So, it's probably been a hot minute since I posted, I have legitimate reasons this time!
I recently started my first job, which I won't go into details since I would like for it to remain private. I have been working early morning to mid evening for most of the week with mandatory overtime. Which has seriously cut into my writing time where I can only really time for 1-2 hours a day with the rest dedicated to chores and me wanting to lose some of this weight I have. I've been working for a little over a week at the time of this note and have only just now started to type this in mid September along with a private story, sorry. I have like 3 In the works but I might put one in the 'for later bin' until I can truly work on it.
For this story, Tcod well, and SEOE… I don't know how often I can post. I might do what I've seen some stories do and post 2k word chapters until I can make a 4k chapter. Just to make sure this story and its sisters don't die out. End note: that did not work out. I also might make omakes for the fuck of it.
Now for the reviews:
Kratschkalaff: …what are you talking about, the commercial version of Schokokola doesn't have meth in it, otherwise I would sure as fuck not be able to buy it off of amazon. …Although it would certainly explain the pricing…
Hmataco: Thank you for the recommendation! I'll be sure to look up videos of it when I get the chance.
Snapshot in the dungeon.
Chapter 16: the hunt part 1.
{_}
Layla was having the time of her life, she had her brothers with her after being taken away from them over a year ago and they were all diving into the dungeon together along with the rest of the Hestia familia. Her older brother had his normal resting bitch face and was fidgeting with his Poleaxe ahead of her in an attempt to hide his nerves, the blackened metal of the axe/hammer combined with the red leather at odds with his gray armor. To her side talking with Lili was her younger brother armed with a Gladius-shield combo and tasked with guarding the Chienthrope for the day. The Shamaid could see how nervous her brother was and mentally sighed, hopefully his first Dungeon dive didn't go too bad.
It was something of a shock to have found them… find them in… she found them while…
Why couldn't she remember where she found her brothers?
She had clearly found her siblings, nothing could be mistaken for her brother's faces and personalities, despite the fact she had been taken to a new world and turned into a different race. So why was she having so much trouble remembering when and where she had found them. Layla knew her memory was bad at times, ok horrible, but her not remembering what obviously should be the most tear felt moment in her life seemed a little bit out there, it should be branded into her mind for peat sake.
She had many sleepless nights wondering about her family so why was her memory failing her now.
Just as she was about to call out to her older brother and ask them where she had found them she found her mouth stalling like she had just shoved a brick of molasses into her mouth. Something felt off, almost like that sense of deja vu you get and random times. She looked around but couldn't find anything that might indicate something was wrong. The trio that made up the Scheiner family, her and her brothers, and her friends Bell and Lili all seemed pretty normal at the moment. She could see them talking admittedly with each other, or in Bell's case annoying the crap out of… out of.
…Why couldn't she get her brother's name off her tongue? It was right there and she knew it, what the fuck was it!
Why was she having so much trouble thinking of names and locations right now, this wasn't like her.
Narrowing her eyes she looked over each of her companions and friends closely, almost like she was trying to piece together a puzzle.
Bell was wearing a coat she knows for a fact he doesn't own and armor that while it looks familiar is different from the armor he was wearing last time they went dungeon diving. He also had some kind of air around him that projected more confidence than she had ever seen in him before. Lili was also wearing a new coat and looked happier than she had ever seen the supporter, her aura was also far better from what she can tell. It was almost as if something had happened to Lili and Bell and they came out stronger because of it.
Her brothers on the other hand, were practically an enigma to the Shamaid. Her older brother was wearing some heavier than normal armor and a large poleaxe with bottles hanging off of his belt, but his aura was closed off to her making him look guarded and emotionless. The same went for her younger brother, only he was wearing lighter armor and was wielding a sword and shield combo. Yet his aura was also closed off to Lalya. She should be able to read them both like a book and yet they each look like a slab of marble.
'Something is wrong…' Layla thought sluggishly, like she had to drag her thoughts out of Carmel.
Almost like she had clicked a button and completed some unseen task, everything slowed down to a stand still around her and turned to an almost abstract and actually kind of hard to look at. Layla looked around and saw it had literally frozen everything, the birds were still and she could see either a banner or some kind of flag had stopped mid flap because of what was happening.
Poking her brother changed nothing so Layla did the only thing she could do, look around in panic like a deer.
'It's jarring to look at this.' Layla thought, now getting very worried and very concerned with what was happening to her. 'Please tell me this is some kind of fever dream and I'm not drugged or something.'
