Alcor

My body burned, the sudden spike of agony making my breathing cut off- along with my hearing. I thrashed, feeling my bones cracking and shifting as my body screamed it's disapproval, something in my very soul feeling like it was being burned off. 

Then it was gone and I felt myself face-plant into the dirt, a cough clearing an oddly thick liquid from my mouth and letting me gasp in a ragged breath. I continued to cough and struggle for breath for another few minutes before I recovered enough to kneel up and look around, very dizzy and confused. 

I looked around, then almost fell over as an odd, small woman hugged me. I blinked and slowly recognized her as Auriel. My brain felt so fuzzy... My hearing was slowly coming back as well, though all of me felt weird, and off-balance. As if I'd been living with a weight on my left side my whole life, and now was suddenly hundred of pounds lighter on that one side. It was hard to adapt. 

"Alcor! Are you alright? You can hear me, right?" The woman- Auriel- looked me over, worried and flushed. She looked so beautiful... I kissed her, my brain just happily buzzing along at it's lazy little pace. Until I realized who this was, what we meant to each other, how not in a relationship we were, and... well, the fact that I was shirtless, lightheaded, and clearly not thinking straight might actually save my life. 

I quickly broke the kiss, turning bright red. "I-I-I... I'm sorry! Auriel, please forgive me, I wasn't thinking straight, and you were right there, and you look really, really pretty, and-" I got cut off as Auriel- who'd seemed dazed for a moment after I broke the kiss- leapt at me and knocked me onto my back, returning my kiss with one of her own. I didn't 'mmph'ed when she knocked me over, but then almost moaned as I relaxed and kissed her back. 

She was so soft, and warm... and she was kissing me back! I smiled, hugging her and kissing her just as enthusiastically as she was kissing me. For all of a minute. Then I felt her break the kiss and slap me. I blinked, very confused until she started yelling. 

"You almost died, had a demon almost eat your soul, were unconscious for days, and then almost choked to death coughing up blood, and the first thing you do is kiss me? What the actual, flaming hells is wrong with you? I cannot believe you are this stupid, you adorably innocent mass of muscles!" She pushed herself to her feet, huffing furiously and brushing herself off- leaving me on my back on the floor, staring up at her- now blushing for a different reason. 

The obvious was that she was an incredibly dominant warrior, and that was extremely sexy. But the main reason, was that she wasn't complaining about the kiss. She hadn't disliked the kiss itself. I barely let a faint flicker of hope stay in my chest, too used to rejection and being alone to really let myself feel more. 

"Um... Auriel... are... that is, do you, um..." I blushed, and she looked down at me, waiting. She was going to make me say it, I realized- and I didn't really want to avoid asking. I was too curious. 

"Auriel... may I court you, please?" She paused, her expression softening as she watched me, motioning for me to continue. I took a deep breath. "You are beautiful, kind, capable, miraculous with fire-magic, and able to easily take me down if you really wanted too. You're the most wonderful, amazing, sexy woman I've ever met, other orcs included, and I... I'd really, really like to say I've fallen in love with you without you threatening my life. Please... may I court you?" 

She hummed, staring at me for a minute before smiling. "Buy me dinner, and we'll see where things go from there. No more kissing until lI agree, though. You-" Stephan cut her off, and I couldn't stop smiling even after I realized he'd been there the entire time. Probably got here shortly after we started kissing. The man was a true friend. 

"Guys, Val thinks she knows what the core is, and she wanted to tell all of us at once. Come on, let's go- nice job on getting abs, by the way." He grinned at me, giving me a thumbs up while I stared in confusion. When I looked down, though, I went bright red for a very different reason. My body wasn't my own- and he wasn't kidding about the abs. 

I had smoother, softer skin, making my scars much more visible. But they all looked attractive now, instead how they used to look- my skin had been tough enough that the scars looked fake. The silvery skin was so odd... not at all matching the gray of the rest of my skin. My muscles were realigned, and fit together better, so I had much more flexibility than before, and my bones... my bones were the same length. Before, I'd been about an inch shorter on my left side than my right, which had sucked and helped worsen the main problem. It wasn't noticeable most times, because my boots were built to make up for it, but... 

