<~> Chapter 143

I stood and watched as the soldiers held the perimeter surrounding the dungeon exit. The rain and flooding was in full swing, but the soldiers were holding the crabs at bay without any trouble this time. The dungeon wasn't breaking down the barricades or escaping the kill boxes the soldiers had set up. Without the snake monster around to threaten them, the soldiers were able to hold the crabs at bay and strengthen themselves every time they killed one of the many crabs. Any soldiers who hadn't been empowered before certainly were now.

It had been a few hours, but the soldiers were finally finishing up the last of the crab monsters swarming the barricades. We were asked to supervise the soldiers to make sure they could manage the horde without us once the snake monster was dead. Eventually, we would be training a team of soldiers to fight the snake monster themselves as well. It was too early for that at this point though, we still needed to figure out how to manage the monster without using me to pin it down. Rell'kor had suggested using some kind of toxin to drug it and Milana had suggested fighting it in enough cold magic to make it sluggish. Now that we were confident we could handle the monster safely, we would be experimenting with different techniques for a while.

The only one of us allowed to help the soldiers was Iris, since she was fresh enough that she would still benefit a lot from the empowering mana the crabs released. I looked over at her as she stood behind the front line of soldiers on a slightly elevated platform. Because all of the mages among the soldiers didn't want to work with another mage they didn't know, Iris was forced to rely on simple blades or arrows made of wind magic. Despite that, she had been doing a good job of hitting critical or disabling points on the crabs, while also practicing her silent casting. With both Milana and Luna tutoring her on the subject, she was making good progress with that already as well. The young mousegirl was diligent.

Ever since we began teaching Iris wind magic, she has been working at improving it continuously ever since. I worried she was pushing herself too hard, but it was impossible for me not to compare her to myself when I was in the midst of my endurance training for the triathlon. She was motivated to improve herself, and I didn't want to stand in the way of that, even if I worried about her. Even now, she was panting heavily as she used her mana nearly as fast as she was regaining it. She hadn't made the mistake of using enough to lose consciousness like she had a few times early into her training, but she was straddling the line of what her body could handle. Fortunately, the swarm was finally lightening up, and the rain was starting to abate a little.

("You care for her a lot, don't you?") Luna asked.

I turned and smiled at Luna, who held out a cup for me. I took it as she sat down and took a sip of the bitter black drink. Sugar and honey were both incredibly expensive, but most of the tea was grown locally enough that it was reasonably cheap. Cheap for delvers anyway.

I took a sip of the tea and thought about her question. ("I do. I'm honestly not entirely sure why I've grown so attached so quickly.")

("Did you have any brothers or sisters?") Luna asked.

("No,") I said, shaking my head. ("I was an only child. My parents fought a lot and got divorced when I was young. They stayed friends after that, but sharing a household and dividing responsibilities was too hard for them, I guess. There were other problems, but I don't really want to go into them. My mom never really found anyone else, and by the time I finished high school, I had to get away from her too... We also fought a lot. My dad died a while back and I didn't have many friends in my old world so... there's not much for me to go back to if I even wanted to, truthfully. Iris is the closest thing to a little sister I've ever had, and all of you guys are probably the best friends I've ever had too. It's tough for me not to be protective of her, I think. I sound pretty lame when I put that all together, huh?")

Luna grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ("You're not lame,") she said with a laugh. ("Not everyone has to be great with people. Before I lost my voice, I had trouble making friends. Even Piper and Maxwell got annoyed with me for following them around all the time at first. Some of that probably had to do with being the 'rich girl' living in a mansion, but after a while, Piper and Maxwell got to know me better and we became inseparable. I don't... or, well, I never met any of my true siblings, but Piper and Maxwell are my family now. Piper has always been like a big sister to me, and Maxwell has always been protective of us both. Though I suspect that he had a crush on me when we were kids. He seemed pretty crestfallen for a while when he found out I only like girls.") Luna chuckled at the memory and I laughed along with her.

I smiled and looked over at Aria, who was watching the fight with an incredibly bored look on her face. ("I'm really happy Maxwell gets along so well with Aria. The two of them seem pretty similar to me,") I said.

Luna nodded excitedly. ("I'm really happy for them too! I was a bit unsure of her when we first met, but Aria's really grown on me. I still feel... responsible for how stressed out all of us have been because of that debt. This is the first time I've seen Maxwell interested in anyone since we left town and came to Ironcastle.")

("Do you think Piper and that Alto guy will work out?") I asked as my mind drifted to the monster chef catboy that had been crushing on Piper.

("I'm not sure... I think that everything that's happened has been hard on her too. She never really talked about romance at all until she started relentlessly teasing me about you. Then she did the same thing with Aria and Maxwell.") Luna took another sip of her tea. ("Maybe we should ask her about it.")

I tilted my head. ("Don't you think we should let Alto make the first move?")

She laughed. ("You really think that of those two, Alto would be the dominant?")

("I hadn't really considered that at all to be honest... I guess where I come from, the men are always the ones who are supposed to do the chasing. It's a bit more complicated for lesbians like me, but I always thought straight relationships were a bit more straightforward,") I said with a frown.

Luna paused and then nodded. ("I sometimes forget which parts of our culture you understand and which you don't. It's hard to know what things are intuitive to me, but need to be explained to you still. Anyway, men usually are the dominant, but a lot of that gets thrown out of the window when the woman is a delver. It also... wouldn't necessarily apply since Piper is a human, but since Alto is a catkin, I think he would feel like Piper should be doing the pursuing if she were interested in him.")

("Since Piper seems denser than normal regarding the poor guy, do you think we should ask her about it?") I asked.

Luna sighed. ("After this conversation, I think we might have to. I hadn't really thought about how their dynamic would work out. We should at least see if she's interested in him at all, otherwise it might not go anywhere.")

