A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Luchael

After the meeting with Velen and the blessing that his rapier had received, the leporan quickly made his way to reach the dungeon: the square was populated by various groups of adventurers, some were injured and were being treated by some [Healer] of their party or hired to carry out that task, every now and then it happened that someone of their class placed themselves outside the dungeons, it was an excellent idea to capitalize on their talent effectively.

After all, why wait for the wounded adventurers - and with the money needed to be healed - at the temple when you can bring the temple to the wounded adventurers?

Helen was there, busy arguing with some of the adventurers who had just come out. It was a shame that she was born into a common family, if she were born into a high-class family with the right class, she would have had no difficulty passing for a [Paladin] in terms of appearance; Luchael approached at a brisk pace, still full of emotion and determination, his fingertips tingling with the desire to grab the rapier as soon as possible and witness with his own eyes the miraculous effects of a divine blessing.

“Luchael, there you are!” She exclaimed, parting her lips in a wide smile. She nodded at the adventurers she was talking to and took a few steps closer to her party member, “did you do what you had to do?”

“Huh?” The leporan had forgotten what the excuse with which he had left was, too busy thinking with growing curiosity about the meeting with the guardian spirit and about the implication of having the interest of the deities on the bizarre salmadrer, “y -yes!”

If nothing else, this rules out Aradra being Nightmare Tyrant, Luchael thought, turning his ears back, assuming the gods don't want to destroy the continent.

Luchael lowered his gaze, focusing on the human's toes. Actually, my conclusion is a bit premature.

“Hey?”

Helen stared at Luchael with perplexity, waving a hand a few centimeters from his nose, "if you keep getting distracted so easily it's going to be tough in the dungeon!"

“S-sorry! I was just thinking about the quest we have to do,” Luchael said, straightening his back.

“Don't worry, everything will be fine. If we find monsters, let me go to the front line, you attack by surprise when I draw their attention to me, so you will gain experience!” Helen exclaimed, winking at him, “shall we go?”

“Yeah,” Luchael gave a single affirmative nod, “let's go.”

The duo of adventurers passed the entrance to Sleepy Swamp and began their descent towards the dimensional fold in which the actual dungeon was located: when they reached the end of the stairs they found themselves in a sleeping landscape, the pools of light that dotted the floor in every direction shone as brightly as the full moon in the sky. Helen put her hand in one of the pouches attached to her belt and took out a honey-colored stone, shaking it for about ten seconds until the stone began to shine with the intensity of a torch.

“A sunstone?” He asked surprised.

"Of course! Why? Don't you have one? It's a basic item for any adventurer worth their salt..." Helen muttered, raising an eyebrow.

“I…” Luchael puffed out his cheeks and looked elsewhere, “five silver Leuns is way beyond what I can afford.”

“The temple gives them to its templars for free,” she said with a bright smile, it was obvious what she was trying to say.

“But I don't feel the calling,” he replied, “it wouldn't be right if I became a templar without feeling that I want to dedicate my life to a deity.”

“Right… right, but,” Helen switched the sunstone to her right hand and braced the shield before starting to walk, “if you became part of the temple we could always team up together in dungeon explorations! I would introduce you to my friends! It will be fun!”

Her offer is kind, though… Luchael adjusted his wide-brimmed hat on his head to cover his eyes and nose, “n-no, thanks. We can still collaborate together, but I prefer to make do… m-maybe I will also leave this city one day!”

The girl remained silent, only muttering an "u-uh" and keeping a few steps in front of the leporan.

Did I just offended her? Luchael asked himself mentally, but I didn't want to come across as ungrateful...

He didn't dare ask the question, he was a shy creature and the gentle nature of leporans was such that they wanted to get along with everyone, and it was easy for them to feel anxious when someone misunderstood them, even when it wasn't their fault. Helen said nothing more and the duo continued into the recesses of the dungeon, being interrupted only from time to time in their progress by the need to recover the herbs required by the quest and to shake the sun stone again. There were various versions of that versatile object, the cheapest on the market could be shaken up to thirty times before losing all effectiveness.

At a certain point, he preferred to concentrate on finding Aradra, and on what he could do to prevent Helen from attacking her.

He tried to imagine himself as Aradra, imagining himself as a small, weak monster lost all alone inside a dungeon, what would he do?

He would have hide himself in some hole.

He thus began to pay more attention to the nooks and crannies that they found on their path, dedicating himself to gathering herbs only in a distracted manner but with a certain amount of skill, a benefit more of his class than of the commitment and hours spent collecting herbs and transforming them into preparations.

Peering carefully but appearing distracted was not easy, he repeated the same operation for at least twenty holes before finally noticing a movement.

“Aradra?” He whispered hopefully with a thin smile on his lips.

