Wizard of Orario

by Xane Dragon

Harry Dresden is banished from earth thanks to a death curse. When he returns, he finds himself alone in a world that has changed in more ways than one, and few of them good. So, he goes back to his familiar job. He doesn't do parties, love potions, or magic tricks. But he can find people, even when they're lost in a dungeon.

7. Chapter 7

For someone like me, the silence that falls over Orario after dark is unsettling. I had lived in Chicago for years, where gunshots, sirens, and various other noises indicating criminal activity were part of the ambient atmosphere. So, when there's none of that, or even the crickets that I got so annoyed with while being forced to live with my grandfather, I tend to get antsy after sunset.

Which led to me waking up way too early from the poor sleeping conditions of having to use an old fashioned couch that wasn't made for someone to crash out on and my brain saying zombies might be coming because the city was too quiet. Because if everything was quiet, then the world must be ending.

At least, that was what I was worried about when someone started banging on my office door. Banging loudly.

"Wake up! Please, wake up!"

And yelling.

Thick wood and a floor of solid stone kept the desperate cries of a young girl from being earslipping, but with nothing else making noise, my ears caught on immediately and I rolled over. Then I remembered I wasn't on a bed, but something barely big enough to contain me before I fell onto the floor and was shocked all the way awake from the impact.

After managing to get myself up and putting on the pants that I had worn yesterday, and sliding my newest piece of jewelry back up my arm from where it slid down in my sleep, I made my way downstairs. Then, I gracefully stubbed my toe on the row of chairs and hopped my way to the entrance to undo the lock and pull back the deadbolt so I could open the door.

Outside in the street, I found Hestia standing there with her fist raised. The other one was holding a familiar looking crumpled piece of paper that had been on one of the Guild's boards that I had spent a good deal of time the other day getting permission to hang up. She looked about a second away from complete panic and was breathing like she had just run a marathon. Which probably wasn't far from the truth, considering where my office was in comparison to the gigantic tower in the center of Oario.

Before I could even ask what was going on, or tell her I didn't want to join her familia, the little goddess blurted out. "Bell didn't come home last night!"

The more dickish part of me that likes to laugh at idiots and point out when fools get what's coming to them made me want to point at the thing that looked like a little girl on the verge of tears with oversized boobs and go 'I TOLD YOU SO', but…Hestia looked way too much like a little girl on the verge of tears. So, I moved aside to let her in the door. When she accepted the offer and cautiously made her way inside my dark reception room, I found the lamp near the door and turned it on before looking back at her.

"Are you sure he didn't just get home late and leave again early?" I asked the girl that looked at one of the chairs before sitting down in it. "What time is it, anyway?" There was a little light coming over the walls of the city, judging by the gloom outside my windows, but not much.

"Seven, or…Seven thirty, by now," Hestia answered before she took in a deep breath through her nose that was more like a sniffle. "And no. I checked at the guild, he didn't stop at any money changers to turn in his magic stones last night. He would have had to since Lilly and that new guy aren't part of my familia. They would have needed their cut as soon as they came back."

I took a deep breath to help steel me for the next question. What was coming wasn't going to be easy. It never was when you had to tell the family of the person that was missing could very well be gone forever before I could even start looking. "Um, Hestia, I want to try and stay positive here too, but we need to be ready for the possibility-"

"Bell is still alive," she told me sternly before I could finish.

The look in her eyes dared me to say otherwise, and…I did. Reluctantly. "Look, I want to believe that too, but-"

Once again, Hestia didn't let me finish. "His falna is still active. He's the only member of my familia, and I still have that connection. So, he's still alive. He could be trapped by a cave in, have a broken leg, or a dozen other things, but he's still alive. That much, I'm sure of. And I am willing to pay four hundred thousand valis if you can bring him back to me."

I let myself be overtaken by stunned silence and took a moment to clear my head as I blinked. "Oh…well, I guess that makes things a lot clearer," I told the child goddess while my mind tried to work through her offer. I still had no idea about the economy of Orario, other than a good meal at the bar I had always eaten at cost around fifty valis.

Which meant four hundred thousand was close to…what? Fifty grand, US?

I really needed to ask Syr about the exchange rate since I hadn't even wrecked out an hourly fee.

But, that was a concern for another day. I rubbed some of the sleep from my eyes and got my mind working right. "Okay, I'm going to need a little time to get prepared. I need you to go back to Bell's place and find something of his, like hair from a comb, or maybe his toothbrush or a washcloth. Something that either contains a piece of him or something he's used every day. Maybe a favorite shirt. But if it's clothing, it can't be anything new."

Hestia gave me a confused look and I was reminded of the fact that Syr said she was a reconstructed goddess, so her knowledge base wouldn't be as complete as a deity that had been around since before this universe was born. "Why?"

"The method I use to track someone needs something to go off of," I told her. "Bits of the person themselves like hair or blood would work the best, but I can use something they've worn every day if it's been long enough and has an emotional connection to them. Like a favorite shirt, or…I don't know, lucky underwear."

The last example made the little goddess flinch, but she didn't ask any more questions. Before she dashed out the door, I held up my hand. "I've got some preparation of my own to do. So, I'll meet you outside the Hostess of Fertility as soon as I'm ready."

After the girl had run off, I shut the door and got some of the other lamps in the room working before I went downstairs. Then, I tapped on my armband a few times to get its occupant's attention. "Hey Bonnie, wake up."

The green gem in the jewelry got a little brighter as I adjusted it on my arm some more. Something Syr hadn't bothered to mention when she gave it to me was that I couldn't take the thing off. Well, I could, but the thing was rather useless without an almost constant infusion of magic. The runes that Syr had crafted into the bracelet worked like a guide for my natural magical aura to fill in a certain way, but had no real means of holding onto the power long term. That would have actually required a real enchantment rather than the trace pattern she gave me.

