Thiala felt…different when she teleported into the dungeon. There was a sort of tension in the air that wasn’t there before. She couldn’t really put her finger on it, but it was also…familiar in an odd way.

“Umm…Nuwa, I feel weird. Can you look me over and make sure everything’s fine?”

You picked up on that?! Nuwa exclaimed, then gave a mental cough. Uh, sorry. I had to place a Watch on you. Not because I don’t trust you or anything, but because I’m dealing with something dangerous and I’m just making sure everyone’s safe and I have a way of finding them if anything happens. I had to do it to everyone, it’s not just you.

“Something dangerous? Can…I help at all?” Thiala asked hesitantly. “I’m almost at the end of my apprenticeship now, just two and a half years left, so…”

No, it’s fine. You’ve been through enough. I know you’re tougher than the average kid, but you don’t live here, you don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.

“Oh…Thanks.” Thiala honestly wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, it was nice that they were being considerate of her, but on the other…she wasn’t the same girl she used to be. She had grown a lot, and her confidence had grown more than anything else.

“Well…can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

There was a moment of silence. I’ll have to ask Lilith when she’s less busy. Nuwa finally replied. Sorry. More importantly, how did you pick up on my Watch? Only people who are really skilled in detection should be able to.

“I dunno. It just kinda felt…different. Now that I know what I’m looking for, it reminds me of what it felt like what it feels like when you do anything with the subordinate thingy everyone’s in. I don’t feel it anymore, though.”

Hm. I’ll have to look into that. Well, whatever, no big deal. Anything else you need, or can I go?

“Yeah, you can go, sorry.”

Alright, I’m out then. Later.

Thiala nodded to herself, then began to comb the area looking for someone to talk to, as was usual when she didn’t have anything specific in mind when coming here. The living area was almost completely empty, devoid of even the one or two people that could usually be found in one of the living area’s facilities.

It was a pretty safe assumption they were all training or doing work because of this danger Nuwa mentioned, so she made her way to the “training” area of the dungeon. She passed by the ‘low’ and ‘medium’ level training areas, those having long-since fallen into disuse, and made her way to the ‘high’ level training area.

Sure enough, several of the rooms had lights on above them, indicating that they were in use. She peeked through the windows, and, once she was satisfied that everyone save Anna, Jameson, and Eve were training, went for plan B.

Carmen, are you awake? She asked, via their group telepathy. It was a perk of being Lilith’s subordinates that tended to go unused – the unspoken consensus was that it just…felt better to talk in person. Being able to see the person’s face and their gestures added something that even emotion over telepathy didn’t really match. And, with everyone as close in proximity as they were in the dungeon, it had usually been unnecessary, used mostly in situations like this.

Yup! Are you here? I wanna play but everyone’s busy.

Sure. Where are you?

I’m outside. Cernny will bring me back, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.

Thiala made her way to the surface, and only had to wait for a bit before she spotted Cernunnos galloping towards her.

“Heyyyy!” Carmen called excitedly. “What do you want to do?”

“Uh, I dunno. Do you know what’s going on? Nuwa won’t tell me.”

Carmen frowned. “I don’t know, I didn’t really get most of it. They were talking about Aunt Mae, but it was like they were talking about someone else? I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Thiala frowned as well. Were they talking about Mother Mai? That couldn’t be good. “Do you know what Saria’s doing? I didn’t see her training with everyone else.”

“Dunno. Do you need to talk with her? Can we play instead?”

Thiala thought about that for a second. “I think we can go play adventurer with her, like your mom and dad do. She can be our teacher.”

Carmen brightened up. “That sounds cool! Let’s go find her!”

Fortunately for them, Saria was one of Lilith’s subordinates, so they could just contact her with telepathy too. Saria, are you free? Thiala asked, including Carmen in the link.

I’m just overseeing the Adjudicators. Do you need something?

Carmen and I were wondering if you could give us some personal training.

Saria mulled that over for a while. Sure, I guess. Come meet me in the low level area of the dungeon, I’ll show you some basic stuff, but not much more.

Actually, I was thinking we could do it outside. The fresh air is nice, and we don’t need to actively level right now, so we just want to practice technique with you. We’re up there now.

Oh. Um, alright. Be there in a sec, then.

Thanks!

Thiala’s motives weren’t completely pure. She knew that, with Carmen present, she wouldn’t be receiving anything really useful, but she was also hoping that it would take Saria out of her serious mode. That way, she could wheedle a little more information out of her. And, judging by her attitude at the end of their mental conversation, it had worked, at least somewhat.

