Chapter 59 - Fifty-Nine: To be Expected

The next morning, I was gently awoken by Serin shaking my arm. I slowly came too and found that I was the last of the group to rise. The others were already eating breakfast and checking over their gear.

"Morning Theo." She said as pulled myself up into a sitting position.

"Moring Serin. Have I overslept?"

"No, we just let you sleep in for a little longer after everything that happened last night. Don't worry it's still early, Altria has only just got up."

"Good, I don't want to be holding up the quest."

"You aren't. There's still time for breakfast before we have to set off."

I got myself out of bed and joined the others as they ate. I still had a slight lingering drained sensation from the night before, but I couldn't say it much worse now than an enthusiastic evening with all of the girls.

"Lillia told me what happened. How are you feeling now?" Asked Altria as I sat down with the group.

"Much better now, thanks."

"I bet that succubus was quite surprised when you turned the tables on her!" Siofra said.

"Yeah, I don't think she saw that coming." I answered.

"What did you use on her?" Asked Altria.

"Purification, to start with, you've seen how that works… Then disorient, at that point her grip relaxed a little and once I used appraisal, I was able to see through her enchantment. Luckily for me I had just enough energy to get them off me."

"Purification? On a succubus, that should only work on the undead." Siofra pointed out.

"Yes, well, this doesn't seem to work in quite that way." I replied.

"Then how does it work?" She enquired further.

"Um, it was the first time I had seen it up close, before that I had only tested it by accident in a fit of absentmindedness… As far as I can tell, it seems to flip a person's s.e.x.u.a.l orientation."

"It flips their s.e.x.u.a.l orientation?"

"I think so."

Siofra burst into laughter.

"Well, that could very well prove to be fatal to her. They draw their energy from s.e.x.u.a.l relations with men. I doubt they can do the same with women."

"I did wonder if that would be the case."

"When you said you tested it out in a fit of absentmindedness, what did you mean by that exactly?" Serin asked, the serious tone in her voice clearly evident.

"It was stupid of me and I shouldn't have done it, even if I didn't know what the consequences would be… But I used it on an unsuspecting couple of girls that were sat near us in the guild hall the other day." I answered awkwardly.

"You mean that couple that suddenly upped and left in the middle of their meal?"

"Yeah, that couple."

"So that's what happened… Theo that's awful! I'm really disappointed with you. I wouldn't have expected you to have done anything like that." She was clearly upset.

"I know this doesn't make it any better, but I only intended to see if it had an effect on their wine. To see if it purified it. I would never have done that if I had known otherwise."

"That doesn't excuse what you've done. You might have changed their lives forever!" She said angrily.

I could completely understand why she was angry. It was a stupid thing to do and she felt like I had betrayed the trust she had put in me as a person. I couldn't blame her for feeling like that.

"Calm down Serin. He was stupid, yes, but I saw what happened and he didn't do it on purpose. For all we know it isn't a permanent effect." Altria spoke up in my defence.

"Hmpf, he still shouldn't have done that. I'm disappointed." Serin said turning away from us and starting to quietly gather her gear.

"You should have expected that. Don't worry she'll come around. I think." Altria said in an attempt to sound comforting.

Lillia was silent and Siofra had found the whole thing amusing. Serin was a principled woman and I was genuinely worried how this was going to affect our relationship going forward.

We finished eating breakfast and it was time to tackle the next section of the dungeon. The party was quieter than usual as we packed away our sleeping gear ready to move.

"Right, everyone it's time to move. Let's adopt the same formation as yesterday." Lillia instructed, looking specifically at Serin and me.

"I think I should switch…" Serin started before being cut off by Lillia.

"No, let's keep the same formation as before."

Serin didn't argue any further and the party set of once again. We walked through the tunnel like section of the safe zone before reached the next chamber. Serin barely even looked at me the entire time. I felt like trying to explain and apologise further, but I just couldn't think of the right thing to say to her. Then before I knew we had stepped into the next level of the dungeon. I stopped thinking for the time being, bringing it up now would only be a distraction and I decided to talk to her about it once we reached a safe area again.

Everything was quiet as we entered the new chamber, the only sound came from our footsteps as we moved forward. At first this chamber was exactly the same as the previous two. A large dark cavernous space with many side passages leading off from the main chamber, but after we had walked for about five minutes things started to change.

First the floor changed from stony mud, to cut stone, then the sides became walled. We had entered a manmade structure.

"What is this?" Lillia called up ahead to Siofra.

"I'm not sure." She answered hanging back from the front. "It's like I told you before, that last passage was as far as I came last time. Still, I wasn't expecting anything like this to be down here after we entered the cave system."

"Could we be approaching the lowest levels of the dungeon?"

"We could be… I'd be surprised if there were several layers like this, this far down, but there's no way to tell until we've passed through."

Siofra re-joined Altria at the front of the party and we pressed on. Now we were enclosed on the sides and the floor was paved our footsteps echoed around us as we walked. It was going to be difficult for us to make a stealthy approach now, but at least there were no side passages anymore. Our enemies would have to approach us from the front or behind.

We continued for another couple of minutes until up ahead a wide and long set of steps came into view in the distance. As we drew closer, I could make out a large arch at the top of the steps and what appeared to be two stone statues stood at either side. Just as we reached the bottom of the stairs Altria signalled for the group to stop and ran back to Lillia.

"What are they?" Lillia asked as Altria jogged over.

"I'm not sure, it's too far to tell. They could just be statues, but I've got a feeling they aren't."

"Hmm, I suppose they're unlikely to just be statues down here."

"What do you want to do?"

"We'll continue just like we have and approach them with caution. At this point it's go through there or turn back."

"Yeah."

Altria headed back to the front of the party with Siofra and we started climbing the stairs, I looked over the Serin as she walked next to me. I thought about asking her what they could be for a moment but thought better of it. She still looked annoyed.

The stairs were long, and it took us a couple of minutes for us to reach the top. At the top of the stairs was a large stone platform that reached all the way to the archway at the far end. It was still a long way off, but now we could make out the statues clearly. At a guess they were both at least three and half meters tall. As we reached the top of the stairs there was still no sign of movement, but we stopped once again.

"What do you think?" Lillia asked Altria.

"They appear to just be statues. They're made from stone."

"Then let's continue, carefully."

Siofra and Altria were the first to step up onto the large platform and the pair had barely taken two steps when the ground started to shake. Even I could the see the stone cracking and falling off the giant statues. It was clearly just an outer layer, underneath there was something shiny.

"I thought you said they were made of stone!" Lillia said half mockingly to Altria.

"They were…"