"Angel, the body will dissolve soon."
John says as he looks at the hulking woman smash at the exoskeleton of the dead spider.
He's sat beside Rosa and Rosa next to a beaten Timi, who's has fell fast asleep.
"I'm trying to break through its body, but it's too thick."
Angel tells John.
"Yeah no shit."
"How did she break through it."
Angel hits it extremely hard, with three massive hits.
"Well she is a Steel ranked Hunter, were you expecting less?!"
John says.
"Not sure."
Angel replies then turns her head to John, tilting it in an I don't know fashion.
Sply looks to Lazuli, he stands in front of her with his head held low, even lower then her face.
"What make you think that what you did was fine?"
She says, her voice calm, but held with the same tone of discipline.
"I'm sorry, but after they helped me, I wanted to help them back."
"And you needed to give your life for that?"
Her voice said calmly, not with anger but with curiosity.
"That wasn't my intention. I never thought I was going to die for a second."
"Well, you almost did, twice. If that musclebrained woman wasn't there you'd have been burning in Spider Queen acid."
She holds up a finger.
"And after that, if it wasn't for me, that spider would have killed you all if not for me."
A second finger comes up.
Celetrus stands behind Sply with her head turned to me. Not straying as she stays in the same overcoat I gave to her moments before we left the inn.
'Thank goodness she didn't say when Timi had to use her spells…'
"There was a third, but you thought quickly to save yourselves, I'll commend you."
My face grows a slight smile.
"But that wasn't enough for me to see your full growth. I shouldn't have been slow when teaching you."
She says as she takes her necklace in her hand and rubs her fingers on it.
"Can't have a repeat…"
She said quietly under her breath.
"I'm sorry."
"No, I don't want a sorry. I want growth. Show me that."
Nodding my head, I feel the smile growing a bit.
She lets go do the necklace and makes it lay on her collar.
"It's a good thing your okay. Can't have Steel killing me because I let you die in under a week."
She said it in such a calm way it almost sounded sarcastic, it made me laugh a bit.
Celestrus took a step closer, her face practically saying that she's too scared to advance without approval from anyone.
She looks at me, her eyes looking like they're in a pout.
Sply moves away from me and turn to the door behind me, the group still inside admiring the giant spider that was recently killed in one shot no less.
She goes to the same slab of cement and sits there.
"Si… Lazuli?"
She paused herself as she called my name.
"I'm thankful your safe too, if not…"
She let out a scared and nervous laugh:
"Ms. Sply, probably would have took me right back and sold me."
I chuckle at that, but Celestrus holds her face, then seeing Lazuli laugh, she lets out small chuckles.
Something not very common to elves, or slaves.
She feel her face feel uncomfortable in a way, not in a bad way, but in a way that's not familiar to her.
"I don't think she would do that."
I wipe away a very weak tear.
"Im not sure, she doesn't seem the type to do as you said."
She says with a once again weak chuckle.
With another weak laugh.
"That's true."
"I do apologize for leaving you with her."
Shaking her head, she looks at me with a very weak smile.
"I think Ms. Sply is better then better than my master. If I were here with my other master..."
Her voice trembled, then trailed off.
"You don't need to tell me."
My voice is calm to her, wanting to help her. I look up at her face as she looks down as if to avoid my gaze, but since she's looking down she's looking at me.
"I... I don't?"
I shake my head.
"No. I understand that you are... scared? No. I understand you don't like the thought. So, I don't need it in words."
For a second she looks at me saddened, really saddened by the words.
"Thank..."
A tear falls through her eyes, pass her nose.
"Thank you Sir... Lazuli."
My smile brightens at her.
"It's no worries."
Tears slowly fall from her face and she wipes them as she falls.
"I'm sorry. I know, I look ugly when I cry. I shouldn't do that. Forgive me."
She tries to wipe her face faster and faster, but the tears fall without any want to stop for her opinion.
"You don't need to apologize for doing a normal hu..."
I pause, stopping myself from saying human:
"...Thing that all living things do."
I say with emphasis on Thing.
As if I've just given her permission to she bawls her eyes out. Crying out loud with no thought for anyone else in the room. She slowly falls to her knees, letting out tears on top of tears, on top of tears.
With a very bad smile, looking around both rooms, seeing the group looking at me. I nod, feeling ashamed, then a thought catches my mind.
'Would this be what I would've did, if someone had been there for me in my past life?'
Slowly I get closer to Celestrus and since she's on her knees we are at the same height, with me just a bit taller then her right now.
My heart skips a beat, since I've never done this before.
Outstretching my arms and leaning forward, I wrap my arms around her and give her a hug.
"It'll get better, I promise."
Those words come out without me thinking, but in this current moment. It feel right to say it.
Her tears soak into my shirt. As she continues to wipe her face with me hugging her.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for saving me!"
She screams, letting out everything her heart can release.
"You're welcome."
As she wipes, the tears begin to die down as she is on my chest. She slowly pulls away from me. Wiping her face and slowly ascending to her feet, her eyes red and puffy with wetness around them, until Celestrus wipes her eyes once more, to wipe away all of the wetness, with the back of her palm.
A small trail of mucus descends down her nose and she wipes that as well.
"Do... Do you feel better now?"
I ask her, as she looks down at me.
She nods, still wiping small traces of tears.
"Thank you, Sir... I mean. Thank you Lazuli."
"You're welcome."
She smiles at me for a while, then a sneeze, loud and from the other big room.
"Bless you."
I say to the person that sneezed.
Making Celestrus look at me weird.
"What?"
"What does "Bless you" mean?"
Celestrus asks.
"Just a little inside joke."
I say, a weird small chuckle escaping my throat.
She laughs to, a small weak one. A pity laugh, like, Yeah that was bad, but I just trauma dumped on you so, I want to make you feel less uncomfortable, type of laugh.
