Prytaneum
Waiting for Dawn
"I'm home!" I called as I entered my and Hestia's small home.
"Percy!" Hestia said, sounding both surprised and relieved as she looked up to find me in the doorway. "I thought…?"
"That I went back to the Dungeon?" I asked, smiling but shaking my head. "I got home so late I ended up sleeping the day away and then I had to run errands and make apologies. Speaking of which…"
I moved into the center of our tiny living space, carrying a couple of boxes in my arms and wearing my new armor, purely so I didn't have to carry it as well. I laid the boxes down carefully on the table of what I was generously referring to as a living room and then straightened with a smile.
"Sorry for being late, Lady Hestia," I apologized, bowing my head. "Both this morning and tonight. Things just kept piling up."
"It's no problem," She told me. "I was just a bit worried, is all."
Worried enough to fall asleep on the couch waiting for me again, I thought, but chose not to bring it up. We both knew, given that I'd carried her to bed again, but if she didn't want to bring it up, I'd respect that. I was the one at fault, anyway; might as well skip to the apologizing.
"Have you eaten yet?" I asked, picking up the topmost box and setting it aside. "It was already dark by the time I was done, so I picked up supper for the both of us on the way home. Sorry ahead of time—I wasn't sure what you liked and I don't really know my way around the local cuisine, either. But Wayland said this was good, so I'll just blame him if he's wrong."
"I haven't, actually," Hestia answered smiling as she sat up and put her book aside. "I was going to wait until later to—"
She hesitated, but the words were still clear.
'To see if you'd come home.'
"—To finish reading my book," She recovered quickly. "It's still a bit early, but that's fine. Thank you for all the hard work again today."
"No problem," I said, opening the box and taking out the individually wrapped dishes. I had no idea what any of them were, no idea what table manners were like in Orario, and was just generally lost, so I just placed them around the table. Hestia stood up to go get plates and such, and I noted where everything was for future reference. After all that was set up, I removed the pouch at my side and tossed it over to the seat next to Hestia. "That's from the stuff yesterday and this morning; I stopped by the Guild to exchange it today. You don't have to split any of it up today, though—sorry, but in the end I had to use about half of it to buy new armor. If that's a problem, you can just keep all of tomorrow's, because I'll be heading back to the Dungeon then."
"It's no problem," She assured, placing a plate in front of me. I sat across from Hestia, which meant seating myself on the floor, but that was nothing big, "If it's being spent to keep you safe, then its money well spent; that's the point of it, after all. Did something happen, though? I thought you got armor from the Guild yesterday?"
I sighed and shook my head, leaning back on my hands as I met her eyes.
"I did," I said. "But it got ruined on the seventh floor."
Hestia sucked in a worried breath, looking at me with concern.
"What happened?" She asked. "Are you okay? You looked fine this morning, but I thought something must have happened. Are you—"
"I'm fine," I assured her as she set a plate in front of me. I still had no idea what I was eating, but I had a fork, so I guess I was fine. "But the Dungeon…I underestimated it. It's a lot smarter than I was giving it credit for; I made a mistake of getting complacent and thinking I understood how it behaved and then it sprang a trap on me when I moved down to the seventh floor. It's my fault, really—I should know better than to think I'm smarter than the enemy."
"Oh no," Hestia said, hunching her shoulders slightly. "What did it do?"
"It had a bunch of monsters waiting for me at the entrance," I said, shaking my head. "Killer Ants and Purple Moths, mainly. If it had been just me, I would have just run, but I couldn't leave them there knowing someone else might wander in and get hurt because of me. I didn't mean to come home so late, but I ended up having to fight them all night and worrying you. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," She told me. "I understand—I'm proud of you for going that far for the sake of others, really. It's just…I don't want you to get hurt, either. Don't forget to take care of yourself while you're trying to help people or I'll get sad, you know?"
Her words were light, but her voice and eyes were serious and she looked at me imploringly.
"Yeah," I answered seriously. "Don't worry; I don't have any intention of dying or making the same mistake again. That's why I got this and—oh."
"What's wrong?" Hestia asked, tilting her head at my pause.