The movement he had noticed became more decisive, unfortunately what came out was not a salmadrer: a small, mushroom-like creature jumped out on its stumpy legs, its ravenous jaws wide open to try to sink its teeth into the leporan's flesh.

“Luchael! Watch out!” Helen exclaimed, taken by surprise. The girl dropped the sunstone on the ground so she could have her hand free to draw her sword.

“Iik!” The leporan gave a little cry; he moved his exposed leg to avoid the bite and with one swift movement grabbed the hilt of his rapier.

The first fuginid fell in an instant: as soon as Luchael closed the grip on his weapon, he felt filled with determination, his hand had never been steadier than that moment, his aim had never been so precise. Luchael's rapier swung rapidly, landing several vital blows even before two of the fuginids' companions emerged from the same hole.

The second fell under a blow from the messer so powerful that the mushroom monster was completely cut from top to bottom, perfectly separating a third of the monster from the other two parts. “Two more are coming!”

The battle went easier than Luchael – even when aware of his blessed weapon – and Helen might have initially supposed: both the leporan's rapier and the human's messer quickly tore all five fuginids to pieces. Their bodies with such strange internal structures and their purple ichors were scattered everywhere, the little monsters had overestimated their abilities, or terribly underestimated those of their opponents.

“You're more skilled than I thought with that rapier!” Said Helen, who seemed to have regained her good spirits despite her dark hair being disordered and stained - as well as her face and the rest of her armor - with the purple blood of the monsters, "I think we should have accepted that quest too... ” she commented, glancing at the corpses she had methodically chopped up.

“Yeah…” the leporan murmured, surprising himself at how calm he was, his heart racing slightly and he was out of breath from the short fight, but other than that, he couldn't find fear in his heart, it must be Velen's blessing, he concluded to himself with the voice of his mind.

“Anyway, if all these monsters came out of that little hole, the only plausible explanation is that there is a hidden room,” Helen said taking a handkerchief to at least wipe her face, “maybe we can find the passage: dungeons of Rank E- don't offer much in the way of hidden treasure, but they can be opened without the risk of finding deadly traps or needing a [Dungeon Explorer]!”

"Really? Let's try it!” Even a small treasure would have been fine for him, even a handful of silver Leuns, which he could have used to equip himself to continue the search for the salmadrer.

Helen was certainly not the best at finding secret doors, with her class, she would have been more skilled at breaking through the wall, but the use of a messer excluded that possibility. The girl began to touch around, scanning the wall and passing her nails through the cracks to push slightly and see if by chance one of the stones moved, Luchael did the same, also helping himself with his nose since the leporans had a sense of smell slightly finer than that of humans.

“So… you're not mad at me?” he asked.

“Why should I?” she asked in response, without taking her eyes off her search operation.

“When I told you earlier that I have no plans to enter the temple and that perhaps in the future I will leave Stanbroodge, you fell silent.”

“Oh, that!” She chuckled, "actually I'm just sad that you don't want to join the templars and that you're thinking of leaving... it's not every day that you have cute leporans as adventure companions!"

Luchael was slightly embarrassed by this, he wet his lips, tried to find something sensible to respond with when luck came his way, "I think I found something!" he exclaimed, pointing to one of the bricks.

"Really? Let me see!"

Helen approached, placing herself shoulder to shoulder with the leporan, her eyes focused on the brick that had been indicated to her and, after a few minutes of manipulation and grumbling, the brick gave way and with a loud click a piece of wall the size of a door opened, it moved, allowing access to a small room.

“Woah! There's a treasure chest inside!”

The room was just two square meters wide and housed a small chest, a little larger than a jewelry box and with a worn appearance. Helen didn't hesitate twice to open the chest: inside there were about forty bronze Leuns and a concoction that Luchael managed to identify as a potion of Sharp Reflexes - a concoction that he himself, given the right ingredients, could have prepared -. That potion alone was worth at least three silver Leuns.

“It's not bad, it's a generous treasure compared to the effort we made!” She smiled and brought her eyes to the pink ones of her adventure companion, "how do we share it? I would like the concoction, so how about we divide the Leuns and also calculate the value of the potion?”

“So… thirty-five bronze Leuns to me and the Sharp Reflexes Potion and five bronze Leuns to you?”

“Yes!” Helen nodded vigorously.

“Deal, then!” Luchael rubbed his hands, but I'm wasting time here... who knows how Aradra is... maybe she's in danger and needs rescue...

The leporan watched the coins as Helen was counting them.

I'm sure she's fine.

- - -

POV: Tamara

“And what the hell is this???”

The salmadrer was deep in the dungeon, in front of her there was a tall, massive looking door large enough for a giant to easily fit through…