[Luna POV]
As I made my way to the tower in the center of the city I peeked into a few of the buildings along the way. Most of them were pretty much empty with some small items left behind here and there. Some of the larger buildings which I assumed were noble’s mansions had some wonderfully made pieces of art or some kind of pottery or metalwork, but nothing that I saw any value in. I did take any painting I found for Soleil, though. Once I was almost at the tower, I found a building that looked like a large music hall or some kind of theatre.
“Come to think of it, I remember looking into some of the music I heard when we first got to the crystal city and was surprised that the dwarves are the race that invented jazz in this world.”
I entered the building and after a quick look around the empty lobby, entered the main room. It was a large amphitheater-like structure with a large stage at the center of the room. I made my way to the stage and walked behind the faded curtains and actually found a lot of instruments laying around. A lot of them were broken, but there were a few that could be repaired if brought to a specialist. I collected all of them regardless of their state before going back to looking around.
{Luna, what are you going to do with all of those?}
“Have someone fix them and then teach myself to play if I ever get bored. Just imagine it, an entire orchestra made of illusory mes.”
{Well, if you ever want to be taught instead of self-taught, I can ask the God of Music if she can teach you.}
“If I ever get stuck, then we can do that.”
{Alright.}
After that conversation, I continued to look around the place before leaving after collecting a few more instruments. Several more minutes of walking later, I arrived at the gate of the tower.
“Fufufu. Time to explore some more.”
[Soleil POV]
Me and Velvet were currently looking around the part of the abandoned city that we assumed was either the shopping or entertainment district. We had just left another building that was full of old paper, dust, and rats.
“Hey Velvet, this is actually really fun, don’t you think?” (Soleil)
“Yeah. Kind of a shame we can’t read any of the papers we’ve been picking up, but it’s still fun looking inside old buildings to see if we can find any treasure.” (Velvet)
“Yeah, though it’s also kind of eerie.” (Soleil)
“Hehehe. Are you a little scared, Soleil?” (Velvet)
“Nope. Just because I said it was eerie doesn’t mean I’m scared.” (Soleil)
“Aww.” (Velvet)
“You know I’d dive into your arms if you asked, right? I wouldn’t need to be scared to do that.” (Soleil)
“Yeah, but there is also a different kind of feeling when I ask you and when you do that without my prompting.” (Velvet)
“Fair enough.” (Soleil)
“Ooo. Let’s look in that building next.” (Velvet)
I turned to look at the building Velvet was pointing at to see a three story building with some impressively carved columns in the front of it and a metal sign with more old dwarfish words carved into it. When we went inside, we could hear the scurrying of rats that were running from us when we opened the door. A large cloud of dust was made when the door swung open and smaller poofs of dust were made after our every step.
“*Cough cough* So much dust.” (Soleil)
“Ugh. I feel like I’m about to sneeze…And it’s gone.” (Velvet)
“I hate that.” (Soleil)
“Same.” (Velvet)
We walked up to a long desk and climbed over it. We checked every drawer behind the counter but came up with nothing but old inkwells and some quills that disintegrated when they were touched. We then went into one of the rooms in the back and found large bookcases filled with books.
“Nice. Into the bag you go, books.” (Soleil)
“I’ll take this side, you take the other.” (Velvet)
“Yep yep.” (Soleil)
As we were throwing books into our storage bags I noticed a strange feeling in the room. I jumped straight back and as soon as I did, spectral hands sprouted from the floor, bookcase, and roof.
“Velvet.” (Soleil)
“Ghosts or maybe wights.” (Velvet)
“No big deal.” (Soleil)
I made several balls of purifying fox fire and attacked the hands with them. The hands seemed to shrivel up in pain before disappearing completely.
“Be on guard in case more appear.” (Velvet)
“Don’t have to tell me twice. But it’s good to know that there are more things here than just rats and dead orcs and trolls.” (Soleil)
“True.” (Velvet)
We went back to collecting everything we thought would be interesting or would give some kind of information, but this time we took it slow. We ran into a few more of our spectral ‘friends’ but nothing a bit of fox fire couldn’t take care of. After we cleared the entire building, we left in search for more loot.
