Book 2: Chapter 24: The Djinn Problem and Mining Company
Sophie gave Lone an incredibly unsatisfied look before she sighed heavily. "Of course it is a Primal behind this and of course it has its eyes set on you..."
Lone smiled wryly. "Yeah. That's twice now we've stumbled onto a Primal by coincidence. Well, apparent coincidence."
Sophie raised an eyebrow. "'Apparent'?"
Lone nodded. "I spent a lot of time researching magic both in Ranton and here. There's a thing called fate magic. Now, of course, I have no evidence to suggest magic is at play..."
"But?" Sophie said in his place.
Lone chuckled faintly. "But, we were summoned here by what we can only assume were real, honest to God... well, gods, right? The message left for me by mine specifically said something about playing a game. What if they're using fate magic or something to force these things upon us in an effort to further this 'game'?"
Sophie considered the matter for a few seconds before saying, "That makes some sense. The chances of us just so happening to find a sealed Primal in the first dungeon we just so happen to both find and clear on this new world is astronomically low..."
"Right? A secret ninth Primal erased from history or maybe never even documented as having existed just so happens to be in the temple a Goblin King is calling his home on a small island in the middle of nowhere which we just so happened to appear on?" Lone shook his head. "That's wholly possible, for sure. People do win the lottery, after all. But the very next place we go to after leaving Milindo also leads us to a Primal? I'm not counting Sky since it clearly has beef with Void and came to me on its own to restrict it."
Sophie was an extremely paranoid person by nature, she just kept her thoughts to herself usually and avoided voicing her worries half of the time. Now, however, she couldn't help but agree with Lone here.
She already had her suspicions regarding Void and Sky, however, now with Darkness' involvement... Her mind was all but made up.
"We certainly think someone is pulling some very dangerous strings now that you have pointed this out, Lone..." Sophie stroked her jaw in contemplation. "What can we do about it? You are a thinker. Surely you have come up with a plan or two, no?"
Lone shrugged. "I don't know. As far as I'm aware, nothing bad will happen even if Darkness does try to make me its avatar and take over my mind. Surely it knows that too. There's no way it can't feel its kin locked away in my body. I wonder why it's so insistent..."
Sophie frowned. "Perhaps... you are not its goal? You described it as maliciously playful and good at manipulation, yes? It could be trying to throw you off."
"I've considered that," Lone confessed. "I just don't get what it would want otherwise. Four-twelve said he'd found the perfect vessel, being me, which is absolutely true. I mean, try to find another beastkin who won't age after awakening and who can host multiple Primals without risk... I dunno. For all we know, it could be hoping to corrupt its fellow Primals by using the prison that is my body. We need more info, really. Info like the relationship between the Primals, what they can do, motives, all of that shit."
Sophie nodded. "And probing a master manipulator for anything of worth is a pointless endeavour... Has the local council made any progress in finding the urd you mentioned?"
Lone shook his head again. "Not yet. Once they do and we have some answers, I say we leave the krieg and head topside. We can travel west to the Crimson Foxkin Clan directly."
"Why not now?" Sophie asked with an inquisitive tilt of the head.
'That's oddly cute considering how cold she usually is,' Lone thought as he stared at the exposed nape of the woman he loved. "Uh, well, I still want to learn more steamforging from Gramps and, well... he isn't looking great health-wise. I kind of want to stick around until he... y'know."
"Won't that take years for a Stone Dwarf?" Sophie asked with a click of the tongue. "We don't have the time for that."
Lone wore a weary smile. "Normally, you'd be right. But I'm pretty sure old age isn't his only vice. A few months at most is all I want, Sophie. If things get bad with Darkness or the council, we leave early. I'll take regrets over stupidity, don't worry."
"The council? Why would anything go poorly with them? Are they not on our side?" Sophie asked pointedly.
"Well, all they have is what I've told them. The rep I talk to every couple of days is getting more and more fed up with my lack of information about their missing persons. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, they exiled me for being a nuisance. Fingers crossed they find the urd, right?" Lone asked in a mockingly humorous tone.
Sophie sighed deeply. "Darkness was right to tell you to not to reveal your meetings with it. It's only been detrimental thus far, from the sounds of things."
"It was a bit of a gamble. I'm really banking on them finding the urd and some answers along with it," Lone said with a short and slightly nervous laugh.
Sophie rolled her eyes. "You're too easy-going sometimes, Lone. It is honestly annoying. You should think more before you act."
Lone winced. "I'd argue I think too hard before acting. To be fair though, I wasn't exactly sound of mind since the thing I care about the most was stuck in a bunch of roots for several weeks slowly healing."
Sophie blushed. "We are not a 'thing'."
"Yes. Yes, you are," Lone teased as he pressed his forehead against hers which was rapidly getting hotter. "And you're my thing, just as I'm yours. Yours and Soph's."
