DD1 ASC - Chapter 32 - Revelations

“If you hadn’t come back with fresh underwear, I swear to all of the Gods both above and below that I would be even more pissed with you,” Arilla said coldly as she tugged on a fresh pair up her athletic legs.

“I’m glad you approve,” Typhoeus said with a wry smile, casually enjoying the sight of her getting changed in front of him.

“Don’t be cute. You still need to explain where you’ve been, how you got all of this stuff, and why you gained 5 levels in a single day," she said curtly, her stern stance undermined somewhat by her temporary lack of trousers.

“Right, right. Uhm… This was all a gift," he said, gesturing to the large dire rat drawn wagon laden down with assorted furniture, clothing, packaged foods, and wooden casks of what he knew to be wine and cheap whisky.

“So you were just out roaming the monster infested wilderness and just happened to stumble upon a merchant, who just happened to have a spare wagon full of clothes in our sizes, not to mention our favourite foods and a small cellar’s worth of booze, and he was like, ‘Here you go strange mage lady, no charge, keep the wagon too. Also, it’s pulled by horrifying rat monsters rather than horses, don’t worry about that.’ Is that what you're trying to tell me?” she asked incredulously.

“Would you believe me if I told you yes?” he asked, only half-joking.

“No," she said, her hazel eyes levelling him with a cautionary glare.

“Okay, right. So I went hunting for a dungeon which would have appropriately levelled animalistic monsters for you to fight," he said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as he wilted beneath her gaze.

“I’m with you so far.”

“And I encountered this settlement of… people living inside of a dungeon a few hours away from here," he said, bracing himself for her predictable reaction.

“Wait? What! People don’t live inside dungeons!” she blurted out, completely losing her calm composure.

“Please don’t interrupt. So anyway, they were initially quite hostile, and things got a little out of hand hence the levels, but we eventually worked things out, and they agreed to give us some gifts and to provide us with the ‘monsters’ you need to get to 20.”

“Typh, did you extort these people?”

“Uhm, technically, I think it was more of a bribe. They want my help to attack Rhelea, but I flat out refused, so don’t worry about that," Typhoeus said nonchalantly.

“They’re going to attack Rhelea!” Arilla yelled, her eyes widening in alarm.

“Eventually, but I wouldn’t worry, they have barely a handful of people above pewter and none above bronze. When they try, they’ll be wiped out in an afternoon," he said, waving a dismissive hand through the air.

“That's awful. This is a lot. You know that, right? I don't even know where to start," she said, resting her head in her hands as she tried to think.

“We could just wear the clothes, eat the food and let someone else deal with it," he suggested hopefully.

“But you said they’d all die.”

“Almost certainly.”

“Then I feel like we have to save them. Can’t you get them to call off the attack?”

“No. I could kill them all if you’re worried about the people living in Rhelea, but I’d rather not if that’s alright, and I’m not just saying that because they're offering to do the heavy lifting when it comes to rounding up the monsters for your pit fights.”

“I just can’t get over the fact that there are human beings living in a dungeon. Did the dungeon twist them somehow? Make them want to kill other humans? …What?” Arilla asked after seeing Typhoeus’s look.

“I didn’t say they were humans. I said people,” he said letting that sink in as a knot of worry twisted and turned in his stomach. “The dungeon is full of ratlings. Remember them? You killed one on the way to the newbie dungeon," Typhoeus said, taking the plunge. He was well aware of Arilla’s stance on this, but time was running out and if they were to ever have a future together, then getting her to accept that the ratlings could be both nonhumans and people was the easiest first step he could think of.

“What are you talking about? Ratlings are soulless monsters, unthinking things, they’re not people," she said, her ignorant statement made him wince despite his best efforts as she made her depressingly predictable response.

“You tell that to the men and women who made all of that clothing in your size. I’ve yet to meet an unthinking thing with the tailor class," he said.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you trying to tell me you actually talked to ratlings and got them to make you clothes?” she asked, her freckled face scrunched up in confusion as she tried to wrap her head around the idea.

“Amongst other things, yes. What? Did you seriously think that they were perfectly capable of forging steel weapons and armour, manufacturing poisons, but were somehow fundamentally incapable of holding a conversation or appreciating the intrinsic value of an underwired bra?” he replied, his hands on his hips as he looked at her with all the condescension he could muster.

“…Yes?”

“You realise how stupid that sounds, right?”

“No, just no. You’re not turning this around on me, Typh. There are monsters, and then there are humans. Humans who have thoughts, feelings and souls. Whereas monsters simply don’t. The Gods chose us above all other creatures! Everything else is just a monster, a blight on Creation for us to kill for levels, materials, and to pave the way for humanity to one day rebuild the great kingdoms of old!” she said fervently as if she was reciting something she had long since learnt by rote, her upbringing at the hands of Rhelea’s nuns shining through.

