Ero Skill Tree

We called the waitress over next time she walked past and ordered food. It was lunchtime after all and the three of us that had been out this morning hadn’t eaten since breakfast. As we were waiting for our order to arrive, I just happened to overhear the conversation of the two women on the table next to ours.

“Look at them, aren’t they lucky?” The blond haired one said to the brunette she was sat with.

“Yeah, I can’t remember I saw a male adventurer around these parts and he’s pretty hot too.”

“I bet he’s doing all of them…” She giggled.

“Stop it, you’ll set me off. It’s been so bad lately I almost thought of going back with that pervy old grocer.”

“Gross, but I know what you mean. The only men around these parts are ancient. There aren’t even any male guards here.”

They were right, the population ratio was even more off here than it was in Dunshelm. This place was further out in the sticks and had the problem with dungeon, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I glanced over at them and noticed they were sharing a bottle of wine. The sight gave me an idea. Would “purification” turn that into water. If it worked, I could always buy them another bottle I absentmindedly thought as I activated the skill in their direction. It had no effect on their wine.

“What are we talking about?” The blonde asked.

“The lack of men here…”

“Yeah, but why?”

“I don’t know…”

“You know you look really good today, have you changed your hair?”

“No, it’s the same as always, but thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.”

It couldn’t be, could it? I wondered to myself, still listening into their conversation. I wondered what would happen if they were given a little push. I decided to activate “disorient” in their direction. It was only a matter of seconds before they were all over each other. It could just have been a coincidence and I could have misheard them, but just in case I would have to be careful with that one.

As I quietly watched on trying not to draw attention to myself. Altria got up from her chair and walked over to me and whispered in my ear.

“Can I have a word?” She asked sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“Sure.”

I got up and headed away from our table with her. Once we were out earshot of the others, she asked me.

“Did you do something to them?” She asked surprisingly sternly.

“N-no…”

“Theo.” She looked serious.

“I don’t know. I just um, tried to purify their wine and then that happened…”

“So, it was one of your skills, I knew it! It did seem off how their behaviour changed just like that.”

“Maybe, I mean I’m not sure it was the skill that caused it.”

“It probably was… We better just hope that they don’t stay that way permanently and they change back to normal before they deepen their friendship too far. If the guild found out that you used the skills like that you would be in big trouble.”

“You aren’t going to say anything are you?”

“No, I don’t expect you did it on purpose, just be more careful in future. That was pretty stupid.”

“I know, I wasn’t thinking. I will.”

After our brief conversation we headed back to the table, our food still hadn’t arrived. The table next to us was now empty, the bottle of wine and two half eaten meals left on the table.

“Where did those girls go?” Asked Altria as she sat back down.

“I’ve no idea. It was odd, they just got up and left their food. They were suddenly in a real hurry to go somewhere.” Answered Serin.

“How strange.” Altria replied whilst giving me a look.

“What did you take Theo over there for?” Serin asked.

“Oh, I just wanted to check something with him. It’s nothing important, don’t worry about it.”

“It looked like you were telling him off from here.”

“I was just making sure he understood, that’s all.”

The waitress arrived carrying our food cutting the conversation short. I was glad, Serin was the last one I would want to know what I had done, even if it wasn’t on purpose.

After lunch we split into two groups again. This time Lillia stayed back at the guild house, she wanted to spend some time with Siofra before we went down into the dungeon tomorrow. I went along with Altria and Serin as they went to collect their repaired gear, along with a list of supplies to collect for our quest.

I had first thought that entering the dungeon and finding this officer in the demon lord’s army was going to be a simple affair. That was apparently not the case, even if this wasn’t considered a particularly high level quest. From what I had picked up from the others so far, they were expecting it to take days for us to reach the bottom level, where the officer had taken up residence. To do that we would have to fight our way through the monsters on each of the levels and the many traps that lay in the path. I had to wonder what a real high level quest looked like. I suppose that would be something like taking the demon lord down.

The rest of the afternoon was spent picking up the supplies on our list. Once we were finished, we headed back to the guild house. There was no sign of either Lillia or Siofra when we got back to the guild hall, seeing this we sat down at the closest empty table, there were plenty to choose from. We ordered some drinks and waited, but after an hour had passed there was still no sign of the others returning. Just as we were considering heading upstairs to look for the pair there was a quiet ringing noise, it was coming from the adventurer system. I opened the screen to see that Lillia had sent the party. It read.

“Siofra and I won’t be joining you for dinner, so don’t wait for us.”

“Looks like they are still catching up.” Noted Serin.

“Well, can’t blame them I suppose. They are childhood friends, and it has been a while since they’ve seen each other after all.” I added.

“Oh well in that case we might as well order our food then.” Suggested Altria.

“Sounds good to me.” I agreed.

We called over the waitress the next time she wandered nearby and ordered our food. The next couple of hours we spent there in the guild hall. After eating we stayed having a couple of beers each. There was still no sign of either Lillia or Siofra at this point. We decided to head back up to our rooms after we finished our last beer. None of us wanted to stay up drinking for too long, not when we were all getting up early tomorrow and heading out for our quest. If we stayed in the guild hall any longer, that was undoubtedly what would have happened.

The three of us headed upstairs and parted ways on the hallway, before heading to our own rooms.

“Good night you two.” I said as I headed to my room.

“Good night.” Replied Serin.

“Good night Theo. Remember we’re meeting downstairs at eight tomorrow.” Altria reminded me.

“Yeah, I’ll remember.” See you tomorrow.

I left the girls and went to my room. Once inside I took off my armour and sat on the bed. After sitting for a few moments, I decided a bath would be nice. I had no idea how long we were going to be stuck inside the dungeon for. I headed back downstairs to the baths. They were completely empty as always and this time there was no unexpected interruptions from the likes of Siofra. I sat in the bath and soaked for what must have been at least half an hour before I decided to head back up to my room for the evening.

Just as I had made it back to my room and was getting ready for bed, there was a ringing noise from the system again. I opened the window half expecting it to be a message from Lillia saying she was back. It wasn’t, it was a message from Siofra.

“Theo, I need help, please come quickly. Room thirty-two.” Her message read.

I wondered what it meant. Had something happened to her, are Lillia and her in trouble. I quickly dressed and headed out into the corridor. Her room was at the far end of the hall and I hurried there half worried about what could have happened to her. As I reached her room I stopped outside and listened for a moment. I couldn’t make any noises coming from inside. As I knocked on the door it slowly pushed open. It wasn’t properly shut in the first place.