In Loki's Honor

I went shopping for spelunking supplies and provisions and checked in at the inn. I picked a room on the ground floor because my security measures required that. I had a few large boulders in storage that I was going to shape as plugs for the doors and windows, with ventilation openings. The solid rock pieces would be almost impossible to push because I braced one against another with a log resting on braces at their backs. It was easier to destroy the inn.

I shifted into my Silverstreak form and laid on our fairy-sized bed with Nenandil to sleep.

I woke up before the sunrise and prepared my equipment. I took the fae silk bodysuit I last wore during the fight with the dragon. I shifted into Alloralla, donned it, and shifted back, using my {Molding Armor} perk to reshape it.

Next, I fixed the room. Just send the blockers into storage and went out. I ate breakfast quickly and used the ghosts' guidance to reach the Dungeon entrance. The reason for my hurry was to avoid the morning rush. People would obtain quests and delve as they were posted in the morning by the guild staff. I had no quests to fulfill but I could always keep the monster carcasses and turn them in after I accepted them.

I couldn't avoid it totally but it didn't take too long to reach the end of the line.

The city guard manning the gate took my identification and asked, "Where is your party, girl?"

"I delve solo," I replied to him. I kept the shy act, looking at the ground.

"At level eleven, you don't!" He said, worry and concern modulating his voice. "You either join a party or go back home," he declared with finality.

"Hey, Baelor, she can go with us. We need a gopher anyway!" A youthful male voice shouted from the back of the line.

"There you go. Stay with Cedric. He'll take good care of you. Take your plate and go."

I fumbled to fetch the identification from his hand. I uttered a mumbled thanks and went to find this Cedric.

"Hey, over here, girl. You overshot."

I returned to where the voice came from. There were several perfumed scents next to the guy, and he smelled of stale loincloth.

"Hello, Mr. Cedric. I.. I can fight."

"Sure you can, short-stack. Stay with us and learn. The first delve is free, but we'll charge tuition later. Here, carry this bag for me."

He dumped the bag and I picked it up. It was heavy but I was almost twice as strong as a normal person on Earth.

"So, girls, introduce yourselves!" Cedric said.

"I'm Marta!"

"I'm Karina!"

"Josie, here!"

"My name is Rose," I introduce myself.

A wave of dread washes over me. I was joining the so-called harem party. This was going to go so fucking well. I mean, I hope I'd be exempted from the fucking part. Or things would get so fucking ugly.

These people were level thirty-a lot. Grinding those millions that would take them to the dreamy rank up and reduced Exp table. They played it safe, killing monsters efficiently. They gave me hints, tips, and bragged about how they were killing monsters easily.

They hunted in the second layer, between depths of one hundred and one hundred and fifty meters. A short adventure in these immense caves was a week-long trip. It wasn't unusual for hardcore delvers to spend months in these depths.

I was moving with them easily thanks to my Skills. The whole place was one big monster lair, so {Lair Mapping} gave me the layout. {Tremorsense} allowed me to sense the vibrations through the stone, especially where there wasn't stone - the air-filled tunnels - while {Detect Monsters} and {Detect Favored Enemy} gave me the location of the creatures in the tunnels. I could even tell where the tunnels came close to one another.

In one particular spot, digging fifty meters of rock would make a shortcut that could save half a day of walking.

They didn't let me hit anything. We fought seven times in the first day and found a kind of cul-de-sac of a dead-end tunnel to camp.

I was preparing my spot in a corner when Cedric came to pick his bag. I could tell who he was because his footsteps were heavier.

"Can you cook, Rose?"

"No, sir," I answered from the ground where I was stretching the bedroll.

"Tell me one thing, girl," He said, somewhat annoyed. "Why don't you look at people in the eyes when they talk to you?"

I looked up. "There, I'm looking at you."

He yanked my arm and pulled me on my feet.

"No, you are not because there are no fucking lights in this corner of the cave. You're a fucking blind bitch."

