Dao Divinity 2 Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Amelia was grinning ear to ear as Dar sat down. “Hunk, you really didn’t tell Mika yet?”

The spirit in question rolled her eyes. “He said he would at dinner; can you stop pushing him so much?” But Mika did turn to him with her most charming smile immediately afterwards saying, “But I’d love to know.”

“Hah, I thought it would be a surprise for everybody, but it makes sense Amelia figured it out from what she saw earlier. So, I’ve formed my first greater dao.” Dar laid it out without preamble.

“What!” Mika jumped to her feet, knocking over her bowl and giving him a big hug. “That’s huge! But, you don’t seem all that excited?”

He was, but maybe it was just everything that happened today it seemed smaller.

“I am. I’m just not sure I want to nearly die to be able to reach the next one. I wish it had been something a bit more sustainable, or practiced.” Sasha got up and came over, sitting in his lap. As she snuggled deeply into him, Dar realized he’d neglected her a bit after his near-death, leaving her to tend to Neko. He pulled her into him, rubbing her back as he described the day and the battle to the others.

“The pussy cat is going to be alright?” Amelia’s first concern was for her new friend.

Dar waited, seeing if Sasha would explain. She sat back from him a little, looking over to Amelia. “She’s working through the venom. It’s rough on her, but I don’t think she’s in danger.”

“Poor pussy cat. I’ll go check on her after dinner.”

“We’re not sure what we’re going to do about the full ettercap problem, but we’ll go do some more scouting tomorrow int he forest. See if we can learn any more.” As Dar said it, he felt Sasha tense under him. She sat up, a glare on her face as she positioned herself straight in front of him.

“Darius Yigg. You will not.” Dar tucked a loose hair behind her ear and rubbed her arm, wishing he didn’t have to make her mad.

“It could help in ways we don’t even know, Sasha. All the remains of those spiders…” He trailed off, knowing that Sasha and Cherry would realize what he meant. “I’ll go in with the intent not to fight unless forced to.”

Sasha turned away but she didn’t manage to hide the tear leaking out. “Fuck you. I’m going with again. I can’t let you go alone. Not after today.”

Dar held her more tightly against him. “I know. It scared me today too.”

She hit him in the chest, but there was no force behind it. The movement was followed by sobs as she cried into his chest, and it was like a small crack broke Dar’s heart.

“It’s alright.” Dar tried to soothe her, not quite sure what to do.

The rest of the girls were looking at Sasha with a mix of their own emotions. He could see questions lingering in Mika and Amelia’s eyes, but they didn’t ask why he needed the bodies.

Cherry by far, was the strangest reaction. He expected her to be angry, but instead she looked thoughtful. After a moment, she spoke. “I’m going too, but for a different reason. I’d like to retrieve that stump and keep it close to the village.”

“You were a natural disaster with that stump.” Dar encouraged. “I’d love to have it close by, should there be more trouble.”

“My thoughts exactly. Even if the ettercaps leave us alone, something else will eventually cause trouble.”

“Perfect. Cherry and Sasha will come with me tomorrow, and we’ll do a quick in and out of the forest.”

Mika looked like she wanted to jump forward, but Amelia held her back. “You better come back in one piece, hunk. I’m not dealing with a heartbroken Mika.”

“Ams!” Mika scowled at her friend.

“What? I’m just telling it how it is. Can’t you see the big hunk is just about as straightforward as you can get?”

Dar cleared his throat. He didn’t like being discussed, like he wasn’t even there. “Well, I’m glad you’ve figured that out, Amelia. How’s your salt gathering going?”

“Slow. I’ll need a new spot tomorrow. I’ve pulled up as much as I can there. But, you have quite a bit of salt now. It would be enough to live on for a few years if we were still in the city.”

“Why weren’t you rich if you could pull all this out of the ground, or even the ocean, when you were in Bellhaven?” Salt was almost as valuable as gold.

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Some of the merchants called it demon salt or monster salt. They wanted verification of where it all came from. Nobles enforced it, making my salt worth far less than what humans brought out. It was the same stuff! And I’m fairly certain they sold it all the same in the end.” Her statement ended in a grumble.

“So, they ripped you off.” Dar grunted in agreement.

“Yeah, although it still was lucrative enough. I worked a couple days a moon and lived comfortably. They just never wanted to buy any more than that from me, so I was somewhat limited in my means.”

“So what did you do with your time?” Dar asked.

“Oh, you know, lots of time to drink and be merry.” She winked.

On second thought, maybe she wasn’t working her dao path. “Do you have any other greater dao?”

“Maybe, maybe not. That’s not something I’d share until after we get to know each other better.” She said it demurely as she leaned forward, pretending to tie her shoe, which had no laces that needed tied. Her chest spilling out of the top in the process. She looked up, giving him a beaming smile. Dar looked away, not wanting to encourage her.

