I Hate Dungeon School

We slept in that next morning. Thankfully, neither of us had any classes to worry about, and it was nice to sleep in. Especially since I really wasn't looking forward to today.

Today, I would have to explain to the girls what was going on and see who was in. Which meant telling Myth I was in a roundabout way working for the Knights of the Everspring, which was going to piss her royally off, and for good reason. She had every reason to hate them, and me by association.

But the opportunities were too good, and the downsides were unthinkable for me.

There was also the conversation up on the mountain. Myth hadn't handled my temporary death very well. Nobody did, but it was hitting her exceptionally hard. She tried to put on a brave face, was more responsible, took her role seriously, and even started cutting back on her smoking.

She was trying, and I don't entirely know if it was working. I was worried she was getting close to completely breaking, and deep in my heart I knew for sure this would probably be what does it.

"I can feel the stress wafting off you, Alta," Eira grumbled, her eyes still closed. Her head was resting on my shoulder, and her warmth definitely was not helping me want to get out of bed.

"Sorry, sweetness, brain won't stop thinking." I sighed and reached over to pet the soft black hair, which never seemed to look messy, no matter what.

"Tell it to stop thinking. At least not so loudly." She mumbled, pulling herself closer.

"Alas, my brain be a rebellious wench! Can't do a thing with it."

"Cursed thinking wretch! Leave my girlfriend alone, brain!" She giggled and kissed me on my forehead before kissing me all over my face.

I couldn't help but giggle as I playfully resisted the onslaught of love. Eventually, we both surrendered.

"Thanks, love. I needed that. I'm just really worried about everything. This is going to be a rough day, and I know that even in the best case, this is going to go very badly with Myth." I sighed as I dragged myself from the warm embrace of the covers.

"You'll do fine. And I'll be here for you. You can stay over all you need to until stuff blows over, you know." Eira said, getting up by herself.

"I love your confidence in me," I said as I pulled my tunic over the top of my head.

We both finished dressing. I just then remembered I had completely forgotten to tell her about the sending crystals.

"Oh! I totally forgot, I got us a gift!" I said, holding up the box I had them in.

"Oooh! And 'us' gift! What are they?" Eira said, her eyes widening excitedly.

I set the box on the bed and sat next to Eira.

"So, I know I'm going to get to my internship after summer break, and I know that it's likely we'll be apart for a while. And I absolutely hate this for us. So I got something that might help with that." I carefully unwrapped the box, revealing the sending crystals.

They were simple things, carefully carved to look almost like little tablets of crystalline stone, with a simple rune at the bottom.

"Are these what I think they are? Those new paired portable sending crystals? Gods above and below, Alta! How?!" She said, a huge smile forming on her face.

"That weird little job I did for Farina paid well enough to cover them. all we have to do is touch the little rune for a few seconds, and the stones will let us speak between them." I did exactly that with the one I chose for myself, and hers made a little musical chime. She picked it up carefully and touched her thumb to the rune.

"And there we go! Now we can talk no matter how far apart we are!" I said, my voice echoing from her crystal.

Eira sat there with a smile on her face for a long moment. Then she sniffled, and I saw tears form in the corners of her eyes. She then embraced me tightly.

"Thank you so much, Alta. You seriously have no idea what this means to me. I was so scared that you'd forget about me when you were gone, or if something went wrong, I'd never know about it, and the idea scared me so bad! I couldn't stand losing more people like that." She gave me another tight squeeze. That was going to be a heart-to-heart conversation for another day.

"I felt the same, so I had to get these for us. I want to be able to hear your voice every day, even if we're on the other side of creation from each other. This way, we're never really apart, yeah?" I squeezed her back.

"We are such saps, huh?" She wiped her tears on my shoulders.

"We really are. And I love it." I said, giving her the biggest kiss. We just sat there enjoying each other's warmth and the closeness for a long moment.

"I really wish I could help you with all this stuff you've got going on. But the lessons and assignments are getting intense, and I just can't miss anything." Eira said sadly, burying her face in my neck.

"I understand, lovely. I want you to pass! You're doing important stuff! We'll be fine. Besides, if things go really bad, we've got these shiny talking rock things." I said, petting her head.

"You have such a way with technical words, my sweet," Eira said, stifling a laugh.

"I do don't I?" I said with mock hubris.

"Ok you, get going. I have a paper to work on. Teleportation hot fixes don't research themselves." She let me go and sent me towards the door with a swat on my rear.

"You attack my butt! You dare! I shall have my revenge!" I uttered dramatically as I swooshed out the door.

As I closed the door, I heard her laughter.

I took a deep breath, savoring the happiness that still swam around in me, keeping it in there as a defense against the rest of the day.

--

We made our goodbyes for the day, agreeing to meet up later. Eira gave me a spare key to her dorm because she said it was better safe than sorry after today. Sleeping in the same room as people upset with you was rarely a good idea.

I sighed as I made my way back to my own dorm room and knocked. I don't know why I knocked, but it felt right today. I took a deep breath as I heard movement inside.

The door opened, and I was met by the fuzzy face of Smitty.

