Chapter 19: Nobody Expects the Hiwardian Inquisition

Chapter 19: Nobody Expects the Hiwardian Inquisition

Dalton gave Lito an irritated look.

“I’m sure it’s just an oversight," he said, waving away some of Lito's smoke. "Our branch upstairs has direct access to Central’s records. I just need to make sure that you check in before leaving. So that we can get everything documented appropriately.” He gave up trying to stave off the Guardian's secondhand, and began pulling at his middle finger until a knuckle popped.

“Sure thing,” I said, not sure how this was going to play out. “What if my name didn’t make it onto your list for some reason?”

“Well,” he said, pulling at his thumb now, “that would result in an investigation into the... error. It has happened a handful of times. Not for several decades, though. We keep a pretty good handle on who should or shouldn’t be participating.”

“Not a lot of trespassers,” said Lito, still smiling.

“Those incidents were sometimes,” Dalton began, but paused to clear his throat. “Those incidents were often an issue with the documentation process. I’m sure it will be sorted to everyone’s satisfaction. Aside from that, there is also the issue of your two guests.” He nodded first at the baby-C’thon form of Grotto, and then at the severed head.

“I was actually just wondering what to do with this,” I said, looking down at Hognay. I tried to avoid looking at the hole my Oblivion Orb had made.

“And I was wondering why you have... that with you. All one hundred participants have been accounted for, yourself included. Well, one hundred participants came out. You weren’t on the records, as I mentioned, but there are always one hundred participants... So this, um, gentleman is unexpected.”

“He was inside,” I said with a shrug. “Tried to kill us. He was responsible for,” I looked toward Sayil and Chilla’s groups, “the deaths inside.”

“Really now?” said Lito. His smile didn’t change, but there was obvious skepticism in his voice.

“I see,” said Dalton. “A report will be collected from everyone in your party. It is a tragedy when we lose any Delver, but especially during a Creation Delve. Every year we have one or two that get in over their heads and try to tackle a gold without the proper preparation, but we lost more this year than we have for some time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. It is one of the dangers of this whole business. Most people with a good head on their shoulders stick to silver and copper, so it’s usually not an issue.” Lito gave Dalton a serious side-eye as he said this, and Dalton cleared his throat again. “Of course, there are talented Delvers who belong in gold Delves,” he quickly added. “As for your other friend here, could you tell me what type of creature that is?”

I looked up at Grotto, who hovered in the air next to me, staring Lito down. The uniformed man took another puff of his cigarette and stared back.

“It’s a C’thon,” I said. Dalton’s face lost some color.

“And what is the nature of your relationship with it?”

“It’s my bonded familiar,” I said, repeating what the system had told me. Lito let out a low whistle.

“That’s pretty rare,” the smoking man said. “Guess you found that in the Delve?”

“Yeah.”

“Haven’t seen a C’thon inside a Delve before,” said Lito. “Dangerous place to find a mana-fiend.”

“Why’s that?”

“‘Cause they eat all the mana and get kind of tough to kill. Lucky you ran into a little one.”

“Guess I am,” I said. “Though there was a bigger one too.”

“How much bigger?”

“A lot bigger.”

Lito scratched his head and looked thoughtful.

“What difficulty did your party go through at?”

“Platinum.”

“Shit,” Lito said, “lucky any of you came out in one piece. Do you know if that guy,” he gestured at Hognay, “had anything to do with C’thons being in there?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did. He had a broken summoning tablet.”

Dalton’s eyes went wide.

“He was another Delver?!” he said. “With a summoning tablet?”

“What level was he?” asked Lito.

“Ten,” I said. “Silver ten. That’s what the System said after he was dead.”

“Damn,” said Lito. “A big-ass C’thon and a silver ten inside of a platinum Delve. You’re one lucky fucking bastard.”

“I guess so.”

“Well,” said Dalton, “this is very irregular, to say the least. Obviously this, erm...” he waved his hand at the head.

“His name was Hognay,” I said. “Hognay Haskagander.”

“Yes, this Hognay was certainly not supposed to be inside. And if he were silver ten there’s no way he could have entered through normal means. But let’s put that aside for a moment. I know you must be tired, and your attendant is here.” A blue-robed woman had approached and was waiting patiently for our conversation to end. “There will be a formal request for a report to be made, and there is likely to be an inquiry. The unusual circumstances surrounding the death of your two party members are enough to trigger that, but a silver ten summon C’thons into a Creation Delve!” He was now squeezing his finger hard enough for his knuckles to go white. He looked down, realized what he was doing and dropped them to his sides. “Well... I have what I need for the moment. If you don’t mind, I’ll have Guardian Lito accompany you for the moment to make sure you can, ah, find your way to the appropriate office to have your records sorted out.”

I nodded, understanding Lito’s presence for what it was. He wasn’t there to be a guide, I figured the initiate waiting nearby could do that. He was there to make sure that I actually went to the office, rather than sneaking off.

“No problem,” I said. “I appreciate your help.”