“Do you actually believe any of that? I would have thought that you of all people would know better than to blindly accept what people in authority tell you.”

“I—I… Why are you telling me this?”

“You said you didn’t want me to lie to you, and I think you’re ready to see a little bit behind the curtain. Humanity is not special for any of the reasons you suspect, you have never met a true monster in your life, and you should pray to your Gods that you never do. The things the Guild pays us to kill are just people, animals, and creatures that can sometimes be a little hard to classify, but whatever they may look like, they’re all natural with as much a claim to souls, thoughts and feelings as humanity has," he looked at her carefully as he said his piece, carefully watching how she received his words. If she reacted poorly now, then he didn’t know what he would do. Everything he knew about her suggested that she was incredibly open-minded, but he was challenging her fundamental beliefs about Creation, and there was no way to predict how she would respond to that. Still, she had yet to respond with vitriol or bile and instead was silent as she stood there with a thoughtful look on her face.

“I’m not sure I believe you," she said carefully after some time.

“Well, answer me this, what makes more sense to you? That humanity with all of its flaws and faults are the chosen people destined to rule all of Creation, or that they're just another species like any other, but one with the unfortunate habit of trying to kill anyone they see as different.”

“If we’re not special, then why isn’t there a human class like there is for everything else?” Arilla asked defensively.

Typhoeus sighed. “There was once, but that’s a long story I don’t want to get into right now.”

“No, Typh, enough of your mysterious bullshit. You can’t just dangle this earth-shattering information in front of my face like this and then say we’ll cover it later. I want answers. Now!” Arilla demanded, finally pushed past her limits by his admittedly persistent habit of vague explanations studded with missing details to be filled in at a nebulous later date. Although in his defence, that was largely to stop her from running away from him screaming in terror.

“…Fine, but put some clothes on first. I’m finding it hard to concentrate with you just standing there in your underwear," he said, acquiescing to her demands as she blushed crimson and made a token effort to conceal her bare legs.

Minutes later, they were both sitting at a small foldout table, complete with cushioned stools and two unstoppered casks, one of wine and the other whisky. Like all of the ratling carpentry that Typhoeus had seen so far, it was a well made little piece of furniture with discreet runes carved into the underside to ward it against warping in the rain and protect it from spills. Typhoeus took his time as he poured himself a large cup of whisky. The amber coloured liquid rose to meet the brim of his cup, which he then carefully raised to his lips and drank deeply, the harsh burn of the liquor doing much to soothe his growing mass of nerves.

“You look lovely; you really should consider wearing dresses more,” Typhoeus said, playing for time as he looked appreciatively at Arilla from across the table.

“Thanks, although I’m still having a hard time believing that a ratling made this," she said, pulling at the delicate fabric of her red summer dress, the thin rumpled material floating elegantly down her body only to rise up to her knees as she crossed her long legs under the small wooden table. She looked beautiful, her long auburn hair making a rare appearance outside of her usual plaits, tousling down past her shoulders to fall midway up her back. Her round cheekbones, now so much fuller with vitality, made her look in the prime of her youth, which she probably was. If it wasn’t for the quiet intensity in her eyes, then Typhoeus could kid himself into believing that all was well between them.

“Well, they did. It’s a shame they didn’t have any higher level tailors; it would have been nice to be a little more creative with my requests," he said wistfully, as he took another deep pull on his cup.

“Typh, you're stalling," she said evenly.

“Maybe I am…" he sighed, surprising himself by how much comfort he derived from the softer tone of his human voice as he steeled himself before he continued with his explanation. “Okay, so the thing you need to accept first is that humans have been on Astresia for a very, very long time, and there is a lot of history to skim past.”

“I get that. I’m not an idiot.”

“I know you’re not, but you misunderstand me. I’m not talking about thousands of years ago when King whatever founded Terythia.”

“King Valerian Korinthos broke us free from Epheria during the fall of the Magocracy,” Arilla said all too quickly.

“Really? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m talking about the distant past. Countless tens of thousands of years ago, there was a human empire that spanned almost all of Astresia. Back then, every child was born with the human class, two innate skills at birth, a third during their childhood, a fourth in the cusp of adulthood as they passively levelled to 20 and by the time they died of old age, they would typically be in the low hundreds unless they lived a life of violence.”

“You can’t passively level to a hundred thats—”

“You can’t now; this was then. There was still a lot more mana in the air back then. Now please let me finish.”

“One of these two innate skills that every human was born with was an arcana skill. Meaning that every human, regardless of whether they were born in the loftiest castle or the lowest gutter, was able to craft spells, and what spells they were. The things these ancient humans knew made the finest mages of today look like illiterate savages bashing rocks together trying to make fire. Collectively, they were the finest runescribes and enchanters Creation has ever seen. They built the Old Roads that cover this continent, grand cities that even when ruined made Rhelea look like a pigsty, and arcane weapons so terrible that when they were finally used, they cracked the earth and made the sky bleed.”

