Edge Cases Chapter 24: Jerome

Jero grumbled. To think they had the gall to tell him they wanted to et him alone.

He'd already been kind! He'd offered them a thousandgold in exchange for so information on a dungeon! Dungeon scouts didn't even get paid that much. He wouldn't have considered paying that much for it at all, but it was so very important information, according to Aurum. It would help them delve the dungeon.

Jero didn't know why they needed to delve the dungeon, but he knew it was important, and the thought of delving it consud his waking mind.

It consud his sleeping mind, too. His dreams were images of twisted corridors and broken walls, of strange, broken machinery scattered around. Sotis there would be a shadow, or a monster that he couldn't slay, and he'd wake up with the panicked, scattered thought of maybe he shouldn't go near the dungeon; but just as quickly that thought would vanish, replaced by an iron determination.

He wouldn't fail Aurum. How could he?

The god was just a child.

If the fucking Guildmaster hadn't gotten in his way, he wouldn't have had to lie. Wouldn't have had to get Histre to place that geas on Max, the damnable clerk that seed to know everything he was doing. Even with that geas, her eyes followed him around, even though she wasn't quite aware of it. It made him shudder.

But he was getting sidetracked.

[No,] he answered over the System, eyebrow twitching in irritation as he read Sev's ssage again. Really, asking to et him alone. [My full team will be there to back up. Don't fucking try to trick . I can activate the geas from here if I want to.]

He could not, in fact, do that. But what did so Bronze adventurers know about what he could do?

Jero grabbed his hamr. The System pinged him with a response; so whimpering nonsense that was agreeing with him, no doubt. He didn't bother reading it in detail; he just scanned it for a ti and location, marked it for deletion, and called on his team.

Ti to learn what was so important about this damn dungeon.

"Hello?" Jero called out, annoyed that he'd been brought to this dilapidated looking house at the opposite side of the town. It made sense, he supposed doing anything inside the Guild would likely bring the Guildmaster down on his head, and he was damned lucky that she hadn't already figured out what he could do. He kicked open the door, feeling vaguely pleased at the fact the wood splintered under his heel.

It was nice to live in a world where he could just put numbers into a stat sheet and get stronger.

The first thing he noticed was that the inside of the house was spatially expanded in so way. Jero frowned. That was strange; spatial expansion enchantnts like these weren't necessarily expensive, but they weren't necessarily cheap, either. The cleric was seated at the table, next to his massive armored friend and the two others he didn't really care about. His eyes zeroed in imdiately on Derivan's movents it was subtle, but every ti the big man shifted, his fingers weren't quite moving properly...

It ant he'd tried resisting the geas, and been punished for it. Good. He'd be worried if they hadn't tested the geas at all.

"Ready to tell everything you know, yet?" Jero said with a cocky smirk he didn't really feel. He gestured for his team to take up positions Eleisse and Syra both took up spots in the corner of the room, far enough away that they wouldn't be in range of anything stupid these adventurers tried to pull. Histre did... whatever Histre did when they were told to get ready. Jero didn't know and didn't care.

The cleric glared at him like he'd personally offended him, though. "Not like you gave us a choice, did you?" he said sarcastically.

"I gave you a choice of a thousand gold," Jero said with a shrug. "Not my fault you chose the hard way."

The cleric just grunted at that, like he was annoyed that Jero was right. "There was a ssage that popped up about a bonus room"

"No," Jero interrupted, frowning at Sev. "I don't want you to tell . I want him to tell ." He pointed at the massive, armored man. What species was he, anyway? He looked too tall to be human. An orc? In armor like that?

"We have nas, you know," the cleric scowled at him, and Jero snorted. Why should he care?

"Fine," he said impatiently. "Derivan. Tell what you know about the dungeon."

"...Very well," Derivan said. The man sat up in the chair, though not without difficulty; Jero wondered how hard he'd fought the geas before they'd given in. It had only been a couple of hours, and would only progress this quickly if they tried to remove it... But of course they'd try to remove it. It only made sense. "When the dungeon ford, we received several ssages through the system. One of them was about a bonus room that had been seeded from one of us in particular."

"Stop," Jero interrupted, sneering. "I want to know why this damn dungeon is so important, first. I said everything you know. Why are the gods so interested in the damn thing?"

Derivan looked at him, surprised. "...I do not know," he said eventually. "There were no system ssages about this."

"Useless," Jero grunted. "Fine. Tell what that ssage said."

"I wear enchanted armor, you see, but it is cursed enchanted armor. I cannot take it off. I suppose the dungeon found a twisted sort of irony in that, because the ssage I received implied that any form of enchanted armor is not allowed into the bonus room; in fact, if even a hint of residual enchantnt is left on your body, the room will not manifest." Derivan sounded frustrated, and rightfully so; Jero couldn't imagine being locked out of a bonus room like that.

But Jero himself was just pleased. An entry condition like that ant he'd have less competition. He wasn't really worried about losing the protection of his armor he didn't need it, but Aurum seed to prefer that he wear it, and so he did.