"I'm sorry," I apologized again, looking down at my food. "I took more than my fair share, I think. I stopped my Miach's Pharmacy like you recommended and picked up some more supplies, but I also gave him some of the drop items I collected. Purple Moth Wings and Blue Papillion Wings—he said the amount I gave him was about twenty thousand valis worth, I think? Its stuff he can make potions and such out of, so I thought it'd be a better idea to give them to him than just sell them. Since he's a friend of yours, I didn't think it'd be an issue, but…?"
"It's fine," She said, smiling slightly. "Stuff like that is no problem at all—rather, I think it's better to help one's friends than leave them alone. Miach has helped me out a lot, too."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Their Familia is having trouble too, right?"
"Mm," She confirmed. "I don't really know the details, though. But lending a bit of a hand when we can should be fine."
I relaxed slightly, relieved that I hadn't made a mistake, but looked up when Hestia giggled.
"You're very kind, Percy," She said.
I shrugged, looking down at my food embarrassedly instead of replying, which just seemed to make her giggle harder.
"I was a bit worried that you might have a hard time making friends," She continued undeterred, taking a pause to eat another bite of…whatever we were eating. "I thought that people who didn't know you might just think you were big and scary-looking. But you should be fine since you're like that. You work so hard for my sake and you worry about people you barely know…no matter what, I'm sure plenty of people will see that in time."
That was all well and good, but…I didn't think I was particularly big or scary-looking? Maybe I was a little taller than average around here and maybe a lot of people at my half-a-dozen schools had thought I was somewhere between a delinquent and a madman, but that's nothing. Right?
But seeing the almost shining sincerity and positivity on Hestia's face, I decided not to question it. She was a little odd about it, but I knew she was trying to compliment me; I was probably just overanalyzing it.
"Is it okay if I keep doing that, then?" I asked. "Supplying stuff to Miach when I can? We talked about it and he said he was going to make some potions and antidotes out of it for me, so it's fine, right?"
"Mm," She confirmed again. "It shouldn't be a problem. I'll talk to Miach about it later to see if we can make arrangements for it, but it should be fine if we provide the ingredients and he provides us with potions. We both benefit in that case, right? I could be wrong but I think some people make deals like that already…?"
She shrugged slightly as if to dismiss the thought.
"We'll figure something out," She continued. "I don't think Miach has any adventurers in his Familia, so it should help him a lot, and it's good for us to keep a friendly Familia well supplied."
"Cool," I said. "I'm sure I'll get plenty of stuff he can use. Other than that…I told you I went to the Guild, because I wanted to speak to my advisor and get some more information about the Dungeon. After that, I spoke to my friend Wayland from the Hephaestus Familia—he works at the shop on North-West Main—about getting some armor and he showed me around Babel. With this stuff, the potions from Miach, and what I've figured out, I think I should be okay on the seventh floor. I don't want to make any assumptions after the nasty surprise I got last time, but I should be able to make some progress."
"I'm glad you're taking your own safety seriously," She said. "As long as you continue to do that, you should be fine."
I smiled at her, glad to hear it. We finished our meal in a comfortable silence and I collected the dishes and took them to the sink, whereupon I blatantly cheated at washing dishes by using my powers. When I came back to the 'living room' a couple of minutes later, I found Hestia looking at the other box I'd brought home curiously.
"What's this, by the way?" She asked. "Did you pick up something else while you were out?"
"That's for you, actually," I said, smiling again. "I went back to that bookstore on my way here and picked up a few things. I had a bit of change left over from yesterday after I was done and I thought you might appreciate not having to walk all the way down there to read any more."
Hestia's eyes widened and opened the present quickly, acting like the small child she resembled. She took a breath as she looked at the contents.
"Percy," She said, looking up at me. "These are some of my favorites. How did you know?"
"I asked for help," I admitted. "I asked the owner what kind of books you enjoyed and he helped me out a lot."
What I didn't admit was that I'd really had no choice but to ask him, because it wasn't like I could read on my own and chose for myself. It was either ask for help or pick things randomly.
"Thank you," She said, taking out one of the books and holding it close to her chest. "But…you shouldn't have. That money was for you; you shouldn't have spent it on me."
I shrugged, because it wasn't like there was a whole lot I really wanted to buy for myself, beyond supplies and such.
"It makes you happy, right?" I asked. "Then its fine, isn't it? Money well spent and all that."
