Chapter 64 – The Crossroad

"This is amazing!" Vel gasped as she looked up at the towering height of the great tree, whose roots formed the floor of the crossroads and whose golden shining leaves provided the light in this space. "I wonder how the elves of old made such a place. It’s almost as if it was naturally grown… But what kind of tree is that? I’ve never heard of a tree with golden, glowing leaves."

"I don’t know, but at least we can take a moment to catch our breaths. Without one of the keys, there's no way a reaper or anything else can follow us here." I said as I sat down on the steps of the staircase leading up to the raised platform around the trunk of the tree.

The moment I was off my feet, I realised just how exhausted I really was. Not only had we all been running for our lives for several hours, but prior to that, we had done a significant amount of training. My legs weren’t just tired, but extremely sore and aching, a fact that the adrenaline and fear had hidden from me until now that we were momentarily safe from those pursuing us.

Worst of all, though, was how hungry I was. Even before we ran for our lives, I had worked up quite an appetite during our early morning training, only to be forced to flee and skip breakfast. Rather stupidly, I didn’t even think to pack something to eat when we were getting ready to leave, just a few sets of clothes. But there was nothing I could really do about it now, and once we used the key to leave, I was sure that there would be food for us to buy in whatever city surrounded the dungeon linked to Vel’s amulet.

While I sat on the stairs catching my breath, Saph seemed to be equally exhausted and tired as they had spread themselves out on the ground similarly to when they sleep. However, they weren’t actually sleeping, as was evident by the way they would occasionally shift and stir, no doubt keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings for any more trouble heading our way.

Knowing what we did about the Crossroad, I didn’t keep a watch as Saph did. No, my attention was more focused on Vel. The young elven woman was no longer gawking and awing at the majestic sight around us, but instead had her eyes fixed on the wood arch we came from while she fingered the emerald amulet around her neck. Although the thick fog wall obscured where it was that we came from, the conflicted expression on Vel’s face told me exactly what she was thinking.

Much to the dismay of my poor, aching legs, I got up off the staircase and made my way over to my cute, little girlfriend. As I innocently slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her close to my side, I said. "You know, he’s going to be okay. Your father defeated a reaper once, so he can do it again."

"I hope so… But it just feels so wrong to run away…" Vel mumbled, disheartened, as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"If we stayed, we would have only gotten in the way. All we can do now is continue on just as he told us to and wait for him to come to find us." I tried my best to reassure her but doubted whether I was doing a good job at that.

Prying her eyes away from the fog, the young elven woman slipped her arms around me and buried herself in a hug with me. Despite the fact that her face was just about right in my breasts due to our height difference, there was nothing perverted about this embrace. As such, I just returned the embrace as innocently and as supportively as possible. What she needed now wasn’t some slutty, big-breasted woman to grope and play with her, but just someone to be there for her.

To her credit, Vel didn’t cry as I might have if I was in her place, but the hug did last for a while, and her eyes were still clearly rather watery and upset when she pulled away from my embrace. "So… How do we actually use this place?" Vel mused aloud, distracting herself from her worries by focusing on the matter at hand.

"I think it must have something to do with those plinths, up there," I said as I took the young elven woman’s hand and led her up the stairs, followed a few seconds later by our slime friend. "Each one of them has a differently shaped indentation in them and faces a different gem-adorned arch. So I would guess that the one we seek faces the arch with the emerald atop it."

As we all walked across the raised platform, we passed several of the other plinths on our way to the one facing the emerald-adorned archway. Although the shapes of the indentation that lay atop each plinth were different, most of them didn’t really have a specific shape that would have made it easy to work out what their amulet key looked like. The expectation of this, though, was the sapphire and ruby-facing indentations, which took the shape of a crescent moon and sun, respectively.

After a few, short moments of walking at our leisurely pace, we made it to the correct plinth, whose indentation looked like an exact match for the amulet around Vel’s neck. Upon seeing it, the young elven woman ran one of her hands across the indentation as the other one tentatively touched her emerald amulet.

After a few silent moments of hesitation, she eventually slid the amulet up over her head and placed it in the plinth’s indentation. There was a clinking sound followed by a low rumble as soon as the key was fully inserted into the plinth.

