The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

Dariel nodded to my explanation. Denise was just happily standing beside me. We’ve had this conversation before, so she was enjoying watching them work through it. “It’d be good to test it. Do you know the conditions to have someone join you like Denise did?”

  “It’s not really something that can be easily tested… Denise joined me when she was determined to accompany me on my adventures and help me out no matter what. Our horse, Midnight, joined after Denise tamed him and he wanted to travel with her. The kind of resolution needed to join up would make it really bad if the person had to be dropped because they were too weak.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good point…” Dariel sighed, accepting my explanation.

  Lilith, on the other hand, seemed to have an idea, smiling suddenly. “What if you had one of my demons join you? There are several around your level of power, and your position as my Emissary would let you command them to join you or leave. That way we could at least test it out and find what method would be best.”

  Dariel brightened up at the suggestion, nodding quickly. “That could work. But oh.. he can’t travel with a demon in broad daylight, can he? That would make it impossible to keep a low profile..”

  “True.. But we can just test it in Hell at least with a weaker demon. If it goes well, then the demon will become stronger. If not, there is no loss. He’ll just be able to come back and resume his adventure without the demon either way.”

  “Yeah, I see.. that might do it. It’d be good to know either way. Just think, if foreigners have the ability to extend their training potential to others, they could become great generals in various armies.”

  “I know, right? But only if they devote themselves enough to receive the respect to have their soldiers follow him. Jin easily did that with the demons when he helped us out.”

  “Sadly, the warriors of my clan weren’t as impressed when he came in and declared that an act of war was a misunderstanding. There wouldn’t be any other elves from Vinehaven that would follow him like that.”

  Lilith puffs her chest out, as if that had been a declaration of victory for her. “Alright! It’s settled, we’ll have him train a lesser demon in hell, and see how it goes.”

  “Right, there’s no helping it.”

  At this point, I decided it would be best to step into the conversation. “Uh.. hello? Do I get a say in this? You guys know I’m still here, right?”

  The two of them smirked and looked at me. Lilith nodded her head slowly, her tail flicking back and forth behind her. “We know. We were just trying to come up with a good solution. You don’t mind, right..?” She lowered her head, pouting and making wide sad eyes at me.

  “....You know I’m weak against that look.. That is cheating.”

  Dariel smiled to Lilith, patting her back. “You must teach me to do that.”

  Lilith laughed, looking to the elf. “Men, they’re so easy to read.”

  “Still here.” I added when they went on like this again. It looked like I wasn’t going to get my say in this after all though, because they continued without me again.

  “How long should we have the training be?”

  “Well, they started in Rosenheim, right? That’s only a day or two from Vinehaven, and they arrived there almost a month ago. So their adventure shouldn’t have started very long ago.”

  “I see. Then, if we pair him up with a lesser demon, we should be able to see the results in a matter of days.” Lilith nodded, smiling happily as they made their plans for me. Denise was just laughing uncontrollably beside me, the little traitor.

  “...I’m not getting out of this, am I?”

  In response to my question, all three women shook their heads firmly. No, it appears I was not. “Fine.. alright, I give up. But we can’t let it take too long, right? I still want to get back to the trip I had planned.”

  Lilith nodded, once again displaying her tendency to eavesdrop on me. “The island you picked is about two days away. Well, I’ll have you train one of my demons for three days, and then take you directly to the island myself. That way you’ll only be one day late.”

  “I get it. So, how am I going to train a demon anyways? I’ve never trained anyone before. At anything.”

  “Hmm.. you want it to be a warrior, but you can’t do that yourself. Oh! What if you had Denise train them for you?” At Lilith’s suggestion, I turned and grinned at the previously quiet Denise, who suddenly looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

  “Uh.. m-me? Why? I’m barely any good with a sword myself..”

  “Krath praised you rather highly, you know. Fastest learner he ever saw. He even gave you two demon weapons, if I remember correctly?” Lilith smiled brightly to Denise.

  “Well.. yeah, but that was only because I gained abilities while Jin did! I can’t take any credit for that…”

  “How about we just stick with something I do know? I can teach about some magic. If whoever I teach advances quickly, we’ll know that I can extend the training potential. Otherwise, even if it fails it gives me an excuse to brush up on my studies.”

  Denise nodded frantically to that, pointing to me at the first chance to get out of being an instructor. “Yeah, that!”