“Now these ancient humans were frighteningly powerful, so much so that even the great dragons and Gods of the time feared to cross them, but ultimately they were no different from humans today. They squabbled and fought amongst themselves and raised members of their own up above the rest, creating kings and emperors just as freely as they did slaves and debtors. The only difference was that these humans had already done the impossible, and so when they had a problem with Creation, they changed it.”

“The rulers of the time had a persistent problem, that every human regardless of their status or loyalty had a class, and it was problematic that their greatest knights and soldiers would routinely be outlevelled by belligerent farmers or craftsmen who refused to do as they were told. Thinking that they knew better, the kings got together to change the Great System to better suit their needs, to strip away the species class in its entirety and replace it with something better, something easier for them to control.”

“The greatest mages that ever lived worked the grandest spell in the history of Creation, carving new arcane runes into our very reality, which they then used to crack the Great System open like an egg. They buried their hands deep inside its yolk, and as they promised their kings, the mages stripped away the human class from their own species and created new ones to fit their needs, king, farmer, peasant, slave, to name but a few.”

“If that was the end of it, then perhaps humans wouldn’t still be so hated by every species that still remembers. But alas, it was not the extent of those mages meddling. Well aware that they were weakening humanity in a time when they had already burnt so many bridges with the other enlightened species, they tweaked the species classes of every other creature as well, putting hard age caps and other restrictions on levelling, consigning countless species to extinction, and crippling the growth of those lucky enough to survive the changes. Content with what they had wrought, the mages ended their spell, satisfied in their hubris that all was well.”

“Now the human kings finally felt good about their station. The newly created unclassed could be forced to do whatever they wished, for only the kings knew the change was coming and had prepared accordingly. They had stockpiled chained dungeon cores which they used to hand out the new classes to whom they deemed to be deserving. It was a mockery of the old system where dungeon cores once issued second and third classes as needed to the worthy. Like now, those in charge hoarded the power of classes, only sharing it with those who swore binding oaths. Anyone who protested was simply killed, the newly unclassed masses unable to go up against the strength of a single high-level knight.”

“And that is why you don’t have a human class. Why no one has it. Humanity is not a chosen species; your ancient ancestors just mutilated themselves so that they could better manipulate their freshly crippled subjects," Typhoeus said scathingly, his distaste for what they had done overpowering his ability to remain dispassionate as he finished his tale.

“How do you know any of this?” Arilla asked searchingly.

“I—I want to tell you, but now is not the time. I will tell you soon, I promise… but not now," he said, turning his gaze back to his whisky cup, which he promptly emptied.

“Typh, please just tell me," she pleaded, her voice strained with her need to know everything that was really going on.

“No! I just don’t know how and I need a little more time," he said, pulling away from her extended hands as he held his now empty cup to his chest.

There was a long pause between them while Arilla looked at him, and he did his best not to crack under her searching gaze as he turned his empty cup over in his hands again and again.

“Okay. At 20?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, as soon as you hit 20, but before you rank up your class, we’ll have the talk. Trust me when I say there will be no hiding it then, so whether or not I’ve mustered up the courage to tell you, you will know," he said forlornly, a part of him already grieving the change in their relationship that was doubtlessly soon to occur.

“Do you think it will be long?” she asked, a mixture of sadness and expectation in her voice.

“What?”

“Getting to 20?”

He shrugged. “Assuming the ratlings hold up their end of the deal, then at the rate you're going, we can probably do it in a week. Maybe even faster if you can keep up this pace without getting injured.”

“A week huh?”

“Yes.”

Neither of them said it, but he knew that it weighed heavily on both of them; what would happen to their relationship when it was finally stripped of all of his lies.

“You know we’re not finished talking about them, I’m grateful that they’re giving us this stuff, but I’m not content to just let a horde of ratlings attack Rhelea, doomed attempt or not,” she said relaxing back into her chair as she promptly drained her wine cup. “And don’t think I’m blindly accepting what you just told me either. This is a lot to take in and you’re still not being forthcoming with the details on why I should believe you.”

“I understand,” he said. “And we can talk about the ratlings, but what exactly do you suggest we do? They’re from an entirely different culture that rightly views humans as their ancestral enemy. You can’t exactly swan up, tell them you care, and not to attack your home because you’re worried about them.”

“Maybe you’re right, but if they’re looking for humans to attack, why don’t we offer them a better target than a town full of high levelled adventurers and civilians,” Arilla asked, her bright smile alleviating much of his worries about their shared future that had already settled onto his shoulders.

“I’m listening.”