The entirety of the Crossroads shook ever so slightly as the same ethereal spark of electricity that accompanied crossing over into the fog danced across our skin. However, the shaking and the electric feelings stopped after only a brief second and in their place, the large emerald resting atop the arch in front of us lit up with a bright, near-blinding light.

Within the archway, the fog on the other side began to recede, forming a tunnel that led on for about ten metres. At the end of the fog tunnel, the space opened up into some sort of stone room, but the details of the room were hard to make out because of the crowd of people standing on the other side.

At first, my fear shot up, worrying that we had accidentally exposed the Crossroad to a whole bunch of people, but none seemed to notice or pay much attention to the fog tunnel or us. Of course, a few people would sometimes look in our direction or have their eyes pass over us, but none of them reacted in a way that at all seemed close to being surprised. It was almost like they couldn’t see whatever it was that we had done.

While I was staring out at the strange collection of people that I could barely make out the specific details of with my vision restricted by the fog tunnel like this, Vel pulled her amulet back out of the plinth. Thankfully, the tunnel did not immediately disappear, and instead, the plinth began to make clicking noises again, this time in a rhythmic pattern that was slowly getting faster and faster. Similarly, the emerald above the arch was slowly losing its brightness.

As I put the pieces together, I realised what it was that was actually happening and spoke my revelation aloud. "It’s a timer before the tunnel collapses so that a key bearer can go through without leaving their key behind."

A look of both realisation and relief crossed Vel’s mind. Given that the amulet was the only thing she had left of her mother's, it was obvious she wouldn’t have wanted to leave it behind. "Let's go then." She said as she rushed off towards the archway.

Although I was hoping for a little more time to rest and recover from my aches and pains, I quickly made my way after the young elven woman, with Saph following behind. Neither of us wanted to get stuck here when the tunnel closed, as who knew if we would have been able to leave the way we came without a key to guide us. Even if we had the time, it wasn’t the kind of thing we would have wanted to try out anyway, since that reaper might not have been alone and others could be waiting for us outside the Crossroad.

In a matter of seconds, Saph and I caught up to Vel just in time to enter the fog tunnel. The ten or so metres of the tunnel went by equally quickly, and before long, the three of us were running out into a room filled with people. The first thing I did upon doing so was to look back over my shoulder at where it was we had come from, but instead of a fog wall, there was a stone archway built into a brick wall. In between the arch, where there should have been more brick walls, was instead a swirling mass of silver.

Whatever it was that this silver… portal… was it didn’t seem that out of place as everyone in the room wasn’t paying it that much attention. Instead, they were looking at the three of us more than they were at the archway. A part of me wondered if our coming here had inadvertently put us in trouble with those people, but once I gave them a quick look, I realised why it was that they were all looking at us.

Each of them was outfitted for combat in various types of armour and holding various types of weapons. Obviously, if this was a dungeon, then these were its dungeon delvers, a group of people who were very clearly more armed and armoured than us. Although Vel carried her staff with her and I had my dagger tied to my waist, we were clearly less equipped than the people around us, which was why we were drawing looks.

Interestingly enough, Saph wasn’t getting such looks as more than a few groups of these dungeon delvers had their own bonded monsters beside them. Some were slimes like Saph, but they were the minority. The majority of bonded monsters here were different kinds of wolf-like monsters adorned with strange crystalline horns, spikes and sometimes even plates of carapace.

While the dungeon delvers were giving Vel and me some looks and murmuring among themselves, none of them actually said anything to either of us. So as to not get into any trouble, I quickly grabbed my girlfriend by the hand and pushed my way through the crowd, dragging her behind me.

The room we crossed over onto the less crowded side of was essentially one big dome, about fifty metres in diameter and built from large stone blocks. On one side of the room was the archway and silver portal that we had come out of and through which several more people were occasionally walking in and out as we got some distance away from it. On the far side of the room was a large hallway, wide enough for several groups of people to walk down at once. At the end of this hallway was a thick set of doors reinforced with bands of steel, which were currently open, allowing the light of day to come shining in.

Judging from the layout and the way people were behaving, I assumed this was the entrance to the dungeon. Without the emerald key in their possession, anyone using the stone archway would be led into the first of the dungeon’s floors instead of the Crossroad.