[Mio POV]
“Nya nya nyaaa nya nya nya NYA NYA.” (Mio)
“What are you singing, Mio?” (Fenrir)
“I’m just saying nya in a singing way nya.” (Mio)
“Hahaha. Well, it sounded like a song to me. Anyway, are you having fun?” (Fenrir)
“Yep nya. There are so many things to find here nya. I haven’t gotten to do a lot of this since we stopped going into dungeons nya. Nyot that I’m complaining about that nya.” (Mio)
“Is there anything you hope to find?” (Fenrir)
“Nyot really nya. I’m just walking around in whatever direction I feel like nya. If I find something interesting nya, I’ll go and check it out nya.” (Mio)
As I said that I saw a building that looked like one where people would store things for merchants. My senses were telling me that I would find the most glorious of treasures there, so I went over and entered the building.
Once inside, my eyes went wide and a smile formed on my face.
“NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!” (Mio)
I ran up and jumped. When I landed, I was inside a very large box. Once I made absolutely sure that the box was indeed a box, I laid on the ground and started to take a nap.
“Box nya.” (Mio)
“Note to self: get as many boxes as I can fit in my home.” (Fenrir)
[Ophidia POV]
While exploring the abandoned city, I was getting many strange feelings.
“*Sigh*” (Ophidia)
“What’s wrong?” (Skadi)
“Looking around this city is making me remember something from a long time ago. It’s reminding me of the people I used to watch over before master came along.” (Ophidia)
“In what way?” (Skadi)
“It’s the abandoned feeling of the city. The quiet streets, the empty buildings, the dead feeling of the place. It makes me remember when the people I watched over started dying off. Once they were all gone, their cities were exactly like this one with the sole exception that these buildings haven’t started crumbling yet.” (Ophidia)
“I see.” (Skadi)
Skadi walked closer to me and wrapped one of her arms around me and pulled me closer to her.
“Let me help by doing this.” (Skadi)
I hummed a reply and we continued walking. After passing by several streets, we came up to a gate that surrounded a large domed building. We went inside and found a place literally overflowing with nature. In the center of the dome above us was a larger version of the crystal torches that we saw a lot of in the tunnels between cities. There was also a dwarf-made river flowing through the room and trees, shrubs, and other plants growing everywhere. There were also vines climbing up the walls and roof and we could hear the sounds of insects coming from everywhere.
“Guess this is where the orcs got all of that wood they used. I can see places where a lot of trees were cut down.” (Ophidia)
“Yeah. Hey, I just got an idea.” (Skadi)
“And that idea would be?” (Ophidia)
“Hehe.” (Skadi)
Skadi grabbed my hand and started leading me through the place like she owned it. We walked around until we found a large tree growing on a small island in the middle of one of the waterways. We walked over the small bridge and sat down next to the tree. Its leaves were hanging down from the branches like silvery-green strings.
“Now lay your head down on my lap.” (Skadi)
I did as she said and laid down. She looked at me with a warn smile as she started running her fingers through my hair.
“We’ll sit here until you feel better.” (Skadi)
Her warm words and the sight of her smiling down at me made my heart race.
“Skadi, how is it that you make me keep falling in love with you?” (Ophidia)
“I don’t know. I just try my best to make you as happy as I can and help you out when you feel any way other than happy.” (Skadi)
I was just about to say something when I felt a rumbling coming from underneath us. Figuring what was about to happen, a frown formed on my face. We both jumped up and away from the tree and the head of a large worm burst from the ground. It let out a screech and flailed around, knocking the tree over and into the water.
“Tch. Stupid worm ruining the moment. I’ll make sure you suffer.” (Ophidia)
“Ophidia, calm down.” (Skadi)
“No can do, Skadi. This worm needs some punishment for this.” (Ophidia)
I cracked my knuckles and started walking back to the worm. When it noticed me approaching, it screeched again and started rapidly approaching me. Just before the worm came into contact with me I sidestepped and threw a punch. My fist sunk into the side of the worm but didn’t pierce it. It went flying and only stopped after crashing through several more trees. I jumped over the river that was separating us and I grabbed it with both arms. I tried my best to use the worm as a whip, but since it was to big to do so easily, I instead went for something simpler. I started to spin around using a heel as a pivot before throwing the worm into the air.
While it was air-born, I jumped and kicked it up. It flew higher before getting impaled on the light crystal on the roof. I landed on the ground underneath it and it slowly started sliding off the crystal. Once it did, it let out a weak shriek and just before its head hit the ground, I punched it again. I then used my space magic and punched the air beside me. My fist made contact with the worm’s head again and it flew back towards me. I continued to punch it back and forth until its head was nothing more than a mound of tenderized meat.