"You may be charming," Sophie admitted, "but you are also a colossal idiot."
"You wound me!... Am I really an idiot?" Lone asked with a fake tone of pain in his voice.
Sophie kissed him and whispered, "Without a doubt, though you are our idiot."
After an hour of... entertaining one another, Sophie finally gave up the reins of her body, allowing Soph to take control.
She immediately demanded a set of her pyjamas from Lone to which, he naturally obliged.
Once she had slipped into the PJ onesie which was yellow, had a jagged lightning-esqe tail and sported a blush and some ears on its hood, Soph scrambled under the covers of their bed and cuddled up to Lone's tails.
"I'm sorry you were lonely..." she spoke into his fluffy appendages.
Lone was momentarily startled before he broke out into a smile. 'They're so different, the two of them. Sophie immediately wanted explanations but Soph, on the other hand, wants to comfort me emotionally... There's no way Sophie didn't notice how I was feeling. I guess she just thinks Soph's a better people-person then she is.'
"You don't need to apologise for anything. I've done the exact same to you, but worse. I passed out for weeks practically voluntarily in the name of getting stronger, remember? More than once, too. You had no say in Darkness's actions nor in my choice to use Root of Life," Lone said.
Soph crawled up his body and popped her head out of the sheets only to reveal a pouting expression. "Take the apology."
"... But it certainly makes me feel better to hear that you care enough to comment on how I was feeling when you were busy purging all of that Darkness Corruption from your body," Lone relented before hugging Soph. "Good?"
The pout didn't disappear, instead, it only lessened. "It'll do. If it's really been weeks and not hours since Four-twelve, uh, killed himself, then I have a lot of floof and Lone energy to recharge on!"
"Haha, knock yourself out," Lone laughed though his eyes flashed with some sadness. 'I didn't know Soph could be so frank when it comes to the death of someone she personally knew...'
A few minutes of silence passed as they just lay there before Lone asked Soph a question. "What do you think we should do? Sophie wants to leave Krieg Moor immediately. I want to trust the council to find a way to help since I have a feeling Darkness doesn't really need me to be underground to fuck with me. What are your thoughts?"
"I think you shouldn't be such a potty mouth," Soph answered immediately before she scrunched up her eyebrows to actually think over the matter seriously. "Hmm..."
A good 30-seconds passed before she said, "If it's a real problem to you, why don't you just, uh, use the Djinn's wish to... solve everything? Is that a dumb idea?"
Lone nodded. "Kind of. Djinn are malicious by nature. No wish ever goes right, at least, not perfectly. I've had long conversations with Gilbert about this in the past three weeks. He told me how his grandfather tricked the Djinn to serve him until his death. Upon dying, he was then to split himself into ten Djinn's wishes. Problem is, even though his initial wish that tricked the Djinn contained over 3,000 clauses and was meticulously planned out by the entire White Dragonkin Clan, in the end, it found a nasty loophole to drive the former patriarch of the clan to madness almost immediately. He wasn't able to make a single wish and he died far sooner than he should have."
Lone sighed deeply. "You just can't beat a Djinn. From what I and Gilbert know, it's wisest to have as simple of a wish as possible while also being specific. Don't incite the demigod's wrath to really screw with you. That kinda thing. Grimsley wished to escape Milindo. The side-effects? A duke got dragged along with them and they got dropped into the ocean from a few hundred metres up in the air. No permanent damage, just immediate inconveniences."
Soph lowered her head. "So no wish?"
Lone shook his head, "No, I'll use it if I have to. The wish is a final resort, honestly. Even if I overprepare and use a nearly perfect simple sentence to invoke the wish, it'll still fuck us in some way. That's just a demigod for you. It is a good idea though, proven by how much I've thought on it already. You really are quite clever, aren't you, huh, Soph?"
She stuck her chest out in pride. "600-years in solitude with a lifetime of repressed memories to trudge through from a spectator's viewpoint makes for a good mental exercise," Soph giggled.
"Yet you still act so immature most of the time, huh?" Lone teased.
Soph puffed out her cheeks. "I like being pampered by you. Plus... you know why I'm like this..."
'Yeah, self-defence mechanism... Similar to how Breena tries to be as socially invisible as possible,' Lone noted. "Do you think you or Sophie will ever explain your life on Earth to me in detail?"
Soph froze. "Why?"
Lone wore an awkward smile on his face. "I just think it might help if you talk about it to someone you trust. I've never said it, but explaining my life story and what happened with my dad to you back on Goblin Island was really... burden relieving? That may not be the best way to describe it, but it helped a lot."
Soph hesitated before saying, "Um, m-maybe someday."
'Ouch. Still not there yet... Great job, Lone,' he admonished himself mentally. "Don't worry about it. Whenever you're ready."
"Mmm," Soph answered a bit placidly.
