Chapter 27b - The Exploration Raid - Aspen PoV

The dungeon’s avatar, Kiomi, didn’t add to my assumption of the nursery being caused by Cilia’s influence, instead silently making her way toward the corner of the room together with both Marisa and Alfred.

The group of three were soon talking to each other as we continued doing our job, likely making plans on following us as we made our way deeper into the dungeon; not that I minded that. Neither the champion nor the paladin would step in and deny us from doing our work, and the dungeon’s avatar couldn’t do so in the first place, entirely lacking the strength to hurt any of the seasoned warriors and experienced mages surrounding me. Older dungeon avatars, on the other hand? I could only shudder at the thought of having to face one of those.

“Commander,” one of my brothers-in-arms called out to me.

I immediately made my way over to the man, who was standing right next to some kind of doorway, one we couldn’t possibly enter due to about a dozen rods of metal being worked into the opening. Upon closer inspection I noticed them to be of the same material as the beast statues guarding the room.

“Is that mithril,” I heard myself ask.

“All of it,” the man readily confirmed.

I couldn’t help but reach out for the precious metal, only to find each of the rods to be thicker than my forearm. It would require a genuine dragon or a very enthusiastic dwarf with a lot of time on his hands to open this path to us.

“Any trap or mechanism?”

“Nothing.”

“So this isn’t a path required to reach the core room.”

“Could be a dead end.”

I stepped closer to the opening to take a closer look at what exactly lay behind it. What awaited my eyes was a room about twice the diameter compared to the one we were currently in, with several wooden structures to be seen inside of it. All of them looked like houses, albeit they seemed to be a little bit on the smaller side.

A thick cloud suddenly made its way into my view, soon hiding the room’s features behind a wall of white and grey. I stood there waiting for it to be shoved away by another gust of wind, but it simply stayed in place for minutes. I was just about to turn around and give up when two big blue eyes appeared in the cloud, both of them seemingly staring right at my soul.

I immediately jumped back and prepared for battle, the men nearby doing the same. But the monster didn’t seem to be fazed by our swords and magic. Instead, it simply stared at us for a few more moments, neither coming closer nor falling back. When it finally closed its eyes again, I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Soon, both the cloud and the monster were gone, once again allowing me to look at the small houses.

“Guard this entrance,” I instructed the nearby men, “Make sure nobody gets too close to it. And write down anything you have seen! This could very well be a boss chamber!”

The men hesitated before finally accepting their task. Two of them took position in front of the passage leading to the unknown room, both of them waiting with their swords in their hands, while the others took notes of the giant monster in the cloud.

I was just about to make my rounds again when a sudden shout stopped all of the busy atmosphere surrounding me.

“A blessing!”

I immediately turned towards the voice, finding it to belong to one of the paladins who had used his spare time to kneel down to pray to the goddess portrayed by the statue, likely already knowing who exactly it showed. The man in question turned around to face me, only to reveal a large symbol that had somehow found its way on his forehead. The symbol in question showed a flower of some sort and was black in color, with only its petals being white instead.

“Do you feel anything,” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I feel warm,” the man answered after a moment of thinking about it, “but other than that I don’t feel any different.”

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“What did you do before you got the blessing?”

“I made my offering and prayed to the goddess,” the young man immediately replied while pointing to a small bundle he had placed on the statue's pedestal. “Then there was this warm, comfortable feeling…”

“Try testing your strength and magic power,” I told him. “If that doesn’t work, just do everything you can to find out what feels different!”

After tasking the young paladin with this, I waved several of the mages over, instructing them to pray to the goddess. As experienced as they were, it would be easier for them to notice changes to their magic.

The four men in question immediately went to work, each one of them making an offering before kneeling for a quick prayer. Soon enough, there were more excited voices flooding the room as all but one of them had received the blessing, leaving only the oldest of the four without a mark on his face.

“What is different with you,” I couldn’t help but ask. “Did you pray properly?”

“I did,” the man confidently replied, before repeating his whole prayer out aloud.

His prayer was a hastily made one, with phrases that didn’t seem to fit the goddess’ image and ideals, especially not now that I was seeing her with my own eyes.

“Teach him,” I tasked the successful mages, “make sure he gets the prayer right.”

The men nodded in reply, before telling their fellow mage exactly what their prayers had been like. All of them were thanking the goddess for the wonders of life and nature, praising her for what she had done for this world. Not a single one of them had asked for their prayers to be rewarded or answered, instead they seemed to be rather honest thanks. But for just those few words to be rewarded with a blessing? That was unheard of!

Blessings were rare spells of holy magic only found inside the bounds of chosen dungeons. And even there, they were hidden behind dangerous, difficult, or at least time-consuming tasks. But receiving said blessing was only the first hurdle, as one was also required to find out just what it was the magic was all about.

Of course, I could simply ask the avatar and have Deluc confirm the truth of her claims. But would she be willing to answer? With everything we were about to do to her so-called children? I would never help us if I were in her shoes!

I shook my head, pushing the matter aside. With twenty-five of us working together, we would surely find out the usual way. So I quickly made my way through the room, instructing each and every single one of the men and women to make offerings and dedicate prayers to the goddess. Before long all of them had made their way into the middle of the room, ready to receive their blessing. And indeed, many of them had a flower painted on their forehead after just trying it once, others had to be taught a proper prayer beforehand.

In the end, twenty-one out of the twenty-five delvers had received the blessing, myself being one of them, as both the warm feeling and the stares of my comrades showed. We couldn’t get the remaining four to receive their blessing no matter how hard we tried teaching them, not even when they made multiple more offerings. This honestly puzzled me quite a bit. All in all, every single member of the participating clergy had managed to get the mark drawn on their foreheads, meaning the difference to those without it had to be related to a devout life, experience, or a factor that would reveal itself over time.

Sadly, despite almost all of us having received the blessing, not a single one could tell what it was all about. All of them were feeling warm and comfortable, which was quite the boon in itself, but it couldn’t possibly be all the holy magic was giving us. Even Deluc was unable to give me a satisfying answer this time, his various artifacts and mind magic being entirely outclassed by the inner workings of a major deity’s blessing.

With a sigh, I told the men and women to get back to work, not that there was much of it left by this point. Only Sarah, one of the very few ink mages in existence, was still doing her thing, filling sheet after sheet of paper with drawings of her surroundings that could barely be told apart from the real thing.

Ink magic was a very rare variant of blue magic, forgoing healing to instead gain access to various supportive spells and attacks that would hinder the vision of her opponents. Most ink mages ended up finding their line of work outside of combat, though, as being employed by the various temples, royalty or even just noblemen lacked the risk of an adventurers’ job while being rewarded almost as handsomely. It was only due to Beluar’s generous offer that the woman was even here in the first place, having paid her quite a sum for her to bring back paintings of anything that related to the lost goddess. And there were many such things, with every single statue being carved in the image of a fox, as I only now realized.

“Goddess’ of Foxes,” I read one of the titles on the pedestal out aloud.

A few more minutes passed before Sarah packed her things, happily adding about a dozen more drawings to her rapidly growing collection. If the dungeon was anything like I believed, it was only a matter of time before her oversized backpack would be filled to the brim.

With the ink mage done with her business, I called all members of the raid to my side before announcing our departure. It was time to delve into the real dungeon, finally leaving the religious site behind. I couldn’t wait to get my rusty bones into action.