  Lilith and Dariel thought it over for a bit, before nodding. Lilith said that it would have been best to test it on a warrior, but the answers should be close enough anyways. Meanwhile Dariel’s main concern was that I’d have a hard time teaching a subject that I’ve only spent two months learning myself. Both perfectly valid concerns, especially that last one. I had my doubts about it as well, but they had made up their minds.

  ...Women…

  Chapter 23

  When Lilith walked to the ship’s bow, she casually snapped her fingers. Beneath the water, those of us on the Unity could hear a dull roar, and then a black shape rose up. The water flowed from atop the black gate, which was easily taller and wider than the Unity itself. Etched in the black stone were images depicting various demons, two of which were larger than the others by far.

  Occupying over half of each side of the gate, two massive figures stood at attention, their arms stretched across to the handles of the gate. With the ship approaching, the muscled demons depicted seemed to flex their arms, grasping the handle and pulling it from within the gate itself. At the same time, the gate began opening away from us, a small current carrying us into a vast cavern.

  This was obviously Hell’s port, with the pitch black and blood red ships, the sea monsters swimming beneath the surface, and the various demons walking along the harbor. Lilith turned to smile to all of us. “Welcome to Hell. Please enjoy your stay again~.”

  Dariel shook her head with a smile. “I should be heading back. Jin, you mind?” I nodded, and cancelled the summoning spell so that she could walk back through the white portal.

  “So, this is your port, huh? Well, we might as well not waste any time. Going by your enthusiasm to get this underway, you already thought of someone for me to teach, right?”

  Lilith nodded happily. “Yup! Well, not someone specific. I was going to grab one of the new applicants to our training program. I think they’d rather enjoy getting the chance to do thirty years worth of training in just two days~.”

  “Thirty… years… just how high of expectations do you have for me, woman!?” I shouted out despite myself, hanging my head from helplessness. Nevermind thirty, just ten years of training would be too much to ask of me in this short amount of time.

  “No, no, you misunderstand. At times of leisure like this, we train our members particularly slow so that they can spend a lot of their time enjoying themselves. It’s not a problem given our lifespan, so typically it takes at least fifty years to get to where you are now for us. Of course, if we were at war it would be different, but with the treaty and nobody else wanting to bother us we don’t have to worry so much.”

  “I see.. well, that does make me feel a bit better. Just make sure they know what they’re in for, okay?” Lilith nodded to me and jumped off the front of
the ship with enough force to rock the entire deck, taking a few seconds to settle down. “Seriously… that woman…”

  “I think she’s fun.” Denise giggled next to me.

  “Yeah, fun. But she’s also completely crazy.”

  “Oh, without a doubt!” That got my companion laughing a bit, holding her sides as I made a rope spring from the ship to tie it to the harbor. Then the two of us disembarked as well, taking our time heading back to the city proper.

  On the way we came across many varieties of demons that greeted us happily, ranging from the childlike imps to the towering draco-demons with red scales and giant wings. Oddly, there weren’t really any children around, the closest thing being the imps. That had me wondering on the life cycle of a demon. Maybe they just grew up very quickly? I’d have to ask Lilith about that another time.

  When we finally arrived inside the city after being greeted by over a dozen demons personally, including General Krath, I heard the ping of the message spell being cast. Naturally, there were only two possibilities. Either Kevin used one of my coins already or it was Lilith.

  “Yes?” I asked as the message connected.

  “Where did you guys go? I thought you were right behind me!” Lilith pouted into the call, obviously not having realized just how fast she had moved.

  “Nevermind right behind you, we couldn’t even see which direction you ran off to!”

  “Oops.. I guess I was a bit excited, huh?” She went from pouting to giggling in just a few short seconds, causing me to shake my head and ask myself what I did to deserve this.

  “Nevermind that, where are you?”

  “I’m right past the seventh spire of torment in the district of wrath. Oh, nevermind, I’ll just grab you. Hang on!”

  “Wait, wha--!” I never got to finish what I was saying because it felt like my body was on fire, being torn apart and put back together time and again within the span of a single moment. So this is what Hell is really like. Or is it just this insane queen!?

  When the pain finally lessened to something akin to a dull roar, I opened my eyes to find Lilith standing in front of me, smiling innocently. “Never… again… please…”

  Her face immediately showed a frown, looking down to me. “What’s wrong? I didn’t mess it up, did I? Oh.. maybe that spell doesn’t quite work the same for non-demons… it’s been too long since anyone else was here so I didn’t know. I’m sorry!” She bowed down pitifully in front of me, and I sighed, having no choice but to forgive her. Regardless of her position as the queen of an entire realm, she was a beautiful woman prostrating herself before me to apologize. You just can’t stay mad at that.

