11 Silence

Midday had already ready past and the dungeon was still filled with energetic battles and spell casting all across the Teramore dungeon. It was a sorry day to be a demon.

That's just how motivating a magic weapon was for an adventurer. They were rare weapons that were extremely difficult to forge for someone like Derock, an already advanced forger with his own workshop beneath his home.

Crafting such a weapon required a lot of time, effort, intelligence, material, patience, and power. Missing a single one of those would make the whole process become catastrophic.

Deep down in a tunnel was Galahad's team and Frederick, they were chatting away as they just finished their eighth battle, the team had just killed a pack of white ice bats that spewed lethal icicles from their mouths. Frederick was not supposed to intervene unless the situation required it, and if he did help, that would lead to a penalty. For now, he was only holding everyone's mana orbs and making sure no one broke any rules he was there to enforce.

Rosetta waited after the most recent battle to down a vial of the mana potion and ask Fredrick a few questions as they walked, "So Frederick, Galahad never told us that he knew you personally. How do you know each other?"

Galahad never talked much about his life. He figured all his teammates knew the basics; his family, the shop, his constant tardiness, and the mischievous smile they knew about ever since they met him at basic schooling when the six of them were ten.

"Actually my fiancee knows his family far better than I do, she works in the second floor shop most mornings. I come by and talk with Derock in the forge whenever she is about to finish up a shift, my uncle practically raised me in a forge despite my class so I end up talking with him the most."

Heath's complexion suddenly paled when he realized in his head who exactly the fiancee was. The girl just a few years older than him that he always tried chatting up at the shop's clerk desk.

"Are you done snooping Rose? Wanna tell me now about the magic robes or no?" Galahad said impatiently.

"Ugh, yes fine." She kept fidgeting with the loose arms of the robe for the twentieth time and finally gave up on them when Galahad asked.

"Trista and I were shopping at Quebec's Silk a while back in the summer and the manager said they'd have a female magician class shipment coming in the fall. I told him to hold down an order for any mana boosting equipment that was dark enough for dungeon camouflage."

"This was the darkest thing they had when I picked it up, and it barely fits. I had to blow another forty credits on the belt so it doesn't flap around in every direction."

"Little did I know, the shipment came from Diagon, the world's flashiest city, so everything in that shipment was anything but black."

Diagonal was a densely populated city that first rose up when the Kingdom did centuries ago. It grew to be a place of entertainment and vibrant colors. It became that way when people wanted to find ways to cope with the idea that our world was once being overrun by the demons below the surface.

"Well at least you didn't have to get the neon pink short skirt." Chuckled Trista.

"Whatever, I'm going to a tailor next week to see if they'll dye it black and hem the stupid sleeves." Rosetta shook them out in flustered annoyance.

Heath tried helping in the worse way possible. "Ahh come on, a little bit of color in your clothes never hurts your image. Maybe a guy will finally ask you-" He shut up when flames were literally erupting from Rosetta's eyes and her hands, ready to burn him down to a pile of ash and armor.

This made it perfectly clear to Frederick that dating was a bit of a touchy subject for the female attack mage.

"Galahad! What exactly is happening with that grey glove?" Asked Mycroft quickly, in order to change the subject before his brother died at Rosetta's flaming rage.

"It seems to be an early birthday gift from my mother, it amplifies aftereffects of magic attacks. My lightning should leave a bit of a stun after hitting. I'll have to ask her where she bought it from when I get a chance. Did anyone else get something for the event too?"

Heath and Mycroft shook their heads in unison, their bimonthly rent was coming up so they couldn't afford to have too many additional expenses for the next few days. Victor had already put a lot of money into the new Karmic Plate at Mydia's request, so he also kept to just his usual heavy gear and axe.

Trista seemed to be the only one of the battle classes to have brought some new items, her belt was wrapped with ten new little sheaths, each one carried a small throwing knife with a red orb sticking out of bottom of the grips. They were for her bad habit of throwing weapons, while still making her keep ahold of the original long daggers in her hands, for the time being.

Victor seemed to the only one who appreciated that choice, he felt he made their instructor proud for nagging her about needing to fix her fighting style.

Frederick chuckled when Galahad whispered an explanation to him while Trista started yelling at Victor for making her cave and buy such extravagant weapons. She would have bought nicer long daggers instead, but Galahad had returned the fixed blade Brett reconstructed with a few hours in the forge and his newest skill, 'Flame Hammer.'

Frederick interrupted the bickering. "I am glad I swapped places with Jeahna, otherwise I'd be stressing about that team instead of enjoying your antics."

"Who is Jeahna?" Asked Heath as his curiosity for knowledge on women was immediately peaked.

"She's the one who is supervising team C right now, with the two berserkers I believe from earlier."

"You mean Casmus and his sister? Only the male is the berserker." Corrected Trista. "His sister is a more rare battle class. What did she say it was? Boxer?

"Brawler." Corrected Victor. He sparred with the battle class female once, and her fighting style with thick iron gauntlets left a permanent mark on his view on hand-to-hand combat. Along with some permanent dents in his bones as well."

"How did you manage to get her to switch? Did she not know about the idiot on that team?"

"She definitely knew, but facilitating the Count's daughter and making sure she is safe will certainly get her on his good side. You never know when a nobleman's favor could come in handy."