You have 8 attribute points to distribute. You have 23 hours until you lose 1 of your available points. Thereafter, 1 additional point will be lost every 3 hours.

This should have been an easy decision. I was obviously angling toward a magic-focused build and my mana-pool and regeneration was trash, at least compared to my health. I needed Intelligence and Wisdom to round out my build, but I also didn’t want to waste my bonus from my Unique Sign’s ability: That’s a Lot of Stats! I read back over the sign’s benefits.

Unique Sign: The Traveler

Bonuses:

1: Spectacular Vernacular: You have an eidetic memory for languages and an intuitive grasp of grammar. You learn new languages and dialects at incredible speed.

2: That’s a Lot of Stats!: You can gain bonus attribute points through training up to a maximum score of ten in each attribute.

Again, I wanted to maximize that bonus, which meant that anything I had with a value less than ten needed to be trained to ten before I put any points into it. I would prefer to hoard my points and split them between Fortitude, Intelligence, and Wisdom once I had the other two at ten. But, the time limit.

The fucking time limit.

I didn’t want to risk losing the points, and I’m the type of guy that leaves an hour early to make an appointment twenty minutes away. You never know what might happen on the way there; traffic, car problems, vicious assault by otherworldly monsters and intervention by celestial manifestations of divine will. Sky was the limit. So, I sighed and tossed them all into Fortitude. It ticked up to twenty-one, then ticked over again to twenty-two after I confirmed, courtesy of my Dumping ability.

Dumping: After spending five or more stat points at once on a single attribute, you are granted one additional point in that attribute.

I took a look at my vital stats and shook my head at the enormous jump in HP.

Name: Arlo, Esquire (New Title!)

Age: 0 (Physical age 18. Actual age 35)

Citizenship: The United States of America

Delver Level: 1

Level Breakdown: Copper: 0, Silver: 0, Gold: 0, Platinum: 1,

Special Delves Completed: 0

Health: 362

Health Regeneration: 188/hour

Stamina: 222

Stamina Regeneration: 72/hour

Mana: 45

Mana Regeneration: 16/hour

My health and HP regen had both more than doubled, which confirmed my earlier belief that health scaled on some sort of exponential path. That meant the higher it went, the better the bonus got for each point invested. If I was going to be throwing all my points into one stat, that was a good thing. A very good thing.

Stamina was going up linearly, but the bonus to stamina regeneration was following a similar, escalating pattern as health regen. However, unlike health, stamina regen wasn’t getting the buffs from my aura or ring, so the total number didn’t look as impressive. Still, stamina would be a more limited resource than health, but its base recovery back to full would be quicker.

The thing that really caught my attention was my mana regen. It had quadrupled, which wasn’t something I expected, especially since my Wisdom hadn’t increased. I scanned through my character sheet, trying to find something to explain the change, which is when I found the bonuses from my Bonded Familiar skill.

Bonded Familiar: A favored pet? A tamed wild beast? A former ally turned into an animal against their will and enslaved? Whatever the means, you have acquired a bonded familiar! The bonuses and benefits from a bonded familiar vary wildly depending on the entity chosen as your familiar, so we hope you considered it carefully.

Just kidding! We know you were forced to bond with a familiar with little or no forethought in order to escape near certain death. Oh well. What’s life without a little risk? And you really rolled the dice on this one. Hope it works out for you! Or not. Either way will be entertaining.

Your bonded familiar is a Delve Core that you and your allies gave the adorable little name Grotto, taken from the name of the Delve from whence he came. Very creative! By bonding with a Delve Core you gain the following evolutions to your Bonded Familiar ability!

Psychic Bond: The empathetically-challenged orb known as Grotto possesses psychic abilities and, if you allow, can communicate with you telepathically. This permits subvocal communication between the two of you, and grants Grotto limited access to thoughts and memories relevant to what you are currently doing or communicating about. While Grotto is able to force his mental voice into the minds of weak and unwilling prey, since you are now its proud new owner, this ability is now toggle-able. It has also been turned off by default. Savor the peace and quiet, or concentrate on the connection to activate the ability.

Shit. I concentrated on opening my thoughts up to Grotto, and heard his voice for the first time since leaving the Delve.

[...and I do not care for the one with the smelly smoking weed in his mouth,] came Grotto’s voice in my mind. [Although he’s better than that obsequious priestess with her nonsensical ramblings about the evil within Delves.]

[Hey,]I thought, focusing on Grotto. [Can you hear this?]

[Hmm, I see you have deemed it prudent to respond to my inquiries, finally. I was growing weary of your ignorant facade. Your vacuous sham. Your inane play-acting!]

[Alright man, chill.]

The feathery octopus swooped down in front of my face, the insectoid claws on the underside of his feelers clacking.

[They could not hear me and there was no need to ignore me completely.]

He... almost sounded hurt. I might have felt bad, but it was hard to drum up compassion for someone who'd aided and abetted hypnosis-induced excavation of people's insides.

[About that. Apparently this Bonded Familiar ability had you on mute by default.]

[Mute?]I felt a familiar scanning in my brain.

[It had me on mute?!]