"…Thank you," She repeated, holding a book close to her chest. She looked down at it for a moment, smiling fondly at it, before quickly raising her head. "Ah! That reminds me, we haven't updated your status yet, have we? I didn't want to wake you this morning…would you like to do it now, then?"
"Sure, I guess," I replied, shrugging again before unfastening my armor and moving towards the couch. Wayland had led me around the shop, expounding details on every showcase in great detail. At a glance, he seemed to be able to recognize both who made it and what they made it from, and he'd led me around what seemed like half the floor, showing off the work of his Familia.
The choice I'd gone with had been among his list of recommendations. A number had caught my eye as I moved throughout the floor, but…well, who was I to question a master smith? In the end, I let him narrow things down and picked my favorite—namely, the one that was most familiar to me. The armor I'd bought in the end had been the one closest to Greek style, simply because I knew I could fight without it getting in the way. A breastplate that left my arms free, greaves for my legs, and that was it. It had cost me about fifteen thousand, but it seemed to be pretty well made, and I'd added in a shield and helmet from off the shelves for about five thousand each. They didn't really match the armor, but I didn't really care. It worked for me, it didn't get in the way, and it would hopefully last. That's all I really needed.
Because if I wanted to buy something from the seventh floor—or more specifically, something magically durable in the hopes that it might actually last awhile—then I'd need to save up. From what Wayland had said, if I wanted to buy something like what I had in mind, I'd need at least one or two hundred thousand valis, which, splitting my paycheck as I was currently, meant two to four hundred valis total. Which, if I could keep my current pace, meant…what? With trips to the seventh floor or deeper, time to restock and deal with whatever came up…probably about a week, depending on what other expenses came up? Maybe less, depending on the floor I managed to reach, though that could just as easily add to my costs.
Which meant I'd need this armor to last me at least a week—or at least long enough to make it worth buying. A couple days at least; if it lasted at least that long, I'd be doing fairly well. If needed, I'd seen plenty of cheaper armor I could buy if needed, but I was hoping this armor, which had been one of the more expensive sets, would save me money in the long run. Whether or not that would work out…I'd just have to wait and see.
Besides that, I had other things I needed to worry about, money-wise. This place under the church wasn't bad or anything, but it was small even by my standards and I'd spent most of my life in New York City. Frankly, I didn't mind it all that much, but I was hardly in it except to sleep. Hestia, on the other hand, had spent who knows how long living in the small basement of a rundown, abandoned church and selling snacks at a street stall; I couldn't imagine she was completely happy about her living conditions, even if I doubted she'd ever let me hear her complain, which meant I should do something about it.
I meant what I said. Spending money to help Hestia wasn't a problem for me, because it's not like I had much else I was interested in buying here in Orario, besides stuff for work. I'd asked around while I was out and according to Wayland, buying a good house in the city could cost as much as eight hundred thousand valis—quite a bit less than some of the weapons I'd seen today, but still a lot. And it wasn't just a matter of gathering the funds; we couldn't afford to blow all our money on just one thing, after all. Hestia had broken up the money for the Familia into two things; half for our savings and in case of emergency and half to live off of. I didn't really want to touch the emergency funds. If possible, I didn't want to exhaust the rest, either. Ideally, I wouldn't have to use more than half the money to buy a house, but I'd wanted at least a few hundred thousand to serve as a buffer zone. Assuming I'd continue to use half the money I brought back to aid in adventuring, that meant…what? At least three or four million valis?
Ugh. Why is everything I actually want to get so expensive? Maybe I should look into loans or mortgages or something.
Sighing to myself, I closed my eyes and rested on the couch while Hestia did her work. Another night's rest and it'd be time to get back to work.
XxXXxX
Perseus Jackson
Lv. 1
Strength: I 37
Endurance: I 42
Dexterity: I 26
Agility: I 23
Magic: I 45
Hero: I
Mystery: I
Magic:
Blood of Poseidon: Instant Magic.
Flesh of Poseidon: Auto-Magic.
Spirit of Poseidon: Auto-Magic.
Skills:
Despair: Greatly increases the encounter rate of monsters. Effect increases as condition declines.
Hope: Provides benefits in dangerous situations. Effect increases with danger.