"There you go," Jero said. "Was that so hard?"

If it was a requirent that he give up his armor for the dungeon, and that there were no magical traces left on his body... none of his party mbers could directly manipulate magic. But this other party had a wizard.

"You," he said impatiently to Vex, and rolled his eyes impatiently when Sev scowled at him. "Vex. Wizard. I need you to cleanse the enchantnt residue off of ."

"Uh," Vex said. He blinked at him. He'd been thrown off, like he hadn't anticipated that. "Okay? Do you an... now?"

Jero paused.

"Well, yes," he said, annoyed. "Of course I do."

Was he going to take off his armor in the middle of a room full of enemies that very much didn't like him? He was confident enough that he could take them all on, especially with his party mbers ready to ambush them if they tried anything. And he wasn't going to get a magic-cleansing service in the Guild, especially not when the Guild's mbers could be set against him.

It was only really safe for him when he had sothing to hold over other people's heads. And he did have sothing on their heads; the geas on Derivan was still active until he chose to remove it. It would go inactive for now, unless the man discovered sothing new about the dungeon, and then it would activate again; but he could offer to remove it in exchange for Vex removing the residue... And the party thought he could activate the geas at any ti, so he still had that threat dangling over their heads.

Yes, he decided. That would work.

He started stripping off his armor.

"Um," Vex said, staring at him.

"Sh," Misa said. "Don't stop him. I wasn't expecting a show today but I'll take one where I can get."

"You do realize he threatened our lives," Sev said mildly.

"My life, if we are to be accurate," Derivan comnted.

"Bah," Misa said. "You guys have no appreciation for the finer things in life."

"Like Jero?" Sev asked, a little incredulously.

"Obviously not," Misa said, rolling her eyes. "Don't tell I have to explain this to you."

"I'd rather you didn't."

Jero studiously ignored the back-and-forth within the other adventuring party. He was still wearing plenty of clothes underneath his armor.

"I'm done," he said impatiently once he'd kicked off all the pieces of his armor. "Strip ."

Vex stared at him.

"Of the enchantnts," he added.

"Right, right, of course," the lizardkin said, his tone sowhat strangled. "Uh. Turn around?"

"Why would I have to turn around?" Jero frowned at him.

"Because you're intimidating and I don't really want to have you staring at while I work?" Vex tried.

"Nice try," Jero said. "But no."

The wizard sighed, stepping forward to approach him, albeit a little nervously. "Okay," Vex said. "This might tingle a little bit."

Vex reached forward and placed a cold, scaled hand on his chest. Jero saw his party mbers tense, and rolled his eyes internally. What could this party do to him, even if they wanted to? Vex himself wasn't even Silver. He was still Bronze. It didn't matter how rare his class was; a Bronze had no chance of touching a Gold. He himself had only gotten the powerful skills he used now when he'd reached upper Silver.

The old ones weren't worth thinking about. They weren't as rare; ergo, they weren't as powerful.

"Are you done?" Jero asked impatiently.

"Wait," Vex said, tense. "This is... harder than you think it is. Whatever enchantnts you had are powerful. Derivan, can I get so help?"

Jero rolled his eyes. Of course the Bronze ranker needed help. He waited impatiently as the armored man walked over to him honestly, he wouldn't have assud that soone built like that could do any magic at all, but he'd seen stranger things and placed a hand on him.

Then, all at once, everything went wrong.

Jero doubled over as a wave of sickness washed over him, dizzying him and making him stagger. Part of him wanted to shout in anger, to scream sothing vile about being betrayed but Derivan was pulling his hand back, and why was his stomach glowing

A long, long string of gold began to unravel. It pooled in his stomach, and the armored man glowered at him how had he not realized how large Derivan was? The other man towered over him, and yet he'd failed to realize this when he'd placed the geas on him

The world snapped back together. Histre's hand was on his back, and they were breathing heavily. They were... trembling? Frightened?

Derivan seed to narrow his eyes, and Vex was gritting his teeth, an enormous amount of mana suddenly flaring out from within him No. An impossible amount of mana for that level.

Two arrows flew out from the corners of the room, cutting unerringly towards the pair in front of him. Jero knew the skills Eleisse and Syra were using; they should have been unblockable for anyone not in Gold. They were fast, and could cut through anything. But the half-orc girl was suddenly there midair, a strange-looking baton striking one arrow and then the other with enough force to completely alter the course of the arrows, leaving deep gouges in the ground.

[Divine Suppression], he thought, but he knew before he even tried to use the skill that it wouldn't work. Threads of foreign divine energy filled the air, having flooded into it almost as soon as he'd been disoriented, and Sev was staring at him with a look of angry determination.

Jero was angry. Angrier than he'd ever been. But he didn't know why. He couldn't comprehend anything that was happening.

Histre scread behind him, an agonized, foreign sound, like the endless ticking of a broken clock.

"Got you, you little shit," Max said.