  “..It’s alright… just don’t do it again, okay? That hurt like… well, like Hell.”

  “I’m sorry! It doesn’t really feel bad for demons, so I thought, with your position, it might work for you too? I won’t do it again, promise.”

  “I understand. So, where’s this aspiring young mind I am going to torment for the next three days?” I asked, looking around. Besides, myself, Denise--who was still panting for breath on the floor--, and Lilith, the only one in the immediate area was a small imp standing behind Lilith. Getting a better look at him, he was even thinner than most of the usual imps I had seen so far, the wings on his back barely formed, and he was clinging to Lilith’s leg while trembling a bit.

  “Oh, right here!” She smiled, pointing down to the frail looking imp. “I thought, it’d be best to start from the very bottom, that way we could really see the growth rate.”

  “Alright.. well… is this guy even willing? He looks scared of me.” I tried to smile down to the imp, but he just hid himself behind Lilith.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, he’ll be fine once he gets to know you~. Or… oh, oops, silly me.” She spoke something in a near-guttural language, and I vaguely remembered it from the first time we met her. “Sorry, he doesn’t speak human yet.”

  “Ahh, I see. Also, there is one more matter. Not so much important, but it might help a bit.” Lilith nodded for me to continue, so I did so. “Do you possess a spell that lets you share the sight of another? Basically to let you see what I see?”

  “Well, sure. That’s not something too advanced, so I could use it.”

  “Would you mind doing so real quick? I want to test something.”

  “Alright. Just hold on, this may sting a bit.” I braced myself for more mind-shattering pain, going by her typical habit of understating things. To my pleasant surprise, all I felt was a minor irritation from my right eye that cleared up after a second. “Wow this feels weird. Okay, go ahead.”

  I looked up to her, and saw that her right eye looked a lot like mine. Also, I saw through her eyes that my right eye looked like hers. Nodding, I pulled up my character information window. “Can you see this?”

  Name: Jin

  Race: Human

  Title: Mage, Emissary of the Underworld, Ritualist, Arcane Savant

  Fame: 1420

  Level: 124

  Gild: ???

  Soul: 498

  Health: 275

  Mana: 2370+600

  Strength: 20

  Agility: 40

  Endurance: 55

  Wisdom: 200+30

  Intelligence: 394+20

  Luck: 10

  Attack: 10 + 10

  Defense: 10 + 33.75

  Talents: Magical Talent 23(+2), Magical Knowledge 25(+2), Navigation 5, Nature Magic 7(+1), Summoning Magic 11(+1), Runescript 4, Discovery 2, Divination 1(+1), Enchanting 7(+1), Infernal Magic 20(+1), Arcane Marksman 8(+1), Sailing 11

  Title Bonuses: +2 Int/Wis, +400 Mana, +2 Magical Talent/Knowledge, +50% Mana Recovery

  Equipment bonuses: +20 Int/Wis, +500 Mana, +10 Wis, +50% Mana Recovery, Elemental Resistance +5%, Magic xp gain 50%, Magic Talents +1

  Lilith didn’t respond for a second, so I thought maybe she hadn’t seen it after all. But my worries were dispelled when I heard an “oooh” from her. “So that’s what you meant! Wow, your strength is pretty low. And your luck! It’s a wonder you can walk in a straight line!” She grinned broadly, and I shook my head, dismissing the window. “You had pretty good intelligence though, as I expected from you!”

  “Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to make sure this would work. We can use this so that the two of us can check the progress as he gains power. If something unexpected happens, this will also help us deal with it.”

  “I get it.” Lilith nods happily, while Denise finally manages to work herself to her feet. Looking down to the imp at her feet she smiles. “Levy, say hello to Jin. He’ll be the one training you for the next few days.”

  Levy, a surprisingly cute name for a demon, nodded shyly. “H-hi… I’m Levy. Please take care of me..”

  “Nice to meet you Levy. I’m going to try to teach you some magic. Is that alright?” When she nodded quickly, another window popped up. Since Lilith hadn’t dismissed the spell, she saw it as well.

  Mentor mode has been activated

  While in Mentor mode, your registered Student(s) will gain experience at an increased rate while in your presence until their level is suitable to enter your party. You may dismiss a Student at any time, at which point the increased growth rate will return to normal. The growth rate of the Student will be further increased for any Talents or Skills that the Mentor possesses, enabling them to more easily pass on their abilities.

  Imp Levy has been registered as a Student.

  Name: Levy

  Race: Demon(Imp)

  Title: None

  Fame: -50