The further we walked away from the archway, the fewer people were crowded around, but there were still quite a few gathered here. Since there was no need to drag Vel out of the crowd any longer, I let go of her hand and let her follow along on her own, but the young elven woman was apparently a bit shy and not used to this many people, as she tried her best to hide behind me.

It was only then, as I looked back at her, that I noticed something I should have probably been more concerned about beforehand. Her amulet was just hanging openly around her neck for all to see. To fix that, I turned around and tried my best to reach for it as inconspicuously as possible.

The expression of confusion that crossed Vel’s face made it clear as day that she wondered what I was doing, but she didn’t stop me. Unlike when we first met, she now trusted me enough that she didn’t mind me touching her most precious possession. The young elven woman’s confusion turned to realisation as I deftly slid the amulet under the neckline of her dress instead of letting it rest atop it. It was still rather obvious that she was wearing some kind of chunky necklace, but at least now no one was going to take note of what it looked like.

Since there were so many people around, neither of us said a word during this exchange or afterwards as we made our way to leave the dungeon’s entrance. On our way out, I noticed a large, green-skinned man with a slight pair of tusks protruding from his lips, something that astounded me as, apart from Vel, this was my first look at someone that was not fully human. Although the vast majority of people around us were humans, there were a few other races, like those straight out of a fantasy game, strewn about.

In fact, about one in twenty people were not human but looked to be either an orc, a dwarf, or some kind of race that I didn’t have a clue as to their name but had antler-like horns growing from their foreheads. Honestly, I was staring at the various different races more than I should have, to the point that if anyone noticed, they probably would have assumed I was racist.

In time, I managed to pull myself away from this distraction and focused on leaving the dungeon with Vel and Saph in tow. Once out from within the interior of the stone structure, we entered the heart of what was definitely a very large bustling city. Crowds of people dressed in a mix of modern meets medieval style clothing streamed by what was essentially a market square, lined with various stalls and storefronts.

Occasionally, groups of armed and armoured people would pull away from the more mundanely dressed crowds and head toward the dungeon, which on the outside had the appearance of a small fortress standing in the midst of this busy market district. There were four guards in heavy armour standing by the doors through which we entered, taking fees from all those who wished to enter the dungeon in the form of a handful of copper coins or a single small silver coin. Luckily, they paid no attention to the people leaving the dungeon, and our exit was unhindered.

Grabbing Vel by her hand and Saph by their tentacle, I made my way through the crowd of people going about their day, trying my best not to get separated from my companions. However, as we made our way through the crowd, I couldn’t help but notice the crystalline structure looming over the city. It was a mix between a palace and a fortress, made entirely from some strange, diamond-like mineral that shined like a beacon in the light of the sun. How such a beautiful, yet imposing structure was made was beyond me, but its awe was breathtaking.

As much as I would have taken the time to really take in the palace’s unearthly beauty, the view from amid the crowd of people wasn’t the best, and we had more important matters to attend to. To that end, it wasn’t much longer before I managed to find my way to a small alley with no one in it, where we could talk freely. Luckily, I managed not to lose any of my companions on this journey, but both Vel and Saph were clearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around us. Having lived in the bustling metropolis that was my home back on Earth for the entirety of that life, I was much more used to being around this number of people.

"So, I don’t suppose you know where we can find your aunt or this Red Den place?" I asked Vel as soon as we were clear of the crowd.

The young elven woman shook her head. "No, I’ve never been here before, and Dad told me nothing about wherever it is that we are. I didn’t even know I had an aunt before today either."

Name: Evelyn HartRace: HumanGender: FemaleAge: 18

Class: SlutLevel: 12

Might: 10Agility: 10Vitality: 29Intellect: 10Willpower: 20Charm: 45

Class Skills: 7/10Conjure Sex Toy, Rank 4Freshen Up, Rank 6Fascinate, Rank 6No Lube Needed, Rank 3Sense Gaze, Rank 6Stimulate, Rank 8Tight Fit, Rank 6

General Skills:Anal Intercourse, Rank 5Cunnilingus, Rank 12Dagger, Rank 3Deception, Rank 3Felatio, Rank 6Kissing, Rank 13Seduction, Rank 3Sensual Massage, Rank 15Sex Toys, Rank 11Vaginal Intercourse, Rank 10

Traits:Blessed By An AngelMonster Lover