Chapter 545 - Valley of Myths (Patreon)

We finally got a name for the Pyronox owl phoenix. Auri had apparently nicknamed him ‘Sasha’, and I wanted to facepalm at her naming choice. Kinda hoped a gigantic snake would eat him after he showed us where Auri was.

Fenrir returned to full size, and I think we managed to surprise Sasha with how quickly we were able to travel. Taking a suspiciously-meandering route, we didn’t encounter any true problems, although there was the occasional delayed attack behind us.

Something threw an entire pine tree at us, like a javelin. It missed by almost literal miles.

I tried to speculate why we were being ignored while we traveled - wyvern-phoenix combo, maybe Sasha had taught all the neighbors to ignore the phoenixes - but I couldn’t get into it. I couldn’t do a deep dive. Even my partitioned mind got distracted, all tracks returning to a singular thought.

We were almost there! We were almost at Auri! It had been years, and I missed her dearly.

The terrain abruptly shifted, from a lush subtropical forest, to the first veneer of proto-civilization I’d seen. A deep valley cut through the forest, with trees being burned a significant distance from the edge. Crude rock walls marked out ‘viewing spots’ into the valley, and my heart leapt into my throat at who was there.

In a nutshell: Everyone. A flood dragon eyed a more classical dragon from across the divide, a xuan-wu in the segment next to the coiled monster. A winged tiger prowled back and forth, intent on the valley and ignoring the hydra next to her. Three-legged golden crows were across the valley from phoenixes, where the Radiance heron phoenix was hanging out. Manticores were next to unicorns, and a sole griffin looked bored. The sun was briefly shaded, and I looked up. A quetzalcoatl was circling with a kun-peng and a thunderbird. Fenrir was fascinated by the wyvern snoring in his spot, the scales a bright silvery, shimmering color as opposed to the ice-blue of Fenrir’s.

That was either going to be trouble, or great.

There were more, of course. Dozens of different species with one or two representatives, and I wanted to freeze and crawl into a hole as I spotted a pair of silver-masked Wardens on guard. One of them spotted us and nudged the other one, and a pair of glares followed us around.

 There was an uneasy tension that even I could feel. Stress wafted up from the combined creatures like one of Maxlin’s alchemical experiments. 

There were obvious cultural things here that I couldn’t hope to grasp at a glance. A dozen kirins seemed to be some mix of in charge, resolving disputes, or being servants to everyone - it wasn’t quite clear what their role was, just some mix of all three. A few were effortlessly moving fresh carcasses to meat-eaters, and a tropical mix of fruits and berries to herbivores. A ‘panel’ of three kirin were overseeing a dispute between a hellhound and a penguin-like kairuki over a bejeweled vase. Two more were at the ‘head’ of the valley, directly over the portal in question.

It generated far more questions than I could hope to answer. Where did the jeweled vase come from?? Who’d made it? Why did a hellhound want it? What could it do with it? It wasn’t like they had homes and potted plants. Who put jewels on such a thing? How would they bring it ‘home’? Just… why!?

The only question I could somewhat guess at was how they were intelligent enough to even be arguing. That seemed simple to me - the System had granted them an [Intelligence] skill, or something related.

I’d seen exactly one kirin in all the years I’d been alive and wandering around, and that had been Reinhart, transformed into an elven form. Now I was seeing a ton of the mythical creatures. I wondered if any of them knew Reinhart, or if that was a terrible thing to ask. Like someone else assuming I knew everyone in Sanguino, or knew all humans. I hadn’t seen Reinhart’s ‘native’ form, and only had pictures in books to go off of.

Kirin were the epitome of grace. A deer’s body, an ox’s tail, hooves of a horse and a flood dragon-like head, their manes flowed like flames. Their scaled skin shimmered with fantastical colors, most of which defied definition or description. 

Sasha went to land at the phoenix’s spot, and we went to land next to Sasha. He rebuffed us with a wing and a haughty look.

“This segment is solely reserved for phoenixes.” He said, and we took off, circling around on Fenrir’s back, the Warden’s glare following us the whole way.

I switched to Creation and started talking with Iona.

“What is his problem?” I complained. “He wasn’t nearly this rude when we met him.”

Iona frowned, deep in thought.

“It could be he was being diplomatic, or putting on a show.” She said. “Alternatively, he was summoned as we ended up fighting a phoenix and then asking him questions. It’s not the best of looks, and he could be mad at us because of that. Imagine if some random humans had been doing that to Auri. Would you want Sasha to react that strongly?”

I frowned. Iona had a good point. What had possessed us to ask a little more forcefully? Nerves, maybe? Desperation? If someone had been doing that to Auri, I would’ve hoped that Sasha finished the job, as vindictive as that sounded.

