——————Shuichi——————
The sound of chattering and the sound of leaves and branches breaking started to grow close and Atlas had been visibly anxious since they got separated from the former slaves in the chaos. "You have me in the midst of a creepy forest for what? This was your plan." Atlas was exasperated.
"You could walk faster if you stop talking," Shuichi said without much care for the man behind him. As he saw it, this boy had become a shackle for him. He'd invested too many resources and time into him but he didn't know then what he knows now… Atlas was a terrible Attuned. He could barely use the classes he unlocked and the ones he did use were becoming increasingly more useless, Shuichi may have had only one class but with that one class he could take down atlas himself twice over. "You'd better get acquainted with of those classes. If we are to escape the Slavers."
The sound grew louder, "Incoming!" Atlas shouted as he manifested a sword of Ice. In the thick forest before them, they could see glowing red orbs heading for them with extreme speed, it or their bodies shrouded by the darkness of the trees.
Shuichi sighed, "well that's unfortunate." Atlas looked to Shuichi to make the call but Shuichi was over taking charge in these situations, he wasn't built to be a king or fighter, if he was he wouldn't even be going to this academy, he'd become an adventurer. That's a much faster route to social and economic comfortability if you're cut out to be a fighter. "So you gonna do something?" Shuichi asked deadpan as they were surrounded by horse and wolf-sized black spiders.
Atlas side-eyed Shuichi before activating his improved reflexes. Shuichi began pooling lightning mana in his palm. If he was going to kill these abominations he'd need to weaken them so atlas could take them out. He fired the blast of lightning which branched into several lightning bolts that struck several spiders and then leaped from them to the other spiders. "Thunder Chain Web! Just thought of that myself!" Shuichi was rather proud of himself, creating more than random blobs and basic shapes and enhancements with mana were only possible once one gained a deep understanding of their element and mana. Using his cryomancer class he fired sharpened ice spikes into all of the spiders. Shuichi sighed, he had just been proud a moment ago about his accomplishment, and here goes the glass cannon showing off his own skill on the same level, "and he only got the class several hours ago." Atlas used the majority of his mana on the spell so the blast of shards was more a whipping explosion of dozens of ice blades, rather than launching several icicles. The attack finished them all off… all besides one.
A feminine voice boomed but it was nearly drowned out by the grinding and chattering of Mandibles, "I am spider princess Alura, and I can't stand and let you trounce on my spiderlings." Before them, stood an elephant-sized Spider with armored chitin instead of skin that resembled steel with its metallic sheen. Unlike the other spiders, her mandibles were longer and sharper while her head seemed to have a crown of chitin grown out of it. She charged them from out of the forest, her figure like a stampede of speeding horses.
Shuichi fired a bolt of lightning at her but before he could complete the spell she kicked up the corpses of spiderlings to protect her. Atlas yelled, "I'll handle it, conserve your power." Shuichi knew this would likely end up with one of them dead, he may have started to like Atlas deep down but it didn't change that Shuichi's life was more important and Atlas was willing to toss his away.
—————————Allura—————————
Smart as she was she wouldn't be able to get close to the caster, so she switched targets. She scurried into the forest. When she emerged it was right by the one called Atlas. Atlas still under the effects of improved reflexes was able to turn to her and use blade fist extending an invisible blade of essence and aura from his first. She batted his arm away and pounced on him. The weight of her enormous body crashed down on him. Even if she hadn't been trying to restrain him her weight alone would be far more than anything he could lift or struggle against. Luckily she was too big to properly restrain him and he didn't need to lift her to get her off him. He stabbed into her side with his blade fist, he ran ice mana through the invisible blade of pure mana and essence, the wound freezing open and slowly spreading frost to the rest of the body. She quickly leaped from the boy's body and twisted around to locate the caster.
But the caster was distracted staring off into the forest, easy prey she thought. She lunged at him but suddenly she tripped breaking a leg. She looked down to see a pothole where she put her leg but she had sworn it wasn't there before. In one of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of something she couldn't recognize, when her eyes focus she noticed a goblin familiar, the primary familiar of the dungeon lords.
Atlas rushed her using a blade fist strike to between her eyes at the center of her head but still faster than him, she impaled him on one of her remaining legs. Atlas pushed on using his necrotic mana to keep his dying tissue together as he pressed forward stabbing her face with his fist but his blade barely touched her face before smacking him aside and into a tree trunk. The tenacious boy began to stand again, "Why don't you stay down!"