I was very confused. I didn't quite understand what was going on, and checked my stats desperately, worried I was now under some kind of curse or divine blessing. Sadly, I wasn't exactly all that far off...

There were only three new things on my page. First, my charisma stat now only had one number for both my social skills, and appearance. Meaning they shared that number- which was also now double what it should be, by the way- My strength was more than double what it used to be, and... I had a curse applied in my 'inheritance' section. 

Host of a devil: Warning, you host the entire soul of a Devil. Any permanent stat boosting effects, or magical curses/blessing will attach to this soul and be passed on to your future generations. By removing a small portion of your soul, it has attached itself to you and your bloodline, and will simply have it's self diluted over the generations until it has become a normal part of your family's souls. Please note that this soul directly affects your charisma, and makes you highly susceptible to holy magic, both good and bad- though celestial magic will now only have a 65% chance of affecting you as intended by the caster, and an 85% chance of affecting you at half it's total effectiveness. It has a 20% chance of either being redirected or simply failing to work. 

I sighed, running my hands through my... hair? I blinked, feeling my scalp. I had short hair growing all across my head, though the mohawk and ponytail were the longest strands of hair by-far. I wasn't sure how I felt about having a full head of hair, but.. as long as I could find a razor soon, I didn't care about it much- I'd just get rid of it later. 

I stood, wobbling and almost falling over until Auriel started supporting me, a fact for which I was immensely grateful- though I still wished I knew what had happened to my shirt. Then again, glancing down at my torso again, I had a fairly good idea. my shirt was supposed to be tight enough that it wouldn't easily get caught on things- with the sudden addition of muscle growth, I probably didn't have a shirt anymore, and was just lucky that the pants I was wearing had survived the change. Meaning I'd have to go back to the guild shirtless... for weeks... in the company of the most beautiful woman I've ever known. Who seemed to return the feelings I had for her. 

I blushed deeply, following after Stephan as quickly as I could, hobbling along with Auriel like a child learning how to walk for the first time. Then again, I wasn't all that far off on that point. My body was built differently than before, and my balance was completely off. I would have to spend days figuring my body out again... even shooting a bow would be different. All of my skill was gone... 

I didn't know if I should sulk or smile. Either way, that didn't matter once we reached Val. She was holding Yorick like she'd won the lottery, and I didn't know why. It made me both curious and nervous- she was a witch after all... and one with reason to hate most other races more than most humans. I was never at ease when she had a new, powerful toy to play with... not at first, at least. 

She grinned at us, motioning to the orb. "I may have figured out what this thing is." Stephan opened his mouth to make a witty comment and she glared, smiling but giving off a sense of profound, terrifying danger. The rogue wisely shut up before he even said a word.

"This may just be something never before seen in our world- I believe this to be a Fae dungeon core." We looked at her, confused. "A... Fae dungeon core... you know, a... core from the fabled Fae wilds...?" She blushed, shrinking slightly under our gaze. I looked up at the ceiling, noticing a few glows that darted across the ceiling. 

Far too large to be a fairy, there was nothing else it really could be... but... a core from a mythical land, where impossible magic and fantastical creatures lived? Really? What kind of crazy person would believe something like that so easily... it was like believing humans would be able to steal lightning from the sky and make it drive their carriages and wagons for them, without the aid of magic. Insane and ludicrous... 

But, then again, human's had found a way to create self-firing bows and arrows. All they needed was a single spell to load to 'crossbows' for them, and then they pulled the trigger. It was ludicrously easy, and every other race had been trying to figure out the technique- but no one had quite yet. The weapons were designed to break completely if you tried to take one apart without knowing how, and the spells dissolved as soon as any scanning magic went into the thing. It appeared again with dust the human's had made, and they'd done it all with terribly weak magic. It was insane. 

