Moving On

Christoph walked through the streets with Elizabeth and Vaud tailing behind. He took a less direct route to get to Toki's house; he was buying time to try and think of how he'll relay the news. He had met Toki's parents before. They were decent folk; the father was as brash and loud as Toki himself, a bear-man who worked as a guard. The mother was much more quiet, humble and forgiving, and she worked at the restaurant that the party frequented after successful ventures, either in the Labyrinth or outside the city. She happened to be a human.

They eventually reached the house. Christoph knocked and took a deep breath. Toki's father answered the door, and the mother didn't seem to be at home. He started with a warm smile, it was his son's friend visiting, but he faltered a bit seeing Christoph's damaged gear and shallow wounds, along with a downcast face full of hesitation, his eyes a little red.

"Did something happen?" He asked.

Christoph glanced around and took another deep breath, then looked him in the eyes, "Toki is..." he takes another breath, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes again, "Your son has-"

"Stop." Toki's father held up his hand, his eyes flickered, "Where is he?" He asked, his voice flat.

"The church, they've started preparing," Christoph looks away, "Elizabeth here has offered to cover expenses."

"And it's too late?" Toki's father questioned, clawed hands clenching into fists.

Christoph nods solemnly, "He... passed with a smile, roughly ten minutes ago," he confirms.

A bit of blood drips from the white knuckles of the father's clenched fists, his claws digging into his palm, but he doesn't notice or care, "Let's go," he says, putting on his boots and leaving the house, "We'll get my wife, then we'll go to the church."

Christoph nodded while Vaud and Elizabeth remained silent; the walk to the restaurant didn't take long. Most people cleared the way for the large bear-man who was giving off a cold feeling. The restaurant was out of the way and nowhere close to the entrance of the Labyrinth. Thus no one there had heard anything of what happened. Toki's father had the trio stay outside while he went in. Through the window, they only saw that he went into the back, they heard a muffled cry, and then the bear-man came out with his wife, a somewhat short human woman, quietly crying and dabbing tears with a handkerchief. She nodded to Christoph and said nothing; Christoph returned the nod and silently led the parents to the church.

The church had more activity than usual; it was along the same buildings surrounding the entrance to the Labyrinth, so adventurers and dungeon divers heard the news quite fast. Toki's acquaintances had shown up; as loud and boisterous as he was, he quickly made new friends and met new people. He could be considered somewhat popular. It was quite rare to see such a turnup on such short notice for such a regular adventurer, such as it is.

Charlotte came out to meet Toki's parents and guided them to the back rooms while Christoph and Vaud sat on the pews while Elizabeth went to pay for funeral processions and burial services. A few adventurers talked to Christoph and offered their condolences, nearly everyone there had lost an ally at some point, and some left after. Life moves on, and people are busy after all.

The church was quite efficient in handling such things, death was a common thing for adventurers, but magic made the process much quicker. Holy magic actually had spells for purifying and preparing a body, a thoroughly purified body couldn't be turned into an undead or worse.

Things were a blur for Christoph; most of the adventurers filtered out when the funeral began. The body was surprisingly not cremated. With how often people died, it was quite expensive to be buried properly, at least in a cemetery in the bigger cities; Elizabeth had clearly paid the premium.

Toki's parents sat at the front while Christopher, Vaud, and Edmund sat closer to the back. Valentina was helping with the procession while Ace was nowhere to be seen.

Charlotte began the prayers, listing off gods and protections, business as usual. But a certain name caused a reaction from Christoph's satchel, the elf barely noticed it, but it did pique his interest, the marble was quiet all this time since the dungeon, but it seemed to shiver at a particular line.

"May Twilight wrap his soul and ferry him to the afterlife, and watch over all beginnings and ends."

The elf and the marble had the same thought, '𝘈 𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦?'

The funeral continued without further activity from the large cracked marble; Toki's parents said a few words, the mother shaky and full of tears, the father stoic and heartfelt. But near the end, the entrance doors were flung open, and a rather red-faced and dirty Ace stumbled in, the smell of alcohol clear in the air. Tears rolled down his face as he staggered over to the coffin; a pair of guards assigned to the church got in his way in case he intended to deface the corpse or something.

Ace staggered into them and got pushed back, falling on his ass. He looked around and ended up locking eyes with Toki's father; the bear-man was silent and stared coldly into Ace's eyes. The bunny-man shivered and started to break down, burbling then blabbering apologies and crying. Nobody said anything, and the guards eventually hauled him away; nobody blamed him, everyone dealt with death differently, and those with fragile egos and weak wills turned to liquor.

Death was common, but nobody could ever truly get used to it. After the funeral, most of the adventurers went to get a drink out of remembrance; some more religious stayed behind to pray. Toki's parents went home, and the father, who no longer needed to keep a strong image and broke down into tears in the arms of his wife. After a night in the cells to sober up, Ace, Christoph, and Valentina met up and began to talk through things.

Death was common, but life forever moved on. The adventurers were doing what they always do, risk their lives for money to live. Toki's parents continued their jobs. The dungeon auto-pilot resumed normal activity, and the pioneering of new floors inched forward.