But she couldn't even focus on him, there were a pair of red eyes coming from the forest now and she could feel four figures approaching, her senses were strong but it was her sense of pressure that allowed her to feel the four disturbances in the air.
————————— Nui—————————
The figures walked into the clearing but ignored the princess, "Gross." Torui said as he cringed glancing at the spider princess. Torui glared at Nui pointing to his eyes. Nui got the message and turned off their red glow.
Nui smirked, "this was the Atlas from the slave auction house. Let's see what he can do right? He's been fighting her mostly alone no?"
The lightning caster from earlier didn't respond, in fact, he took a step back and visible electricity began crackling around him.
—————————Atlas—————————
He leaped off the tree his reflexes still enhanced, his body was battered, ribs were broken, a hole punched through his chest, and his legs were fractured, but with his necrotic mana he was holding his entire body together. Mid-flight his blade fist deactivated as his stamina and mana were nearing their limits. Off guard, the spider princess couldn't react to him but with no blade, he didn't have many offensive options. He threw out his fist releasing raw mana from the punch, his fist landed on the side of her face between a pair of eyes, blue light, and crackling energy and breaking free from his skin as it exploded from his fist knocking the spider out as the blow rattled her brain. Atlas fell to his knees before letting out a sigh of relief before falling face-first on the grassy dirt ground.
His blood loss began to catch up with him when a girl emerged from the forest. She could only be described as a majestic noble Phoenix. "Hey Torui, should I help this him?" she dreamily said, her voice like thick, sweet and smooth honey to his oxygen-deprived mind. Shuichi approached them slowly.
One of the knights interjected, "Errr you probably should Saphra- WHY ARE YOU ASKING HIM?" He said with a pang of jealousy.
"I'm asking torui cause he's the summoned savior. I'd ask Nui but he's predisposed to violence and pain."
The strange knight, Nui as it were, moved to say something in protest before nodding and shrugging, "Fair enough."
Sui let out an exasperated sigh as he threw his hands up, "Savior this savior that, man whatever." He turned his back and took a few steps into the deeper forest.
Shuichi looked at Atlas with tired eyes, "so much for handling it." Shuichi sighed as Atlas chuckled. He turned his head up to look at the new group of knights and their noblewomen. "And you guys are?"
Torui smirked, "We're dungeon lords but don't be afraid, we have no beef with you."
Shuichi looked confused, "Beef?"
"Look we don't have issues with any of you so allow us to help." Torui knelt down to Atlas, "what's your goal in life?"
"To not... uh Damn what was... oh yeah No one walks on me again!" Atlas said clumsily as the blood loss made forming coherent thoughts extremely hard.
"Same here, look I'll offer you a dungeon pact with me, and we'll heal and protect you. As long as don't ask something of you that is unfair or that you morally wouldn't do. Fair right?"
Saphra smirked as her eyes filled with curiosity, Atlas could see that she knew where this was going but he was still clueless. "Fair enough, I accept." A tendril of smokey mana extended from Torui's heart to Atlas's.
He said as he began to pass out, Saphra knelt over and pressed her hands to his back, "Phoenix Rejuvenation!" Flames coated his body for a brief instant before his body was restored. Saphra wasn't unscathed though, she fell back light-headed and bleeding from her nose from spending nearly half her mana at once.
She clearly didn't have the proper control to do so normally, so whatever ability she had had to be an advanced one, but these kinds of thoughts were no longer the priority, "What did you do to me?"
Torui shrugged, "As it was explained to me you're now my servant until one of us dies, you can't harm me, but aside from that I can't make you do anything unfair or against your moral code."
Atlas froze up before Sui interjected again, "You're honestly better off dead, bondage can be hard, but whatever."
Atlas whispered under his breath, "Hate nobles."
Torui narrowed his eyes, "What was that?"
"I said I hate nobles like you. Take what you want when you want because you can without caring about the consequences if they don't affect you."
Torui drew his sword, "Shut it you don't know what you're talking about."
The rustling grew more as Sui and Atlas looked up at the tree. Sui activated his Eldridge sight and saw the dim cold mana of a feminine figure. "Come out, you can't hide from us we know your there."
Nui tilted his head in confusion, "New friends?"
But Atlas did something he had never really done before, "Help us please!" He took a chance and asked for help.
