Of Refinement and Reflection

John sighed, decompressing. He crouched down, resting his arms on his knees, staff held in front of him. He stretched his neck, trying to work out a bit of a developing ache. The world around him slowly began to fade away as [Escape Dungeon] took effect. The rumble of the storm grew further and further away, the patter of rain on the glass now truly distant. His loaned gas mask let out a soft hiss as he took it off, enjoying unfiltered air again.

Then, there was quiet.

The Gamer leaned forward, resting his forehead on the slightly warm handle of the Lantern Bearer’s Battle Staff. The locket around his neck jingled softly as its chain fell taut. For a moment, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to bask in the limitless calm of the void’s darkness, so peaceful and still in comparison to the oppressive shadow of the storm. His whole body began to droop as adrenaline finally left his veins, the exhaustion of the afternoon’s exertions beginning to catch up to him.

’I hate this feeling,’ John thought, adjusting his grip on his weapon. He was trembling, his muscles protesting his rest. ’Not sure if I’d rather it feel normal or not though…’

He blinked his eyes open again, looking over at his companion. She’d been silent as they’d left the world of his dungeon behind, a soft, contented smile on her lips. Ela still held her sister’s shield close, idly running her hand over its face. Her armor was stained in dark colors which ran in messy streaks down her suit’s sinews and bone plates, but she’d carefully wiped her treasured armament as clean as she could.

Ela’s eyes were off far in the distance, gazing into the void as if she expected to find something. The faintest tinges of green danced within the deep blue orbs, like fire along the sea.

“You alright?” John asked, breaking the comfortable silence. “I guess this is taking a little longer than last time.”

The blonde knight turned to him, refocusing. “I am fine. Just… thinking about things.”

She giggled. “Part of me is thinking about how we are going to try and not stain my carpet. We are both dripping with blood and ooze and all sorts of nasty things.”

The Gamer grimaced. “I take it that you don’t have some magic like prestidigitation that can get us cleaned up quick?”

“Such magic exists, but I do not know it,” she answered. “I have some Abyssal cleaning supplies at home, but not many… Perhaps I need to make an order from the Auction…”

“You could always hose us down in the backyard.” John shrugged, grinning.

“And we would still be soaking wet.” The blonde smiled.

Before The Gamer could retort again, the world began to reform around them. Swathes of color burst into existence, the brightness of Ela’s home a welcome reprieve. As they settled, a wave of heat passed over each of them. It was gone as soon as it came, leaving the pair startled, looking around for the source. John confirmed that neither of their health bars had been affected by whatever it was.

Consider it a bonus.

Looking down, The Gamer realized that the muck and the cold and the blood were gone; all the stains and marks from the day had disappeared from their armor. He reached around behind himself, confirming that there was still a large tear in the padded shirt he wore where the Living Prison’s blade had cut his back open as he fled. A quick check through his windows confirmed that no durability had been restored to anything, but all his items did seem relatively clean.

“Well, I guess that solves that,” he muttered. ’Thanks!’

Ela turned and twisted, inspecting her armor plates for anything that might be soiling her carpet. A wave of mana flushed through her suit again as she flexed and tested it. She set her bag and axe to the side, gently resting her shield on the side of her couch. With a heavy sigh, she relaxed, sitting down on the carpet, leaning back on her hands and allowing her head to go limp. Groaning, the blonde pulled her legs up in front of herself, reaching down to carefully take her boots off, followed by her own mask and armored gloves.

“Your powers continue to impress,” she sang, stretching out again. “Though, I do still feel like I want a shower, even with that… and some more food.”

John collapsed next to her, splayed out on the carpet, resting his eyes. “You’re really hungry again?”

“Mmm… we could get more tacos… or Greek food!” she mused. “I haven’t had a good gyro in a long time…”

“Alright, I get it.” The Gamer chuckled. “We made plenty of money in the dungeon; let’s go out to eat… in a few. I think I need to chill for a minute.”

Ela hummed, laying back on the carpet. “That… is fair enough.”

The two lay sprawled out on the floor a couple feet apart, only the soft sounds of breathing floating between them for some time. John appreciated having a few minutes for his body to settle back to a comfortable equilibrium, the jitters of fading adrenaline slowly leaving him. Groaning slightly, he willed his armor and weapon sets to change, tanned leathers and salvaged metals replaced by what remained of his school uniform. He’d torn off a sleeve from one shirt to use as a bandage, and the jacket was totally ruined, left behind in the dungeon.

’I’m glad I packed a spare,’ he thought, replacing his damaged items with the extras he’d tucked away the previous morning. ’I better get new ones before Mom notices the missing laundry.’

As John fiddled with his items, he took note of a red notification icon along his UI, which he opened.