-⚪-

In front of the Mage's Tower, Vaud let out a sigh, "Do I really need to come along? There are too many stairs," he complained.

Elizabeth shrugged, "Of course not, but aren't you curious too?"

Vaud rolled his eyes, "Edmund, carry me," he held his arms up to the lion-man like a toddler asking 'up.'

Edmund pushes the dwarf away with his foot, "Have you no shame?"

Christoph sighs and shakes his head, "I'm leaving you guys behind," he states, taking Valentina's hand and leading her into the tower. Ace followed behind quietly; he had dark rings under his eyes but tried to keep a smile on his face. He would recover eventually. Elizabeth rolled her eyes and left the dwarf and lion-man behind, entering the building with the others.

The floor level of the Mage's Tower was quite empty, with a few bookshelves and a few desks; a wrinkled old demon sat in the largest desk, head buried in a thick leather-bound book. He poked his head up upon hearing and frowned heavily but eased up upon seeing Elizabeth, someone he knew to be respectable. "And what can I do for you?" He asked openly, his long white hair spilling over the book like vines.

"I have a magic item that needs to be identified," Christoph starts, opening his satchel and retrieving the fist-sized cracked marble; there was no activity, but the silver nucleus seemed brighter than a few days ago.

The old demon seemed interested but shook his head, "That's just a bauble; there's no energy signature."

Valentina spoke up, "It's moved before, and it's capable of self-defence; it even sapped energy from me to manipulate stone inside the Labyrinth," she explained.

The old demon perked a brow, "And what about the cracks? A good deal of it is broken. Are you sure it still works?"

Christoph nodded, "It moved a few days ago, during the praying in a funeral, and the amount of light reflected by the silver seems to go up and down over time."

The old demon made a 'Hmm' noise and stroked his overgrown white beard, holding a hand out for the marble. Christoph passed it over, and the demon rolled it between his hands, scrutinizing it. His eyes soon narrowed, and he gripped the marble tightly with both hands and kept it there for near a minute. Then, his eyes widened.

"It's almost indiscernible, but it's slowly pulling in ambient energy from the air and anything that's touching it, including me! Fascinating!" The old demon started to get excited and got up, "Follow me, follow me!" He shambled to the stairs and started to climb with vigour, and once above the roof of the ground-level floor, the tower opened up much wider than it should. The Mage's Tower was the pride of the royal court mages and high-profile magic researchers. Large-scale space magic was clearly at play, and mages of varying ages and races zoomed about standing on small circular discs made of a cerulean metal that hummed and floated off the ground.

The old demon didn't bother with a floating disc. He shambled at a surprising rate towards a large table in the center of the massive room covered in various instruments and tools, along with several other mages doing paperwork or writing in journals while analyzing spell patterns and artifacts of various shapes and sizes.

The group followed along to the table; Edmund and Vaud stopped arguing at some point and caught up. The old demon doesn't even bother talking to the other mages, picks up a non-magical eyeglass with several lenses, holds it up to the marble, examines the cracks and gouges in particular, and then gives a toothy grin.

"My oh my, this is definitely something special," He says, focusing on a single spot for another minute. Other mages have begun to take notice and shuffled over to listen in, and the old demon pipes up again, "It's actually repairing itself! It's converting ambient energy into a solid mass in an extremely efficient manner, despite the speed!" His exclamations were loud, and even more, mages came to look. One interested mage brings over a somewhat large magical device with several large lenses and a crystal overlay on one side for outputting text, and he ushers the old demon to take a closer look with it.

With the device placed down on the table and the measurements set right, the old demon places the marble into it, but something unexpected happens, a flash of light, a strange gong-like sound, and once everyone could see again, the group heard gasps along with laughs and several mages exclaiming 'Amazing!' and 'How did it do that?!'

Sitting on the table was the marble, but the magical device was simply gone, there was no trace that it was even there to begin with, and the marble had grown brighter, one crack had nearly vanished, but there were still dozens of cracks along with gouges in the glass-like surface.

Christoph and his group just stood there while the mages clambered over each other to look at the marble, suggesting tests and whatnot. The old demon seemed to have already forgotten they were there. Christoph sighed, "Well, it definitely should be something expensive if it's gotten them this riled up." Valentina nodded to that, and Elizabeth laughed.

"Alright, hold on, Krave! Hey! Old Man! Before you run your tests, we need to discuss terms; it still belongs to someone else!" Elizabeth joined the fray, tearing the marble away from the old demon, Krave.

The other mages immediately began shouting numbers, trying to bid on the fantastical marble, but Krave laughed, "Alright, one-fifth of my funding, ten gold coins!" The other mages quieted down; they didn't get nearly as much funding as Krave did, despite him seemingly doing nothing.

Other than Elizabeth, who was expecting a number like that, the rest of the group's eye's widened, "F-fifty-thousand!?" Valentina shouted, louder than she intended to, and her eyes started to spin. That was far more money than they needed to open a little store in a less-travelled part of the city.

Christoph quickly recovered, "Five gold coins, and we get part of the profits from the research," he countered the offer.

Krave grinned, "Smart lad, alright, we'll talk terms in my office," he says, moving towards the stairs down, the entire first floor counted as his 'office.'