Nothing happened, Torui looked down on Atlas and he scurried up into an upright sitting position. Torui looked down, "Maybe I should tighten the constraints of the contract, you will provide me complete obedience and in exchange, I won't kill you. You have 3 seconds." Atlas's eyes bulged with fear but he had to rationalize, he was working with about a third of his total mana after some had replenished from the heal, but not directly being applied to his mana meant although his body would be restored he'd still have to wait to regain mana. Would a third even be enough for a dungeon lord? "3…2…" Torui counted off slowly but surely as he began to wind up the slash. Then he swung, Atlas began to fill his hand with ice mana as he threw it up to block. The tree rustled violently and leaves flew off, as Atlas saw a blur go by stopping Torui's blade mid-swing. It was a hand connected to a dark figure. The figure held Atlas in one arm and the blade in the other.
Looking clearly at her he could see it was a pale and beautiful woman. "I was confused when I saw you but from this close, I can smell him on you… in you." The white-haired pale noble lady looked down, "This is his mark, no wonder your words resonated with me… he wants me to save him." She nodded content with that line of thinking and its conclusion.
"Who?" Atlas asked confused.
She tilted her head back, "Have you met a gorgeous vampire recently, so handsome it almost hurt to look at?" Atlas immediately connected the dots but didn't like all the compliments she was giving the thing that basically forced him into being a free snack and if he left him with some sort of mark that identifies him as a snack to other vampires then he'd have whole new issues.
Torui pulled the blade back and sheathed it, "What the- you had another teammate hiding?"
"You've seen him boy? Where was he?" She asked calmly and soundly like a parent sitting their kid down to 'talk', ignoring the atmosphere of hostility.
"Vampire... I know your kind." Sui said, even though he had said it with such an upbeat tone the phrase still came across as racially insensitive to Atlas, although monsters were demonized and for good reason, many have been seen working alongside Attuned, Shuichi being a prime example, so there was no reason to treat a monster that hadn't shown hostility as anything less than human.
"Say that again dungeon lord and I won't be able to restrain my appetite, I had quite the mean but I didn't stay and finish any of the bodies, you ever bite into a sliver of cake, and then your mouth waters for more, my mouth is real watery so don't test me." Atlas facepalmed, It wouldn't be fair to treat her as anything less than a murderer.
Atlas jumped in before it could escalate further, "he was in a tower, one that's a day or two from here if you go over the mountain."
"You faced him in the tower without magic and won? You hardly beat that spider princess and you had magic now." She crossed her arms releasing him.
Atlas fell to the floor, "not exactly, he let me pass in exchange for some blood."
"But why your blood and why would the tower even put you up against him when it knows you would lose."
"Well, he called my blood special." Everyone raised a brow as they looked to Atlas, "He called me an Arcane or Arcaneling."
The woman dropped to her knees and bowed as Saphra looked on in shock. The woman looked up to meet his eyes, "I am sorry Sire, I am Vampire Princess Zena. Did my beloved say what he was planning?"
Atlas was at a loss for words but it somehow felt wrong to waste this time on shock rather than answering her, "Uhh, no he didn't, not that I can remember."
Atlas was confused but then felt something foreign like worms and maggots crawling through his brain searching for something, the memories of the Tower came to the forefront of his mind. It had to be her, even if she was acting extra respectful she still didn't see Atlas as above her in any way.
Torui looked to Saphra for clarification, "What's an Arcane."
All eyes fell on Saphra. Saphra took in a sharp breath as if saying the name may invoke some sort of divine punishment, "A race of living magic, beings so I tune with our magical world there was nothing they couldn't do, like gods without the restrictions of the position. An arcaneling is what a premature arcane is until they have enough magic power to ascend."
Everyone turned their eyes back to Atlas.
She eased up and released her mental invasion on Atlas, "I see. Well..." she stands "this is spider queen territory, do you all plan to pact with the princess?"
Sui shrugged, "You got an Arcane so I'll take this one."
Zena nodded, "Pact with her and then we kill the spider queen so she can be the new one, we can't get out of here alone we need to work together. I'm a vampire so I can sneak past them but you can't. Put aside your squabbling. Protect my beloved's chosen and do this and I'll pact with you dungeon lord." She looked to Torui as she had offered her service.
"You will? Then yes I can work with that."
"My little beloved." She chuckled at the idea, we'll get you stronger, I'll make you an arcane. I agree to the terms of the contract." Smokey mana connected Torui and Zena as she finished her words.
"Shall we," Torui had said more than asked pointing at the large spider that had shaken awake and subsequently contracted with Sui out of fear for her life.
"I will take you to the old dungeon just don't hurt me." She said as her mandibles clicked furiously.