Now the swap made a lot more sense to them. A battle class Archer was on that team who happened to be the daughter of the Count of Teramore. Frederick was familiar with Galahad and he rather stand by them instead of playing babysitter for a high-valued character of the city's noble family.

"Weird to think the Count would let his daughter actually fight in the dungeons," Said Trista. "I figured him to be a paranoid man that locks his daughter up in their fancy house to keep her safe. Then she'll resent him later for it as she goes and experience the world and love for herself." Trista became lost in some odd thoughts that started drifting towards fantasy.

Mycroft cut off her daydreaming shortly after. "You've been reading too many self-dependent female romance novels, the team is mostly heavy hitting defenders and the hollow-headed moron that the Count put together himself. They fight and protect his daughter like bodyguards whenever they come down here. This way she is safe and showing a good image for the nobles of Teramore, its a win-win for the Count."

"Well maybe not a long term win for Casmus, he's gonna get himself killed with that crude mouth of his . . . ." Rosetta's voice started to fade for a moment. "Hold on, do you hear that?"

Everything was noticeably more quiet, the silence was heavy enough to leave just a faint ringing in everyone's ears when they strained to listen.

"I don't hear anything."

"Exactly." Victor said while slowly pulling his axe off his back. The rest of the team readied themselves as well.

All this time, the sounds of battles and monster cries could be heard echoing in the distance, even just faintly. Now it was all over, like all the battles suddenly ended way before the competition could have finished.

They slowly trudged along the tunnel to find themselves at an intersection of their tunnel and another one that ran perpendicularly across it.

When Trista stealthily peered among a corner, she immediately reeled back to tell the team to get down.

The next thing they knew, a large blur dashed across the tunnel with no sound to its steps, then another passed. Soon a bunch of them were running across without stopping to notice the team.

They could only get a glimpse of grey scales and four feline legs dashing at inhuman speeds. Just those characteristics were enough for the team to silently piece together what it was. It was a stampede of Serpopards.

Large leopard like beasts with grey scales instead of fur and venomous fangs that could inject strong acids into their victim's injuries.

They didn't want to move as that could attract the attention of multiple beasts that had much higher levels than them. Too bad the flash of the purple robes and shiny armor caught the eyes of a few.

Three serpopard beasts stopped at the intersection and stared down the team with unmoving, yellow crocodile eyes.

Everyone stiffened but still prepared to duck as Rosetta began chanting her strongest attack behind them. After that, Frederick would most likely take over and attack what might have remained of the beasts.

Frederick was closely approaching his thirties and still seemed fairly young, but that wouldn't mistake anyone. In order to be hired by the guild, you needed to be level fifty at a minimum. Something not a lot of adventurers could do in just thirty years.

Just before the attack of unleashing a giant beam of concentrated fire magic could start, a fourth serpopard stopped and roared loudly at the others. The standing monsters all looked back and continued running to run with the rest. Hissing as they left, clearly displeased about leaving the food in the tunnel.

All seven of them let out a sigh of relief. Followed by a unanimous question floating in their heads; why didn't the monster attack?

The team starting venturing towards the intersecting tunne, but stopped when Frederick spoke out.

"Hold on everyone." Frederick stopped them and pulled out his red karmic plate that was issued only to guild employees.

"That's odd." He tapped on the crystal to see if it would change. "Normally I can get this thing to detect any close range group of monsters, but almost everything nearby is running away."

"Or running towards something." Interjected Trista, "Those leopards didn't have a fear to retreat in their eyes, just hunger. I'm betting they turned and ran towards something far more appetizing than us."

*****

Back in Thorne's introductory classroom, the man had just finished up a lecture on the vital points of balancing a team with offense, defense, and some form of consistent recovery.

Some might buy consumables like potions and regeneration items, others have a support magician on the team, or someone with healing skills and experience that could keep the team going in the dungeons after injuries. The key point was to find what best balance that works for you and your team.

Now he was sitting at his desk with a cup of tea and a stack of books he pulled from his visit to the library in the prior week.

He was currently rereading a few pages from a book called 'Cosmic Interference in Dreams' by Carden Natellar. He found a particular passage in the book to best match the description of Galahad's dream, but wasn't to sure what he could make of the odd writing.

"Dreams can sometimes untether our minds from our bodies and let us experience the collisions of different energies against our souls that always veer into the universe. A certain energy we can interact with is the power of Fate.

Fate is a form of matter we cannot see or control, only feel. When interacting with that energy, we can somewhat predetermine the key points of a foreseeable future, hence the name. We as a simple species can only bare witness to the power of Fate with sharp clarity, but with absolutely no control. We cannot even control the fact that our souls will keep drawing the mind back to the same cluster of energy, every time we dream until it the dream happens in reality.

No matter what we try, the outcome will always occur to whoever has a constant occurring dream about such events. Be cautious if the dreams are violent or mysteriously vague; it can be interpreted in many ways, but they are unavoidable nonetheless."

After reading it several times over, Thorne put the book and and rubbed his tired eyes.

'Such a pretentious way to word a simple statement. If it's a dream you repeatedly have that doesn't change, why not say it is a premonition. Honestly my daughter could have written this better.' Thorne leaned back in his chair and stroked his salt and pepper goatee in thought.

'I should still send Galahad a message about this, it's unlikely to a bad premonition. Just as long as he only had the one dream.'