Memoirs 499 - Refreshing plunges (Patreon)

Scarlett headed towards the pool while studying the hut Pellin had disappeared into.

She wondered how long he would be gone. How long was ‘some time’ for an entity like an Idol? It hadn’t actually occurred to her until now that his sense of the concept might differ quite a bit from that of an ordinary mortal.

Regardless, she doubted she would find him even if she stuck her head inside the hut and looked. As with a lot of things in the Wandering Realm, she suspected the structure itself was more for show than anything else.

Putting that thought aside for the time being, Scarlett stopped at the edge of the pool. Strange, slightly surreal flowers ringed her feet, swaying gently despite the lack of wind and brushing their petals against her ankles as she peered into the water. Streams of silvery bubbles moved beneath the surface in smooth, coordinated currents, reminding her of schools of tiny fish.

So this was the Spring of First Morning.

Simply looking at it, Scarlett almost felt a sense of revitalisation spreading through her body.

How did something like this even come to be? Had Pellin been the one to create it? If so, why?

She supposed there were often questions like that when it came to fabled sites, wonders, and relics. How or why had they been created in the first place? Why had they simply been left behind, forgotten or abandoned?

Not that Scarlett actually cared too much.

But sometimes you were just curious.

Footsteps approached from behind as Iyana walked up to stand beside her. Scarlett looked over the woman again, her attention settling on the red covering much of the knight’s lower half.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

Iyana ran a gauntleted finger across one of her cuisses—the part covering her thigh—and traced a line through the blood that had already begun to thicken. She held the finger up for a moment, examining it, before a faint blue glow covered it in frost. The frozen blood flaked away. When she ran her hand across the rest of her legs, the same thing happened, removing the worst of the grime from her armour.

“This is not mine,” she said.

“I suspected as much,” Scarlett replied. “But did you sustain no injuries at all during that fight?”

Beyond the blood, there were a few scrapes and patches of dirt scattered across Iyana’s armour. Since she had been walking around without any obvious difficulty, Scarlett had assumed she was fine, but it still seemed worth asking when the woman was currently acting as her champion.

Iyana tapped a closed fist against her breastplate. “I sustained a few minor injuries. Likely a broken rib from when that creature fell on me. That’s all.”

Scarlett suppressed the urge to stare.

“A broken rib is not what most would consider minor.”

Not unless your name was Fynn.

How was the woman even moving around so normally?

“My armour has already healed the worst of it.” Iyana gave a small shrug. “Enough that the rest can be treated later by a healer without any risk of lasting injury, at least.”

“Is that so?” Scarlett considered her for a few seconds, then motioned towards the spring. “Would it not be better to have it healed here and now, however? You have the opportunity in front of you.”

Iyana eyed the water, her brow furrowing slightly at the strange silver currents moving through it.

“Is this really the Spring of First Morning? The same one from Sir Caelus’ tale?”

“I would presume so. There is only one way to know for certain.”

Scarlett stepped closer to the edge, where the flowers gave way to smooth white stone surrounding the pool. It looked a little like marble, but the moment she put her foot on it, a comfortable warmth spread through the sole of her boot.

“You’re planning to bathe…now?” Iyana asked.

“Naturally. I cannot speak for you, but I would prefer to get it done before Pellin returns. I am not entirely comfortable bathing in the presence of an ageless entity from the Wandering Realm who repeatedly calls me ‘fair lady’.”

Scarlett glanced back.

Iyana was giving her a long, undecided look.

“What? Are you surprised that I am willing to bathe in the open? Did you perhaps take me for a prude?”

Iyana didn’t answer.

Scarlett’s lips curved in a faint smile. “I am, in truth. At least partially. However, this is not an opportunity I can personally afford to waste. My body has been making its complaints known for some time now.”

She was convinced that, if she were still the same person she had been before arriving in this world, there was no chance she would have managed to push through the last few hours of chugging potions and keeping up with Iyana. That level of exhaustion would probably have been beyond her.

It was only everything she had gone through since then that had let her push herself this far.

It was funny, actually.

Scarlett couldn’t even count how many times she had run herself ragged and nearly into an early grave while training under Arlene back in Freymeadow. Compared to some of those days, this really wasn’t that bad.

She reached into her [Pouch of Holding] and pulled out a large white towel, then placed the pouch on the stone beside the water. With a thought, she activated her [Charm of Expeditious Change]. Her clothes disappeared, replaced by the towel wrapped tightly around her body from just below her shoulders to her ankles.

The warmth from the stone felt even nicer against her bare feet.

Still somewhat conscious of the woman standing behind her, Scarlett did her best to put that out of both sight and mind as she gingerly tested the water with one toe. It wasn’t cold at all—she honestly hated cold baths—and there was nothing immediately strange about the sensation, so she gradually lowered the rest of her foot in.

The spring wasn’t particularly large, and even at its deepest, it probably didn’t go much beyond two metres. Where Scarlett stood, a set of roughly formed steps descended into the water, and she used those to lower herself in while keeping the towel wrapped around her.

The further she submerged herself, the more the warmth from the white stone seemed to spread through the water as well. Except this time, it sank directly into her skin and travelled throughout her body, carrying with it a strange but deeply pleasant sensation, almost like thousands of tiny pinpricks moving through her from within.