A few minutes later, Saria came out from the dungeon. “Hey there, you wanted some training? I can teach you some basic forms and techniques, but anything more is a no. I don’t want Anna and Jameson getting mad at me.”

Thiala nodded. “That’s fine, but…you already told us that.”

Saria blinked. “Oh, right. Well, it’s still true.”

Carmen tilted her head. “Why would mom and dad be mad?”

Saria frowned. “Umm…I don’t know how to describe it. I think the best way is that they’d be mad if you got hurt doing stuff I taught you.”

“But you’re teaching me stuff to protect me?”

“Without your parents knowing. When they get home, we can ask them if I can teach you more.”

“Oh. Okay.”

So, Saria got to work showing them a few things. Most of it was stuff she already had a decent grasp on from her apprenticeship with Tunem, so she got to work questioning Saria.

“So…any progress on dealing with Mai?” She asked as casually as she could, keeping her voice hushed so Carmen couldn’t hear.

“Eve was able to get Watches on both her and Errus, so right now we’re getting more information still.” Saria replied, similarly hushed, “Why?”

“I was just wondering if there was anything I could help with.” Thiala replied, more worried than ever. Both Mai and Errus being their opponents was bad news, but, now that she was thinking about it, there were ways with which she could help. “I think I can get access to some of Tunem’s books on those two, it might be able to help get more details.”

“That would be great, if you would.” Saria responded, “Any little bit helps.” Then she stopped, turning a suspicious eye to Thiala. “Wait, who told you about that? You weren’t there, so…”

“I sorta figured it out.” Thiala said sheepishly, “Nuwa put a Watch on me but wouldn’t say more except there was “danger”, so I asked Carmen about it and she mentioned there being something to do with a Mae that wasn’t her aunt, so I figured she meant the Perfect Chimera. I didn’t know about Errus, though.”

Saria puffed up her cheeks in annoyance. “So you used me as a way to get more info? Ruuude! Did you even want to train?”

Thiala rubbed the back of her neck. “A bit? I want to have some serious sessions with you later, but for now I just needed to know what was going on. I appreciate trying to be considerate of me, but I’m not sure Lilith realizes that I’m not the same girl I was when she went to sleep. Even if I can’t do anything, I deserve to know what’s going on.”

Saria sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, so no use hiding it further.”

“Hey, what’re you two talking about?” Carmen asked curiously.

“It’s to do with the talk you guys had about the other Mae.” Thiala said quickly.

“Oh. Boring.” Carmen went back to the movements she was practicing.

“Well, let’s just finish up here, and we can talk more later, alright?” Saria said

“Sounds good to me.” Thiala replied, settling down and preparing to seriously work for however longer this impromptu training session lasted.

“Hey, Thiala, you okay?” Gabe, one of Thiala’s classmates, asked. “You’ve been quieter than usual today.”

“I’m fine.” Thiala replied, “Just thinking about stuff.”

“Thinkin’ pretty deep, then. What about?”

Thiala hesitated. “Sorry.”

Gabe nodded. “Confidential stuff again?”

“Confidential stuff again.” Much of what she experienced in Lilith’s dungeon was stuff that shouldn’t be leaked to the general public, such as the identity of Eve or the troubles they were having with Mai. As such, to help with keeping secrets, she had allowed Kali to place an enchantment upon her that would prevent her from communicating any such information to those not in the know, as well as prevent those parts of her mind from being read.

This, of course, meant that there were a lot of things she couldn’t talk to others about, so the people in the school had become used to hearing her say she couldn’t talk about things because they were confidential.

“Well…are you heading back to Lilith’s place after school? If not do you think we could hang out?”

Thiala shook her head. “Sorry. I’m not heading there, but I have some really important business to take care of. Maybe tomorrow?”

Gabe shrugged. “That works.” He picked up his backpack and stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” Thiala picked up her own bag and stood up as well. They both exited the classroom and parted ways, Gabe heading off towards his room, while Thiala went to the library.

On her way, however, she was stopped by Veit, a dwarven boy who had been one of Raphi’s cronies before everything had happened and Raphi had changed her ways. The cronies had never really been loyal to Raphi, they had been loyal to the power she held, likely at the instruction of their parents

And, as it turned out, the student with arguably the most power right now was Thiala. She was perhaps the only person with direct ties to Lilith that was in a position to be interacted with on a regular basis. So, like moths to a flame, the cronies had directed their attention to Thiala.

She didn’t really like them, despite their efforts. Not after the way they had treated others while they were Raphi’s henchmen. So, whenever possible, she avoided them. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have any polite outs at the moment, and she was a firm believer in remaining polite whenever possible.