Almost as insane as the Fae wilds being real. "Say I believe you, what proof do you have?" I spoke first, listening and watching as she looked at him, smiling excitedly. She likely thought that if she could open the door to the Fae wild, it might earn her some kind of vengeance. Odd little human woman... then again, I knew her and trusted her, so i didn't really feel much disdain- just pity and a sense of awe. 

no matter what she did, no matter who she convinced, the gods had agreed to bind the humans to the contract- that fact wouldn't change, and she couldn't change the truth. She was beyond hope... at least when it came to saving her people. Her children... those had more hope. there were families of human's that had earned their freedom from the contract. Not many, but some. Humans simply weren't allowed to know about it. 

She quickly told us what she'd thought of and reasoned out, and I considered her words, thinking things through. If that were true, and Yorick really was a Fae core, then what would he do? We didn't know anything except that he existed, and had celestial and demonic core pieces inside of himself as well... both of which made portals to other realms. 

"Yorick is a Fae core, and if we leave him here, he's going to open a portal to he Fae wild... judging by the forest up above, we have a few years, though. That'll take at least that long to reach magical maturity, which I'm guessing is the equivalent of a tower or pit reaching it's hundredth floor." They froze, looking at me and blinking as they considered what I'd said. A pit was a demonic dungeon- just a term to help quickly differentiate which kind of celestial dungeon we'd be invading. 

They looked at Yorick, and read his thoughts, expecting mental screaming and panicking and fear. Instead, he found awe, respect, and excitement flooding through the tiny gem. His thoughts were a confusing, buzzing mss of thoughts that he didn't seem interested in explaining- though I understood enough to get that he was excited to finally know his first long term goal. 

I was dumb-founded. Yorick, the very dungeon core we had just been discussing, didn't know what he himself was able to do, or even what his end-goal was. I... I just... I suddenly knew why dungeon cores had Dungeon fairies. They were too good at building dungeons- if they didn't have someone guiding them, they'd completely lose sight of what their goals are.

"Yorick, what happened to your dungeon fairy? How on earth have you survived this ling without one?" I had to know, though the others seemed surprised by my question. Then again, Me and Val often surprised both each other, and the rest of the group- high Wisdom stats let you made logical leaps very quickly and easily, while high intelligence gave you faster thinking, and a better memory, which meant more knowledge your wisdom could use. 

Yorick was silent, and I looked at the others. They were curious as well now. I listened to his thoughts, curious. Finally, he spoke. 'She appeared with me, when We first appeared here, and then said she needed to finish her body. She didn't have one, I think. She said she'd only be a month but... well, now I'm almost level six and she isn't back yet. Why?'

I blinked, shocked. "She just... left you?" The idea that Dungeon cores had levels was less confusing- most sentient beings had levels, so it made sense. The dungeon fairy to having a body yet, though... That was odd. Almost like she... had gotten him here, and hadn't been able to get through herself. "Do you think she might've sent you from the fae realm and just... been stuck on the other side?" 

Yorick was silent now, but Stephan looked tense and Val looked ready to explode with excitement. He seemed to be thinking, intentionally too fast for me to follow. He hadn't taken long to figure out a way to get around my monitoring of his thoughts. 

'Maybe, I mean... I'm not sure she's the type to do that... But anyways, I haven't summoned anyone monsters, and you aren't in danger. Shouldn't you finish your quest and get your reward?' Interesting... though, he had a point, I suppose. We really should finish the quest. 

"Val, are we going to finish the quest? Or not?" She smiled at me, nodding. 

"Oh, we are... But the owner of the orb has to do it. I thought about completing the quest and got a warning prompt." She held out the Orb. "Care to do the honors?" I watched her for a moment, then took the orb, looking at Yorick and sighing as I let go of Auriel, nervously and slowly walking to the statue before gingerly placing the orb inside. 

I really wasn't expecting the explosion of golden light that ended up being the result, and so we were all taken off guard when I was blasted backwards by the sudden appearance. Then again, I should've known something like this would happen. I selected yes on the prompt that appeared, asking if I'd like to complete the quest, which blessedly stopped the attack. 

Though it did nothing to save my eyes.