5 Home

Back on the surface of the gate, the second floor of the building's indoor pavilion contained a large, circular pedestal made of a yellow crystal that stretched fifteen feet in diameter. The crystal pedestal lit up for a moment and in a sudden blinding flash; Galahad and his team appeared standing on the pedestal.

"Anybody forget anything?" Galahad asked.

"You always ask that like we can do something about it. The moment we leave anything down there, it's gonna be taken, broken, or eaten within five minutes." Rosetta grumbled. She recalled the few times she left a basic light crystal floating in the dungeons, and just how expensive they always were to replace.

"Maybe I should have left this dagger down there, it's basically trashed now." Trista held the weapon up to the light and dozens of fractures could be seen across the surface.

"Let me take it to my father before you ditch it, he could see if the material is salvageable." Galahad said before she was about to chuck it into the nearest bin.

"Sounds good to me, I've just been saving up for some more balanced knives anyway. These ones veer a little to the side when I throw them." She said while spinning the unbroken one between her fingers.

"That's because you're not supposed to throw long daggers." Victor pointed out, "Teacher Maiotu told you that repeatedly."

"He also told us to surprise the under any circumstance to knock them off their guard. What's a bigger surprise than a giant knife flying into the face of your enemy?" She scoffed back.

"Stop the bickering, you can continue at dinner tomorrow." Rosetta said while rubbing her temples.

"Oh damn, is it already that time of the week?" Heath said while checking the date on his plate.

"You need to set up a reminder or something on that thing, you've nearly missed the weekly dinners four times now." Galahad chuckled.

Trista let out a cough that suspiciously sounded like the word 'hypocrite.'

"Alright" Victor yawned, "Dinner at seven, are we doing Mower's or Dragon Toe again?

"Mower's, and I actually had to push the reservations to eight; the appraiser wouldn't meet till six-thirty tomorrow." Rosetta corrected.

Trista let out a sarcastic "ha" as she crossed her arms, sounding like she expected this to happen. "You'd think they'd be more grateful to the adventures that supply them with the mana orbs they use for everything."

"What do you expect? The kingdom isn't going to run these guilds for making the people money; dungeon adventuring is a business that's sourced on the feeling to protect the people." Rosetta commented.

A rather booming voice interrupted after Rosetta finished speaking.

"Well look who has finally exited the dungeon. Aren't you guys cutting it a little close to the shift?"

A large berserker appeared, walking around a table to talk to Galahad and his friends. He had a similar bulky frame as Victor, but his angular face and blonde hair was practically opposite to their team front man.

He strutted over while carelessly swinging his war hammer back and forth near the floor. He oozed the aura of very confident, yet equally incompetent.

Galahad only smiled at his rudely intrusive comment and greeted the blonde berserker. "Hello Casmus, you're right about cutting it close, but we found a cavern. We could have stayed during to shift if we really wanted to. We'll be seeing around my friend."

Galahad was not one to boast about what he found in the caverns, but he felt it was best to use that excuse to end the crude conversation as quickly as possible.

"Why the rush my skinny fellow? Afraid I'll snag the female minority from your party?" He asked in a somewhat joking manner.

He only sounded somewhat joking because his eyes were showing hunger in doing exactly that. Casmus's obsession was far greater than Heath's interest in women, to the point it was beyond creepy and deemed just disturbing to most who were only a passerby.

"Buddy, you have yet to realize we don't care about that. No one acts like this, especially in public and with the team that probably kick you out for even thinking that." Heath commented. Everyone wore the same expression of disgust and agreement.

'I am hoping something is mentally wrong with this creep, then we can feel more sorry for him and less disgusted about him.' Thought most of the females present.

"Aah come on, you gals don't have to worry about a thing. Everyone else in my team is a very pleasured partner of mine who will happily let you join the ranks. I've been the hero and team master of my crew for years, just let me take care of you as well." He laughed to himself.

The only truth that came from his statement was his team was compromised of five girls and himself, making him the only male of his party. It was pretty clear that his exclusive gender on the team was going to his head.

Yet Casmus still didn't realize how creepy he sounded to everyone around him. More people turned away at the incompetent boy, that was too delusional to understand what's about to happen.

Mycroft noticed a certain person among the crowd, then turned back to Casmus with a bright smile. "If Kara heard you say such things, how do you think your team leader is gonna feel about that.

"Oh please, she doesn't-" Casmus stopped himself as he realized Mycroft's smile was clearly setting him up to dig his own grave.

"'She doesn't' what Casmus?" Boomed a loud, female voice behind him.

Sadly the shovel was already in his hand.

He turned his head in time to witness the gauntlet hurtling into his side, he then toppled over like a pile of bricks. The gauntlet belonged to another blonde battle class adventurer who stood to be just a muscular as the two large male berserkers.