The object's occupant had become rather irate last night when I left it on the table next to my couch and woke me up an hour later, demanding I turn the lights back on in her apartment.

A few seconds after I tapped it, a full grown woman that was as tall as I was appeared across my work table in a pair of expensive lingerie that accented her impressive assets. "Mmm, good morning, Daddy."

I gave my daughter a look of disbelief at the very disturbing display. "Never do that again."

"Mmmm, I don't know. The fact I came up with the idea at all means you must feel like punishing yourself," Bonnie told me as she stood up, still in her underwear. "Don't know why, though. You said that Bell boy going into the dungeon was a bad idea. The only way to stop him would have been by force. Which probably would have landed you in jail, gotten multiple goddesses mad at you, and caused a lot more problems when everyone found out you didn't have a god giving you magic. Oh, and Bell still would have gone into the dungeon. He's always been stubborn like that."

I looked away from Bonnie to try and help me think. The last thing I needed was the Mantle telling me I needed to get down with my immaterial daughter. The thing had been behaving itself the past couple of days and… I frowned at that.

Well, one problem at a time.

"Okay fine. I couldn't have stopped him, can we focus on the problem at hand?" I asked. "How much do you know about the dungeon?"

The sexy underwear version of my daughter popped out of existence, to be replaced by a little angel with flaming wings that flew up above the table. She made a show of holding out her hand, and a three dimensional map that might as well have been a Star Wars special effect appeared over the table that changed configuration every few seconds. "With the memories I've dug through in Heaven from past adventurers, I have comprehensive knowledge of floors one through forty five, complete with stats for all the monsters and working strategies to battle any of the first three floor bosses. Past that to level fifty eight, my knowledge becomes a bit sparse, with fifty nine to seventy one being just first hand accounts from the Zeus Familia and no personal experiences. None of them have reincarnated yet, so I just listened to stories."

It took me a second to realize that the changing map was Bonnie displaying a new floor, with the map nearly doubling in size each time it changed. "How many floors are there in all?"

"Nobody knows, but everyone with any intelligence guesstimates it'll stop at floor one hundred, or floor one-five," she said, adding the last bit at the end as an afterthought. "The dungeon likes to screw people over like that."

I looked back up at the floating not-angel. "Any theories about just what it is?" I asked. "Theories I can understand?"

"Well, something you can understand…I'd say…think of it like someone took a chunk out of The Nevernever, then stuck it in the real world while gluing on with the unconscious will of a dead god that was murdered," she told me. "It's more like a living organism than rock and dirt. Damage to the dungeon is regenerated with time and it responds to intruders with antibodies in the form of monsters."

I crossed my arms and frowned at the sifting map. "So…why are people bothering it so much?" I asked before realizing that the answer I was about to get would be rather obvious. "I mean, I understand the crystalized magic everyone is mining is profitable, but if I'm judging the scale right, people would have to spend days down there to get to the deeper floors." Sure, people had always done stupid things to get famous, like climbing dangerous mountains or going over waterfalls in a barrel, but I didn't see the reason for spending so many days in a death trap of increasing difficulty when as far as I knew, there weren't any differences between the stones on level one than on level fifty.

Bonnie cut the map off and replaced it with four silhouettes of different monsters. "The prevailing theory is that the dungeon can only spawn so much at a time, and when it was left alone in the beginning, it started spawning these things," she said before the monster silhouettes started lighting up.

"Nidhogg," the spirit of intellect began before the first monster lit up. It looked like a dragon with the head based on a western design and a body from eastern mythos. "It was the first living catastrophe to be born before the gods descended. It took all six fairy queens working together to kill it, and the resulting destruction wiped out everything in a fifty mile radius."

"Behemoth," she went on before a large purple monster that looked like a mix of a bear and a lion came to light. "By the time it and the remaining three monsters were dealt with, the gods had come down from Heaven. A combined force of the Zeus and Hera Familias managed to kill it."

"Leviathan," Bonnie announced as a giant blue sea serpent got colored in. "It was also killed by a combined force from the aforementioned familia's, with some help from the Thor Familia to deal with all the extra monsters it tended to attract."

"Then there's what's referred to now as the One Eyed Black Dragon," she went on before the final monster outline got filled in. "After being driven away from Orario with a curse from Lady Sylphine of Summer, it was hunted down like the others. However, it just about killed all but four members of both the Zeus and Hera familias and when the survivors showed up again years later, they had both been driven mad by the experience."

I latched onto the first name Bonnie mentioned. "Lady who of Summer?"

Bonnie dissipated the images and looked back at me. "Think of her as your godmother's counterpart in Summer. Like the Leanansidhe is with Mab, she was Titania's right hand woman. Summer isn't as disliked in Orario as Winter, so she lived in the city and developed a relationship with an adventurer named Albert Waldstein. Eventually, she was banished from Summer because she sidestepped the rules and had a child with him."

The bit of information was interesting, but useless to me. I had already wasted enough time talking to Bonnie about things that didn't matter to my immediate problems. Sometimes, I hated being a magic nerd. It was so easy to get sidetracked. "Okay, got to focus, " I told myself before looking around the lab. "Bonnie, do we have-"

"Dad, if you're going to the dungeon, the first thing you need to do is gear up," she said as she pointed towards the box Syr had gifted me that I hadn't opened. The one Bonnie had already looked inside.

I frowned at the little not-angel. "My normal stuff is good enough."

In response, Bonnie floated close enough so I could see her roll her eyes. "You spent Almighty only knows how much time in the Outside," she stressed. "You're lucky there's any magic left in that coat! Get dressed, and then we'll start on the potions. And yes, I'm half you, so I know you're going to ask for help with recipes."

