//O8 - The Underpass
Many had waxed poetic of the sunrise seen from the inside of Oratorio’s wall, claiming all manner of things. A horrible thing, she’d heard it called, affirming that the city was something of a prison in their minds. The walls boxing everything in, paired with the opulence residing atop them, brought understandably unpleasant memories for some adventurers. Many who’d come from a city could sympathize with the sentiment and understand where it came from.
However, that sentiment was rare… Well, rare in Kamal, that is. Ananta couldn’t speak for other cities and towns, but considering much of Kamal’s population holds retired adventurers who were successful in their journey, there is another idea of that sunrise that is far more common. One that is something of an inverse of that last mentioned feeling.
That of invigoration. Of assurance. Another day, another delve to the depths. That single constant that always guaranteed a job. Unlike just about everywhere else, being an Adventurer in Oratorio meant that you always had a route to gain some kind of coin. That route being, of course, the Abyss. Outside, it was always something of a gamble. Unless you and whoever you worked with were good enough to get hired out of being an adventurer by a kingdom or something similar, a secure path towards a constant income was just out of the question.
The Abyss wasn’t completely that, if only because of its danger and the oversaturation of adventurers on the early floors, but it was close enough. It was the kind of thing that those who took the adventurer path for either what it represented or what it could bring loved. That was why they saw that sunrise in such a way.
But that was also why Ananta couldn’t share either perspective. Perhaps if she’d become an adventurer for those reasons, or perhaps if she’d spent more of her time focused on the past, she might’ve seen something similar to those who’d told such tales. Yet, she didn’t.
To her, it was just the start of the next day, and nothing else. Another sign of the unending passing of time. A sign that nothing would stop that slow ticking in her heart. A sign that a mother’s life was soon to be extinguished. She could hardly afford a moment of stalling.
Bright and early, much like many of the eager adventurers who walked the streets, Ananta’s feet met the road once again. As she walked, she took a moment to reflect on her last delve, and her sales thereafter. Against some surprising odds, Ananta herself had come out uninjured, if exhausted. Her first two encounters with monsters had gone well in her favor, certainly. Much of that ease could be attributed to the crossbow she’d been gifted, it was certainly carrying its weight.…
But past that, the third ambush could’ve very well been the end of her. If she hadn’t run into that party, Ananta knew she would’ve needed some strong luck to escape with her life. They’d done rather well, for what was, as she’d later learned, a mostly green party. They’d been forced to pull themselves into a fighting retreat, and it was far more effective than if she’d just been alone. She ended up sticking close by after that scare, unwilling to risk such a mob swarming her for a second time on her own. There were some couple more monsters to slay afterwards, but they never experienced a repeat of such proportions.
On that party, however… there was one that Ananta had felt a sense of familiarity towards. Perhaps that is the wrong word, but the moment Ananta laid eyes on the Kitsune, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d recognized something about her. It was not a feeling she’d experienced in regards to anyone else in the party or throughout the city, and Ananta knew with absolute certainty that she’d never met anyone that looked quite like the blonde Kitsune before.
She let that thought sit once again in her mind, pondering that feeling further as she walked. She couldn’t quite place it from her earlier adventures either, nor any time that she’d seen an old face for the first time in months. Her terribly infrequent visits to her family didn’t allow her to recall anything of the sort either… If not the sight of an old face, what could that feeling have been?
… Ananta shook the thought off for the time being. Exhausted as she was after returning from the abyss, she’d rather quickly bid farewell to sell her share as soon as she could. She’d neglected to ask after any inns or stable hay bales or… wherever the party had planned to stay. So attempts to find that Kitsune again would rely quite a bit on luck and time both. Neither of which she seemed to have much of, recently. How ironic.
Regardless, Ananta had made her sales of her spoils the previous day, and with her remaining supplies would need to pull together some extra coin to prepare herself for the delve to the Second Layer… there’s no way she’ll get close to the amount she really needs for a proper delve, Ananta knows, but anything that can get her down without outright death will have to be enough. The supplies for the delve, bolts and delving equipment, will likely be the majority of what she brings. Perhaps also some form of blade. Water, of course, is essential as well, as is food… but Ananta can bear to go hungry. Not entirely of course, she needs to be in some state to fight, but it’s an overall familiar pain she has dealt with in the past, and she can conquer it again.
As long as she has what she needs to reach the banshee, and put it down… all that would be left is to get out. Well- and verify if the treasure is real, but that’s more of a secondary concern in the grand scheme of things. So long as her aim is steady, and her bolts are prepared to deal with ghostly opponents such as a banshee… it should be doable. Maybe with some luck.
That said, it’s equally possible she’s underestimating the threat of a banshee, even with what little she knew. Perhaps she should ask around, so she knows what to pick up tomorrow? … Yes, that would be for the best, Ananta thought. There was no reason to not be absolutely sure she had at the very least the minimum required to take out the monster.
Alongside making sure she knew what to get, that is, if anyone knew at all… she was reconsidering her stance on going it alone in the Abyss, given the scare from the day before. If there was a party going down today to the Abyss’s First Floor, looking for some kind of ranger, and they had a fair split of the spoils… she’d likely go for it. Even if they were a green party, as long as they could use their weapons, Ananta would gladly take the extra help.
But if she didn’t find anyone, then… then she’d go it alone, for the second time.
Perhaps if she had some kind of shop or business, but Ananta had never been skilled in much of anything besides staying alive and getting granted glory that wasn’t her own.
But spiraling thoughts such as those were pointless. She knew her mark, the requisite tasks, and the rough danger…
For now, she could only focus on what was directly in front of her.