Again and again, Layla spun around to see if something had changed. Her brothers and familia members were frozen, the birds were frozen, the adventurers were frozen, that creepy as shit and colorful jester girl was frozen staring right at her, the normal people going about their day were…
…Wait a second, one of those seems off.
Spinning around so fast she might have gotten whiplash, Layla stared back at the jester girl who wasn't in fact frozen but was in fact really fucking creepy, like horror movie clown creepy. The shamaid reared back and several steps back in alarm when the jester cocked her head almost 90 degrees to the right all the while keeping her tooth filled smile displayed. Something was telling her not piss off the person in front of her no matter what and that in itself was alarming.
The jester was wearing what 'looked' to be a frilly, or would it be poofy, type of jester outfit with bright pink and white slacks that looked to be stuffed into a pair of pointed red heels, a diamond pattern pink and white long sleeved button up shirt that had smiley face buttons and small pouches along the hips while the sleeves themselves were poofy like on a dress. On top of her head was a pink and red jester hat that had three of those cone things, the ones that had bells on the end of them. Just as Layla finished taking in the sight of a female jester, she blinked and instantly the colors swapped from white and pink to red and black.
'What. the. fuck.'
The jester girl simply continued to smile at Layla almost like she could sense the sheer amount of unease she was feeling all before her clothing changed into a colorful as shit court jester outfit. It was like it was changing colors every few seconds or when she had to blink making it very hard to concentrate as well as making her concern grow into never before seen heights.
The dream, or whatever this place was, started to melt away after that. The people disappeared one by one and the buildings went away until it was just Lalya and the jester girl on a solid white plane. Layla desperately wanted whatever was happening to end because she was halfway to dropping to the ground and having a panic attack. Layla watched with more than a little bit of worry as the jester girl skipped over to her like a little girl. The shamaid, now frozen in terror, could do nothing but stare at the person? As they leaned up toward her pointed ear.
"Try not to get too hurt." The Jester girl whispered. "It would ruin my fun."
Before Layla could ask what the fuck that was about, what any of this was about, darkness started envoloping her vision and she felt her knees give out beneath her. The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was the sight of the Jester girl giving her a truly maniacal smile.
(Sniptd)
"Layla!"
Blue eyes snapped open and with a gasp Layla was sitting up in her hammock, clenching her blanket in a death grip. She took desperate breaths as she looked at her Goddess and captain, both of whom were looking at her barely contained worry and concern. She could see from her position hanging in her hammock that Bell was standing only a foot away from her with his hand outstretched like he was trying to grab her. Her goddess was half on half off the bed with the blanket pooled around her, almost like she was about to rush over to the shamaid.
"Are you ok Layla?" Hestia asked quietly, getting off the bed and moving closer to her. "You were mumbling something in your sleep."
"Yeah, you were saying something about 'brothers' and moving around a lot. Well more than usual."
The shamaid rubbed her face for a few seconds before looking at her Familia. Letting out a breath she spoke, albeit quietly.
"It was nothing, just a nightmare." She attempted to give them a smile in an attempt to reassure them, but it was ruined by the retainer in her mouth and the vague panic like look in her eyes. Seeing it didn't work she tried a different approach. "Look it was nothing you need to worry about, it's probably just stress getting to me about the break in and us having to make sure our home is secured. It'll go away in time."
"Layla." Bell attempted to start only to be cut off by a look from his vice captain.
"It's nothing, end of story."
The boy shared a look with his goddess only to get a shrug and an uncertain look, Hestia was unsure of what to do as well. Her experience with the mortal children didn't extend to nightmares. So with a sigh and slumped shoulders he let it drop, for now, and continued to start getting ready for the day. His friend was clearly not going to open up about what had caused her nightmare and as much as he would love to help Layla she has a bad tendency to clam up when it comes to her family and become glum for the rest of the day. He did not want to deal with a gloomy Layla for an entire day. Thank you very much.
'Maybe she will feel better after killing a few monsters,' Bell thought to himself, grabbing a bread roll they had baked the other day while glancing back at the Shamaid. 'Or maybe Lili could get her to cheer up while we're in the dungeon. Anything to make her not grumpy.'
Getting out of her 'bed' the shamaid quickly made her way to the fridge and grabbed the first coffee cup she saw and instantly started to chug it despite the fact it was black coffee and the looks she was getting from her family. Sticking her tounge out in disgust she closed the door and started to grab her clothes for the day. Making her way into the bathroom she stripped her current pajamas and threw them into a basket they had put in after Layla had started to bundle her clothes in a pile. She placed her hands on the sink to steady herself and looked into the mirror.