But his attention shifted back as a root appeared over Amelia’s shoulder and smacked her on the top of the head. “Cut it out.” Cherry wasn’t amused. “You are making him uncomfortable. He’s not used to women being so forward. You need to wait for him to reciprocate some.”

“Ouch. Maybe if I throw him off his game, I can sneak in under his guard.” Amelia’s purple eyes looked like they were starting to water.

“Cherry, maybe that was a bit harsh.”

“If you give him one crocodile tear, I swear I’ll beat you black and blue.” Cherry narrowed her eyes at Amelia, daring her.

Dar wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but Sasha pulled his arm for his attention. “Let them sort it out. Please, Dar.”

“What’s she doing wrong?”

“Me and Cherry set the pace, not her. While I admire her pursuit, she needs to respect Cherry if she’s to work out long term.”

“I— okay.” Dar wasn’t about to get in the middle of that. He respected that Sasha and Cherry needed to feel some control over the women brought into their lives. “Just don’t take it so far that I need to intervene. She’s mostly harmless”

“Nothing like that, just some simple establishing of the pecking order.” Sasha kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, love. This will go a long way to a stable family.”

Dar looked at the two women squaring off and decided that he was best to just remove himself from the situation. “Mika, why don’t we go for a walk?”

Amelia looked away from Cherry. “Where are you going?”

“Away from you two. Settle it before I get back. I don’t want this in our family dinner again.”

The salt spirit looked from me to Cherry several times before wilting and bowing her head to Cherry. “Okay.”

Sasha gave him a pat on the rear. “Good luck. I’m going to go check on Neko.” Dar paused, considering if he should join.

“You can go with her if you want; I know you are worried about Neko.” Mika offered, noticing his hesitation.

Giving Mika a reassuring smile, he started moving, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. “No, she’s in great hands. I’ll go check on her a little later”

“I’m glad you are okay though.” Mika hesitated before continuing. “Do you want me there tomorrow?”

There really wasn’t a great answer for that one. “You might have caught a few things I didn’t exactly make clear. I have a secret that both of them know, and I’m not comfortable sharing it just yet.”

Mika waved her hands in front of her. “No, no. It’s totally fine. I just wasn’t sure if you—” She snapped her mouth closed. “Sorry, rambling. I seem to be doing that a lot around you lately.”

Dar bumped her with his hip. “It’s cute. I would have never guessed you were like this when you were a stone cold badass back in Bellhaven.”

She blushed and covered her face. “I’m not normally like this.”

“Well then, what do we need to do to get you over it?”

“Talk?” She said it more like a question than an answer.

“Well, I had an idea I wanted to run past you. I’m not sure if you’ve done much enchanting in the past?” Dar started off.

Mika shrugged. “I’ve done a few simple ones, but waves aren’t exactly in high demand. Though… Henry used to make me do a few simple ones.” She cringed, remembering her previous master who abused her.

Dar tried to quickly move on, not wanting to make her relive it. “I had an idea. Maybe we could work your wave dao into something on the back of the boat, like this.” Dar picked up a stick and started drawing in the dirt.

The more Dar talked about her dao and asked questions, the more Mika opened up to him. If there was one thing a spirit could talk all day about, it was their dao. Mika lit up as she talked about waves.

***

Dar had fallen asleep and found himself standing in his inner world.

“Wow. It’s so much bigger.” Cherry spun around before him. “You at least tripled the size.”

“More like five times.” Dar said, astounded at the difference in the amount of land around him. The dark stone walls that once made the border of his inner world now stretched far away.

Dar wondered what he was going to do with all this space. What happened if it kept expanding? Would he practically have another world inside of him?

He’d need to figure out something to do with it. Maybe bring in more trees and animals? What would he do with them? Dar paused, not for the first time wishing there was somebody who had gone through what he was before. Somebody who could at least give him some guidance, as he figured it all out.

Walking towards the lake, he saw the plants on the edge were all doing well. If he could get fish in here, he might have fish to eat one day.

Moving over to where Cherry was checking out the little dao tree and her connection to him, he checked in with what she was sensing. “It is all okay?”

“Yes, no change, despite everything else in here changing.”

Dar looked towards the dark stone keep, his eyes lighting up as he instantly started moving towards it. “That’s right!” He’d managed to break open the iron gate and could finally see what was on the other side!

“What is it?” Cherry said, hurrying to keep up with him as she hurried over to the keep.

Sure enough, the iron gate was smashed in, like a giant troll had decided to break through.

“What happened? How’d that get smashed?” Cherry’s eyes were wide.

“I did it. At least, I think I did. When I expanded my inner world, I also thought to smash that gate. Looks like I didn’t just imagine it.” He grinned, so eager to explore.

Dar didn’t break his stride as he stepped over the remains of the gate and into the keep’s yard.

Passing by some of the vegetation near the gate, Dar finally was able to see more of what was within. The closest thing that stood out to him was a raised platform with a rack of practice weapons.

“A training area?” He asked.