“I’m still not satisfied. You ruined the whole atmosphere. Give me back my precious time with Skadi.” (Ophidia)
“Hey, don’t act like it killed me or something.” (Skadi)
“I never implied that. But it ruined the moment AND the scenery.” (Ophidia)
“Sure, blame the damaged scenery on the worm and not the serpent that kept knocking it around.” (Skadi)
“Hmph.” (Ophidia)
“Hehehehehehe.” (Skadi)
I crossed my arms and was about to talk more when I saw a tree that escaped the worm’s rampage. It had some, things, growing on it that I’d never seen before.
“Hey Skadi, what is that?” (Ophidia)
“Hmm?” (Skadi)
She looked over to where I was pointing.
“I don’t know.” (Skadi)
We both walked over to the tree and I picked up one of the things that was growing on it.
“Is it some kind of fruit you think?” (Ophidia)
“Maybe? Want to bring some back to our party’s culinary expert?” (Skadi)
“Yeah. I have faith that master will be able to figure out what this is.” (Ophidia)
“Then let’s collect as much of this as we can. You know how Luna is after all.” (Skadi)
“Yep.” (Ophidia)
We collected every funny tree fruit(?) we could find before leaving the domed building and heading back towards the inn we made our base. While on the way there, we could hear some sounds and see some flashes of light coming from both the tower and another part of the city in the direction that Soleil and Velvet went.
“Seems like they are having fun.” (Ophidia)
“Yeah.” (Skadi)
“Should we go help them?” (Ophidia)
“They’ll be fine. If they needed help, they would have let us know someway or another.” (Skadi)
“True.” (Ophidia)
We continued to walk back to the inn, chatting all the way, my feelings from earlier completely forgotten.
Chaos Realm:
Astraea: Gah!
Order, I think I'm gonna go crazy. Our daughter is so cute that I can't handle it.
Order: I'm of the same opinion.
Astraea: Gu! E...Eve.
...
Order: ...
I am both happy and depressed now.
Order: Same. Of all the things she could say for her first word, it has to be the start of the name of her Fated One.
Well, at least she's growing. Soon enough she'll be talking our ears off.
Order: Look at you taking this in stride.
I've come to terms with it, so I'm just going to be happy for Astraea. Won't stop me from getting depressed about it, but happy for her all the same.
Order: That's all we can do as her parents, but don't worry, we still have a while before she's ready to leave us.
Let's make the most of it.
[Luna POV]
As I made my way to the tower in the center of the city I peeked into a few of the buildings along the way. Most of them were pretty much empty with some small items left behind here and there. Some of the larger buildings which I assumed were noble’s mansions had some wonderfully made pieces of art or some kind of pottery or metalwork, but nothing that I saw any value in. I did take any painting I found for Soleil, though. Once I was almost at the tower, I found a building that looked like a large music hall or some kind of theatre.
“Come to think of it, I remember looking into some of the music I heard when we first got to the crystal city and was surprised that the dwarves are the race that invented jazz in this world.”
I entered the building and after a quick look around the empty lobby, entered the main room. It was a large amphitheater-like structure with a large stage at the center of the room. I made my way to the stage and walked behind the faded curtains and actually found a lot of instruments laying around. A lot of them were broken, but there were a few that could be repaired if brought to a specialist. I collected all of them regardless of their state before going back to looking around.
{Luna, what are you going to do with all of those?}
“Have someone fix them and then teach myself to play if I ever get bored. Just imagine it, an entire orchestra made of illusory mes.”
{Well, if you ever want to be taught instead of self-taught, I can ask the God of Music if she can teach you.}
“If I ever get stuck, then we can do that.”
{Alright.}
After that conversation, I continued to look around the place before leaving after collecting a few more instruments. Several more minutes of walking later, I arrived at the gate of the tower.
“Fufufu. Time to explore some more.”
[Soleil POV]
Me and Velvet were currently looking around the part of the abandoned city that we assumed was either the shopping or entertainment district. We had just left another building that was full of old paper, dust, and rats.
“Hey Velvet, this is actually really fun, don’t you think?” (Soleil)
“Yeah. Kind of a shame we can’t read any of the papers we’ve been picking up, but it’s still fun looking inside old buildings to see if we can find any treasure.” (Velvet)
“Yeah, though it’s also kind of eerie.” (Soleil)
“Hehehe. Are you a little scared, Soleil?” (Velvet)
“Nope. Just because I said it was eerie doesn’t mean I’m scared.” (Soleil)
“Aww.” (Velvet)
“You know I’d dive into your arms if you asked, right? I wouldn’t need to be scared to do that.” (Soleil)
“Yeah, but there is also a different kind of feeling when I ask you and when you do that without my prompting.” (Velvet)
“Fair enough.” (Soleil)
“Ooo. Let’s look in that building next.” (Velvet)
I turned to look at the building Velvet was pointing at to see a three story building with some impressively carved columns in the front of it and a metal sign with more old dwarfish words carved into it. When we went inside, we could hear the scurrying of rats that were running from us when we opened the door. A large cloud of dust was made when the door swung open and smaller poofs of dust were made after our every step.
