Dungeon Robotics 114

Morning everyone! So, in my last post I mentioned Sales Tax. Apparently that is not happening until July. From what I could understand it is largely location based and depends on your local tax laws. Patreon officials state that only about 30% of patrons will be affected. With all my tiers being digital content even less should be affected. I plan to work with everyone to tweak my tiers after the first round to more fully understand how it will affect everyone. But enough about business and boring things like Tax. Here's the chapter!

Louella

My head hurt constantly. My beloved Glourios said I was still recovering. I wanted to believe him, but it only got worse as time passed. It felt like something inside me was calling to me from the ceiling of the cave. When I mentioned it to Glourios, he told me to ignore it in a harsh tone.

I decided to get out of the palace to clear my head. “My love. I am going for a walk. Would you like to come with me?” I asked.

Glourios was sitting in his throne working on a spell and only shook his head. I pouted but went off without him. The palace alone took me a few minutes to get out from. It occupied half of the cavern that he had claimed as our kingdom. 

Walking for a while did help clear my head. In the back of my mind I noticed that the further I was from Glourios the less it hurt but that couldn’t be true. He was my beloved. With my mind in disarray, I accidently wandered quite a way from the palace and found myself in one of the tunnels around the cavern.

I glanced back at the flaming palace then decided to keep going for a bit longer. I placed my hand on the wall and caused a scorch mark to mark my way back. I wouldn’t want to get lost and cause trouble for my beloved. 

After about twenty or so minutes, I started to feel a pull from deeper in the tunnel. Curiosity got the better of me and I turned down the path. A deep sense of familiarity overtook me and I started hurrying my steps. Eventually, I found I was running, and I could run fast. The walls of the tunnel streaked by almost turning into blurs.

I skidded to a stop as I reached the sensation. A staff was melted into the wall completely embedded. It was trembling but the melted stone covered most it like chains on a prisoner. “I know you,” I mumbled without meaning too then reached forward to place my hand on the staff.

Lightning flooded the cave as my hand touched the surface of the staff. I wasn’t worried though. I knew that lightning could never hurt me. I placed my free hand on the melted stone and turned slag, pulling the staff free. I noticed a whiteness, glancing at my hand, my red skin had started to flake revealing a snow-white paleness underneath.

As I stared at it, vague memories flashed through my mind. The faces were blurred but I knew these people were important to me. I collapsed to the ground at the rush of memories. Closing my eyes, I focused on the man made of metal. I wasn’t sure why, but he was important to me for some reason.

His face was the clearest of the images with only one other person being close. Skimming through the memories, the man almost always had a grin or smirk when I was dealing with him. We appeared to have a decent relationship with him teasing me every now and then, but always helping me when I needed it.

I curled my arms around the staff as the memories brought tears to my eyes. “Regan…” At that moment, it felt like my mind shattered as pain ripped through my head. I fell forward and blacked out.

~~~

“I’m telling you its coming from over here!”

“I would think he would keep her locked up in the flaming palace not out here in the caves.” 

The sound of voices echoed around me as I groaned. Opening my eyes, I pushed myself up, only to regret doing so when a surge of pain spiked through my head. I collapsed back to the ground unable to muster the strength to sit up.

“I heard something up ahead. The smell is getting stronger as well.”

I cracked open an eye and gritted my teeth through the pain to see who was approaching. Three silhouettes rounded the corner then rushed over to my side when they saw me. “Lady Louella! My love has brought us to your side so that we might save you!”

Looking over the man, I couldn’t recall who it was. “Who are you? You called me Lady Louella. My name is Louella?” I asked. That sounded familiar though there was so much pain in my head right now I couldn’t be completely sure. Something about the man was slightly off putting though. 

“My lady. Do you not remember your most faithful knight?” the tall man asked kneeling in front of me.

“No… Where are we?” I asked looking around. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here. I adjusted my position and realized that I was gripping a staff. Something was telling me not to let it go no matter what. Looking at it, the pain in my head started to recede slightly.

“We’re in the Beneath my lady. During the evacuation of the soldiers we saw that you still remained and did not enter the portal you formed for us. Before we could get you to safety, the flaming giant took you and followed you.” 

“Flaming giant?” The image of a palace made of flames and a man sitting on a throne caused another spike of pain. A metal gear quickly replaced it taking away the pain. I looked to the three. “Do you three know of Regan?”

“Vaihdetta’s guardian deity, I think,” the boy behind the tall man said. “You’ve met us before, but my name is Yuno, my sister Sara, and the annoying one is Nero.” Yuno didn’t bother me as much as Nero. 

“Thank you, Yuno. So what’s the plan?” I asked placing my head on the cool metal of the staff.

“We were mainly trying to find you. We can’t get out the way we came in,” Yuno said shaking his head.

“I know you can fly but it wouldn’t be wise for you to use mana unless absolutely necessary. You might rip your body apart,” Nero commented. I felt he didn’t like not being the main participant in the conversation.

I looked inside before I realized what I was doing to check my mana pool and almost vomited from what I saw there was just so much going on. Two pools covered the floor and ceiling of the space with a ball of flames floating between the two. Lightning arced between the pools which fed heat to the ball in the center. I could tell the ball of flames was slowly growing.

I likened it to a war as juts of flame would explode from the ball only to be countered by an arc of lightning. I could instinctually tell they were fighting for dominance even as the thing containing them, my body, failed to handle the conflict. A single thought entered my mind even though I don’t know why it did. “Regan can help me. We must find Regan,” I said with almost a plead.

“I’m not sure if anyone can help you, but we’re going to get you home. Do not worry,” Nero said. “For now, concentrate on controlling your mana. No matter how it got there, its your now.”

I nodded weakly and peered inside again. I tried to get the flames to stop but that only seemed to encourage them and increased their speed formation. Stopping that path, I turned to the lightning and tried to get that to behave. It grew excited at first but greatly calmed down as it realized that it was hurting me. Without the lightning feeding it as much heat, the flames stopped growing as quickly. 

“I think its handled for now,” I said. With the manas calmed down, my head stopped hurting as much. 

“Good.” Nero turned to Yuno. “Do your thing.”

Yuno groaned and I looked at him curiously as to why when I heard horrible cracks and pops from his body. His head appeared to shift to that of a partial wolf. He bent to the ground and pulled in a deep breath and caused all the air in the cave to shift slightly. He did this for what felt like an hour before he shifted back.

“I think I got it. I detected an area of strong undead, nothing like we’ve dealt with on the surface. There were also traces of other races. How should we proceed?”

“We need to avoid the Seal. As for the races, well, it depends on how their feeling if we meet them. We’d all be fine being high races. Go ahead and lead us towards that area for now,” Nero replied.

“Got it.” Yuno moved to the end of the tunnel and peered around the corner. With a nod back to us he moved on. Nero held out a hand to help me up and I took it carefully. I knew he was helping me, but something felt off about him still. 

I started to head down the cave when I realized that Sara hadn’t said anything the entire time. “Hi.”

“Hi! This is fun! Not every day we met someone with no memories.”

“Glad I could help,” I said with a raised eyebrow.

Sara grabbed my hand and pulled me along the two. While I couldn’t even remember if Louella truly was my name something inside me said I could trust these three. I just hoped that was truly the case.