-Hestia-

I managed to keep myself together as I got back to my home. The rundown little church Hephaestus had given me when she kicked me out of her familia's headquarters for being a 'lazy leech' a year after I came down from Heaven wasn't the worst place I could have ended up, but it was close.

Still, I didn't have time to lament my poor living conditions or rage at the idea of a goddess having to work a food stall to make ends meat when Bell was in danger. I ran into the bathroom and looked around to find the comb on the washstand. The sight of not a single hair strand on it made me grit my teeth in frustration. Deities didn't leave behind skin cells, fallen hairs, or other such things. Fingerprints didn't even stick around long since it was just displaced water on the side of the glass or dust disputed from our touch rather than something else mixed in with skin oil. So I had thought it would have been easy to get something of Bell's from the comb we shared but there was nothing that I could see.

Most of the time I had to remind him to comb his hair at all. He hadn't even done it that one time we went out on the town!

Okay, need something else, I told myself as I looked around for his toothbrush.

Which was…also missing. The brushes we used were pretty low quality, so they needed to be replaced often. So, I looked into the bathroom's waste basket and…growled in frustration when I found it completely empty. Bell must have taken out the trash when he left yesterday.

Why in Tartarus did my child have to be so helpful when his life depended on him being a slob?

"Clothes!" I said to keep me from going inside with rage and despair. "Dresden said we can use clothes to track him if he's worn them long enough!"

So, I quickly went to the makeshift area that we used as an emergency closet and shoved the few dresses I owned out of the way to find Bell's clothes. They were the ones we bought for him just a few days ago to wear with his new armor. The ones he had complained were a little stiff.

"Underwear?" I asked before looking down at the small basket that held such things before I opened it. And found nothing but the newest pairs waiting for me. "OH COME ON!"

I looked over to the sheets on the bed, but…both Bell and I had used those. They wouldn't work for what I needed.

This wasn't fair!

Why was I such a stupid, worthless goddess that couldn't even help my child when he really needed me? All I could do was beg other deities for help and put my familia in deep debt that I was too frightened to even look at to see just how many centuries I would be working to pay it off!

Bell was in trouble and the one thing I had been told to do to help him get home had ended in failure.

I focused on our bond. It was still there, meaning that Bell was still alive, but that was all it would tell me. I didn't know anything else and it had been so long since he left.

Was he hurt? Scared? Trapped?

…dying?

My vision started to blur, and I didn't push down the tears as they started to fall from my face.

Why couldn't I have gone looking for another member for the familia? Bell had gotten a little famous with his quick progress, earning the title of Little Rookie. That would have been enough to snatch up one or two people coming into Orario looking to become adventures with the promise of quick advancement. They wouldn't have gotten his special skill that allowed for quick progress unless they were insanely lucky, but they would have been able to help him.

A knock on the door of the church drew my attention and yanked me out of the pit of despair that I had been sinking into. My mind went to the best possible outcome, and I leapt to my feet to run towards the door as fast as I could.

Bell had just lost track of time down there and stayed down all night! That's what must have happened. Or maybe, a blocked passageway made it harder to come back and he needed to wait for the dungeon to fix itself. Maybe Lilly had just gotten greedy, and convinced that new party member Bell told me about last night to bring a big bag to carry stones so she wouldn't let them leave until they had maxed out their carrying capacity.

"Bell, I'm so glad you're-" I said before I even had the door opened enough to see outside.

When I did, I found how stupid my childish imagination had been.

Bell wouldn't have bothered knocking.

Instead of Bell, a god stood on the other side of the door. He was an eastern god of minor standing in Orario with a domain of weather, or maybe war and…pro wrestling? I honestly couldn't remember since I had only been half-listening at the time and was too embarrassed to ask him about it. We ran in the same cycles since neither of us really had any pull politically and his financial situation was only a step above mine thanks to his familia having enough members to be self-sufficient.

Three of his children stood behind him with somber expressions. It did nothing to put down the fear in my heart.

"Hestia," Takemikazuchi said as he bowed his head, his normally long hair done up in loops drooped past his face before I remembered what I was supposed to do and returned the greeting, letting him stand up straight. "Your child, as I remember, he has white hair and red eyes, correct?"

The dread I had in my heart became ten times worse, and I focused on my link to Bell to make absolutely sure that he was still alive. "T-That's right," I said before gulping and continuing in a much smaller voice. "H-He didn't come home last night."

The largest of Taki's children, a young man of about seventeen came forward and got on one knee before bowing his head. "Hestia-sama. My name is Kashima Ouka," he introduced himself with a heavy eastern accent as I made note to reverse his name in my mind so it wasn't backwards. Ouka didn't look up as he continued talking. "Yesterday, when we were all in the dungeon, we were overwhelmed by a party of monsters and our supporter Chigusa-chan was heavily wounded."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl with short hair that went down to cover her eyes flinch. But Ouka kept talking. "I called a retreat and we began a withdrawal from the dungeon as fast as we could. The monsters continued to chase us, adding more to their number as we fled. While running, we ran across a young man matching the description of your child. Rather than continuing the chase, the monsters turned and went after him and his smaller party."

I could only stand there silently as I did my best to understand what he was telling me. My mind latched onto a single word. "Yesterday," I breathed more than spoke as my hands clenched and my rage swelled. "Yesterday…you went home…AND I'M ONLY LEARNING ABOUT THIS NOW?"

How long ago had all of that been? If they had gotten hurt, then they would have left the dungeon earlier than intended. Which meant that they would have gotten home earlier. How long had they waited to tell me all of this?

Six hours?

Eight?

TWELVE?

If I had known about it yesterday, I could have put up the reward notice then. I could have hired help all the way back then!