"No wonder they didn't believe my dumbass." she muttered before huffing.
Her eyes were bloodshot and you could clearly tell she had cried at least somewhat, not that you could really blame her when she couldn't fucking remember her siblings names. They were her brothers, her flesh and blood, how in the name of all of the gods could she fucking forget their names. It was maddening. Gritting her teeth so hard she could hear them grinding, Layla closed her eyes and took a nice deep breath before releasing it.
'Deep breath in, deep breath out.' She did this a few more times before dropping her shoulders. 'This day is going to be horrible.'
Turning on the sink she pooled some water in her hands before splashing her face. Drying her face off she grabbed the clothes she had left out the previous night and started putting them on.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock!"
A few minutes later her ears perked up at the sound of someone rapidly knocking on their door and frowned, they didn't get visitors… ever really. No one really knew where they lived either now that she thought about it. Hell there weren't many people that lived around them, she thinks seen only 5 people roaming around the church since she got here?
"Bell, could you check and see who's at the door real quick? I can't seem to find my bag." she said after leaving the bathroom and started moving things around to find her aforementioned apparel. "Or have you seen them?"
"Last I saw them you chucked them somewhere near the couch." Bell said before making his way upstairs. It didn't take him long thankfully to reach the church's doors and open them, only to blink in surprise at who was causing such a racket. "Miss Iris, what are you doing here? I thought you and your friend were going into the dungeon before us?"
Iris put one finger up in the air to ask for a second before she pressed both hands on her knees and greedily sucked in deep breaths, looking as if she might collapse at any moment. The Cowgirl looked horrible, her sweatshirt was wrinkled and looked like it was literally thrown on and her warscythe was half hanging half dangling from her back, not to mention her face was red and covered in sweat like she had just ran a marathon in record time.
"Give me. A second." Iris breathed out and fixed her clothing, coughing and maybe blushing in embarrassment? "I had to run. From the Guild building. To your home. Need to see Layla"
Bell, still looking worried for the cowgirls' health, gestures for her to come in. "Well Layla is still getting ready in the living room, so please come in. I'll grab you a glass of water."
The cowgirl looked relieved she could sit and rest for at least a second and nodded before following the boy inside the Hestia familia home. Walking down the steps she looked for her fellow marshal and felt a small blush form on her face, one that was thankfully hidden by her exhaustion. Bent over looking behind a box was Layla who was now gathering her armor. In addition to wearing her normal uniform she was wearing the armor that went over her arms and legs, and something about seeing the Shamaid bent over in a tighter than normal piece of clothing was making her feel weird. Goddess did those thighs look amazing… like she could crush a melon…
"Layla, Miss Iris was at the door." Bell said as he grabbed a glass of water from the sink before handing it to the cowgirl, snapping her out of her, literally, unclean thoughts. "She said something about needing to see you?"
That sadly made Layla stand up and look at her with her ears twitching, which also made her feel strange for some reason.
Coughing Iris spoke. "Y-yes, Layla I needed to grab you and Alister and bring you to the guild hall. High marshal Maple called an emergency meeting and all available Marshals regardless of level or position are required by contract to join. I already grabbed Alister, who also grabbed the Marshals that he knows, and you were one of the last ones I needed to grab.
"Maple called a meeting?" Layla muttered, sliping her chestplate on. "That seems strange, do you know what it's about?"
"No idea, all the details I know is that the High marshal is not happy and a lot of the high level marshals are already in the dungeon." Iris chugged the rest of the water before setting the glass in the sink after asking where she should put it. "Apart from that, I don't know."
"Wait Layla, I thought we we're going to the 7th floor with Lili today?" Bell spoke up suddenly from his position in the small kitchenette. "Miss Eina said with all of us we should be more than prepared to face the monsters in the deepers floor and you wanted to get better with your mace didn't you?"
The shamaid cursed to herself, that was the plan for today wasn't it. Quickly finishing up tightening the straps for her armor she threw her weapons over her shoulder and looked at her captain with a sheepish look.
"I'm sorry Bell but if the High marshal is calling a meeting then by the rules of the organization I am required to attend, especially if he is calling all of the available members so early in the morning." she said, trying to explain something she had heard maybe three times since joining was easy but she would be damned if she let her captain down. "I'll make it up to you, Lady Hestia and Lili later. I promise you this."