“*Cough cough* So much dust.” (Soleil)
“Ugh. I feel like I’m about to sneeze…And it’s gone.” (Velvet)
“I hate that.” (Soleil)
“Same.” (Velvet)
We walked up to a long desk and climbed over it. We checked every drawer behind the counter but came up with nothing but old inkwells and some quills that disintegrated when they were touched. We then went into one of the rooms in the back and found large bookcases filled with books.
“Nice. Into the bag you go, books.” (Soleil)
“I’ll take this side, you take the other.” (Velvet)
“Yep yep.” (Soleil)
As we were throwing books into our storage bags I noticed a strange feeling in the room. I jumped straight back and as soon as I did, spectral hands sprouted from the floor, bookcase, and roof.
“Velvet.” (Soleil)
“Ghosts or maybe wights.” (Velvet)
“No big deal.” (Soleil)
I made several balls of purifying fox fire and attacked the hands with them. The hands seemed to shrivel up in pain before disappearing completely.
“Be on guard in case more appear.” (Velvet)
“Don’t have to tell me twice. But it’s good to know that there are more things here than just rats and dead orcs and trolls.” (Soleil)
“True.” (Velvet)
We went back to collecting everything we thought would be interesting or would give some kind of information, but this time we took it slow. We ran into a few more of our spectral ‘friends’ but nothing a bit of fox fire couldn’t take care of. After we cleared the entire building, we left in search for more loot.
[Mio POV]
“Nya nya nyaaa nya nya nya NYA NYA.” (Mio)
“What are you singing, Mio?” (Fenrir)
“I’m just saying nya in a singing way nya.” (Mio)
“Hahaha. Well, it sounded like a song to me. Anyway, are you having fun?” (Fenrir)
“Yep nya. There are so many things to find here nya. I haven’t gotten to do a lot of this since we stopped going into dungeons nya. Nyot that I’m complaining about that nya.” (Mio)
“Is there anything you hope to find?” (Fenrir)
“Nyot really nya. I’m just walking around in whatever direction I feel like nya. If I find something interesting nya, I’ll go and check it out nya.” (Mio)
As I said that I saw a building that looked like one where people would store things for merchants. My senses were telling me that I would find the most glorious of treasures there, so I went over and entered the building.
Once inside, my eyes went wide and a smile formed on my face.
“NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!” (Mio)
I ran up and jumped. When I landed, I was inside a very large box. Once I made absolutely sure that the box was indeed a box, I laid on the ground and started to take a nap.
“Box nya.” (Mio)
“Note to self: get as many boxes as I can fit in my home.” (Fenrir)
[Ophidia POV]
While exploring the abandoned city, I was getting many strange feelings.
“*Sigh*” (Ophidia)
“What’s wrong?” (Skadi)
“Looking around this city is making me remember something from a long time ago. It’s reminding me of the people I used to watch over before master came along.” (Ophidia)
“In what way?” (Skadi)
“It’s the abandoned feeling of the city. The quiet streets, the empty buildings, the dead feeling of the place. It makes me remember when the people I watched over started dying off. Once they were all gone, their cities were exactly like this one with the sole exception that these buildings haven’t started crumbling yet.” (Ophidia)
“I see.” (Skadi)
Skadi walked closer to me and wrapped one of her arms around me and pulled me closer to her.
“Let me help by doing this.” (Skadi)
I hummed a reply and we continued walking. After passing by several streets, we came up to a gate that surrounded a large domed building. We went inside and found a place literally overflowing with nature. In the center of the dome above us was a larger version of the crystal torches that we saw a lot of in the tunnels between cities. There was also a dwarf-made river flowing through the room and trees, shrubs, and other plants growing everywhere. There were also vines climbing up the walls and roof and we could hear the sounds of insects coming from everywhere.
“Guess this is where the orcs got all of that wood they used. I can see places where a lot of trees were cut down.” (Ophidia)
“Yeah. Hey, I just got an idea.” (Skadi)
“And that idea would be?” (Ophidia)
“Hehe.” (Skadi)
Skadi grabbed my hand and started leading me through the place like she owned it. We walked around until we found a large tree growing on a small island in the middle of one of the waterways. We walked over the small bridge and sat down next to the tree. Its leaves were hanging down from the branches like silvery-green strings.