Take took a step forward. "Hestia, I'm sorry. I thought it best to wait until now to tell you. At least now, you can mourn him with a full night's-"

I couldn't help myself. Thanks to being at the top of some stairs, I didn't have to reach up as I decked Take in his nose as hard as I could. He fell back onto the stairs and his children kept him from hitting the floor as they rushed forward to catch him. They looked up at me in shock and anger, but did nothing. Attacking a god for any reason was the second greatest sin a mortal could commit.

"My blessing has not disappeared," I told Take and his children through clenched teeth. "My Bell is still alive! AND HE WOULD HAVE BEEN HOME SAFE BY NOW IF NOT FOR YOU!"

The looks of condemnation turned to shock, and realization made them shift to sadness as Take got back onto his feet. The mortals went back to their knees, and I felt the anger slowly leak out of me, leaving me tired. "Sorry," I apologized to my-what I hoped was still my friend.

Take had nearly fallen on hard stone. If he had landed the wrong way or a million other little things gone wrong, his physical body might have taken enough damage to trigger his healing arcanium. Which would have sent him back to Heaven for breaking the taboo and killed everyone within a five foot radius around him. Not to mention the damage it would have caused the mortal realm.

"It's…completely understandable. He's your first child, after all," Take said before looking back at his children. "If he is indeed alive. Then…Ouka, are you willing to see if you can rectify your disgrace?"

The harsh words towards his children made me feel even worse about being so petty to hit him. Of course Take felt horrible about all of this.

"I…" whatever he was going to say trailed off, and he nodded his head just a bit while keeping it bowed. "Yes, Takemikazuchi-sama. Chigusa is healed, and Mikato is rested as well. The three of us should be able to make it back to the area we last saw Hestia-sama's follower much faster than if it's the whole familia."

So, I had help now. Help would make things go faster, and if Bell was hurt badly, they could help carry him home.

My heart skipped a beat at that thought. What if Bell was really hurt? Crippled kind of hurt? Limbs could be reattached if they were recovered fast enough, but I didn't have the money to afford prosthetics. They weren't as good as the real thing, anyway. It could very well be the end of his dream of becoming an adventurer.

I took a deep breath. "I…thank you for the help," I told the three children standing in front of me without much emotion behind the words. I didn't feel very grateful that they were willing to clean up a problem that they caused when it might be too late. But… "I don't…hate you all for what happened. But…if something happens to my Bell, I will never forgive any of you until the day you die."

"Alright," Take said before he stood up and looked back to his children. "Gather the supplies you need and meet-"

"Oh!" I spoke up before the god could finish. "Actually, I do have someone else to help. He'll be waiting for us all at a tavern called the Hostess of Fertility."

Take told his kids to meet us there in thirty minutes while promising to stop by Miach's place to see if he could get any potions while his children got rations and other necessities. Miach was another minor god, one of healing that ran a small clinic with his only child. When we were done, I quickly ran out the door before anyone else could get up and looked back at them while Take shared a few last words I probably wasn't meant to hear.

I was so curious that I didn't take my eyes off them and nearly fell on my butt when I ran into someone before I even left my little church's dinky courtyard. The mystery person caught me, and I looked at him in hope that I would get to see a mess of unruly white hair.

Once again, my heart was shattered to see it wasn't Bell before I fought my way out of the man's arms.

When I got done stumbling back, I looked over at the newcomer. I knew him from living in the same district back in Heaven, but we never interacted much. "Hermes," I said as the god readjusted his ancient western style hat he insisted was just old western style. "W-What're you doing here?"

The god gave me his trademark smile that told me he wasn't to be trusted as he walked into my church with his blue haired child trailing behind him in her white cloak. "What? I couldn't come to offer my help to an old friend in a tight spot?" he asked before holding up a piece of paper with Bell's picture and the four hundred thousand valis for his safe return. "I saw your child was missing, so here I am."

"Uh…you two are friends?" Take asked in confusion from behind me. Nearly falling on my butt must have drawn his attention.

I gave Hermes a half-lidded expression while I talked to Take since only an idiot took their eyes off a trickster like my old sort-of neighbor. "We haven't spoken once since the day I came down here."

Hermes gave a fake pained cry and covered his heart. "Ah! You wound me, Hestia. But, I'm willing to offer you Asfi here to help you save your little rabbit," he said before putting a hand on the blue haired girl next to him.

"Huh?" said child exclaimed as she looked up at her god in surprise.

-Dresden-

"Well, I think it looks cool!"

I did my best to ignore Bonnie's words as I walked down the street. Judging by everyone else not looking at me, I doubted anyone could actually hear her. Not that her words weren't embarrassing enough, since she was half me. The fact that the 'me' from just a few years ago thought the getup I was in had any sort of appeal was mortifying.

The item she was commenting on was my new coat, which was just one item in a set of equipment that included a shirt made of some kind of magical blue cloth with matching pants, what Bonnie referred to a pair of 'salamander skin' boots despite being a single piece of leather instead of a million tiny lizard skins, and my 'lion fur' coat that was probably only named that because of its tan color and the large fuzzy 'mane' on the top that had my neck sweating.

Each piece was obviously enchanted from the feeling I got after it rubbed up against my own magical aura, but it was also incredibly itchy. Not to mention the fact that the coat was a little stiff from being brand new. Plus, it made me feel like a badly dressed mix of Captain America, and one of those extras from Game of Thrones that just stood out in the cold.

"All hail Wizard Dresden, first-and-a-half of his name!" Bonnie's mental voice said with a giggle.

I gave Bonnie a little grunt of annoyance. My father had named me after three great magicians, and was a magician himself. So I had the name of four magicians. He had been a good man with less than stellar luck that had somehow managed to attract the attention of a real magic user and have a child with her. I know she was just joking around, but she should have known there were a few things that were off limits. Not to mention, the fact I had such a long name had saved my soul a few times early on in my career.