"Or maybe I have a darkvision perk."

He tossed me down. I rolled and got back on my feet.

"I expect you to work for your share. In one way or another," he said with an ominous tone.

I snapped back, "I expect to be paid. I'm carrying your bag and I got nothing from you."

"You know what can happen to you down here, level eleven?" He rushed forward two steps then halted. "You're not worth it. There's no dinner for you tonight. That's your punishment for lying."

Joke's on him, I could feed on rocks.

None of the girls came to talk to me. I sat on my bedroll, in the dark, and bit some hardtack biscuits with beef jerky and Nenandil's summoned water. Somehow it tasted better than what I conjured with my own magic.

An hour after dinner, they put out the torches and I heard the rustling of canvas on canvas as they entered the big tent they set up. It was a harem party, so I kinda expected them to have these night proclivities.

Cedric seemed to be a good fuck. By the moaning and screaming of the girls, he was doing a good job. The thought of Cedric naked was a total turn off even if I liked the sound of girls getting off. My preferences didn't change, so I think I was gay. But since I've never been with anyone except myself, the jury was still out on that.

He drilled all three girls to exhaustion. I was suffering a bit of that Freudian envy because my record back in NYC was twenty-seven minutes. Mediocre, I admit.

Then I heard the canvas flap move and snap, and Cedric was coming my way. I readied my daggers. The same daggers Queen Alloralla used. Hope people don't mind me using my ancient elven artifacts.

I heard the crackling of a torch. So he brought a light source this time.

"Hey, halfling. I want to sleep. Suck me clean," He groused while at the same time de-humanifying me by using the H-word and not my name. It was like calling an elf knife-ears.

He got two paces away from me. He reeked of body fluids. Which ones I'll leave to the imagination. Let's say that he wore a stale loincloth musk as an aura for a reason.

"No can do. I don't do that," I replied with a yawn.

"I'm the party leader, halfling. You do as I order," He threatened.

I fixed one unruly lock of hair by pushing it behind my ear. "No. Not that. I'm here to kill monsters and gain loot and exp. Not to be your whore."

He was pissed. I heard teeth grinding. "Do you have a death wish, halfling? I'm going to abandon you down here."

"Then do. I just wanted to get down here, you guys are not helping me."

In a burst of anger, he kicked some rocks. Then he cursed and jumped. The guy was barefoot, probably naked. While he was distracted, I used a spell - thanks to the silkie's {Natural Spellcaster} I could cast stealthily without gestures or chant - and snuffed his torch.

He cursed even more. A piece of wood fell on the stone next to him. I stored all the things I'd put out and moved away, activating {Surreptitiousness} to slink away and hide in the shadows.

The girls came out and brought another torch. Now that I knew what to look - hear - for, I was able to almost pinpoint where they were.

"Cedric, what happened? Where is Rose?" Josie asked.

"Bitch snuffed my torch somehow. Where is she?"

"Why are you out here naked? Your shouting woke me up."

"He came to ask me to suck him clean," I answered from the shadows. "I told him I didn't do that kind of job and he threw a tantrum."

"Rose, where are you? Come out, you're creeping me," Josie's voice trembled.

I was using bardic magic to cause ventriloquism and reverb effects, so they would never find me by sound.

"Leave the fucking bitch there. Your halfling ass is expelled from the party, you hear me, creepy cunt?" Cedric's vitriolic utterances were followed by a string of curses that could make pirates blush.

"Come on, Cedric. You need to sleep. Tomorrow we'll talk about that with a clear head."

Josie led him back to the tent. I heard him cursing and the other girls talking but I was too busy making a nook in the cave roof for me to sleep in. A dark thought came to mind and I crawled on the roof a dozen meters down the tunnel and dumped the naked corpse of the thugs on the tunnel floor. They fell with meaty sploshes and I threw a volley of ice shards on them to poke holes in the bodies. If I'm lucky, these corpses will attract some wandering monster.