Angel and John look around the room in confusion.
"John?"
Angel asks as she looks around the room.
"Wheres the warp?"
"Angel..."
"Yes?"
"That is a VERY good question."
"Should we ask for help?"
Angel says.
"Yyup."
"Okay."
John and Angel as if in sync and twinning, turn and wave their hands over to both, Celestrus and I.
Celestrus catching the waving of the hand and points to them.
Following the finger that she's pointing with. I see both Angel and John waving for me to come over.
Jogging over, step after step. They still wave. I turn back and see the only one there is Celestrus.
John and Angel don't stop their waving as I get closer. I slowly stop, stomping to slower myself.
A sneeze comes from the direction of both, Timi and Rosa.
"Bless you."
John and Angel both look to me, weirdly.
"What?"
I ask.
"What's "Bless you"?"
I chuckle, completely forgetting that Celestrus just asked this question.
"An inside joke..."
Angel and John both look at each other confused at the little boy, which is me, that sounds dumb as crap.
"Lazuli... if we don't know your inside joke. Who are you saying it to?"
We all look between each other for a good minute, but it felt wayyyyyyyy longer, like it was just a little over, I don't know, forty years, making me feel like the first ten year old to have a head full of gray hairs.
"Why'd you call me over?"
I say, switching the topic.
"Oh yeah."
Angel and John say at the same time.
"We need help finding the warp."
"A warp?"
"And that's why we were calling the girl."
John says in a sad, joking manner.
"The girl?"
John waves for someone to come over once more.
Turning I see Celestrus walking toward us a tad bit slow.
"Yeah."
"She has a name."
"Never told us."
Angel says.
"I could swear I did."
"You didn't."
Angel says.
"Yes, I told you about Sply, then Celestrus."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Guess I just didn't wanna remember."
I roll my eyes as she says that.
"Celetrus. Right?"
John says as she gets to my side, semi-uncomfortable. She looks down to me, then back to John.
"Do you happen to know the reason why we are all still not getting a warp?"
She fumbles with the edges of the overcoat.
She looks down at me.
"Can I speak to them?"
John and Angel both look at me weirdly, but I remain oblivious to their looks.
"Celestrus, you can talk to whoever you want to talk too. It is your life."
She nods, then look back at John and Angel, ntoh of them following her face, to not show they were just giving me weird looks.
"The... reason may be because the Cave King wasn't actually the spider..."
John and Angel look around the room, immediately watching every ounce of their surroundings.
"There's something worse in here?"
Angel asks.
A hopping and gooey hop is heard, a good distance away from our path.
"Not, as bad as the spider but..."
Slowly the gooey hopping comes from behind the giant corpse of the spider. And for a second the room is still.
Then out of no where. Both Angel and John give a sigh of relief as they see that the next thing that they will have to fight, be a slime, exactly as described by Celestrus, before.
Angel takes the first steps toward it, with her mace in hand and raises it high as she gets close.
"Angel, try not to destroy the core of it."
"We have a Spider Queen crown, we won't have to worry about some Soul Cores of a little Slime..."
"The crown is ours."
Sply says as she walks toward us.
"WHAT?"
John asks.
"Its ours."
She looks around and sees the crown beside Timi, who's also beside Rosa. She hears the ongoing conversation.
"The crown is ours. Not yours."
Angel rolls her eyes and drops her mace down on the slime, but instead of completely destroying it's slimey body, it breaks and leave excess of slime covered ball.
Angel bends down and picks it up.
"You, got the kill, you get the reward."
Rosa says as Sply gets closer.
"But, at the very least could we have a small amount of the share when we get back to the association?"
Rosa asks nicely.
A blue swirling void of seemingly emptiness appears next to the spiders body.
"Won't be able to."
Sply says.
"Can't go back to Outskirs."
"Why not?"
Rosa asks nicely.
Soly ignores the question.
Rosa lets out a huff of air.
"So, you don't plan to give us a fixed amount for a good pair of fixer up armor, and weapon repairs?"
Rosa asks her voice slighlty raised.
"Never said that. But if you want that, you'll need to follow us to the next village."
Sply says in her calm tone, not scared of the way that Rosa said those words in.
"Okay then, we'll follow you."
Sply nods.
"Hundred coins for you guys."
"HUNDRED!?"
John says loudly.
He clears his throat as if he didn't just freak out.
Rosa nods her head.
"Okay. We'll take it."
Angel and John nod to each other and high five.
"Is a hundred a lot?"
Leaning to Celestrus and asking quietly.
"Not sure, never had the chance to use or understand coins."
I nod and head to grab my bow and bag, that I left next to the spider, feeling to heavy at the moment to carry it.
Rosa slowly wakes Timi. Sply grabs the crown from her and comes right over to me.
"Bag."
She says holding it out to me.
Turning around, she pulls the bag open and drops the crown in. The weight is a lot lighter then I had thought.
"Okay. Let's go."
Angel says, walking toward the warp, she touches it with a single toe and her entire body, along with her mace disappears.
John jogs to Rosa and Timi, she slowly wakes and sneezes.
I stop myself from saying Bless you.
Timi gets up, grabbing the staff off of her chest as she is guided by John, heading toward the warp.
Rosa, gets her sword and at first grabbing by the middle of the blade, until she feels a safe distance had entered the sheath deep enough, she drops it letting it lower by itself.
"A hundred gold at the next town and we part ways."
Rosa says, and begins to follow after Timi and John.
Sply walks, with both Celestrus and I in tow, She steps through with no worry.
My body tenses.
I feel a hand wrap around my fingers.
"Don't worry, Si... Lazuli. It'll be safe."
She slowly walks and I feel my hand being pulled as she steps through, my body follows.