When I got to the tavern, I saw it wasn't open and readjusted the satchel that had carried my clothes away from this place, and now held a small collection of potions that I had just finished brewing. Thankfully, Bonnie had picked up more than just Bob's penchant for jokes and…other unwanted personality traits, she seemed to be just as knowledgeable about magic.

Maybe moreso, considering who her mother was. I never really talked about magic in detail with Lash. Being the copy of a fallen angel had made it impossible to trust her until she died saving my life. But, she had memories going back to the beginning of the universe and maybe even before that.

I knocked on the door. Then, when the nice attempt at getting the occupant's attention didn't work, I went to banging on it, followed by some pounding. "Hey! Open up, there's an emergency!"

After a few minutes of me making a commotion, and the passerby's giving me a sympathetic look, the door finally opened for me to look down at the owner of the establishment. "There's an emergency, can I come in?"

Mia managed to fill the door as she gave me a level look, then checked the street behind me. "What's going on?"

"Can I come in so we don't have to talk out here in the open?" I asked.

After giving me a look for a full minute, Mia sighed and stepped back to let me in. The pub was completely empty, and didn't look anywhere nearly ready to open. Chairs were still upside down on tables and although I didn't know if they cleaned up in the morning or not without a modern health code, there wasn't any sign of a fresh moping on the floor.

"So, what's going-" Mia managed to say as she followed me deeper into the room before the door slammed open.

Hestia came rushing in so quickly I swear she had to skid to come to a full stop. A second later, a trio of people I would have guessed came from Japan or maybe China walked through the door loaded with equipment that was obviously oriental in origin. "Dresden!" she cried out. "There's a problem, I can't find anything of Bell's like you asked!"

Mia let out a tiny groan of displeasure. "Hey, we're not open yet," she said in a stern tone before looking over to Hestia. "Goddess, if you would please remove yourself? The rest of you, I'll throw you out if you don't move on your own."

"What was that about Bell?"

I saw Mia's eye twitch as Syr came out of the back, still in her normal clothes, if a little disheveled. She had probably just been about to change for work and had to throw them back on. After looking at the scene, the goddess of service looked over to…the goddess of…whatever Hestia's domain was. "Lady Hestia, what are you doing here?"

Hestia's eyes narrowed a tiny bit as she looked to the waitress, but she turned away from Syr and looked at me. "Can you still find Bell if you don't have anything of his?"

With all the commotion, the other four girls that worked at the tavern quickly walked into the main room in various states of dress, all of whom were missing their headpieces. A couple of them put down a few chairs for people to sit in. While the cats and Lunoire just looked around confused, the elf of the group caught on. "Mr Cranell is missing?"

That's when the questions started, and it took about five minutes to get everyone quieted down and caught up on what was going on with the boy and why Hestia had come to the bar long before it was due to open. When that was out of the way, Hestia quickly gave me the breakdown of why she came back from her house without anything seeped in Bell's psychic scent as fast as she possibly could. "And I tried his clothes, but he must have worn his old ones to the dungeon yesterday, and you said that only items he had spent a lot of time with would-"

I held up my hands to stop the girl from talking and get her to take a breath. "Okay, I get it. Take a second to breathe," I told her.

Without a means to find the boy, managing to track him down would be a challenge. If Bonnie's map of the dungeon was accurate, there were dozens of potential places the kid could have holed up to try and avoid monsters. That was, if he hadn't fallen down a shaft or got caught in something like a tunnel collapse. A complete search of every floor, even discounting the populated areas frequented by other people, would take days.

I looked over to the three strangers. "So…why're they here?"

The man, a term I was using loosely for someone who looked barely legal among the three, cleared his throat and came forward. "We volunteered to help retrieve Mr Cranel from the dungeon."

"No," Syr spoke up evenly from where she was sitting at a table, staring at the three of them with a hard look that shouldn't have come from a sweet little piece of eye candy she was pretending to be. "There's more to it than that. The guilt on your faces says so."

One of the girls, the one with a ponytail on the side of her head flinched. Then, she stepped forward with a panicked expression. "It was a mistake! We didn't know he was there, and the monsters, they…"

When the girl trailed off, Syr took up the conversation. Her voice was cold and eerie as she spoke, completely devoid of emotion. "So, you bit off more than you could chew, and when you were running away, you used Bell and his friends as bait to pull most of the monsters off of your tail."

I looked up from the table that I was using to mentally reconstruct the map I saw from memory in the hopes of narrowing down the search radius. "What?"

"That's not what happened!" Ouka yelled.

"JUST STOP IT!" Hestia shouted wildly. She looked all around the room at everyone. "Pointing fingers isn't helping anyone! We need to save Bell!"

As she sat down and Chloe brought the goddess a cup of tea, Mia let out a sigh. "Lady Hestia, I am sorry to hear of your loss. But if it's been this long-"

"Bell's not dead!" Hestia told the large woman before she could finish.

I took in a deep breath as the girl looked down at the drink in front of her and everyone found something else other than the goddess sitting in the middle of the room that was holding in her tears to look at. Silence coated everything in a heavy pressure that made it harder to breathe.

Then, once again, the door was thrown open to let another pair of people into the bar. There was a woman standing behind the guy that knocked the door open with light blue hair and glasses. As for the guy who did the deed, well…his hair was a lot longer and blonder than I remembered from the movie theater, and he didn't have any facial hair anymore, but… I could have sworn I was looking at Ryan Renolds.

"Hey everybody, what's going…" the television actor with the aura of a god said before he trailed off after taking a look around the room and settling on me. "...well, aren't you an interesting addition," he said before looking around the room again. "Who invited the old guy?"

Hestia looked up. "Oh Hermes, this is Mr Dresden. He has a special spell that would have let us find Bell," he said before becoming dejected again. "If I had…managed to find something special to Bell. But without something like that, we can't…"

"Really, now?" Hermes asked before he went back to studying me as Hestia lowered her head. "How does it work?"

