New Arrivals

Chapter 163

With only a vague timetable for the Silvertree folks' arrival to work with, I did my best to keep busy. I also made a point of not messing with the town proper all that much, knowing I needed to stop playing with it already. Particularly once the first possible day of their arrival came and went, then became two.

Toward that end, I was working on the training arena. Henry had expressed an interest in working with Elim to help him get a better understanding of his class, so it had moved drastically up the priorities list. Not that I had much to do still.

Something that technically could have been accomplished in the dungeon, but wouldn’t draw anyone's curiosity hidden away like that. The general shell and floor plan were already done, those being the simplest parts.

The setup of the interior was trickier as it needed to accommodate a variety of classes. Chief among my to-do’s in that respect was setting up safety measures. Higher-level skeletons, and hopefully eventually adventurers, could really wreak havoc in terms of collateral damage.

Lining the walls and creating a ceiling of sorts with force fields came first. The first to go in lined the walls of the exterior of the complex. It wasn’t likely, but if I ever needed to contain something truly large scale it was best to have them in place already.

The floor wasn’t on the same level as the actual ground, but about twenty feet under it. I didn’t accidentally want to screw over castors looking to use earth-element spells after all.

Next up came specific area containment. I’d broken the floor plan up into one large arena and ten smaller training spaces, five flanking it on each side. It took some shuffling to get a good flow since I was including changing rooms, rest spaces, bathrooms, and a pair of healer’s stations.

The smaller areas also included some limited, safely shielded spectator seating. I didn’t have any grand plans for those, but it was likely instructors or students might eventually be sitting down to watch.

For the major arena, I had a very simple plan of eventually staging matches for entertainment there. It seemed like the kind of thing that had always been popular historically, though how legal it was varied drastically. I felt reasonably certain it would draw a great deal of people to the town even if the opportunity to try one's luck in the dungeon didn’t appeal to everyone.

Given that it would probably be the Bone Brigade participating, the matches would be flashy but not exactly fair to start off with. They’d be annoyed at having to go to a draw rather than respawn as they were accustomed to, but hopefully that wouldn’t make it too boring. The need to maintain their cover as living citizens had to be taken into account after all.

“Mistresssss!” Chris called out in an upbeat singsong.

“Hm?” I hummed, looking over at him. He looked absolutely pleased, which likely didn’t bode well.

“That lady dressed like a lad, Tiller, she says her bird spotted the flesh bags you’ve been expecting,” Chris said, sketching a polite bow.

“Oh, that's great, are they coming by the mountain or the desert side?” I asked, pointedly ignoring his bad manners.

“The mountain, and they don’t look too worse for the wear she said,” Chris replied. He was bouncing on his toes, clearly excited and not minding my lack of response to him. A curious development.

“So, how many of them, hypothetically, would it be alright for me to kill?” he asked.

“Chris, what do you think hypothetically means?” I asked, more put off by that than his bloodlust.

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“No fuckin idea, but Aaron uses it a bunch and it seems to help him get out of trouble,” Chris replied with a grin. I had questions about that statement and what exactly Aaron had been getting up to, but put that aside for the moment.

“Okay, at present, none. Though I’ll let you know if that changes,” I offered.

“Awe, that's no fun,” Chris pouted.

“I don’t know anything about them yet. There's no sense in wasting potentially useful assets and you just got to murder a whole pack of people not even two weeks ago,” I countered. I pushed down my disquiet about talking about murder like he was asking for extra ice cream on reflex. Chris was an assassin by choice after all and as a dungeon skeleton, he liked what he did.

“Did Tiller say when they might be arriving?” I asked, glancing up. It wasn’t noon yet, which left a lot of daylight.

“Hour or two before they reach the dungeon itself,” Chris said, looking bored now he knew he wouldn’t get to play with the new arrivals.

“You know, it might not hurt to let Andrea know. I’m not sure, but they might have some other teenagers among them,” I offered.

Chris stiffened and I wondered if I hadn’t fucked up. They were friends, but I wasn’t entirely sure how voluntary it was on the whole. Andrea might prefer to associate with the living, given the choice.

“Yeah, maybe,” Chris said after a moment. Not knowing what would happen or was even likely I fumbled and failed to find any words. I wasn’t even sure what he was feeling, his expression a kind of contemplative blank slate. He was clearly thinking, but fuck if I knew what about.

“Chris-” I started without a plan. I was saved from having to actually come up with one by him just straight up walking out. It didn’t even seem as if he was trying to avoid listening, rather that he hadn’t been and just left as something occurred to him.

I let out a frustrated sigh once Chris was gone. I would have liked to talk to him more but I was in my natural shadow form and needed to get ready to greet our incoming guests. I rather haphazardly deposited training weapons, dummies, targets, obstacles, and other things in a pair of storage rooms before transporting to my palace of shadows.

The hounds nearly bowled me over, demanding attention. I'd been busy most of the day and they clearly weren’t pleased with that. The puppies joined their parents in demanding scritches and pats until they were satisfied.

After appeasing the doggos, I retreated to my changing room and took on my Duex form. I had been making appearances as her so my general skill at getting dressed had improved, but it still took focus and was a bit of a struggle. I’d also made a poor choice of shirt this time as it had a kind of faux corset-style lacing up the back that was absolutely annoying.

“May I?” Henry inquired from the doorway. I hadn’t called him but I’d known he was in the living room with a book and was grateful he’d come to help. When I nodded he came to stand behind me. His nimble fingers made quick work of the laces.

I sighed in pleasure when he pressed a kiss to the back of my neck. I turned and pulled him into a kiss.

[Non-Hostile Entry Detected]

[Allow: Yes/No]

The pop-up and accompanying chime startled us both. We shared an annoyed look then laughed it off. I double-checked to make sure it was the expected group before selecting yes.

This was it - after weeks of preparation the refugees from the Silvertree estate were finally here.

"Shall we go greet them, my lady?" Henry asked, offering his arm.

I smiled, linking my arm through his. "We shall."