryad, who, if my memory serves, are even worse with death magic than they are with fire.”
Xander’s eye twitched at being referred to as a female again, but he held his jaw clamped tight. The leader of the three seemed willing to be reasonable, so maybe now wasn’t the best time to argue with him about such things. The timid girl just clutched her silver medallion and seemed to be mumbling a prayer of some sort. “There’s no way it’s a dryad” the angry mage said in a voice like angry steam venting from a teapot. Xander was wondering at this point if maybe that person wasn’t human, but still didn’t want to interrupt.
Rheagan just sighed “Look, I know you still haven’t bought an Identify Skill Shard, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this. She’s a dryad, and while she is a mage, she doesn’t have any death magic at all as far as my ability can tell.”
“Wait,” Xander couldn’t help but interject, “You can tell what kind of magic I have?”
“Yes, it’s a family feature that I inherited from my mother.” the red head replied with a casual shrug, as if he hadn’t just dropped several bombs in the last minute or so. Xander was itching to ask questions, especially about skill shards, but Ignaris scoffed in their strange whistling voice. “If it tries to kill all of us, I’ll burn it to the ground, and maybe you too…”
“No, you won't,” Rheagan said with a roll of his eyes which should have been hard to catch in the dim light of the torches, though Xander’s enhanced night time vision was able to discern it well enough. “Look Miss-” he started, but Xander broke in again. “I’m a freaking dude, damn it, and yes I know what I look like, but that doesn’t freaking matter!” he said, a bit heated after the repeated misgendering. Rheagan quirked an eyebrow, then snorted “Yeah, sure. You’re already super weird, so why not? Alright, sir,” he stressed the pronoun, “Since we are going to assume that you are the opposite of what you appear to be, can you at least tell us what you’re doing wandering around a dungeon alone then?”
“Uhhhhhh…” Xander said, a bit caught off guard by Rheagan’s relative non-chalance about the whole situation. “I came here to get stronger and get some loot by killing wolves, I guess?”
“You guess?” the red head demanded, but then sighed. “Alright, by the Nine, everyone just relax. No need to fight amongst us sentients. Ignaris, put that staff away, Sibil, you can stop wasting mana by praying to your god, and you stranger, can give me your name.” The tension didn’t leave the air immediately, but did eventually retreat like a beaten wolf slinking off to lick its wounds. “I’m Xander, and you are right, I don’t have any death magic. These two are just plants that I’ve animated and covered in bone to protect them, like my armor protects me.”
“See guys? She’s... I mean he’s not so bad, and if we let him tag along maybe we can take out the boss faster. What do you say Xander? Want to join us in clearing out this dungeon?”
“Wait, you’re going to offer me a spot on your team just like that?” Xander asked incredulously as the other two looked at their leader in disbelief as well. “I mean seriously, we just met in this dark and dangerous dungeon…” he said, though there wasn’t any heat in his statement. His words were mostly just to give him some more time to think about the offer more. Rheagan just cocked an eyebrow and waited for an actual answer to his question.
Thinking things through, if this guy really believed him, then maybe it was a good first step in convincing others that he wasn’t a necromancer. That could be invaluable since everyone else seemed to want to kill him on sight, plus without Augustus there to ‘back him up’ the boss fight suddenly became a bit more daunting. Working with people who seemed to know what they were doing would make the fight a lot safer.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
On the flip side, it was possible that Rheagan could be looking to stab him in the back as well, that he just wanted to use Xander as fodder for the boss fight and then would turn around and kill him after it was over. It would give him plausible deniability if local authorities investigated murders, and he would be more worn down after a fight in theory. It didn’t really feel like that was the case though, if they wanted to kill him then they could have. Xander shrugged, coming to a decision. “Yeah… I’ll help you guys with the boss, but what about the loot? Are we going to split that evenly or what?”
Rheagan chuckled, “Since we’ll be doing most of the work we’ll get to keep any items that we loot from the boss, but we’ll split the coins evenly.”
Xander frowned a bit, “I don’t think that’s fair… I was going to take down the boss myself and get everything.” he said, crossing his arms. Ignaris hissed in anger, but Rheagan waved him off again. “Look, I get what you’re saying, but even if you could, which I doubt, we were already here as well. And we have no idea what is going to drop, if anything at all.”