I frowned at the god with the knowing expression on his face. "Magic," I told him simply before he moved his eyes to my staff while starting to come closer. If it wasn't for all my interactions with the little goddess, I might have gotten a tiny bit worried because of his aura and what he was. Like the first time I met Mab. As it was, I just got a little unnerved.

From what I understood about what Syr told me. Gods were like the genie in Aladdin. Phenomenal cosmic powers, but no way to use them. I wondered if people working at nuclear launch facilities used to feel the same way as I did now.

"I think I've heard about a guy like you," he said while moving closer. "Of course, with as long as us gods live, we tend to see the same faces a few times. Reincarnation, different names, same face though. The guy I'm thinking of, he was a real wizard, if you know what I mean."

With the way Hermes was just looking at me with his eyes darting to my staff, it didn't take me long to figure out what was going through his mind. When he came in, I had wondered why the god had taken such an interest in me, but what he just said made it ridiculously obvious.

So, we could either play footsies under the table while a boy was probably on his last legs, or I could just throw everything out in the open and get to solving the problem at hand. Based on how perceptive Syr was, a trickster god would have removed all his doubts about me in an hour, anyway. "Hey Hermes, did Hades ever have you mail an insurance claim for the stuff that went missing from his vault?"

For a second, the god actually looked surprised, then his smile became absolutely vicious. "Oh Mr Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, I can't wait to hear how in the hell you got here," he said before brightening up and loudly clapping his hands once to get everyone's attention. "Well then, since we've got everything we need, we should get going."

"Hermes, weren't you just listening? I couldn't get-"

The god ignored Hestia and started walking towards me. "Mr Dresden, did you know that while a falna is mostly made to bring out the latent potential of mortals, it requires a constant link to a god or goddess to function?"

I looked over to Hestia for a moment as she perked up just a tiny bit before going back to the god. "You're saying I can use that link to locate the boy?"

"Well, for a deity with ten or twenty members in their familia, I probably wouldn't work," Hermes began. "Too many uh…threads to follow, so to speak. Too easy to get them mixed up. Like picking out a single yarn from a giant ball of it."

Then, Hestia's eyes widened before she jumped to her feet. "But, Bell's the only member of my familia! Are you saying that we can still find him?"

I looked around the room. Three complete strangers, a girl I knew next to nothing about other than she came in with Hermes, a goddess that had a memory that was less than reliable, and one that already knew everything about me, plus the waitresses. I instinctively reached over to the armband hidden under my coat as I considered a half-formed plan. A plan I needed to get consultation on before I even thought about trying the very stupid idea that Hermes was suggesting.

Because, I knew where he was going with this. I had actually seen inklings of it before. Everyone with a falna had a tiny strand of power sticking out of them that might as well have been a fishing line. It was only logical it led back to the god giving them power. The problem was, I needed my Sight to see it, and I wouldn't be staring at the receiver soaking up the power, I would be staring at the sun that was radiating it.

"Ryu," Syr spoke up in a soft yet firm voice. "I want you and the girls to go and get into your adventuring gear. You're going to assist Mr Dresden in tracking down Bell."

Mamma Mia cleared her throat. "Now hold on a minute girl. Even if the boy is still alive-"

Syr didn't even bother looking towards the larger woman. "If you're worried about workers, then you have three level two adventurers to take their place, not to mention a few others their god should be willing to lend to make up for all of this. In exchange, the search party will be far more experienced, with a pair of beastmen to help locate Bell's scent and follow any trail that should come up. I'd much rather they go, than the people who caused this mess by leaving Bell to die."

The only man of the trio cleared his throat. "Now hold on a minute, we didn't agree to-"

Mia clapped her hands loud enough to rattle the furniture, stopping the man from speaking. "That sounds fine to me. A day or two of honest work will be good for these three and their friends. You girls go put on your gear," she said to the usual barmaids before looking at the new temp-hires. "And you three hand over any potions you have. You're not going to the dungeon today, so the rescue party might as well make use of it."

Syr cleared her throat. "Um, Mamma Mia, I think I need to head home. I…probably won't be of much use today, with what's going on. I can barely concentrate as it is."

The larger woman looked at the goddess with a weighing expression. It was pretty obvious that Syr was lying, but neither of the other deities were taking any notice. "Alright," Mia grumbled as she looked Syr over.

As the rest of the girls got moving to head into the back room before grabbing the two female eastern women, the divine waitress got up and headed over to where I was. "Walk me home, Mr Dresden?"

Before I could say something, a small look of curiosity passed Herme's face and he turned his attention to the girl with the silver hair. "Oh, how horrible it is that the streets of Orario require an escort of cute girls even in the light of day," the god decried dramatically. "I think I need to run a quick errand as well. So, Asfi, be a dear and procure a disguise for Hestia and myself, would you?"

The blue haired woman that I had forgotten about frowned in response. "Why would the two of you need a disguise, sir?"

"Well, how else are we going to sneak into the dungeon with the rest of you so that Dresden here can use Hestia to find Bell?" Hermes asked before standing up straight hand holding up finger to wave it around while continuing in a lecturing tone. "Gods aren't allowed in the dungeon, you know. So, I'll need something to hide my face. Find something nice that shows off my butt cheeks!"

Asfi's whole body twitched, and I was afraid she was fighting off an aneurysm. "But-you can't-that's…"

"There's plenty of cloaks left in the store room that adventurers left here over the years," Mia said as the woman's brain nearly short-circuited. "You can find some that fit these two easily enough."

Syr gave the god a little giggle. "There we go, Lord Hermes. You'd better find something here to cover yourself up with if you're going to be so naughty and break the law," she said before offering me her hand. "Mr Dresden."

