Soul Merger

Alissa looked down the hill towards the village nestled beneath the mountain. Purgatory was a strange village, created after the Fall by delvers and merchants to harvest the unique items found in the many dungeons around the Hell Saint's Mountain. Several walls showed the town's slow expansion as merchant families joined, split, and faltered all while delvers shifted in and out depending on the needs of the caravans. Meanwhile a web of copper wires on poles connected the several trade halls.

The land itself was beautiful, with the picturesque mountain sitting above it all. A small trickle of steam the only sign the thing was an active volcano that Alissa was quite sure could kill everyone in this valley in seconds.

Whether because they'd used up their bad luck, or the gods deciding to give them a break, they had made it here without any more noticeable attacks. Now they could actually get around to the whole point of this trip, gathering some flame stones.

Though that would be harder than she'd initially thought. "I'm not seeing any labyrinths in town."

"Yep." Clara nodded. "All of them are out on the mountain or around it. It's usually a day's hike to a staging area, and you do the delve the next day before heading back on the third. If you're desperate for profits you can try to mix the hike up or back in with the delve. But it's not a good plan if you don't want to get stuck somewhere at night."

"So are we going to have to camp outside?" Fili asked nervously. A good question. Camping was always a miserable experience. And dangerous given wandering monsters.

Rosalina shook her head. "Fortunately, no. Part of the fee will be getting a fortified cabin so we can sleep without having to worry about goblins or other trash monsters. Still it means we have to stick to our schedule. The merchant groups will have permanent houses for their contracted delvers to work for several days in a row but the rental cabins are shuffled through quickly"

"So which labyrinth will we be hitting?" Akari asked as she looked over the city.

"Fireweed Falls is best," Clara replied as she started down the hill. "The Flame Lizards there are a bit small, but it's got a branch from the first floor to the Lava Tubeways of the Steam Vent Labyrinth. That will cut down our walking time."

"That makes sense," Alissa said. She followed after Clara as the woman cut through the sparse traffic in the city. An 8 foot tall minotaur merge lady was great at getting people to step aside. And the streets were fairly open. No reason to fight over space in a small town like this.

Up close she saw the houses here were quite nice. Sturdy wood construction, usually with flowers on the windowsill and bright paint jobs. The people, with a few exceptions, were more relaxed as well. It seemed nothing was important enough to require running to deliver it. A far cry from the mass apartments and street couriers of home.

Of course she knew from experience that the residents here paid for their slow lifestyle with shortages of goods. It was a long walk up to Purgatory and no one was going to take the trip for small returns.

"Hm I wonder if there's any local specialties other than monster materials?" Akari said as they continued along.

"I hear lesser salamander liver is super popular." Fili said. "It's supposed to have a cool taste that pairs well with spices."

Rosalina sideled over to the slime mage with a wide grin. "Oh? Something of a foodie are you? I didn't expect that to be one of your hobbies."

"Ah, no." Fili sank back into her robe. "I just remembered it from the entry I helped edit. Apparently the lesser salamanders here are unique. The other ones tend to be poisonous. But enough candy flower herbs grow here, that it ends up as a natural antidote in the salamander's system."

"Still sounds like a good thing to try out," Akari said. "Perhaps if our hunt goes well we could search out a place to partake."

Clara looked back. "Sure thing. It's a fairly common dish at more high end places that serve delvers and important merchants. Bet we can rent a side room or something."

They soon made it to the guild office for the labyrinth they intended to visit. It was marked as a guild house, but it also had the 'First Strike Fire Powder' logo on the side. It seemed the delver's guild was even more of a joke here than it was in Seaport. Alissa made a note to keep an eye out for bad contracts. Fortunately they weren't staying long.

Still the inside looked well maintained and professionally run. Several secretaries were bustling about, moving paperwork into filing sections. As the group entered a lady werewolf moved to the counter. "Good morning. How can we help you?"

Clara approached. "We want to schedule a delve. Should be a day trip."

Alissa looked over the notices as the secretary got the paperwork. A lot of it was pretty meaningless, but when she got to the bounty board she blinked. "Fifty thousand crowns?"

Her cheeks flushed as everyone turned to her, but it was a reasonable question. How the hell had someone gotten that high a bounty on their head?

"Ah." The secretary shook her head. "Albert. He murdered the head of the Diamond Pickaxe merchant group and ran into the labyrinth a couple of months back."

Rosalina snorted. "So he's dead, and they just want to hang his corpse really bad." Labyrinths weren't well suited for long term survival.

The woman's ears folded back. "That's what everyone thought but we've had twice as many missing delvers ever since. Nothing in our labyrinth fortunately, but we've had to station guards to keep our people safe. It shouldn't be a problem unless you take a branch path."

Akari sighed. "Which we are. Is the Steam Vent Labyrinth affected?"

"Yes, we think so," the woman replied apologetically. "But there are five of you. I doubt a lone delver would choose to attack you."

Fili turned to stare at Rosalina, and after a second Alissa joined in. The dragon woman gave them an incredulous look. "It's not my fault!"

"Sure," Alissa replied before turning to the secretary.

All kidding aside, it probably was safe. It would be very stupid to attack a full party along the way. Still Alissa made a note to be extra careful. She wanted this expedition to be normal.

Well as normal as any of this could be. Delving was inherently strange

The secretary handed over the paperwork. Alissa looked over the stack of forms. It was a lot more complex than delving back at Seaport. "So with the mine fee, the branch fee, the cabin rental and security deposit it comes out to twenty crowns each, with two being returned upon receipt of the cabin key and another two for confirming your identities with our guild on return, either at the original entrance or back here."

Alissa looked over at Clara to see if they were getting scammed but the woman was already pulling out her coins. "Charges are standardized across the companies, except for the entrance fee itself," she explained.

With a slight sigh Alissa grabbed the fee. It was still massively cheaper than paying someone else to do the work. As she signed her name and showed the woman her guild ID she looked over at Akari. "Oh do you need someone to cover the fee? Or an ID?"

"I have an ID," the catgirl said, pulling out a card. "But I might need help on the fee. Between supplies and gear I'm slightly short on cash. Sorry."

Rosalina patted her friend on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I can cover you. And get some good alcohol for that oni as well. We want her actually trying while we're down in the labyrinth."

"We can chip in as well," Fili said. "After all, we asked you to join us." Alissa nodded. It'd be stupid to recruit someone to fill a gap and then expect them to front all the money.

"Oh right," Clara looked at the secretary filing their forms. "We'll want to get maps of the two labyrinths as well."

"Of course." The werewolf motioned for one of the people in the back to bring up some maps. "Just the top two layers?"

Alissa, Fili and Rosalina answered in unison. "Full sets." Self mapping the labyrinth from scratch was a good way to die.

"Forty crowns for both map sets then."

Alissa tossed in ten more crowns along with the others. "Anything else we need?"

Rosalina shook her head. "Not here anyway. We'll want some food for the trip here and back but let's get something fresh. Trail rations are for rationing."

The werewolf lady finished filing and handed over the maps and some keys. "Thanks for working with us. If something is wrong with the cabin, just report to the local office immediately for a new one." She paused for a moment, ears twitching. "And... while I know you probably don't want to hunt down humans, if you do find that murderer we'd really appreciate you getting rid of him. He's killed good people."

"We'll see what happens," Alissa said. She really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

But if it did, it wouldn't be the first delver she'd had to kill.