“Okay, in reflection, that had been a terrible idea, and Sasha’s letting us off lightly.” I said. “Makes sense that he’s got absolutely no desire to give us anything resembling a helping hand.”

Violence had beget violence, and one poor turn had earned another. I was smarter than this. I knew better. Stress and nerves were getting to me, and not in a good way.

I took a look down, to see what all the fuss was about. Inside the valley was a shimmering portal. Three sphinxes landed near it, and nervously looking around at everyone staring at them, entered the portal one at a time. They vanished without a stir from the watchers. The sphinx observer yawned, gigantic lion’s teeth bared to everyone.

There were a few open slots, but I doubted they were truly unclaimed. Better to get in a fight with the known griffins, than to try and mess with an unknown monster.

“Do you think we can land on the border rocks?” I asked Iona. “Just hang out in the margins?”

“Yes, I can easily envision getting torn apart by a dragon and a snake tail at the same time.” Iona struggled with sarcasm at times, her [Vow] a little strict. Her tone was obvious, and her words were entirely truthful.

One of the Wardens flew up to us, his devil wings making his race clear for once. [Ranger - 1991] his tag said. Not that it mattered - the sheer number of creatures here and all their levels was far more important in any conflict than his individual power. Unless, by some miracle, all of them ignored us fighting, it all came down to ‘who was annoying them more’. 

“Excuse me. What are you two doing here?” He demanded of us. “Humans aren’t permitted in the North, and certainly aren’t allowed in the Dungeon.”

“I’m not a human!” I cheerfully threw a wrench in his argument. “I’m a chimera!”

“I’m mostly human.” Iona said. “Technically not a human though.”

Our attempts to throw the Warden off his game utterly failed, and his hands dropped to the hilts of his slightly curved swords. Iona tensed, and Fenrir locked a baleful eye on the Warden. One of the kirins flew up to investigate. Iona whinnied at her, a voice filled with booming thunder and far-off hoofbeats.

Could’ve knocked the kirin out of the sky with a feather with how she reacted to that. Goddess, that blessing was stupid. 

The kirin neighed back in her native language, and the two struck up a brisk conversation while the Warden awkwardly looked on.

“Look.” I tried to explain things to the Warden while Iona and the kirin talked, Fenrir obligingly hovering in place. “My friend and bonded companion’s in the Dungeon. We just want to wait for her.”

The kirin swapped languages to an archaic High Elvish. How old was she!?

“They are acceptable to us. You know the rules.”

Iona asked another question, and the kirin’s face was unblinking.

“We do not have a place for you to wait near the rim of the valley. You may ask others if you can share a space.”

She turned a roguish grin to the Warden, who made a disgusted noise.

“If it’ll keep you from causing more problems, you can wait in our section.” He said. “The wyvern’s far too large though.”

Iona beamed.

“Good thing he’s got shrinking capabilities then!” The Valkyrie then swapped to English, and garbled her words further.

“There’s clearly a sort of truce here. Don’t tell the Wardens anything about us, they might want to cause us problems once we leave or get home just on principle. Our heads on a pike would send quite a message. Let me do most of the talking, I can keep it pleasant without revealing too much. I don’t want to be mean, but…”

I nodded, understanding what she was saying.

“I talk way too much, and don’t have a great head for the type of subterfuge needed for this.” I agreed. “Basically, honestly telling people everything has almost always worked out for me, and I’m a blabbermouth who might be revealing far more than I think I am. Then again, we’re going to be leaving with Auri, and she’s not exactly subtle…”

“Exactly.” Iona agreed. “Even telling them you’re technically a chimera could lead them back to you. Yeah, Auri’s not subtle, but let’s not make it any easier for them than we have to.”

“No winged helmet!” I teased. The Valkyrie nodded.

“No winged helmet.”

I wasn’t a lie, nor was it even deception. Putting up a blank ‘I’m not telling you anything’ was high up on the honesty chart.

Fenrir dropped us off near the Wardens, then went to investigate the other wyvern. There was some snorting and posturing going on there, and I dedicated one of my thought processes to doing nothing but making sure there were no problems.

The Wardens were clearly deeply unhappy about us, but gave us the crash course on how the Dungeon worked. Unlimited levels, ‘true’ item creation with fantastical enchantments, levels and skills offered. Technically, nothing made by the Dungeon was something that a clever skill or enchantments couldn’t make, but things like the phoenix’s amulet were so complex as to be impractical to make. Each time a party entered the dungeon it was ‘instanced’, which translated to ‘no, you can’t dive down into the Dungeon and try to catch up with Auri’ and ‘yes, you do have to just wait outside’ and ‘no, you can’t tell if anyone’s actually in there or not’.

