Divinity Rescue Corps
116- My Glorious Butt

By that time, Drat announced he’d found yet another piece.

“You’ve got to see this,” he said, and almost had an inflection in his tone.

He led us to a small brick building, where he pulled on a wrought iron fire poker. What followed was straight out of a movie: a circular section of the floor began to slide down and form into a spiral staircase, complete with spooky light drifting up from below.

“I assume you didn’t enter?” I asked.

“No way. Need a Guardian, or a cognitively challenged and foolhardy Healer.”

I frowned at him, then grinned. “Good news, since I’m both.”

The staircase was cramped, for a smaller creature, but manageable if you didn’t mind a bit of lower back pain. It opened out into a low tunnel that didn’t just head in one direction. It was like Glumpdumpkin had a sewer system. The walls were brick, for a little while, until they were sculpted earth down one direction, and became bubble material in the other direction. Small sconces lit the way.

“I guess we’re going dungeon delving,” I told him.

Back in camp, we discussed the situation with the team.

“I know I’ve been asking you all to level up Divine Resistance when you can. I also know that I don’t get skill points at every level up—” I was willing to bet Drat got skill points at every level up. “And you don’t have my Healer’s Resistance special ability. We need to go through your current levels anyway, because this is not a one or two person job.”

All of them had Divine Resistance at level 3 or 4. The Guardians, save Larelle, had only 3 levels because they’d only gained that many levels since the order came down. Trent had it at level 6, like me, since he had been working his stone sorcery all day, every day. He had, in fact, made the level 25 jump, and become a Journeyman.

He didn’t share what kind of rewards that entailed, because that was who Drat was. Now more than ever I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake the crap of out him so I could get information on my own upcoming Journeyman ascension.

I was on the cusp, and I could just about taste the rewards. I’d been promised… something. Everyone was real cagey on the details because they didn’t want to spoil the excitement.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, “I can lend you Healer’s Resistance now. It will delay the onset of divinity poisoning by 90%, and it only costs an Ingenuity Token… from you.”

Hushed conversation started up at this.

“Meaning we can all go in together, and we can all take care of this.” The plan was to head down into the secret passage tunnel in pairs, and map out the place. Obviously Drat was the most important mission member, since he had bonuses to spotting secrets. Next came Trent, who could search inside the stone using his Sorcery abilities and Nakamamon bond mate Garnet. The rest of us would just keep our eyes peeled, including supernaturally the sharp vision abilities of the Rangers, and slowly build out a map of the underground maze we’d uncovered. Alan was out of commission presently, and we’d have to without his many and varied utility powers.

For the first time in days and days, the chugging machine of work felt charged with a new enthusiasm. This was like an adventure!

Shakindria was the pivot point, around which all events would rotate, since she could move our god pieces into position and none of the rest of us could. Drat wanted to go alone, because of course he did. I tried pairing up a Guardian with a non-combat person, so Ivy went with Cinzy, Isabelle with myself, Shakindria with Larelle, and Trent with Chrysta. Regina and Tara had their Nakamamon companions and had both combat abilities and enhanced senses, but Regina would take Vellenia.

One curious absence was Fairy Poppins. She remained at the camp, or so Cinzy said. I still worried about her, and the weird situation we now had. Fairy Poppins was a problem, but she was also a problem for another day.

I’d never watched Healer’s Resistance activate before. But each time I pressed Yes and the recipient spent their Ingenuity Token, I watched as an orange glow built in a circle at their feet, then reached light tendrils up in a helix pattern, until it made a sort of striped column. The glow built, and then exploded outwards in a silent shower of orangey sparks. After that, they had a sigil overtop their heads, a complicated Mandela of flower petals and leaves in a circle. It rotated and threw off tiny orange sparks as it went. Smiles lit up the room as much as the glowing halos of flowers and leaves.

“This is a new thing?” Tara asked.

“Brand new. Level 24, babeeeee!” I told her, and earned myself a high five from a giggling Tara.

The hunt began. We headed down into the dimly lit tunnels. For the first fifty feet or so, half the pack traveled together. We were scattering differently colored pebbles that Trent was fusing into the floor, into arrows indicating the exit. Once we branched off, we’d have to scatter our own pebbles.

I stuck with Isabelle, and carried a lantern with a glowing crystal in it. This was enchanted by Jacoby’s Wizard attached to our camp, Wayne. It was a small help in return for patching up their people and going out on patrol with them, but I didn’t bother complaining. All was well. We were about to make some serious progress.