For a second, I thought that Hermes was going to do something, but he stepped back with a little smirk and a bow. "We'll meet you at the entrance to Babel," he told me before Syr practically led me out the door with the deathgrip on my hand.

The second the door closed behind us, Syr's cute little smile turned to a disgruntled sneer. "That little bastard! What the hell is he doing back so soon?" she grumbled. "And of course it's Hermes of all gods that recognized you!"

"So, I take it you were expecting something like this?" I asked as I came down the stairs with my staff. "Thanks for the heads up, by the way."

Syr looked back at me for a moment, then let out a tiny sigh. "Well, that little stunt you and Nicodemus pulled on Hades was very big news in the divine circles, even though the Olympians tried to keep it quiet," she told me as we moved along. "I didn't even realize that it was you until I saw the spearhead. But Hermes is the messenger of the gods, he would have gotten all the details from day one. He's usually gone from Orario for months at a time. Something must have brought him back early before I could get a false identity properly established."

When I gave her a raised corner of my mouth, Syr snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. There's something else going on behind the scenes. If I had to take a wild guess, Hermes being called back has something to do with what the Loki Familia is looking into. Although…it is strange that he's got an interest in Bell."

"You have an interest in him too," I pointed out.

"Because he's got a beautiful soul on top of being sweet, and cute, and brave!" she said as her words became more and more…well, like what I imagined a normal girl would sound like if she talked about a boy. Then, Syr took a moment to look embarrassed before clearing her throat. "What the hell made you confirm your identity, anyway?"

I snorted. "I don't really like the subtle crap. That whole, he knew, which made me know, but question if he knew I knew he knew junk is just a headache. Now, we're on equal footing."

Syr didn't seem to like my reasoning. She gave me a look that could have frozen volcanos. "Except it's not just your identity that's on the line. I've attached myself to you. I already know Hermes pays special attention to me. Maybe he caught me lying a few years ago or has some other reason to suspect I'm not just a little barmaid."

"So…" I paused, unsure if I wanted the answer to the question I was about to ask. "What happens if he does find out about…you know, you?"

After a few more steps down the street, Syr turned into a side alley and I followed her. "You mean the whole not human thing?" she asked before looking up in the way some people did while thinking. "Well…he'll annoy me half to death or maybe use revealing it as a means to try and control me. If that happens…" She sighed and hung her head. "Then I'll have to act against him to make him keep his mouth shut. I don't want it to get that far."

Before I could get any specifics, Syr held up a hand, signaling us to stop. "Wait here about five minutes, then head to Babel to wait for the others," she said before starting to move away.

"Hey!" I called out to her, making Syr stop and turn around. "That idea he has, is it going to work?"

Syr looked back at me. "Theoretically, it should. Ah…hmmm…Bonnie, can you also trace a link between a goddess and her followers?"

A tiny snort came from my armband before the girl in question appeared beside me. This time, she was in the dragonfly fairy version of her body. "You mean like the mystical energy you're sending to the four guys you've got stationed right above us and follow you around everywhere wrapped in invisibility cloaks?" she asked. "Or the other one hundred and fifty five other strands you've got coming out of you? Yeah, I can see them."

I stood there, stunned for a moment as I digested what Bonnie just casually dropped. From my interactions with Syr, she had all but told me she was a goddess in hiding without any followers. Now, I come to find out she has…well… Okay, well…one hundred and fifty guys wasn't that many. Ganesha had a lot more, and according to the Gods of Orario guidebook, Demeter had several hundred. The vast majority of them were just level one and only used their powers to help with physical labor, but that meant she had several connections to an amount of people that far surpassed Syr's.

So, just because Syr had one hundred and fifty guys didn't mean much…other than I had just stumbled onto the fact that the secret goddess in the city had built up a sizable force. That…probably wasn't that big a deal. Certainly nothing worth getting rid of me over.

Right?

Syr frowned at me. "Why are you-oh for the love of…" she rolled her eyes. "Calm down, idiot. I'm not going to do something to keep you silent. I obviously knew this was a possibility when I asked the spirit of intellect. And have her trace the connection, I don't think you want to know what the dungeon really looks like with your Sight."

After lowering my heart rate, I frowned at her. "So, what happened to the whole goddess in hiding?"

"I never said I was in hiding," Syr replied before frowning at me a little. "Who ever said I was in hiding?"

I snorted before opening my mouth…and closing it. I had been the one to say Syr was hiding to Mia. All Mia had said was that she was 'hiding from herself' instead of conforming what I already thought I knew. But…the resources Syr had at her disposal made more sense, rather than just something she could easily bum off another god. "Oh…you're just…wait, are you telling me that you'd rather be a waitress than-"

"Someone who is surrounded by followers that will cater to my every whim like a lazy little brat?" Syr finished for me. "Yes. Now, get going to the damn tower. Bell is in trouble, and you're my best chance of finding him in time."

-Syr-

Babel tower.

Well, Babel 3.0 as anyone in the know would call it. The original wasn't a hundredth as tall as the current one, and the second tower that was built on the same spot as the third only had fifty floors to it before our descent from Heaven destroyed the thing. The newest one had been designed by the mad inventor Daedalus under commission from Uranus as a cap to the dungeon, a resupply point for adventurers, and an apartment complex for the most prominent gods in Orario. It stretched up into the sky to surpass the clouds and challenge the heavens themselves.

And failed. The thing was hardly a space elevator after all.

The only worthwhile thing in the new tower was the first level basement where we kept the Altar of Prayers, and the top floor, where I could see out over all of the city. Well, I suppose the middle floor where the gods held their meetings was also nice enough, but the real attraction of that room came about from the circus that was our quarterly meetings. Other than that, it was a bit of an eyesore that made me wonder just how far it would stretch if it fell.

