NOVEL NEXT 91 - Several More Uncomfortable Revelations
Archmund sat next to the fountains, coffee and water within arm's reach, and took a long sip of coffee.
A very long sip.
He channeled magic into the tankard, sucking the heat out of the coffee, so it was practically frozen. Like a granita.
A little hotter.
Just barely liquid enough to drink down, but cold enough to strain his teeth.
He drank.
Ugh, brain freeze.
He'd taken the tankard for himself from the pile of Gemgear on the round table. Gelias had begrudgingly allowed it, saying that one or two missing components wouldn't ruin the integrity of his inferences. As a compromise, Archmund had placed his Gemstone Rapier and Gemstone Sword on the table, asking Gelias if their inclusion could shed different insights on the nature of the Dungeon as a whole, beyond the Subtier. The elf had seemed almost hungry to see what magical insights he could infer from Archmund's contributed gear.
He really hoped he wouldn't come to regret that.
But Rory had eagerly dumped his own staff on top of the pile of Gemgear. And if Rory trusted Gelias, Archmund had no reason not to. Except, of course, Rory was a little too trusting. He liked Archmund, after all.
Then Archmund dipped the tankard into the coffee fountain, brought it to boiling to kill all the germs, dropped it to near freezing so he could drink it, and drank the whole cup in seconds.
"Are you insane?"
Two people were in the habit of calling him crazy. Mary or Beatrice. Mary or Beatrice.
It was Beatrice.
"You tell me, dear cousin," he said, turning to her.
She looked disgusted, but she quickly smoothed out her face to an air of vague unjustified superiority.
They really were alike.
"You going to have any?"
"I already had a cup," Beatrice said. "Mother and father told me coffee will stunt my growth."
There wasn't strictly speaking any good evidence for that, as far as Archmund was aware; if anything, it was a second-order effect. Lack of sleep stunted your growth, and coffee kept you awake. It wasn't coffee itself, it was the lack of sleep. He could be wrong, of course — it wasn't like he could google the most up-to-date scientific literature.
But he was already regularly not sleeping. Ever since that first all-nighter, where he'd unlocked his Infrared Lance, and the 16-hour dungeon crawl that followed, his sleep schedule had become increasingly erratic. His only hope was that magic could make him reach his natural height.
She dipped a tankard in the coffee fountain.
"What happened to stunting your growth?"
"How am I supposed to get any taller if I get killed from falling asleep during a fight?"
"If you're getting tired in a fight, it means you've depleted your Gem reserves," he said. "Which means you're already in danger."
Magic would flow back from the Gems to sustain the body. That flow would sustain mind and muscles and accelerate healing, though it wasn't useful in protecting against grievous bodily harm. But techniques like his Bodily Barrier, Beatrice's Shadow Cloak, or Mary's Hands Off! covered that gap, acting like a second skin that could take more harm.
She stopped drinking her coffee.
"Are you getting tired, Beatrice?"
She started drinking her coffee again. "No."
"Are you being honest?"
"Yes."
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
She drank more coffee.
"If I wasn't, I would say yes anyways."
"I gathered that."
He drank a bit himself. His leg was jittering wildly now. "I really don't want to have to drag your corpse out of here," he said.
"You won't. We won that last fight and only Mary took a light graze to her arm," Beatrice said. "We'll be fine. Probably. Most of us."
He shared her trepidation.
"I'd like it if we all survived."
He'd meant it as a general statement.
She took it as more.
"That idiot," she muttered.
It took him a moment to figure out who she was talking about. Was it Gelias or himself, for jumping onto the roof? Was it Mary for charging in?
"He gets the ability to throw his Block, and he just charges in to protect me? When I've got a full-body cloak up? Idiot!"
She meant Rory.
"That staff," Archmund said. "It's… they say Gemgear can change people's personalities over time, shaping them to fit the instincts of the Gear. How long has he had it?"
She gave him a confused look. "Uh, it's not the staff. He's pretty much always been this way."
"Been what way?"
"Self-sacrificing! Overbearing! In my way!"
Her outburst echoed against the walls even with the two fountains of dark coffee and clear water. Archmund looked across the room, where Gelias was still studying his organizational chart — though he had stopped manifesting the light, keeping it in his mind's eye — and where Rory was showing Mary what her combat motions had looked like. He looked over to them and sheepishly grinned, rubbing his head and looking at the floor.