("It seems a bit odd to me that she wouldn't notice though,") I said.

Luna frowned. ("Yeah...") Luna looked over at the station where they had Piper waiting. Since she was a healer, she actually had some stuff to do from time to time. Even if this situation was relatively safe, people still had accidents and injuries that required patching up. ("We should talk to her later tonight.")

***

There was a lot of celebration when we returned to the camp that night. Apparently being able to kill the crabs inside the dungeon was a lot less grueling since more people could be safely fighting at once. The task didn't drag on nearly as long as when they needed to kill them one by one as they came down the stairs. Enough of the dam had also been built that the salt water didn't need the constant filtering of the mages anymore either. This raised the morale of the soldiers by a significant amount since the hardest jobs didn't need constant attention. The water mages and Celeste hadn't really gotten much of a break since the first time the snake monster had been killed. They couldn't risk the oasis water being fouled with too much saltwater.

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When we reached our favorite hangout spot in the camp's common area, Alto was there, buzzing with excitement. He apparently had been given a small amount of the snake monster we brought back to check it for food compatibility. I was pretty wary of the idea since the snake was venomous, but he was apparently familiar with treating even venomous snakes for consumption. The fact that I had eaten a significant amount of the first one also made my complaints seem silly, even to me.

Alto laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not ready to serve anyone snake yet anyway. Not yet. I still have to run other tests to see if it's safe. We're having more crab cakes and some other dishes I've whipped up. I'm just really excited to experiment with it and try some of the snake if it's safe. I might have some to share tomorrow, but none today. There's a pretty good chance this will be my only opportunity, since it's likely the meat will be more useful for other things rather than cooking. We'll see."

Piper nodded. "It's true, the crab meat is a lot more abundant than the snake meat. Only one of the snakes respawn at a time, after all."

Alto nodded excitedly. "Yeah! So getting to eat a floor boss is exciting too!"

I glanced at Luna. ("You think we should talk to her about it still?")

("I do!") she said with a grin.

"Hey, Piper! Come over here for a minute," I called out.

She glanced at Alto for a brief moment before coming over. "Sure, what's up?"

"Let's talk over here," I said as we led her away from everyone else.

Piper frowned in confusion as we walked away from the crowd of people laughing and joking in the common area, but didn't argue as she followed us away. "Is something wrong?"

("We want to know if you like Alto,") Luna said excitedly.

Piper raised an eyebrow. "Alto? He seems nice... His cooking is really great. Why, did he do something to one of you?"

I cleared my throat. "We think he's attracted to you, but Luna doesn't think that he'll pursue you because he's a beastkin and you're a strong delver. So it's kind of entirely up to you if you're interested in him."

Piper suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable. She scratched the back of her head and looked away. "I don't... I guess I hadn't thought about it. He's pretty handsome, I guess, but are you sure he would be interested in me? I don't really think I'm all that attractive to people."

I was a bit surprised by how much her confidence suddenly took a nosedive. It careened off a cliff. I had never seen her act like this before.

Luna looked devastated by her reaction. ("Piper... Do you really think you're unattractive? You're beautiful, and strong, and funny. All of us are sure he likes you, even Maxwell and Aria thought so. I didn't know you felt self-conscious...")

Piper shifted uncomfortably. "I thought they were messing with me... They said I was flirting with him... but I wasn't really doing any of that on purpose. I just thought... I don't know..." She looked away and rubbed her arm. "The guys back in our hometown made fun of me for being too mannish. After a while, I just thought that no one would like a woman like me, so I put it out of my mind. With everything going on, it wasn't like I had much time for romance." Piper's eyes went wide. "Not that I'm blaming you for that, of course! I just—"

Luna cut her off by pulling Piper into a hug. ("I didn't know you thought all of that about yourself. You're beautiful, Piper, and I know there are people out there that would love you even more because of who you are, not despite it. I'm sorry that you haven't had time to take care of yourself because of m- because of everything we've been doing these last few years. Now that things are looking up for me, we need to spend some time helping you too.")

"I don't..." Piper awkwardly returned Luna's hug and frowned. "Do you really... think I look okay? You think someone like him would like me?"

("I do, no question. You're beautiful, Piper,") Luna replied without any hesitation.

Piper turned to me with a pained look, and I smiled at her. "I think you're beautiful too, Piper. You're sexy in a way that's a little intimidating, but I think that just makes you hotter. If I didn't have such a perfect fiancé, and I didn't know you weren't interested, I may have made a pass at you too."

Luna huffed. ("I'll forgive you since it's my sister, but no hitting on other girls.")

Piper laughed and squeezed Luna. "Thank you, Luna. Sister... It means a lot for you to call me that."

("I know. It didn't.... It didn't feel right calling you that while we were still in debt. I didn't want it to feel like I was taking advantage of you by calling you that. But I love you, Piper. You and Maxwell are the best family I've ever had. I don't want you to talk badly about yourself, you're beautiful, I promise.") Luna was on the verge of tears now.

Piper was silent for a moment, but replied after another squeeze of their hug. "Thank you, Luna. I... I'll try to believe you. Do you really think Alto likes me? I noticed he gets flustered easily, but are you sure that's because of me?"

Luna nodded her head, accidentally bopping Piper with her ears a few times.

I smiled. "I'm positive he's into you. It might be easier to tell from the outside, but he only really gets flustered around you. I think it's a safe bet that he likes you, and if Luna's right, he wants you to approach him, not the other way around."

Piper sighed. "Okay, I'll... I'll think about it."

When the three of us returned to Alto's cooking station, his face lit up. "Piper! Come try this, I think you'll love it!"

Piper blushed, but covered her reaction with a laugh as she went to see what he wanted to share with her. Now both of them were blushing and sneaking glances at each other.

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