We got to Babel in no time thanks to Allen, and I left them at the ground and made my way up to the top floor in short order. The place was as opulent as any mortal palace, if not moreso. A dozen different rooms held everything from the basic necessities like bathrooms with all the luxuries to be found, to a private library, three bedrooms, and several more facilities that had changed over the years according to my whims. But, the one room I cared about was the same. My viewing terrace that gave me a good look down at the northern side of the city was a large carpeted room with a wall lined with bookshelves full of books and other nicknacks I had collected over the years.

As usual, I found Horn sitting in a chair near a window that gave her a full view of the city that her blessed eyes could make out just fine despite the altitude. She was wearing her working outfit and didn't even notice I was there until Ottar looked back at me.

My little Ottar. Well, he wasn't so little as when I first picked him up out of a back alley pile of garbage to nurse the little boy back to health some twenty-plus years ago. Now, he was just shy of seven feet tall with arms thicker than some men's whole bodies. But, he would always be a little boy in my eyes. It was the curse of letting the children grow up around me from a young age. No matter how big he got, I would always remember holding him in my arms.

The ears on top of the boar-man's head twitched a tiny bit before he leaned over in a bow. "Lady…" he said before pausing to look over at Horn. "...Syr."

I giggled at the oddity in his response. It wasn't often I came to Babel as I was now. "Ottar, give us girls some privacy, would you?"

There was another bow, and my perfect little soldier made his way to the stairs, leaving me and my other child alone.

Horn got up quickly and went rigid. "My lady…um…" she looked down at herself.

"Stay in costume," I told Horn before she could undo her spell.

When the taller woman in front of me in the skimpy outfit didn't just fade away, Horn bowed her head. "Pardon my lady, but if you had let me know you were coming, I could have…prepared…what you…needed?"

The confusion I saw sift across the woman's face made me smile a little. It was good to laugh at yourself, sometimes. Although, if I let Horn into my mind to know what was going on, there was no way my plan was going to go anywhere.

"Horn, I'm afraid I'm going to be a little naughty again. So I'm apologizing in advance," I told her before moving over to the bookshelves and finding what I was looking for. "Would you mind taking my place for the day? You don't have to work at the tavern. Just go home and relax."

I saw Horn's head cock to the side as she failed to grasp anything. "Um, my lady…" She took a few steps forward and gestured towards her body. It was one that would make almost any man drop to his knees in worship by beauty alone. A perfect representation of the human form, with a golden ratio of measurements instead of oversized breasts that some men hounded for and a divine presence that could make even gods think she was their equal.

"Oh, no…I mean I need you to take my place. I'm going to…be somewhere else for a while and I don't want to worry any of the children," I said before pulling some of the books that were easily worth hundreds of millions of valis out of their place and dropping them to the floor. The real treasure was behind them.

Inside a basic knapsack were several vials of Dresden's potion, still full of the magic he had imbued the liquid with. While they would have decayed in the old world by now, our imperfect reconstruction lacked the cleansing cycle that day and night used to bring. So, they were almost as good as the day they were made.

"My Lady, if you would just let me know what's going on-"

"But then you'll try and stop me," I whined in a playful manner before reaching into the satchel and taking out one of the potions. For a few seconds, I felt my poor little girl frantically claw at my mind to try and figure out what I was doing. But, I wasn't going to let her in. My fun would be ruined in an instant if that happened.

Horn gulped before she moved between me and the door. "My lady, please, at least tell me what you're planning."

The way the poor girl was looking at me gave me pause. "Oh come now, it's not going to be that bad. Remember my last little excursion?"

My reminder only made Horn more panicked. "You mean when you went to the Kaios Desert? You got the familia involved in a major war and three countries had to be completely restructured!"

I sighed at my poor little girl's exaggeration. "Oh, it's not like they didn't need it, and that war was going on when I got there," I told her with a wave of my hand to shoo off her concerns. But, when that only put her on the verge of tears, I sighed and tried to calm her down. "Okay, I'll tell you this. I won't cross the city gates. Does that make you feel any better?"

"So you're just…wait, are you just going for a quickie, or something?" Horn asked after a moment.

"...don't be gross," I told her sternly. I may have been a goddess of sex, but it wasn't that meaningless, physical pleasure only kind of sex I had indulged in back in my youth. Thinking back, that was probably why I had found myself so depressed back then. Physical intimacy was hollow without an emotional connection. "But if I'm still gone in…"

I did some quick math in my head about how long this was going to take. "If you haven't heard from me in twenty-four hours. Then you can panic."

"That's not a viable ultimatum!" Horn told me frantically.

The girl's response got a roll of the eyes from me. Then I looked past her. "Well, Ottar agrees with me."

Horn blinked, then looked back at the empty door in confusion. Giving me plenty of time to pop open one of the vials of blending potion and down it in one swig. The color faded from the world, and I saw Horn turn back around to look right at me and…grow even more fearful. "Um…goddess?"

I walked right past my body double before coming up with a strange idea. People who saw others under the effect of a blending potion still registered our presence in a way, but not consciously. So, I got around behind Horn and stood on my tip toes to whisper into her ear. "You should cover for me today."

It wasn't really mind control, since any command delivered in such a manner would be thrown away if they weren't already considering it as a real possibility. A fine line to walk, but all things considered, I was the perfect goddess to make that particular judgment call.

I moved away from Horn and counted the potions I had left and frowned. There was enough to give me a few hours of stealth time, so I hoped nobody was running late. My preparations weren't perfect, since I was still in my day dress instead of boots and a protective layer of magical clothing, but Hermes popping up meant I didn't have time to make any elaborate plans.

And…I might have been rushing into this, but…well, going into the dungeon was the ultimate excitement for me. It was a forbidden land that deities weren't allowed to enter under any circumstances. But, if there were already two gods going into the dungeon, then there wasn't any harm in a third tagging along, right?