Which sucked. A rambling, paranoid part of me was wondering if Sasha had lied to us, and was leading us on wild goose chase to waste our time. ‘Yes, yes, they’re totally in the Dungeon, just wait a few years for them to come out’ seemed like one heck of a distraction. Normal ‘runs’ didn’t take that long. Most were a week or four, occasionally some groups geared up for multi-month trips. 

My estimation of the Wardens went way up when they confirmed they’d seen a colorful hummingbird-phoenix semi-regularly enter the Dungeon over the last few years, always in the company of a group of other phoenixes.

That was good. It sounded like she was having fun, and better, had made a bunch of friends!

“Should we offer them a bite to eat?” I asked Iona, wanting to find some way to thank the Wardens. “The food here seems fine, but hospitality laws are fairly strong throughout the world.”

“Hmmm.” Iona rubbed her chin as the two Wardens conferred on the other end of the little stretch of rock-bordered land. “You raise quite a few good points, but I’m wondering if they’d be able to figure us out from the ingredients and style.”

“Only food we looted from the School then? And it feels like if they can figure us out from that, they can figure us out from our clothes.”

Iona violently shook her head.

“The School’s small enough that they’d be able to immediately trace us. No, far better to offer something else entirely, if you have to offer anything at all.”

I pouted as I sat on the edge of the valley, my legs kicking out into space.

“Alright.” I said, Radiance-focusing in on the portal. “I’ll just wait here.”

Auri was almost here. She was almost back.

A kentrosaurus lumbered out of the portal, blind in one eye, bleeding from a leg, and half of its spines snapped off. He had a dozen metal objects floating above his spine, each one of them whirring and clicking in unusual ways. A skill, or Dungeon loot? I couldn’t tell. A dozen artifacts shimmered into existence around him, and the creatures surrounding the valley had mixed reactions. Some leaned in to get a better view of what was going on, while others glanced towards a filled slot along the valley’s edge, where a torosaurus and chasmosaurus were snorting and pawing the ground in a display of dominance and ‘don’t fuck with us’-ness. The artifacts seemed to have no rhyme or reason. Some armor, made out of wood I couldn’t identify, perfectly fit for the dinosaur. A trough of water, spears made for neither dinosaur nor human, a couple of potions, and an amulet. The dinosaur drank the potion, healing all the way up, then drank deeply from the water trough. It vanished into sparkles once he was done. A few swipes of his tail somehow collected the loot. He then made a ponderous journey up the other end of the valley, where a kirin was waiting.

It wasn’t Auri, so I was keeping most of my focus on the valley, keeping an obsessive eye over the exit. My curiosity had a little bit of attention wander over to the kentrosaurus - maybe I’d learn something useful or helpful for Auri.

I wouldn’t say there was a trading post, but the dinosaur was clearly able to exchange some of the loot he couldn’t use for gear that seemed to fit him better. Maybe it was a tax of some sort, to keep everything moving smoothly? A payment?

Or was I being too human? Assigning human ideas of civilization and behavior to creatures out of myth and legend, trying to anthropomorphize their actions?

I continued to unblinkingly stare at the portal, waiting for any little flash of bright colors and flames. Any little hint of Auri. Thank biomancy for the extra clear eyelids I’d included - I didn’t need to blink.

I wish I could say that Auri popped out five minutes later, but alas.

The sun rose and the sun fell. Creatures entered the Dungeon, and fewer creatures left. Loot was gathered up in vast piles and traded or worn.

A squad of Wardens left at one point, and a chill went down my spine as six pairs of vicious eyes tried to work out if they had the numbers to fight us, and how’d they do. Given that it was a squad of Wardens that had just left, half the eyes here were on us. We survived.

A deinosuchus left the portal one day, three obelisks shimmering into existence around him. Faster than I could see or track, a peregrine falcon dove in, tapping one of the obelisks that vanished into light before trying to streak back up into the sky. Half the eyes were on the crocodile’s representative, whose teeth were starting to glow.

He never got a chance to act.

The flood dragon killed and ate the falcon in a single bite, moving faster than I believed possible. One moment the dragon was coiled up, appearing to be sleeping, the next his long body stretched across half the valley, feathers gently floating down.

I was already jumping to my feet, my fight-or-flight instincts screaming at me to do something. Iona was next to me in a flash, and for the first time I stopped staring at the dungeon portal.

Skills were being prepared, the Wardens were drawing their swords, and I found myself slowly backing away from the imminent free-for-all before I paused, a sudden thought striking me.

What if Auri came back to this mess?

I stepped forward again. A mixed group of unicorns and kelpies started to back away from the entrance, leaving plenty of space between them and the pissed croc.