Try as he might, Archmund couldn't remember if Rory was in any of his garbled memories from before the Crylaxan Plague, when he and Beatrice apparently still knew each other.
He shoved down the instinct to suggest that maybe Rory had the best of intentions. Generally people didn't like it when you tried to shut down their complaining by saying something like that.
"What's the deal with that, anyways?" he said.
She scooped up some water and activated her tankard, cycling it between a roiling boil and a cover of frost.
"I'm just guessing," she said. "I don't really know. But."
He nodded.
"The Redmonts haven't been noble-nobles for that long," she said.
He nodded like this meant something to him.
"Apparently this is why we're not supposed to get along," she said. "You and me."
Fuck. He hated when this happened. He wracked his brain for why he didn't already know about this apparent blood feud, and came to the conclusion that he'd been a bit of a brat who didn't care about people before his memories had returned.
"But your mom and my dad are siblings so apparently that went a good way to paving over the feud, I think? But that started when Rory's family was like. Mercenaries or guards? Or butlers and servants? Adventurers maybe?"
She told the story like she didn't know it that well herself. She probably didn't. He would probably be served better by reading it in the library, but he recognized this as an important bonding moment with a family member.
"Your great-great-something grandpa wanted to keep them as lesser nobles so you could keep hiring them, but my great-great-great-something grandpa liked them enough to make them proper nobles by giving them the Red Mountains as their fief. That was enough to make everyone mad for years."
Her face darkened. "The way my father tells it, back then Blackstone Duchy was Redmont and Blackstone, and Agraria Duchy was just Agraria and Granavale. But there might have been a war, and that's how Blackstone ended up as…"
Archmund took a long, long, long sip of coffee.
"Have you tried talking to Rory about it?"
Beatrice laughed. "He's been like this for as long as I've known him. You think that'll change anything?"
Archmund didn't answer her.
"If he hasn't picked up that I feel patronized by now, you think he ever will?"
He didn't say a word. He didn't quite have the room to talk.
"Anyways, that's all ancient history now," Beatrice said, her far voice lighter than the story. "Which is why it's so infuriating that he has this weird sense of loyalty, where he'd kill himself to save me!"
"You don't seriously think he's doing that out of respect for your ancient family history," Archmund said.
"Why else would he do it?"
He left Beatrice near the fountains because answering those questions was a beehive he did not want to kick.
"Rory. Mary."
"Archmund!"
"Young master."
He cracked her a slight smile. "Where's your fire? Where's your snark?"
She side-eyed Rory and gave him a shaky smile.
"Don't mock her," Rory said gently. "Look. Show him your arm."
Mary grimaced, then pulled the wrapped cloth off of her arm. Archmund prepared for the worst.
He frowned. "You should. Try to get the black stuff out."
"It hurts when I do."
"What kind of pain?"
"What do you mean what kind?"
"Is it a dull ache, is it stinging, is it… I mean, you're not rolling around in pain. You're still able to talk to me. How bad could it be?"
He wondered if he'd regret that later.
"Hurts enough," Mary said. "But I'll be fine. Really."
He gave her a side-eyed glare. "Really."
She rolled her eyes. "Master Granavale. I'll be fine."
"Hey, hey, don't tell him just that," Rory said. "You need to be more conscious of your own needs."
"You're one to talk," Mary muttered.
"And what does that mean?" Rory said, his brow scrunched.
"You threw yourself into the path of those Enchantments," Archmund said.
"After you'd seen what they could do," Mary added.
"To protect people who could defend against them," Archmund continued. "Is that… I mean, Rory. I know you're a nice guy and all. I know you care deeply about… the people who matter to you. But there has to be a limit, isn't there?"
Rory chewed on his cheek. He held out his hand, and his staff jumped from the round table into it.
He could've just done that in the fight, Archmund thought. He hadn't.
"Do you have a deathwish or something?"
Mary's mouth fell open. She gave Archmund an extremely piercing glare, but she forced herself to stay silent.
"Better me than them, right?" Rory said. He forced a laugh. "You're no stranger to that sort of thing… right?"