"Are you sure you have to go?" Bell asked with those big eyes that made the Shamaid feel horrible. "Can't you simply tell him you had plans for today and come with us?"
Layla squirmed beneath the puppy dog eyes her captain was giving her, feeling absolutely horrible about it before she managed to answer. "I really wish I could but this is the first time I've ever been called for, and well… if I ignore this I can get in trouble with those in higher positions. I might even get a lower amount of valis the next time I go on a bounty if I wave off Maple."
"Wait, we can get paid less if we get on the bad side of the higher ups?" Iris asked incredulously.
Layla blinked, turning to face the cow girl.
"Yeah, if we end up either messing up the mission or angering those higher up we get a cut in our pay. This was in our contract, the one we sign at the start of the third month of each year." The shamaid spoke slowly as if surprised to be asked that. "You've been a marshal longer than I have, how do you not know this? You've been a marshal longer than me, hell an adventure longer than me and Bell."
Iris had a sheepish expression on her face as she twiddled her fingers, thinking of everytime she accidentally slammed into one of the higher ups, said the wrong thing, forgot certain things like an item a bounty wanted… she was very clumsy ok!filed reports long… the many, many things she did wrong.
Damn, now her wallet hurts even more.
"Know what, I'm going to ignore that for now." Layla said after giving her friend a look. "Look Bell, I wouldn't be doing this if I had the choice, you know this. Plus think of this, an emergency gathering means a higher pay for the familia, base just for the bounty. If we get into a more dangerous than normal position then we get even more pay. Either way with this meeting or gather, fucking call it whatever, we will be payed handsomely for it."
Bell pursed his lips almost like he wanted to argue some more to see if he couldn't convince Layla to stay and go into the dungeon with them, and possibly figure out what caused her to freak out this morning, but some part of them could agree that the pay they could get from this bounty would be a be help for their familia. Normally the bounties Laylas does are the big 'breadwinners' as Layla called it with their daily dungeon runs providing a nice buffer in case something came up.
"…ignoring that." Layla said after a few seconds. "As much as I would rather
"Alright vice captain, but I," His eyes flickered over to the goddess brushing her hair only a few feet away. "WE will be holding you to this promise instead, go to the Marshal guy, find out what you need or what he needs and get it done. If you need to leave the city they we both expect you to get it done as fast as possible and come back safely. Understood? I am ordering you to come back safely."
Despite the seriousness of the situation Layla couldn't stop the smile from forming on her face. Despite his general stupidity and thoughtlessness her captain was doing great, Layla couldn't wait to see what he does at a higher level and more more experience. Plus well… the look her Goddess was giving her was also helping. Curse those eyes, threatening to look disappointed if she broke her promise.
"Your captain is right, Layla, we will hold you to this." Hestia huffed to the side of her Bell.
"Alright, alright. Orders acknowledged captain." Layla could't stop the mirth from entering her tone. "Don't worry, have I ever broken a promise like this before?"
"Only when you got hurt fighting the minotaur." Hestia responded immediately, knocking the wind out of Layla's sails.
"That's not on me though…"
"Just please make sure you get back safely, I still want to practice my magic with you." Bell said in a pleading tone.
"Don't worry Bell," Iris interjected, coming out of her 'oh that's why I'm being paid less' funk. "Between me and Alister we'll both make sure this knuckleheaded Shamaid comes back in one piece."
Layla crossed her arms and grumbled something none of them could understand. The sight of a grown woman pouting in armor was however, something that made Hestia cover her mouth and giggle.
"Miss Iris," Bell started to say before stopping halfway through. He sighed and gave the Cowgirl a pleading look.
He didn't need to say anything however, as Iris received the message perfectly.
"If you're going to call me something, at least call me something unique." Layla grumbled.
She was ignored.
Later.
Layla, back on earth, had grown up with a grandfather that had hand crafted a chuckwagon in his garage, she had also grown up watching shows like Little house on the prairie and one where all the electronics in the world shut off forcing them to more primitive methods of travel both of which features a lot of wagons and carriages. She had also seen a lot of movies and clips with revolutionary and civil war soldiers in it. As such Layla had at least some idea of how large groups of soldiers or in this case marshals were supposed to travel in large groups. If you wanted to move a large group of people without a motorized transport, a lot of them would have to walk or ride their own horses as the wagons would be carrying everything else.
That was not the sight she was greeted with upon reaching the southwest gate of Orario after following Iris.