Standing above the toppled Casmus was Kara, his younger sister.

Rising from her partially crouched stance for hitting, she grabbed a flopping limb of her groaning brother. "My apologies for the absolute shit that pour from his mouth. He should know better by now; the only reason the girls and I keep him around is the dungeon team requirement is six or above, and he's only good for cannon fodder." She stated very clearly for the whole hall of spectators to hear.

She turned to exit, but just before she left, she changed her tone completely and spoke very cheerful tone towards Victor.

"Oh, please let Mydia know that I appreciate the help with the buns the other day. See ya around."

Once they were out of earshot, Rosetta sighed. "You'd think he would have learned after the third time not to spout such nonsense. Now he was caught in the act."

"What can you do about it?" Shrugged Galahad.

Everyone changed and made their way out of the spire shortly after, with the Casmus incident behind them. Once they walked through the gates, Victor walked over to the person sitting at a nearby bench.

Mydia sat outside the spire with a crotchet project in her lap, when the outer gate opened she picked up her stuff and walked straight into a hug around Victor's midsection. The side by side view of the the two showed just how much Victor towered over his petite girlfriend.

She was an inch shorter than Trista and had an even smaller body frame due to not being a battle class. Yet somehow her figure showed a few prominent curves that always made Trista a little envious.

Victor and Mydia said goodnight, then started walking off, hand in hand. Trista and Rosetta walked off to go to a few weapon shops to see what kind of throwing daggers they could see this late at night. Then the two brothers chased after one another on their way home. Leaving Galahad to walk home alone.

Galahad parted from the others and walked south of the gate by himself. He always enjoyed the quiet walks in the night when he traveled home, the frigid air was the only downside when winter approached.

About two miles down the stone roads, he felt a light tremble beneath his feet, barely strong enough to make candle flames flicker in some windowsills. The dungeon beneath the city of Teramore had just reset into a new labyrinth of tunnels and monsters.

Galahad soon arrived at a large building at the corner of the street.

It was a stone and wooden workshop that stood four stories tall with a big chimney sticking out the back. One side had a stairwell and shop sign entrance that led to the second floor, and barn doors on the other side to the first floor. Galahad entered through the large sliding doors as a wave of heat washed over him from the inside.

When Galahad stepped into the dimly lit room, he immediately found the only man in the room. He was standing in front of a bed of coals, heating a piece of metal over the bed until it became red hot. The man was very stout with a lot of facial hair peeking out of his cloth mask and bandana that kept the smoke and sweat from interfering with his vision.

The green eyes behind the mask were staring intently at metal with no indication of noticing his presence. Or so Galahad thought.

"Gally Boy!" Erupted from the mouth beneath the mask. "Take a seat, I am just refining the metals your brother needs for his little idea."

"Okay." Galahad sat on a barrel in the corner and watched his father work for a few minutes.

Galahad's father was a different class from anyone on the adventurer teams that normally went down in the dungeon. He was a creation class adventurer, more specifically a forger.

Right before his eyes, Galahad watched his father mold the hot metals into a series of rings of different shapes and sizes. He set them to cool on a stone plate before finally sitting down beside his son.

He took off the mask and used it to wipe the sweat off his face, smearing black dust across his forehead.

"So how did today's dungeon crawl go? Anything interesting?" He asked.

"Pretty good, we face a silver rat nest and a pelt dropped from the mother, then we found a cavern filled with a goblin horde. I actually took out the majority with lightning shot."

"Really? You did the attacking?"

Galahad rolled his eyes at his father's shock. "Yeah, Rosetta used a lot of mana on the silver rats so I had a chance to fire out some damage."

"I keep telling you, she's a real pretty and strong lady. Better snatch her up now before somebody else does."

"And I kept telling you, no one on our team wants to move further than friends. It will only complicate things in the future."

"All right, all right. How about mana orbs, you save me some?"

"Yeah, I also have a favor to ask." Galahad pulled out one of three pouches of mana orbs and Trista's fractured long dagger.

Galahad's father recognized the blade as Trista's and took it from him.

"That girl sure has a temper. What did she do, try to slap Victor with it?"

"It broke against the big silver rat's teeth. Is it salvageable?"

"Eh, the cracking is only along the surface. It can be heated and reformed without too much trouble.

"Great! When do you think you'll get a chance to repair the blade?"

"Ehh, I have a shipment due in a week, so I wanna finish the last couple of greatswords in the order first." His father rubbed his chin for a moment. "Either have your brother do it or I can probably get to it in about four or five days."

"Alrighty, I'm gonna go say hello to mum." Galahad grabbed his bag and exited up the stairs to the third floor.