Mantle of the Gods [LitRPG / Slow Burn / FTB Harem]

Something didn't feel right.

Rix had learned to rely on the feeling. It had kept her alive way too many times for her to ignore it. She looked around the busy floor of Krisa's Cellar. They were in the balcony private dining room, so she could see everything except the kitchen, which was under them.

The others were laughing and trying to distract themselves from the summons that Atlas and Oz had received. Rix had a feeling that something had happened with Trent and Astrid's situation. After the way she'd been tricked by the demons, she was hoping to find some way to make it up to everyone, but so far there hadn't been much that she had been able to do.

The feeling that something was wrong just kept getting stronger. Rix didn't want to worry Gesai when she didn't know what the source of it was. There was only one way to figure it out and that was to investigate.

The golden woman got up and headed towards the back where the bathrooms were. Instead of going into the bathroom, she ducked down the hall towards the stairs that the waitresses were using to bring the food up from the kitchen. For an upscale business, it was too easy to make it to the ground floor and slip around the corner into the hall that housed the main office and led outside.

She didn't even have to use her invisibility to move around. It was sad just how little attention the staff was giving such an obvious security flaw. That wasn't the source of discomfort though, so she slipped out the back door into the cool evening air. There were only two more weeks left in spring, so it was getting warmer, but it was still cool enough for a jacket.

Rix heard rough laughter as soon as she was through the door, so she invoked her <Hide Presence>. Combined with the passive <Erase Presence> that she got from being a God Hunter, she was invisible to almost everyone. The other fun thing about the skill was that it was able to break through most of the normal restriction zones to allow her to use it.

Her blood ran cold when she saw one of the owners of the laughs.

Therus Gammus was a six-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound, mountain of muscle. He was also the current leader of the Bronze Cobras, a title that he had taken over thirty years ago. Rix knew that most of that earning had been done by killing off any other challengers after their last leader had been killed by Sipher.

Unlike Sipher who, despite his notoriety, could be reasoned with despite his occasional violent outbursts, Therus was pure violence. As a bandit with a level in the forties, there was no way that he had gotten into the city by a legal method. He was simply too dangerous for people in the Ward not to be on the lookout for his face.

Rix didn't recognize the other two men that were with him, but she did recognize the silver woman with red hair. The waitress was crouched in the middle of the men with her hands over her head. It was Woodsie. The young woman had grown up with her in the Outsider camp and had been gone the day that Rix had poisoned most of the camp so she could run away. She had wanted to wait for her friend, but she'd been forced to enact her plan because if she'd waited much longer, she wouldn't have been able to get into the Zeb mantle ceremony, securing her a spot in the Cathedral and out of the reach of the bandits.

Now that Rix knew who was here, she had an idea of what was going on. Rix and Woodsie, along with a few other kids, had been taught how to pick pockets and lift valuables. If there was one thing the wealthy had in common, it was that they liked to show off how much spare income they had. They'd been snuck into every town in the Ward to pose as waitresses or other kitchen staff. The places they targeted usually had enough of a turnover that a new face who said all the right things and could do their job wasn't given much thought. After a few hours of getting the rest of the staff used to them, the dinner rush would hit. They'd lift as much jewelry as they could, then get out before people started noticing their valuables were missing.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Except they weren't leaving. The three men were laughing about their ill gotten gains out in the open where they could easily be seen. Like by the person who had just walked out the door.

Rix turned around to see if it was another one of her old friends, but it wasn't. It was the pink-haired brat.

Pixie had been causing problems all day. Intentionally getting into fights with Oz, trying to rile up Ren, bossing around Shelly, and flirting with Jenne. Rix had a feeling that Pixie had been conditioned to have to act out in order to get attention from her mother or older siblings. It was common in large families and something that she'd been trained to keep an eye out for in order to exploit for her handler. Why spend time casing a place when you could trick one of the children into bringing the loot to you?

"What are you doing?" Pixie looked right at the group.

Rix sighed as all of the group turned their attention to the Godling.

"Well aren't you just the prettiest snack?" Therus laughed as he sauntered down the alley towards the ivory woman. "Boys, I've found dessert!"

"You have no idea how bad of an idea that is." Pixie touched her CB and pulled out a knife. She pointed it at the massive man. "Stop harassing the lady!"

That only drew even more laughter from them. It was pretty obvious that Pixie was a Tier Zero and someone in Tier Four like these men would have little to fear from her blade.

Rix took two long steps back, grabbed Pixie, and extended her invisibility to cover her teammate. With one hand she twisted the knife away and the other clamped over the other woman's mouth to stop her from screaming.

"Where'd she go?!"

"We need to get out of here!"

Therus was at least smart enough to listen to the other two men. Rix expected them to grab Woodsie and run the other direction. Instead, the large man reached into his CB, pulled out a purple ball, and threw it against the wall.

Rix had seen the Dungeon Seeds do some nasty things, but the portal that it opened looked stable. There weren't any monsters coming out of it and it didn't look like it was having an adverse effect on the Dungeons inside the city. Therus eyed the area that Pixie had vanished from and even threw a few pieces of gravel down the alley, which were easy for Rix to navigate them out of the way.

The other two men grabbed Woodsie and pulled her through the portal. Therus scanned the alley one more time, grumbled something, then walked through the portal.

Rix let go of Pixie as soon as the bandits were gone. Any noises they made would be muffled, but they could still be heard. But until they attacked something or Rix dispelled it, they could basically only see each other.

"That was so cool!" Pixie shadowboxed. "You've been holding out on me!"

Rix shook her head. "Come on, we need to tell Gesai and your sister."

"Wait! I want to look at this!" Pixie took off towards the portal that was slowly shrinking.

"Don't touch that! You don't know where it goes!" Rix tried to grab Pixie.

The pink-haired woman jerked the same moment that Rix grabbed her, pulling both of them through the portal.

Her invisibility was still up as they landed in a forest. The portal though, was not still up.

"What were you thinking?!" Rix shoved Pixie. "We have no idea where we are or even what floor of the Dungeon we're on!"

"How do you know we're in the Dungeon?!" Pixie folded her arms. "And how was I supposed to know that this was going to happen?"

"UGH!" Rix took a deep breath. "The air is different inside the Dungeon. Cleaner, almost artificial." She pointed Pixie's knife at the other woman. "And rule number one of the Dungeon. 'DON'T TOUCH GLOWY STUFF'!"

"I thought it was 'Don't stand in purple sh…'."

"It's the same thing!" Rix threw up her hands as she cut the other woman off.

"So…" Pixie looked around. "What do we do now?"

"You do exactly what I say." Rix reached in her CB for her weapon. "And we try not to die."