Over a dozen large horse drawn carriages were situated in a semicircle with well over 6 dozen miss-matched adventures speaking to each other in low murmurs or simply sitting on top of one of many boxes and barrels taking in the sights of so many marshals. Everything from short swords to axes to even bows were being carried by all manner of folk. From her position the Shamaid could see several different races and armor intermingled. It looked less like a group of military police the marshals were like and more like a large group of MMO players trying to get into a raid. Or in other words, completely fuckign random.
"That's a lot of marshals." Layla said in a surprised tone. "I thought the lobby was the most I had seen in one place but this group looks like it would struggle to even fit in the building all at once."
"I know, it makes you wonder just what high marshal Maple is gathering us for." Iris responded.
"At the least well figured out soon, let's find Alistair in the meantime."
It didn't take them long to find the Ganesha familia member standing next to the open flap of a wagon lifting crates of what looked like glass bottles of water inside along with two other strong looking people. Layla and Iris conversed with Alistair for a few minutes, asking if he had heard form the others if he knew what was going on. He did not unfortunately but he did hear the Maple himself was going to be joining them for the bounty and to explain everything.
"It's just what I heard though. Everyones been left in the dark and not all of them are happy about it, so stay clear of anyone that looks like they're in a bad mood." He grunted as he lifted a pallet of water bottles into the wagon, handing it to the dwarf standing inside of it. He wiped his head and pointed to one of the wagons that had a green piece of fabric dangling off the rear. "If you go to one of those wagons you can probably get one of the good seats while we wait. I think. They might have been taken already."
Iris sighed and patted the man on the arm. "Thanks anyway Alistair."
Seeing as they had… buttfuck else to do, Iris and Layla walked over to the wagons and after a bit of searching found a few empty seats. Which in this case was more of a bench with someone's bag or weapon laying on it. Layla chose to leave her bag next to a small satchel Iris had and went out to join Alistair on loading the supply wagons. Most of it was food and water with an alarming amount of health potions mixed in. As in 'my wallet is currently beating my face in' amount of health potions. Normally, and this was speaking from her experience as an adventurer and what advice she got from other adventurers, you would only need max 3-4 potions on a daily basis if you were 'casually' going into the dungeon. If you were a higher level and wanted to set a new record for yourself that would change. But there had to be at least a few hundred vials in the carriages.
Something was telling Layla that whatever was happening was not going to be fun or painless.
(END.)
I wonder if anyone can guess who the jester is, I really did not make it anywhere similar to what they are supposed to be based off of.
I know the interaction regarding whether or not Layla/Me was weird but I'm really just trying to make more scenes with Bell and Layla. Haven't really done that like I wanted and since most of that scene was written already I wanted to simply expand the scene rather than rewrite it completely. I had actually planned on having a totally different scene happen after the vision but this worked out better, so I might simply use that scrapped scene later on. I was also reading a lot of cyberpunk stories and wanted to make the guild partially like the corporations, because really that's what it seems like with how certain anime portray them. Utterly business like if that makes sense.
Also I do apologize if everyone seems OC I haven't been keeping a good track of everyone or what I wanted Iris and Alister to be like personality wise. But I think for now I simply want Iris to be clumsy and Alister to be boisterous, I think that's the word I'm thinking of?
Oh and a final thing that I wanted to ask before I forget, again. I know I have been uncaring about magic in this, giving Layla three spells and all, and I actually wanted to ask if anyone actually had a problem with that? Like are the spells overpowered like how midnight embers engulfed a whole area of the dungeon but broke Layla's gun and costed a fuckload to make the ammo for, or how 50 shot and penetrating shot are basically a spell that converts a 7.92 shot into a .50 BMG and a tungsten tipped round for penetrating shot. I'll have to go back to all the sections where I used magic and change it to their new names now that I thought about it.
I only ask this because I want to add more magic for this story. Danmachi is… really odd when it comes to spells and the like. Example, according to the wiki the people of danmachi have 1-3 natural magic slots to use for spells and can learn one more magic slot. Almost like DND, but far more restricting. You also have ignis fatuus which is like a magic backlash and how the chant is everything from how powerful it is to whether or not you have a high chance of Ignis fatuus.
My point is, would anyone be particularly opposed to it if I started adding random spells like basic, non damaging cantrips Like dancing light or low damaging spells like thorn whip to the story? Ones that are really simple and are taught to people who want to learn magic for something other than combat. Just to fuck around because magic should really be more common than it is.