"Riva?" Victor's voice dragged Riva back to the here and now.
"Yeah, you feeling better?" She asked even though she already knew the answer through their connection. She was really starting to feel weird about it. It had been fine with her other tames because they weren't capable of real thought but a former human being was a very different story.
Being unable to keep one's thoughts and feelings a secret was worse than running around naked. From what she gathered Victor couldn't read her the same way, so she did her best to pretend she couldn't either.
"Let's say I've come to accept my circumstances. I wouldn't be able to change them and trying to understand is clearly too much. I've decided to go with the flow and take the hurdles as they come. That's how you always did it."
"Me?" Riva was astonished. "I am the queen of worrying about every little detail!"
"That too, but you always just roll with whatever comes your way and make the best of it. You never stop moving forward."
"Are we talking about the same person? I never knew I was someone you looked up to such an extent. Not that I remember much of anything. Maybe my past self was like that?"
"No, you feel more serious but from what I've seen you're just as unconventional, weird, and silly as in the past. Who in their right mind would heat their outdoor bath with fireballs? This isn't lifestyle magic."
"Why not?"
"There's just soooo much wrong with it! More than I care to explain, just know that this only worked because it's me."
"I don't see the problem." Riva shrugged. "It worked out so it's fine is it not?"
"Yes it did and that's why I say you're unconventional. No normal person would even consider the ideas that you use as though it's common sense."
"Say what you will." She couldn't deny the truth of his words. "let's get back on topic." She changed modes.
"I want you to tell me about the incident with the golem dungeon. What exactly happened back then?"
"You really don't remember?"
"Just tell me!"
"Alright, alright. I will."
"I have no idea how long ago it was but at that time our group teamed up with another group of adventurers. They were pretty much all beginners. We booked a gargoyle dungeon with long reset times near Marinon with the intention to train our weaker members. That was the official story on paper."
Victor hesitated a moment at that point.
"I think you already know I didn't join your team for the adventuring, and in hindsight, I'm sure the others were the same."
"Naw that the contract's gone, I'm able to tell you the details. I was working for an organization called the Abyss. And before you go asking. Aside from my contact, I know next to nothing about them. They're the secretive kind that's infiltrated into powerful positions in society. I don't know their intentions but it's probably nothing good."
"My boss was someone influential that's deeply involved with the guild. It was my job was to hunt relics… And to dispose of troublesome adventurers. Even though slavery is illegal, that wouldn't stop these people from using contracts with extreme conditions to achieve the exact same effect. And it's not illegal because you 'willingly' signed such a contract. Trust me there are many ways to 'willingly' make someone sign a slave contract."
"I'm straying from the topic. My boss had gotten the news that a relic would appear. The Abyss uses some kind of scrying so the instructions tend to be very vague and hard to interpret. Following them led me to join your party."
"Time passed quickly after that. Before I knew it I had already spent two years with you guys. I really liked the feeling of having someone to rely on. I would have wanted to stay like this, if only I could. But the brass behind my boss was growing impatient by then."
"I had thuroughly investigated everyone in the time we traveled together and you were the only one that fit the bill from the prophecy. I was almost certain that you were the one that held the relic I'd come for. It just had to be you. I wouldn't have minded as much had it been one of the sisters."
Victor heaved a long sigh.
"You never revealed anything throughout our time together. Thus my plan to put you into danger and force you to reveal what you were hiding. I gathered intel about the surrounding dungeons and found a particular one that suited my plans. Yes, the gargoyle dungeon."
"It had a weakness that could be exploited by one of the relics that was in the Abyss' possession. It's one of the damaged ones so I was able to borrow it for my plan."
"Everything went well, that was until we reached the boss room."
"That's when things went seriously wrong. That's when… when…" Victor recalled the dread of that day.
Riva waited patiently for him to continue his tale.
"The whole thing was a setup. When we reached the boss room I never got to execute my plan, because the party leader from the other party sacrificed himself, his whole party even the dungeon boss to conduct a summoning."
"A summoning?" Riva echoed wide eyed.
She could easily feel the dread that Victor was recalling. He whispered the next sentence.
"They summoned the Nightwalker, emissary of the wrathful Crown."
"The mad god of revenge and hate?" Riva checked.
"Yes…"
Victor took in a long breath.
"The Nightwalker is his highest priest, basically his flesh made representation in the mortal world." He shuddered.
"That time his aura alone would have killed us all had he fully arrived." Victor continued with his lowered voice.
"Turns out I was right in trying to subject you to danger. Maybe you remember the 20 sided die that you always carried with you?"
Riva raised an eyebrow. So this was where the story was going.
"When we were faced with imminent death your relic activated. It looked pretty ordinary when compared to its capabilities. I had seen it many times, we even played games with it and I never suspected a thing. My theory is that it was in a dormant state and only awakened at that very moment."
"Back then it suddenly came alive and started rolling numbers. I never really understood how your relic works but in this case it saved us."
"It was as though everything in the world had become an enemy to the Nightwalker. Space, even time, everything was trying to stop him and helping us instead. At the time I was attempting to use my borrowed relic and the weakness in the dungeon to get us out of there. The success of my actions was extremely unlikely but it still did."
"I managed to use the weakness and puncture the dungeon's space to make a portal out of there. Just think about it. Space magic is extremely complex. I barely know the theory. Even a knowledgeable wizard would have difficulties without sufficient preparations! It was as though fate willed it to succeed, no matter how impossible."
Fate. This was the nickname Riva gave the 20 sided die in question. The double meaning in Victor's last statement was pretty accurate. Fate had forcefully changed the outcome.
"We should never have been able to leave alive but we did. Every single one of us. But that wasn't the end. I couldn't direct the portal's exit. That is how we ended up inside the golem dungeon."