’Oh yeah, there was a quest that went along with all this,’ he thought, watching the money roll into his UI. Ela’s share appeared as a locked item in his menu. ’I ought to give her half of the drop money too, but I have absolutely no idea how much I started with or that we earned. That’s going to be a headache to try and figure out.’

The Gamer sighed, just about to close his inventory when he realized that he had a new item in it. Remembering the message about his reward item on exit, he dragged the thing out into his hand. John found himself holding a heavy, pleasantly cool, metal sphere, banded in rings of various different colored alloys. It reminded him of an astrolabe of some sort, built around an impossibly smooth central orb. Mana of various colors traced strange lines across the object, forming esoteric shapes along its face before gently fading away.

The Gamer almost instinctively activated his [Unawakened Eye] ability, marveling at the wondrous display of color he held in his hand. The sphere was as resplendent with mana as he was, a brilliant aurora of blues and reds and greens flowing outward from it. He loosened his grip upon the item, and it slowly floated just above his palm, the metal bands beginning to revolve, their own reflective metal colors adding to the show. Beneath each of the orbiting metal’s starting locations had been hidden sockets for gems, swirling with the sphere’s mana.

He whistled lowly at the beauty in front of him, breaking himself from his reverie just long enough to cast [Observe] on the mysterious object.

’Oh wow…’ he thought, re-reading the window. ’That’s a whole lot to process. So there is a way to upgrade my gems and stuff, but I need an item? Oh, yeah, I guess the dungeon popup did say I was to get an upgrade item; I’d forgotten about that…

The Gamer looked up at the ceiling, mind drifting back to the beginning of the dungeon. ’So, this isn’t the question marks thing, then?’

No response.

Pondering the orb, John took a moment to interact with it in his inventory, discovering a sub-menu for gem transmutation within it. It seemed as though one gem, placed at a specific point on the meridian, would serve as the base for the upgrade. Two other slots at mirrored off angles could be filled to influence the transformation in some way.

’And I’m guessing that the charge indicates that I get one upgrade out of this thing, at least for now. Whether I need to refill it or find a replacement will be a question for later.’

“So, what am I supposed to use you on?” he muttered, reaching up to seize his reward once more. As his fingers touched the outer bands, their revolutions ceased, the energy of the orb seeming to withdraw inward as it settled once more.

The blonde next to him rolled her head over, blinking her eyes open. “Did you say something?”

“Hmm… oh. Sorry, mumbling to myself,” he said, turning to look over where she lay. “Check this thing out. One more reward from the dungeon. Some artifact that lets me upgrade my skill gems.”

John outstretched his arm, offering the curious object to Ela, who took it, rolling it between her hands as she looked it over. He took a minute to explain what he'd read about it, sharing his windows with her.

She wryly grinned, shaking her head. "Your powers are so strange."

"What did they do this time?" he asked.

"Most people do not need items like your skill gems to accompany their abilities," Ela replied, turning to offer him the orb back, "yet, also, most will never have the skill required to develop unique abilities as you have. Many things that your game systems seem to do run outside my own understanding of magic."

John shrugged. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"That remains to be seen. It is certainly interesting." She smiled, sitting up. "Are you planning to use it right away?"

"Probably not," he answered, staring into the reflective core of his newest reward. "It only has one charge, so I gotta make sure I don't waste it. There's a couple obvious standout gems like [Gamer's Unity] or [Unawakened Eye], since those seem unique or special in some way, but I also have no context for what it'll do. For all I know, I might skew away from something I want from them."

The Gamer shrugged. "As long as we aren't planning to check out another dungeon yet anyway, I might as well give it some time."

"That makes sense, though I would expect a quality upgrade to almost always be positive," she said, returning his nonchalant gesture. “‘Evolution’ could also be unexpected. There is no way to know, I suppose.”

Ela stood back up, stretching with a groan as she got to her feet. John willed his eyes away as she flexed her thighs, her suit stretching to contain her lean muscle. She heartily exhaled, joints popping. Reaching down, the blonde picked back up her armaments and bag from where she’d set them aside, slinging the duffel over her shoulder and turning back to her companion.

"I am going to go and change out of my armor, then we can go get some dinner, all right?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." John smiled, moving to stand up next to her.

Nodding, the blonde departed, her footsteps echoing on the stairs as she headed upstairs to take her suit off. The Gamer shook thoughts of her undressing from his mind, idly wandering over to the edge of the couch to wait. He rolled the gem refinement orb around in his hand for a moment, appreciating the smooth cool of the metal before stashing it away in his inventory. The nerd ran his hand down his face to clear his mind.

’I probably ought to be getting home after we eat,’ he thought, checking his watch. ’It’s been a few hours. I don’t want Mom to worry.’