“Now lay your head down on my lap.” (Skadi)
I did as she said and laid down. She looked at me with a warn smile as she started running her fingers through my hair.
“We’ll sit here until you feel better.” (Skadi)
Her warm words and the sight of her smiling down at me made my heart race.
“Skadi, how is it that you make me keep falling in love with you?” (Ophidia)
“I don’t know. I just try my best to make you as happy as I can and help you out when you feel any way other than happy.” (Skadi)
I was just about to say something when I felt a rumbling coming from underneath us. Figuring what was about to happen, a frown formed on my face. We both jumped up and away from the tree and the head of a large worm burst from the ground. It let out a screech and flailed around, knocking the tree over and into the water.
“Tch. Stupid worm ruining the moment. I’ll make sure you suffer.” (Ophidia)
“Ophidia, calm down.” (Skadi)
“No can do, Skadi. This worm needs some punishment for this.” (Ophidia)
I cracked my knuckles and started walking back to the worm. When it noticed me approaching, it screeched again and started rapidly approaching me. Just before the worm came into contact with me I sidestepped and threw a punch. My fist sunk into the side of the worm but didn’t pierce it. It went flying and only stopped after crashing through several more trees. I jumped over the river that was separating us and I grabbed it with both arms. I tried my best to use the worm as a whip, but since it was to big to do so easily, I instead went for something simpler. I started to spin around using a heel as a pivot before throwing the worm into the air.
While it was air-born, I jumped and kicked it up. It flew higher before getting impaled on the light crystal on the roof. I landed on the ground underneath it and it slowly started sliding off the crystal. Once it did, it let out a weak shriek and just before its head hit the ground, I punched it again. I then used my space magic and punched the air beside me. My fist made contact with the worm’s head again and it flew back towards me. I continued to punch it back and forth until its head was nothing more than a mound of tenderized meat.
“I’m still not satisfied. You ruined the whole atmosphere. Give me back my precious time with Skadi.” (Ophidia)
“Hey, don’t act like it killed me or something.” (Skadi)
“I never implied that. But it ruined the moment AND the scenery.” (Ophidia)
“Sure, blame the damaged scenery on the worm and not the serpent that kept knocking it around.” (Skadi)
“Hmph.” (Ophidia)
“Hehehehehehe.” (Skadi)
I crossed my arms and was about to talk more when I saw a tree that escaped the worm’s rampage. It had some, things, growing on it that I’d never seen before.
“Hey Skadi, what is that?” (Ophidia)
“Hmm?” (Skadi)
She looked over to where I was pointing.
“I don’t know.” (Skadi)
We both walked over to the tree and I picked up one of the things that was growing on it.
“Is it some kind of fruit you think?” (Ophidia)
“Maybe? Want to bring some back to our party’s culinary expert?” (Skadi)
“Yeah. I have faith that master will be able to figure out what this is.” (Ophidia)
“Then let’s collect as much of this as we can. You know how Luna is after all.” (Skadi)
“Yep.” (Ophidia)
We collected every funny tree fruit(?) we could find before leaving the domed building and heading back towards the inn we made our base. While on the way there, we could hear some sounds and see some flashes of light coming from both the tower and another part of the city in the direction that Soleil and Velvet went.
“Seems like they are having fun.” (Ophidia)
“Yeah.” (Skadi)
“Should we go help them?” (Ophidia)
“They’ll be fine. If they needed help, they would have let us know someway or another.” (Skadi)
“True.” (Ophidia)
We continued to walk back to the inn, chatting all the way, my feelings from earlier completely forgotten.
Chaos Realm:
Astraea: Gah!
Order, I think I'm gonna go crazy. Our daughter is so cute that I can't handle it.
Order: I'm of the same opinion.
Astraea: Gu! E...Eve.
...
Order: ...
I am both happy and depressed now.
Order: Same. Of all the things she could say for her first word, it has to be the start of the name of her Fated One.
Well, at least she's growing. Soon enough she'll be talking our ears off.
Order: Look at you taking this in stride.
I've come to terms with it, so I'm just going to be happy for Astraea. Won't stop me from getting depressed about it, but happy for her all the same.
Order: That's all we can do as her parents, but don't worry, we still have a while before she's ready to leave us.
Let's make the most of it.