"It's still early. Wanna go on a date? It's been so long since we last did. Before all that shit went down in Ranton, if I recall correctly," Lone suggested.
Soph slowly nodded. "That... that sounds nice. I'm hungry..."
"I bet you are, haha," Lone chuckled. "Three weeks with nothing but nature magic filling your stomach will get any tummy rumbling, huh?"
"I cannae believe we're doin' this," a stout dwarf complained as he raised his pickaxe above his head then slammed it down onto the rubble.
He and his crew of contract miners were in the middle of nowhere in the Farwinds searching for some lost urd on the council's payroll.
What had him groaning and moaning though wasn't the work itself, no. He had skills and passion aplenty when it came to mining. He wouldn't have been a leading A-ranker in the field otherwise. What he was annoyed about was that he felt he and his team were on a fool's errand.
"It's beyond fookin' nuts 'at we're gettin' paid tae clear this road just because some beastkin got ah funny feelin' in 'is bawsack," another dwarf agreed.
"Wanna make a bet, boss?" a third dwarf asked. "Ah'm confident Urd Grun exists an' 'at we're close tae it. Five silvers says the beastkin wasnae talkin' ootta 'is arse."
"Ye're fookin' on, Hamish," the leader of this operation answered with a toothy grin. "Could use some excitement tae livin' up this borin' expedition. The Stone coundnae dae us ah solid an' toss some monsters oor way, eh? Anyone else wants in on the bet?"
Not a single dwarf said no and the collective pot grew to three gold and 25 silver coins. Only a handful like Hamish believed they would find the promised urd, mostly on account of Hamish being very good at this kind of stuff with his skillset.
Not four hours later and the bet's group of winners had been determined. "Haha, feckin' teld ya, boss. Urd Grun in the flesh!"
The leading dwarf didn't reply as he furrowed his brows seriously. "Everyone, 'igh alert."
No one missed the gravity of their boss's tone, not even Hamish, so they did as they were told and prepared their blades, axes, spears, and shields, after quickly putting their tools away.
They then, in formation and as a group, entered through the cave in the rubble blocking the Farwinds they'd cleared.
"Wasnae this place meant tae be, ah dunno, full ah buildin's, both dwarven an' otherwise?" Hamish asked.
The mural engraving on the walls and on the floor clearly sung the story of a place called Urd Grun, but all around lay ancient skeletons and ruined structures that couldn't rightly be called buildings by anyone with more than two licks of sense in them. "This place must be ancient an' ah'll bet ma left nut naeone's been 'ere in millennia... This is older generational construction, all ah this."
"Nae one wants yer left nut, Hamish. Bet some'in' else," one of his companions joked.
"Wheesht, would yas?" the leader snapped. "We're nae alone..."
A mere moment later, the sounds of hundreds of collective screeches blasted their eardrums. Panic overtook everyone's expression.
"Balor Demon Bats! Fookin' run!" the leader yelled at the top of his lungs. If they stayed here for even a second too long, then they'd all be guaranteed death.
He was an A-ranker and everyone else on his crew was a B-ranker with only a handful being C-rankers. His team was not weak by any stretch of the imagination but they were specialised in mining, not extermination.
Their stats and skills reflected that as well. A small horde of Balor Demon Bats would be manageable, sure, but a massive fuck-off swarm with hundreds of members? Not a chance in hell.
The nasty beasts were each as strong as your average B-ranker if not a bit stupid. Their sound magic along with the diseases they spread on contact made them very troublesome to deal with, even for the most skilled of warriors. Only a master mage specialised in wide-spread destruction would have nothing to fear from them.
"B-Behind us too!" a dwarf shouted in despair.
A horde of humanoid stone figures known as Milor had somehow snuck up on them and sealed off their escape route.
The bats were one thing, but Milor as well made the leader feel like the Stone was demanding he and his men return to her side immediately.
The leader bit his lip enough to draw blood. "Fine! If we die 'ere, we die as prood children ah the Stone! Fight an' didnae gae them an easy death, lads!"
"Ahhhhh! Ah'll nae go doon easy!"
"May the Stone take me in death as it gave me in life!"
"Ah'm gaein' naewhere until ah've kill'd at least 20 ah ye cunts!"
Battle cries filled the long-abandoned urd like a cacophony of berserk rage. The final thing that was said before the smell of blood and viscera filled the urd was, "Hamish! Use yer skill! Ye ken the one! Get the fook ootta 'ere an' warn the krieg!"
Hamish nodded gravely upon hearing his bosses words. It pained him, but he knew what must be done.
He held back his tears as he muttered, "One With The Stone."
Like a miracle had just been enacted, he disappeared, having been swallowed whole by the road beneath his feet. An hour later, all that was left of the famed mining company was fleshless bodies surrounded by just as many if not more Balor Demon Bat and Milor corpses.
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