I had to sleep. I was a fool for using my metabolic Skills in the mixer. But maybe I wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of HP and MP if I hadn't. What's done is done.

I asked Nenandil to keep watch and hit the pillows.

She stirred me awake to the sound of combat. My bait worked as expected, the blood seeping from the bodies attracted monsters during the night. I could sense a lot of quadruped monsters, about a baker's dozen, fighting Cedric and the girls.

Call me a fool, but I dove to help them.

Wielding dual daggers, I dove into the fray, attacking the monsters. I poured ten thousand mana on each dagger for {Mana Strike}, the weapons glowing a deep blue (Nenandil told me). I also put a lightning spell to add extra damage to my slashes.

Like a frenzied badger, I ran around the monsters, cutting, stabbing, electrocuting. The magic-imbued enchanted elven daggers sliced open the monsters like they were butter. I took several hits for around a thousand HP each - after Mana Shield - and just ignored them.

I heard the grunts and cries of pain from the adventurer party. They were caught by surprise and probably didn't have their armor on. Cedric must be training to rank up into a magic-user Class, fighting with his magic wand out in the open. I had no way to know.

I saw two people falling down. Still alive because they didn't vanish from my sense. I pushed through the mob of monsters, cutting and slashing to rejoin them. Then another. At least the monsters didn't finish the ones on the ground. They had enough brains to know they couldn't eat while the enemies were trying to stabbity-stab them.

When the last girl fell - I heard her version of the Wilhelm Scream - I clamped down on the monsters and cheated.

"{Royal Geas}! Stand still!"

The monsters had a lot of Soul stat. My SP almost bottomed down but I killed all of them. The Exp notifications told me I had to rank up my Race levels. Still no Class. I purchased more professional Skills and went to check the downed people. Cedric was naked. I stabilized them and healed only a bit because I had no SP.

I went around with Nenandil's help and captured the monster's bodies. Then in another whimsical stroke, I moved everyone to their tent and put them to sleep like a litter of puppies. Then I cleaned all the combat scenes, including the half-chewed bodies down the tunnel. With that done, I went back to sleep.

I woke up with an argument between the party members. I listened immobile. It seems they were arguing because Cedric wanted to use more potions and the girls wanted to save the potions for later because draining their resources would cut the expedition short. Then they mentioned to me.

"Where's Rose?" Marta asked.

"She went away," Josie lied. "She said some masty things to Cedric and went on her own way."

"Fucking bitch wanted to cut my cock. I bet she's monster snack now."

"No," Marta said. "I saw her fighting the monsters last night."

"Were there monsters? I mean, we woke up with these bruises and cuts, but where are the bodies? Where is the blood?" Karina asked.

"Now that you mention, the floor is clean," Josie remarked.

"Look, there was a fight," Marta affirmed. "I have these Exp notifications to prove. Although the participation modifier is too low? Should be twenty-five percent, but it is showing only five? I'm telling you, Rose fought."

"Did she take the bodies?" Karina wondered.

"A weak level eleven halfling?" Cedric scoffed. "No way."

"How did we end up in bed? Now that I'm looking at my notification log, I was critically wounded and bleeding," Josie added.

There was silence. I believe the others were checking as well.

"Well, fuck. I was dying too," Cedric said.

"Same here," Marta reported.

"Likewise," Karina gasped. "I'm telling you. The girl saved us. We owe her our lives."

I chuckled. "And you better remember that."

They squealed, yelped, and jumped.

"Fucking shit! Where are you, girl?" Cedric asked.

"In the roof," I answered.

I jumped down from my hiding spot and walked next to them. I felt movement from them because of the air currents. And something else I don't want to mention.

"Stop that, Cedric," Marta said.

"I'm telling you, she's blind," Cedric said. "Hey, girl. Do you know why Marta asked me to stop?"

"I do. I just don't want to mention it. Dude, wash your junk. It's gross. I got soap and water here."