John pulled out his phone, half-heartedly tapping through some games and messages. Normally, some quick games would be good for passing time, but, today, his mind was too filled with other thoughts to really enjoy them - about his dungeon and the people who lived there, about his powers and why he had them, and about the woman upstairs. As he made yet another distracted mistake, The Gamer simply closed his phone. He sighed, unable to handle his mind being even more restless than usual.

Abandoning his futile attempt to game, John looked around the room, checking out the plain, but comfortable, furnishings. The room contained most things he’d consider having in a living room, with bookshelves and game consoles. Scanning the collection of game systems setup by the TV, he was reminded of the lone photograph he’d seen earlier. Of all the limited furnishings of the house that he could see, it was the only sign of Ela’s life before Springfield.

Walking over to the stand the television was on, The Gamer allowed his curiosity to take over, several questions bubbling up. He leaned over, looking closely at the image.

The photo was of a somewhat younger Ela, wearing some kind of uniform in the colors of the Golden Rose, her arms wrapped around a brunette next to her, who sported bright, red-framed glasses and a business casual outfit. The brown-haired woman seemed to be about the same age as Ela, with soft, cute features, in contrast to her sharp, intelligent gaze. The two were standing on a boat of some sort, arms tangled together, wide smiles upon their faces. John was certain he could see the barrels of a ship’s gun turret pointed off into the distance behind them.

’This is the only picture in this whole room, but Ela didn’t mention anyone besides her sister when she was telling me about her time in the Order and they definitely don’t look like siblings,’ he thought, deciding against picking it up to get a better look. ’I wonder who this is..?’

After a minute of internal pondering, The Gamer was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of someone behind him. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts that he’d missed the sound of Ela coming back down the stairs. She’d re-dressed quickly into her Ashcroft uniform, returning much faster than he’d anticipated.

Thoroughly startled, he jumped as he tried to back away from the picture, hoping that his snooping wasn’t too obvious. The teasing smile on Ela’s face as she walked past him betrayed that it had been.

“I, uh, I’m sorry?” John muttered, flushing red. “I got curious while I was waiting.”

She reached down to pick up the frame he’d been staring at, bringing it up to her face. The blonde let out a heavy sigh, a dozen emotions flashing through her pretty blue eyes. Nervous waves ran up and down The Gamer’s body as he watched, unsure if he’d been too nosy.

Slowly, Ela turned to him, a muted mirth behind her soft smile. “I do not always promise answers, but you are allowed to ask me things. We are friends, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to be rude,” he said, nervously shrugging. “Especially, uh, with… what you told me today.”

“You will know if I think you are being rude… but I do appreciate your care.” Ela swallowed, pausing for a moment before saying anything. "I have not had someone to talk to for a while now, maybe it would be good."

"Don't push things for my sake, but I'm here to listen," The Gamer said, finding his voice. "If that's what you want."

The blonde paused, running her eyes over the photograph again. He could see the struggle on her face as she gazed longingly at the picture in her hands. Her gaze was a thousand yards away again, off somewhere he could only guess at. Ela’s breathing grew shallow and tense for a moment.

“Her name is Alyx… Alyxandra Konstantinidis,” she muttered, just quiet enough to be heard. A heavy sigh followed, as a weight seemed to leave her slumped shoulders.

“Back when I was still stationed with the Order in Scotland, she was a research student living on the same island. She was studying kaiju biology and life cycles; she's the one who made my suit.” Ela bit her lip. "I… She was… we were close… before everything happened at Scapa Flow.”

John waited for a moment, allowing silence to reign as he considered what to say. He pushed down any questions about what exactly she meant by that, not wanting to prod her further into something clearly upsetting. “Was she… there?”

“By Lady Gaia’s mercy, no,” Ela said, relief straining her voice. “She had been out of the country for a month at the time, back home in Greece to finish her dissertation.”

Her voice began to taper off again. “She wasn’t anywhere near us when the attack happened, but… neither of us were quite the same afterwards.”

Pain was almost palpable in her final words. John didn't know how to respond. Nothing would come to him. The Gamer cursed his social anxiety. He could tell his friend was struggling right in front of him. Fighting his nerves down, he reached out to put a single hand on her arm, hoping to offer what support he could.

Her voice broke as she **** herself to continue, “I hear that she is doing well now, at least. One of the Abyss' foremost experts on monster biology…”

A minute passed before Ela set the photo down, gently turning it to face the book nook on the back side of the living room. She wavered slightly, her hand lingering upon the frame before finally letting go and turning back to him. John squeezed her arm lightly, offering his best reassuring smile as she caught her breath.

"Thank you." Her smile was somber, but turned upward ever so slightly. She shook her head. "Come on, we should go get dinner. I am hungry."

After the two packed their things to leave, The Gamer headed out the door first. Ela lingered behind for just a moment, giving one final look back at her old picture before leaving to join him.