The kirins flashed up into the sky, the flood dragon retreated back to his zone, and everyone generally chilled. Except the deinosuchus, who was stomping and raging in the valley.

“Hope someone steps in before another group leaves the Dungeon.” Iona said. “Otherwise there will be another fight.”

For better or for worse, things calmed down enough before the next group left. The deinosuchus did snap at the unicorn’s hoof as they crossed each other, who mimed a kick at his head, but that was it.

Fenrir spent a good amount of time pestering the other wyvern. When a third, small wyvern emerged from the dungeon, the two of them went off flying together.

Sasha came and went. It seemed like he generally had better things to do than stare at the Dungeon portal non-stop, but now and then he dropped by. He’d have a quick discussion with the heron phoenix, then leave again.

It only took a week of mechanically eating what Iona shoved in my hands, unblinkingly staring at the portal, to discover why everyone was watching over things.

A treant popped into existence, a flexible willow bending in the light breeze. Artifacts shimmered into existence around her, and as usual, half the monsters looked at the valley, and half looked where the treant overseer should be.

There was no tree there, simply a blank space.

Then the valley erupted into chaos. A dozen magical ravens descended on a bunch of rings, and other monsters and beasts piled in, each grabbing what they wanted, shoving, clawing, and biting others as the free for all over loot started. The fragile equilibrium was broken. Branches flew and leaves fell like tears as the treant’s rewards were snapped up by almost everyone else.

The kirins stepped in again, taking one of the rings back from the birds and shooing everyone out of the valley with their loot. I took the moment to flicker a heal to everyone, fixing all the injuries. The lack of flash made it hard to tell what I’d done, but Iona shot me an approving smile.

The treant was right at the edge of what my skills could do, taking a penalty high enough that I noticed my mana drop to heal the tree. My skills were designed for flesh and blood, not wood and sap. Thankfully, I could heal all elvenoids, of which the treant was one. Otherwise, I’d be forced by my [Oath] to carefully tend the tree until the willow was the picture of health. Given how slowly trees moved, I was glad not to find myself in that mess. 

I leveled from that. I had most of my notifications still suppressed, but I could see it on my stat sheet. The same stat sheet where I kept an eye on [Companion Bond Between Elaine and Auri], the one letting me know that she was still alive, still fine.

What was taking her though? Was she really still here?

We settled back in. Occasionally Iona would try to make some small talk, and I’d answer her, one eye on my skill, the other on the Dungeon. 

Sasha flew over at one point, delicately alighting on the rocks between groups to the stare of some Wardens, then had a few words with us.

“Auri’s time in the Dungeon is highly unusual, and far outside what we expected.” He admitted. “They told us they were aiming for a far shorter trip.”

Without waiting for a response, he flew off again, the Wardens re-appraising us.

Fenrir returned, looking pleased as punch, shrinking down and sitting next to Iona. He’d gotten a massive cigar from somewhere - I knew it wasn’t one of his usual pipes - and had a shit-eating grin a mile wide as he puffed.

Good for him. A small, mean, petty part of me wanted to be salty at his success and happiness, but we were all here for the same reason, the same goal.

Auri.

Then, at last, late at night during a pair of full moons, in a flash, a flare of five flames, a crackle of electricity, and the entire valley filling with shimmering lights, there she was.

Auri!

She was looking fantastic. The same size as always, but her colors seemed extra-vibrant. Her flames burning hotter than ever before. A ring of colorful molten Lava flecks surrounded her, like she was a miniature planet, and she had a little bird message capsule around one leg.

Everyone got real interested at the sheer quantity of loot being generated, and a part of me noted the Radiance heron phoenix was taking flight, puffing himself up and starting to throw around bright skills.

I only had eyes and ears for my little Auri.

“BRRRRRRPT!!” She shrieked, utterly ignoring the loot, and immediately turning south and high-tailing it at top speed out of the valley. “BRRRRPT!”

I’m late! I’m late! Sorry everyone, I need to go NOW, and get back home! Elaine’s going to be WORRIED SICK about me! Oh no, I am SO LATE!

“Auri! I screamed, unfurling my six wings and taking flight. “Auri, I’m right here!”

I shot after her, trying to catch Auri like she was a tiny burning ball. Fenrir and Iona shot after me a moment later, as most people were intent on what was going to happen to the phoenix’s loot - far too much to easily carry or remove, and it was possible something would happen.

Didn’t matter, didn’t care - wait, no. I did care. They were Auri’s friends.

“Auri!” I shouted as I caught up with her, flying side by side.

“Brrpt - BRPT!?” Auri came to a comedic halt, right as I did. I threw my arms out for a hug as Iona and Fenrir caught up.

“BRRRPT!”

Auri flung herself at me.

And all was right in the world.