36 Brotherly Assist

"Help my ass, How the hell am I supposed to go to Diagon without a horse or carriage. I am not wasting that much money on a ten day trip that might not even be useful."

Galahad spoke aloud to himself while rifling through the papers he gathered after given the opportunity from the Count. He wanted to look over everything before telling his parents about the conversation he had with their city's proprietor.

He had originally walked out of the office and sent a scry that explained the meeting was only a thanks for saving his daughter. His parents were relieved and told him to come straight home, not knowing Galahad had kept the letter and information about the Count's 'old friend' to himself.

Before heading home, Galahad stopped by the library for the first time since the incident to pick up a few thing. He borrowed a books on Chi structure, Adventure Classes, and an atlas of the kingdom. After returning home, he went upstairs to start working on a plan.

Now looking back, Galahad realized making a trip to Diagon was ridiculous from the start. The only way to make it passed the forest was the routes to the nearest towns were impossible when winter hit because of the risk it brought on with illness and incidents. Any beasts that don't hibernate during the cold seasons would start peeking out of the forests in search for food; that normally meant travelers.

His only option would mean obtaining a horse to travel to a city that was four days, or try not to die on foot while taking twice the amount of time. The whole situation involved too much time and money that Galahad planned on spending. The frustration grew as he made his way home and upstairs.

Both of his parents were on the lower floors working in the shop and forge, so he set up shop in the central living room on the fourth floor with everything across the coffee table. He had the unopened letter that was meant for the count's friend, a map open in the atlas, and listings for carriage travel. He pulled the other two books to the side for a few things he wanted to do in the privacy of his own room.

While Galahad sat there and swore at the false hope the Count gave him, he heard the door open to the staircase. Brett walked in still covered in soot and sweat from the shop. His eyes locking onto Galahad sitting on the couch, it was clear he walked to finally talk about the mess he saw in bathroom.

"You gonna tell me what the hell happened the other day?" He quietly asked as he shut the door behind him.

"You mean my attempted murder? I swear if anybody was found dead this week, it wasn't my fault." Galahad attempted to get a laugh out of Brett, but his younger brother clearly wasn't having it.

He sat down at a couch across from the coffee table and waited for Galahad to give a real response. Leaving him only a little bit of time to think of what exactly he could tell his brother. While watching him sit, Brett's name popped up.

[ Brett Mystroff ] lvl. 18

Creation Class: Forger

'I am never gonna get used to that, now pay attention. What exactly do I tell him? I can't say anything about what this orb is doing, its bad enough I told him so much at the tavern. Best to stay as close to the truth as possible.'

Galahad started from when he woke up and explained that he went to the forest after realizing he left some stuff behind that fell out of his bag while running away. If claimed that the last place the elf would expect him to be was in the exact same spot she nearly killed him. He then proceeded to twist his new story with only mix of the truth.

Rather than entering the dungeon, he encountered a flying monster in the forest that chased him until he managed to hide in a mud pit, explaining the mess. He managed to dodge around a few other creatures that seemed to roam the forest until he slowly found his way out of the forest and back into the city. He did the best he could to go into a lot of detail in the fake version of his forest without going overboard.

By the end it, the sun went from setting to complete darkness in the window. The only light in the room was light crystals attached to the walls.

Keeping close enough to the truth seemed to convince Brett enough for Galahad to get away, but then he began with questions.

"That's everything?" His question seemed to be pressing for more, but Galahad had nothing left to reveal.

Before Galahad could make up bullshit to add, Brett seemed to fold at persisting. Galahad was greatly relieved because he didn't know if his story would include a plant-based, bird eating monster fight in it.

"So you got the oh so crucial items back?"

"Yeah, a few things like my old gear and whatnot. Doesn't really matter now, its not like I can go anywhere to use them." Galahad remembered the frustrations from earlier as they started mocking him in the back of his mind again, his experiences were shortening his temper for the second time that day.

"What do you mean?" Brett looked down at the map and carriage prices strewed across the coffee table.

"The Count said he knew someone in Diagon that could potentially help create something that can save people trapped in the dungeon."

"You told the Count everything, despite what you said at the bar about not trusting the Guild?" Brett was confused at the actions of his brother.

"No. He uhh . . . figured out the reason why I actually used to go into the dungeon with everyone else."

"Oh." Brett's grimaced as he looked down at the floor. "He knows about Key then?"

"Yeah, He had a whole file about her and me. All I know is he was trying to help with the right tool, but with the wrong kind of machine. "

Galahad got up and walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his head. He began venting his frustrations to his brother.

"I can't let this happen again. Haven't we let the dungeon swallow up enough of the people we care about? Every day since I came back has been nothing, but thinking about how it all went down. Its infuriating. So for once, I am going to try and take something back."