Cherry shrugged. “That seems like the obvious answer, but this is inside of you. You tell me what it is.”

Dar walked the edge of what seemed to be a training yard, looking over the gear. Almost every weapon he could think of sat on the neat racks. And all of them were made with a dark black metal that didn’t reflect any light. The weapon racks were spaced by dummies, wearing various armor types.

There was even another dummy wearing the armor with the same twilight black metal in the form of a full set of plate armor.

“Dar…” Cherry was staring at that black set of armor, a faraway look in her eye. “That’s the Black Knight’s armor.”

Dar looked at it with a new sense of respect. “Then these weapons? They are all his? Mine?”

“He used a huge sword…” She spun around, looking at all the racks before going to one and pointing it out. “This one, I’m pretty sure. But it has been a while.”

The sword she pointed to was a massive, like a sword an anime character would use to crush boulders. Dar stepped over to it and lifted it off the rack, or at least, he tried to. Instead he simply knocked it off the rack, and it crashed to the ground with a deep thud, the blade burying into the soil. “That’s heavier than I expected.” Dar muttered, a touch embarrassed.

Dar drew upon his enhanced body, working to increase his strength. Feeling his mana pumping, Dar lifted the sword out of the floor, but his shoulders were already aching just picking it up. The sword had to be several thousand pounds.

“I used to swing this around?” Dar asked skeptically.

“And walk around with it over your shoulder.” Cherry offered oh so helpfully.

“Maybe another time. Let’s try something lighter.” Dar hefted the sword back on the rack and looked through the weapons. The one that spoke to him the most was his ax. It didn’t quite have the skill that a longsword might have, but it suited his strength, which was overwhelming brute force.

Mentally shrugging, Dar knew enough to admit that he wasn’t a trained sword fighter. And brute force had served him well so far.

Dar found something similar to his ax on the racks. It was about as long as his arm from the base to the business end of the ax. It had a large blade with a wicked-looking curve. The curve, along with the pitch black coloring, gave it evil vibes to Dar.

It was still heavy, but it was far more manageable than the oversized sword.

“You will need to learn how to swing a sword.” Cherry teased.

“What’s with how dark these are?” Dar tried to inspect the blade, but it was so dark it seemed to absorb all light. He couldn’t make out any of the details on the blade.

“They are enchanted by Lilith. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of enchantments, including a dozen to obscure and hide the enchantments themselves. So that someone would have to know all of them to even see the enchantments on them.”

Dar let out an appreciative whistle. “That’s intense. Do you know what they are made of?”

“Not a clue, but it doesn’t matter at this point. It might as well be an entirely new material with how many enchantments are on it.”

Holding it, Dar tried to will the enchantments to shift or change, but nothing happened. “They are all permanently active enchantments.”

“Yup. The armor is the same way.”

“I’d be a walking fortress.” He said, amazed.

“A walking fortress with a person inside. But you aren’t invulnerable with the armor on, nor are the weapons going to magically cut everything in half.” Cherry said with narrowed eyes.

Dar scratched the back of his head. “Caught me. So, you don’t think this can let me go waltz through the ettercap army?”

Cherry gave him a scolding look. “You’d still get tied down in webs like last time. And you’re toast once they strip the armor off you. Don’t be stupid.”

Sighing, Dar took the ax and walked around the training yard.

Nearby, there was a door that seemed to lead into the furthest edges of the keep. Approaching it, Dar tested the handle, not surprised to find that it was locked. After all the work he went through to get through the gate, he should have known the keep wouldn’t be wide open. He turned, walking back to Cherry.

“Well, this was a pretty big boon. I have a full armory and different types of armor. Guess I can’t expect this to solve all my problems.”

“Yeah, just perhaps the strongest armor in the world.” Cherry rolled her eyes. “I hope you weren’t holding out for a weapon that you just pointed at people and instantly killed them.”

“A gun?”

“Wait, that was a thing in your old world?”

Dar explained what a gun was to her as they walked back out of the armory.

“For a world without mana, that is a pretty powerful enchantment. Everyone in your world uses these?” Cherry asked with disbelief.

“No, but everyone could.” They exited the keep, and Dar once again appreciated how large his inner world had become. “Cherry, what do you think about trying to expand the pond and bringing some fish in here. Maybe form a big orchard too?”

“Sounds like it would be a place to live, but I hope you don’t expect to keep me here.”

Dar waved his hands. “No, that wasn’t the idea. I was thinking more of a getaway or an emergency shelter. We’ve brought in plants and fish. Maybe we could bring in other people if something were to go wrong?”

Cherry’s face softened. “You are still worried about the ettercaps.”

“Who wouldn’t be? Thousands Cherry. It’s hard to imagine just how many that is. And the death toll we’d have if they did decide to attack.”

“They are staying to the forest for now.” Cherry tried to reassure him, but they both knew it may only be a matter of time. They had no idea how long the forest would hold them.