“That’s even more reason to just divide up everything evenly, isn’t it?” Xander insisted. He was tired of people taking advantage of him, but still believed in making fair deals. “Look, you can pay me out for a quarter of whatever the items are worth then, or I can buy one off of you if I want it, does that sound better?”
Rheagan hesitated for a moment, but then shrugged. “Alright, sure, even split all around. Let’s get moving though since it’s already dark. Introductions first though. My name is Rheagan Heintfeld and I’m a Mystic Swordsman. This is the Lava Mage Ignaris, and this is Sibil, a Priestess Initiate of Jhakor” he said, motioning to each of them in turn before throwing his arms wide passionately. “And together, we are the Firestarters!”
—--------------------------------
Half a dozen more bramble wolves were slain easily by the group, especially with Xander’s minions leading the way, but he had to admit that the Firestarters lived up to their name. Rheagan’s sword lit with flame as he swung it about with a good deal of precision, and Ignaris threw small orbs of condensed lava that bored holes into the bramble wolves with ease, melting through their bodies and lighting fires. Even the supposed priestess wielded flame, her medallion glowing as she called upon her god to bring flaming strikes down from overhead at the monsters.
Xander approached Rheagan as they walked and asked curiously, “Can Sibil do any healing magic? I thought priestesses normally were about healing and stuff?” He spoke quietly, trying not to be overheard by the others, and Rheagan matched his volume. “What makes you think that? Priests and Priestesses use whatever kind of magic their deity is aligned with, and I assure you that Jhakor is not a gentle deity.”
“Well then is healing magic rare? Do we just have to rely on our regeneration stat?”
“Eh, healing isn’t too uncommon. Alchemists can make healing potions, there are a few gods who give their followers healing magic, and there are some classes that grant it as well. Having a high regeneration stat can help as well, but regeneration rates vary from race to race, as well as what can be regenerated. How do you not know any of this? I understand that dryads live in the forests and tend to be secluded, but you seem well educated.”
Xander was happy to be learning all this information, but was surprised at Rheagan’s insight. “What makes you think I’m well educated?” he asked curiously.
“Well to start with, you can speak the common tongue instead of just Sylvan, but there is also your vocabulary. If you were a human I would have expected that you were either a scholar or raised in a noble household, like myself” Rheagan explained.
“Wait, you’re a noble? If that’s the case, why aren’t you…” Xander trailed off, not wanting to insult the guy when he had no idea what nobility did or didn’t do in this world, but Rheagan just smirked. “Why am I not what? Surrounded by guards or perhaps holed up on my family’s estate somewhere, hmmm?” Xander winced and started to say something, but the red haired swordsman cut him off. “No, don’t worry about that either, it’s a very common perception that people have of nobility, and I’ll admit that there is some truth to it as well, at least for some houses in the more central areas of the Kingdom. But I am a Heintfeld, and we earn our place as nobility by following the example of the founder of our house.” he said with pride evident in his voice, even straightening up as he spoke.
“Oh that's… uhh… interesting.” Xander said, having of course never heard of the Heintfeld or any other noble houses. He was about to say something to that effect, when he was struck by something the red head had said before the remark about nobility. “Wait… English is the common tongue of Gaellus? I mean, I guess I have been able to understand everyone I’ve come across before except maybe the gnoll?”
Rheagan looked confused. “English? I’ve never heard of that language. We’re speaking Kantor, also known as the common tongue…” he said with a question in his voice. “Most intelligent races speak it, though I’ve heard rumors of distant lands across the oceans that do not.” Xander focused on the words that the man spoke, and realized that the words themselves were indeed not English at all. They were some other language that didn’t really align with what he knew of any languages back on Earth.
Before he could ask another question though, Ignaris let out an urgent hiss. Xander peeked around the corner they had approached and saw that the maze in front of them opened up into a large area that was rockier than the rest of the dungeon. Huge slabs of stone lay scattered about, with a particularly large boulder in the very center of the clearing. Several familiar looking bramble wolves lay about sleeping on a few of the stones, but there was one that stood out. On top of the massive central boulder lay a monster of a beast. It was easily several times larger than the others, and all along its corded wooden muscles were several glowing green sigils. Lifting its head, the monster looked in their direction and growled in a low rumbling tone that could be felt in the group’s bones.
“Well, I don’t think that sneaking up on the boss is an option any longer,” noted Rheagan dryly, a smirk on his lips, “So let's put these beasts down.”