Brett sighed and took a moment to think. He looked up and followed Galahad's pacing motion before finally asking something. "How far away is Diagon from the town of Bluewalk?"

"Bluewalk? Why are you bringing that cesspool of mold and shit?" Galahad's comment wasn't from lashing out or making an extreme exaggeration. Bluewalk was rundown to point of that exact description

The town used to have half the amount of residents living on the mountainside villas compared the whole populous of Teramore. That was over a decade ago though; when the Count that own the land wasn't dead and his deranged wife hadn't take over the region.

The whole Mystroff family went on a trip there to pick up cheap materials and stay for a short vacation, then they saw the place. It was so rundown and miskept, one might think it was a town of the undead.

The only reason Bluewalk still stood was the small gate to the dungeon. The kingdom runs a guild office through every city with a gate to prevent anymore monsters from reaching the surface, regardless of the shitty conditions. Very few places like the village of Shillamet were sustainable without any need for adventurers to circulate money into the area with a gate.

"Well after mom and dad came back from the resonance tower, they sent me to the market for potential deals mana orb sellers. You know how dad always refuses to buy from the guild. The market always promote quick jobs and bounties. Just take a look, the guild office is always asking for people to run meaningless jobs or security."

He pulled a cheap piece of paper out of his smock and handed to Galahad with market promotions. Lots of various materials were being promoted, some were raw or unprocessed chunks and others were stocks of items.

The other side of the paper had lists of jobs. Most of them were asking for some kind of miscellaneous jobs that could be done around the city. The jobs Brett was referring too were the travel security requests, people were asking for adventuring teams to protect convoys.

"I'll make a deal with you." Brett said while looking over the map again. "Bluewalk is only a two day on foot trip to Diagon, I can find you a contract that takes you down there on one condition."

"And what would that be?" Galahad asked cautious to what his brother might request.

"Stop doing stupid shit and tell me the whole truth after you get back."

*****

Dinner came and went with Galahad's parent unaware of the sibling's secret meeting. Their plan was set and no one else needed to know that he'd be leaving at some point soon. Brett and Galahad agreed it was best not to say anything until he had everything planned ahead.

Galahad went upstairs into his room and sat cross-legged on the floor. He was meditating once again to get a better feel of the energies running through his body. He looked over the other two books he borrowed from the library on Chi Structure to learn manipulation, and the other book was on various classes documented in the kingdom. He borrowed it because he wanted to learn as much as he could about the Spartan Class before getting into a reckless fight like he did with the Succubus.

He gave up shortly after on trying to find the category of his battle class. No one in the book was ever documented as a Spartan, but that didn't mean much. There are hundreds of class for each type of class, it wouldn't seem strange for one or two to be unknown. Galahad was only checking to find any edge or clue for his new power.

'I am not going to have support while I try to get them back, all I can do now is train and perhaps find someone I can trust in the future.' Galahad then reminded himself to clear his thoughts and focused on the Chi running through his body.

After a few seconds, he felt a somewhat familiar flow of invisible motion in his fingertips, then it spread to whatever section of his body he focused on. Once he found himself surveying the repeating pattern over and over again, he activated Fyre and Fury.

To Galahad, mana had felt like a soft liquid form of electricity was coursing through his body, but the power of Chi was more like a rage that was an overflow of fire that he was pushing out of every cell in his body. In terms of power, he felt himself transition from a dormant lightning storm to an active volcano; both contain different versions of raw power.

Galahad looked down at his hands and all along his arms were faint cracks that glowed orange. Each time the little flames came out of the cracks, he felt the surges of overpowering strength leak out. This was the power Victor used to unleash in battle, suddenly recalling his missing comrade made his heart ache a little.

Galahad felt the fire across his body shimmer with the emotional disturbance. It was clear to him at temporarily losing mana was not necessarily bad, but he was now depending on a foreign power to save his friends was not the greatest plan.

As if his body knew he was concerned about his current abilities, the timer of his limit popped up again.

[ 2:59 ]

[ 2:58 ]

[ 2:57 ]

'I am gonna need to work on refining this power.' He thought while cradling the mana orbs in his pocket. 'At least when I leave Teramore, I can stop pretending with that stupid cane and start actually developing this power.'

The excitement at the thought caused the red flames to flare up even higher off his body to a foot in height. Galahad started smiling, but it wasn't his normal expression of mischief and joy. It was the smile of something darker surfacing from the deepest parts of his hunger. He had no idea that the craving for the mana orbs were bringing out more and more of something else.

He put everything away, hiding the orbs and letter with the elven arrow beneath the floor board. Galahad turned off the light and went to bed with a strong desire to escape Teramore, it was the second time in his life that he ever wanted to leave his home.