The tunnels changed composition frequently. We were passing through tunnels that looked like mine shafts, supported by thick wooden beams, and we had to figure out a situation to cross a ten foot patch of jagged crystal. Beyond, the tunnel transformed again into barrel vaulted stone, like you’d see in a thousand year old European monastery. Isabelle generated her shield on the floor and with me on it, pushed the glowing blue magic shield into the center of the patch of hallway. Afterwards, she leapt onto the shield, scooted past me, and leapt the rest of the way. I did as well, trying to jump and duck at the same time like she had, so as not to brain myself on a crystal stalactite. Behind us, the shield vanished into blue motes of magic.

“You know,” she said after a time, “you could have picked anyone to pair with. Why me?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I told her, “I wanted to stay on task and not have my eyes on my partner’s butt the whole time. Which is not to say your butt is less desirable to look at than any of the others—”

“Aside from Cinzy or Tara.”

“—aside from Cinzy or Tara,” I said, then scrunched my face in confusion. “Wait…”

She laughed. “I can be attracted to anyone I want,” she said. “Oh my God, don’t tell Ivy I said that. She’ll freak out if she thinks I’m going to hit on the others. I’m not.” I promised I wouldn’t tell, while grinning internally. Isabelle’s habit of blurting things she shouldn’t say was both cute and endearing. “You don’t have to worry about me turning all your sex friends into lesbians,” she said. “That’s not how it works.”

“Fair.” I hadn’t been concerned about that in the slightest, and still wasn’t. I wasn’t about to burst Isabelle’s bubble though. She seemed confident she could get any of the others to play for the other team, and I wasn’t about to crush her spirit.

“And that doesn’t mean I run off and have sex with everyone and anyone at any time.”

I looked at her, and again she burst out laughing.

“You’re making me sound like a sludge,” I said.

“I mean if the foo shits,” she said.

“Ouch.”

“Is that why you’ve been in the lead position?” she asked, smirking. “Don’t want to be tempted to look at my glorious bisexual butt?” She turned and wiggled it at me.

“Is that why you wore the full uniform down here?” I asked, “so you wouldn’t have someone looking at your glorious bisexual butt?”

“That’s correct.”

She was so danged cute. I was glad she’d found happiness in Ivy, who truly did dote on her whenever they weren’t working.

“Don’t look now,” she said, “but I think we’ve found another divine artifact.”

Like the other Guardians, Isabelle had a number of different powers specifically for guarding her charge from danger. With a team member nearby, she had a danger sense, which triggered when the danger came close enough.

We couldn’t see the thing, but it was close enough to ping her danger sense. I couldn’t be sure if we were talking some kind of pressure plate and trap situation, but I doubted it.

The tunnel here had been used as a cellar. A number of crates, scraps of tarpaulin, and other miscellaneous items lay around all over. We soon had a pickaxe uncovered, which glowed slightly with divinity in the dim gloom.

“Wow,” I breathed. “That was easy.”

In total, the team uncovered another sixteen divine items throughout the next six hours. We all took a breather outside of town, where we wouldn’t contract divinity poisoning, and updated the map. That meant retiring to Trent’s house.

Trent had really gone all out with his house. He’d been the interior decorator and exterior decorator for all our houses as well, giving me the lab space I needed, a nice sized bedroom, and a working shower with hot water. I couldn’t have asked for more… was what I would have said until I saw Trent’s house. Or what we thought of as Trent’s house before he revealed its true form.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, and laughed. He’d removed the top bits and showed us the real thing.

First, it was recessed. It didn’t look any bigger on the outside than our houses, but it went out and down. You could walk down stairs, or take an actual slide. Sculpted out of pure stone with magic, it was the smoothest slide I’d ever traveled. It let out into a large chamber that led into other rooms. He had a sauna and a spa, complete with jets.

But in the center of a large meeting room with a wraparound couch, sat the map. This wouldn’t work for our purposes anymore, not exactly…

He grinned. “Watch this,” he said, and made a motion with his hands. The whole map was sliced in two, and rose up on several pillars of stone so the v-shaped subterranean section could be accessed. The secret room’s entrance was one such pillar of stone.

Using the sketches we’d made into a piece of clay, he began hollowing out the chambers and passages roughly.

Soon he had the subterranean passageways and cellars and basements with or without hidden passageways to crawlspaces or tunnels. I was blown away by the quickness and detail, but mostly by his ability to take messy scrawls and notes on crap clay tablets and turn them into a functional 3D map.

“Incredible,” I breathed. I didn’t think it was my imagination that some of the strain and weariness fell away from Trent’s face at the words. When Cinzy patted him on the shoulder and used an ability, he perked up much more visibly.

Finally he took a handful of fist sized rocks, concentrated, and morphed them into chips of crystal. After that, more mana flooded out of him and he transformed the chips into tiny versions of the tools we found. These floated down and went on to rest in the underground passages and hiding places where we’d discovered them.

This is Christopher’s team being fracking awesome and making some headway.