“Hey, Thiala,” Veit called, “Do you have the afternoon free?”

“No, sorry. I’m on business.”

“Can I help at all?” Veit said, smiling.

Thiala didn’t quite believe the smile was real. “No, I’m afraid not.” She said, “It’s best I do this alone.”

“Well, just let me know if you need anything, alright? I’m always open for it.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” She said, fully intending to never take him up on the offer. The exchange was left at that, and she was able to continue on to the library unobstructed.

She opened the door into the quiet room and walked to the librarian. “Hi there!” She said brightly.

“Hey there, Thiala!” The librarian responded. “What do you need today?”

“Could you point me to the section that has books on Perfect Chimeras? I realized I don’t understand quite as much as I’d like and, given my circumstances, I’d like to know more.” She lied, “So I figured I’d come check out some books from here.”

“Of course! Check row 2A, it should have all the literature we have. Anything else you need?”

“Um, how many books can I check out at once?” Thiala asked, “I want to get a bunch, that way I don’t have to go back and forth as much.”

“Take no more than ten.” The librarian replied.

“Alright, thank you very much!”

“Any time.”

Thiala left, working her way over to isle 2A, where she began to thumb through the books. For the most part, they weren’t anything Thiala thought would be helpful. Winston and Isa had by far the most books about them, as they had been in the public eye for the longest after the war, and there weren’t many good records from before the war.

There were a couple books on Lilith as well, but those were basically useless. Thiala probably knew more about her than any of the authors did, but she grabbed one for the entertainment value reading one and finding all the errors would give.

She grabbed a couple of the books on Winston and Isa as well, as a form of smokescreen for what she was really after, the books on Mai and Errus. She made sure to grab a biography for each of them, as well as a couple of books on the roles of Perfect Chimeras during the war, bringing her total up to seven.

With her last three, she grabbed three different compendiums of capabilities of the Perfect Chimeras. Three was probably overkill, but hopefully being able to cross-reference them would give her more accurate readings on Mai and Errus’s skillsets.

She made sure that at least one of those compendiums was new enough to include Lilith, but she didn’t think the age really mattered, given Mai and Errus disappeared during the war. So, with her ten books in hand, she went back and checked them all out.

“You picked one about Lilith?” The librarian said, amused, turning the book in question over in his hands. “Couldn’t you just ask her if you wanted to know more about her?”

Thiala smiled. “I thought it would be funny to see how accurate it is.”

The librarian straightened slightly. “Any chance you could tell me any corrections you have?” He asked. “There’s might be a possibility that I wrote that one.”

Thiala smirked. “I’ll tell you everything that’s not confidential. So…history only, pretty much.”

The librarian deflated. “Well, it was worth a shot. Her history’s pretty public, so that was what I was most confident about.”

Thiala shrugged. “Sorry, it’s out of my hands. Maybe some time in the future when things are less volatile I can help out more, but not now.”

The librarian finished checking out her books and handed them back. “Well, I’ll be here for quite a while, so just come knocking and I’ll be more than happy to hear whatever you’ve got to say.”

“Can do!” Thiala replied, taking her books and returning to her dorm. She greeted her roommates, and then retreated to her bedroom, where she placed all but one of the books on her desk and hopped on her bed with the remaining one. Then, she turned on some background music, made herself comfy, and began to read.

Fighterman481

That other thing I was going to have be from Carmen's perspective last chapter was training with Saria, and I feel this works a lot better than what I had planned.

It's iffy whether or not teaching Carmen how to fight is something that would make Anna and Jameson mad if done without their consent, but given a lot of what would be taught is stuff not intended for self-defense, it's plausible.

Frankly, Carmen doesn't really even need anything for self-defense. She's nigh-constantly got one of the dogs (save Fluffy, because he's far and away the weakest of them) with her, so the list of things that could seriously threaten her is very small.

Also a peek into Thiala's life in school now! Gabe and Veit were both people introduced way back when in the school arc, but were never given much focus. Gabe was one of the curious people who came to talk to Lilith when she was first introduced to her class (along with Raphi and Thiala), and Veit, as mentioned in the chapter, was one of Raphi's cronies.

I was also intending to visit Nashra again, but didn't have a good opportunity. First I was going to have Thiala go ask her about the books, when I realized there was probably just a library. Then, I was going to have her be the librarian for the day, when I realized there was probably just a dedicated librarian.

It's a shame, but I'm going to find a way to revisit her somehow.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now, next time we'll be getting a bit more into what exactly Thiala learned, so look forward to it!

And, as always, thanks for reading!