"Oh, hello, friend Alta. We were wondering if we'd see you again outside class. Worried Smitty...I was. Yes, yes." The tall, fluffy white kobold said, her tail wagging behind her.

I looked inside and saw Cori tinkering with something at her desk and Myth flipping through one of Smitty's impressive collections of romance novels. We had to make her put some in storage recently, as her collection had exploded after our payday from the King of Burgotova.

"Hey, all. Sorry if I worried you. It's been a complicated couple of days and nights, and coming back here wasn't really in the books." I said shyly as I entered.

"We figured you were busy smooching Eira or something. No judgment, of course, but still seems like something you would do." Cori said, speaking around the screwdriver she held in her mouth. I had no idea what it was she was working on, but it looked really complicated.

"You didn't miss much anyway. I've been staying inside as much as possible. Knights and mages all over the damn place lately, and it's been making me nervous. Nervous plus herb withdrawals are making me all kinds of twitchy. And itchy. Twitchy and itchy. Bad combo." Myth said, flipping the pages of the book.

"Smitty has...I have, need to work on that. I have been in the gym. I want to get faster with shield. Too slow right now. But it will get strong! I am best!" Smitty said confidently.

This was the crew I was used to, and it hurt my heart to know I might be messing all this up. But it had to be done.

"Hey, everyone, I need some help with something, but I really don't want to talk about it here. I need to grab Mariana, too. Gonna need the titty priestess for this too." I said, trying to keep my unease from my voice.

"Oh gods above and below, what did you get dragged into this time, woman?!" Cori made a dramatic, exasperated sigh and dropped her tools on the desk, which caused a random spring to shoot somewhere random in the room. I was probably going to find that with my butt later.

"You dare?! Why do I have to get dragged into something, huh? I mean, you're absolutely correct, but how dare you?!" I huffed, putting my hands on my hips in a sign of feigned offense.

"She's got a point, Alta. You seem to stumble into trouble, and you usually need our help. Now, I'm cool with it, because it usually means I end up getting money, and money forgives a lot, you know?" Myth added.

"Let's... let's just go find one of the conference rooms at the library. I'm going to need a chalkboard for this one. Smitty, could you go get Mariana? I need some time to mentally prepare for dealing with her." I asked the kobold.

"Yes Yes I go get. Meet at library yes yes? Yes." She nodded and left.

I turned towards Myth and Cori, both of whom looked decidedly annoyed at me.

"I'll see you both over there, yes? Don't give me that look, it's not like you had anything better to do today. Probably." I said in response to both of them giving me the most annoyed glares I could've imagined from them.

"You're lucky we like you, elf." Cori snorted as she started putting her tools and parts away.

"We wood elves have a word for people like you right now, Alta. But it's like twelve syllables long, and I'm just not in the mood for hurting my tongue on an insult. We'll see you there, but I swear you'd best be getting us lunch after." Myth groaned as she sat up.

"We'll see," I said, trying to keep my emotions from showing on my face. I doubt it worked. I quickly left the room, shutting the door behind me.

I made my way outside, took a breath of the fresh air, and immediately started sneezing. Oh great. Spring was here for real, I supposed. Pollen had never been kind to me, but it seemed particularly egregious today. Weird that it hit all of a sudden and not yesterday or even earlier today. Very strange.

The trees had come in thicker than usual, I noticed. Part of me swore I saw some of them move, even though there was barely any wind. I decided to chalk that up to stress and allergies. Moving trees? In a city. Ridiculous.

--

I sat there in the little conference room in the library, which was nice and simple, with a chalkboard, a big table, and chairs that were comfortable enough. It had the added advantage of having a very slight enchantment on it to lower sound, which was very much appreciated, as I had a funny feeling that voices were going to be raised soon enough.

I wasn't excited about that, but better here than in a dorm room. Soon, Myth and Cori showed up, followed closely by Smitty and slightly confused Mariana. I noted that everyone dressed as casually as they could. We really looked like a bunch of random students rather than hardened dungeon delvers.

I had sort of forgotten that after everything we kept going through. That under our armor and training, we were just a bunch of twenty-something, or however old Smitty was, just going to school. Going to school for training in organized violence and looting, in essence, but still.

"So, we're all here, Atla. What did you get us involved in?" Myth said, pouring herself a tea from a little metal container she had.

"Yes, I was enjoying a perfectly good day when your Kobold came and interrupted." Mariana griped at me. She really looked more bedraggled and half awake than I had ever seen her.

"Could you all shut and lock the door? And pull the blinds on the window, please? We need privacy here." I said, my tone serious. I took another breath and wiped my running nose with a handkerchief. Stupid pollen!

Myth obliged and sat back down.

I looked at everyone and tried steadying my nerves.

"Ok, I need everyone to stay cool and let me finish what I have to say before yelling at me, ok? Can you all do that for me?" I said my voice was shaky.

"Just got on with it?!" Cori barked at me.

I grimaced and winced.

"Okay. So, in short, the City Lord and the Headmaster want us to work with and help out some Knights with something on the down low." I said quickly.

There was nothing but silence.

And then the shouting started.