Once the water reached her shoulders, Scarlett found a ledge along the side of the pool and sat down, leaning back as her dark-red hair spread out across the surface behind her.

She felt the change in her legs first. They had been complaining for most of the day, but that pain was already starting to fade, replaced by something that felt almost like every muscle was being massaged at once.

Scarlett imagined that was what a proper, professional massage might feel like.

The only massages she could remember getting when she was younger had been from her sister, and while Skyler had been very talented at most things physical, that girl had never really understood the meaning of the word ‘delicate’.

Scarlett closed her eyes for a few moments and simply let herself enjoy the sensation of her body recovering.

The game had made it clear that the Spring of First Morning possessed powerful healing properties, so she hadn’t really been worried that it wouldn’t work. Still, it was nice to have that confirmed.

Hopefully, it would do more than simply help her legs recover.

Eventually, she opened her eyes again and looked towards Iyana. A small chuckle escaped her when she realised the woman had turned partly away, apparently to give Scarlett some privacy.

“Are you not joining?” she asked.

Iyana glanced over, though her attention very deliberately remained on Scarlett’s face.

She didn’t look flustered or particularly uncomfortable, but it was still somewhat amusing to see her being this proper about the whole thing.

Scarlett did appreciate the sentiment, though.

“If a threat appears while we are both bathing, it will be harder for me to react,” Iyana said. “None of my current injuries are severe enough to interfere with my duties, and like I said, they can be healed later.”

“I can assure you that a threat is very unlikely to appear here,” Scarlett replied. “And healing your injuries is not the only reason to enter these waters. Do you not recall that, in the tale of Sir Caelus, they not only restored his battered body but also made him stronger?”

That had been a feature in the game as well. Bathing in the spring increased some of your stats, and it would be a waste not to take advantage of that.

Iyana’s mouth tightened slightly as she frowned.

“I don’t have a towel,” she eventually said.

“That is no issue at all.”

Scarlett rose from her ledge and waded back over to her [Pouch of Holding], pulling out another large towel before placing it on the stone in front of Iyana.

She made a point of keeping plenty of miscellaneous equipment in the pouch for situations exactly like this.

Well, maybe not exactly like this.

But this-adjacent.

Iyana looked down at the towel for several seconds as Scarlett returned to her spot.

Scarlett found herself watching the woman with growing amusement.

Could it be that Iyana was actually more of a prude than she was?

That wasn’t what Scarlett would have expected from a knight. Most knightly orders in the empire were mixed, and from what she understood, there wasn’t a knight alive—even among nobles—who hadn’t gone through years of miserable training, communal living, and whatever other ‘conditioning’ their seniors had decided was necessary while they were still squires. Scarlett would have assumed that normal concerns about bathing etiquette had been worn out of them long before they earned their spurs.

Not that she didn’t understand Iyana’s hesitation.

Scarlett herself would have been considerably less comfortable sitting here in only a towel if almost anyone else had been present. If it had been Rosa, for example, the jokes and knowing looks alone might have been enough to make Scarlett seriously reconsider whether the spring’s healing properties were worth the trouble.

Iyana, for some reason, had simply struck her as the sort of person who wouldn’t care either way.

Scarlett preferred that. It made the whole situation feel considerably more neutral.

Clearly, that first impression hadn’t been entirely accurate, but this was still manageable.

She watched Iyana for a little while longer, and when the woman still hadn’t moved, Scarlett turned her attention inward and tried to get a better sense of her own condition.

She smiled.

The Spring of First Morning worked fast.

Scarlett swept one hand through the water and cautiously reached for her mana. The channels inside her body, which had spent the last few days damaged and only slowly mending, strained in response. There was a slight stab of pain, but even that was already beginning to fade, and she could almost feel the spring repairing the fresh damage as quickly as she caused it.

At this rate, she might actually be back in proper shape before they left.

The surface of the pool began to ripple around her hand.

Steam rose from the water. Within seconds, it spread beyond the pool itself, thickening until a dense cloud hung over the surrounding area. Soon, Scarlett could barely make out more than the vague outline of Iyana standing on the other side.

“Is this better?”

Iyana stayed quiet for a few moments, but eventually Scarlett heard the woman start removing her armour. Metal clicked and shifted through the mist, followed by the softer sounds of cloth and leather, and after a couple of minutes the water stirred as Iyana stepped into the pool.

Scarlett leaned back against her ledge while the woman settled a short distance away, her dark hair only just visible through the steam.

“This is nice, no?” she asked.

“It is.”

“I do not believe I have bathed in a hot spring for…” Scarlett paused to think. “Well, over ten years at this point.”

She had visited a few when she was younger, usually on family vacations, but that really was a long time ago now.

“There are hot springs near Chillburg that the Captain is fond of,” Iyana said. “I have been to those a few times.”

“Ah, that is right. I had forgotten about those.”

Chillburg was located north in the empire, near the edge of the Dominating Mountains. Scarlett vaguely remembered that region having hot springs in the game. It might have been nice to visit one day, although she doubted she would have the opportunity any time soon.

The two of them fell into light conversation after that, mostly just enjoying the spring while exchanging the occasional anecdote. Scarlett eventually grew curious enough to ask how Iyana had ended up being taken in by the Captain of the Royal Guard, since she knew the man had more or less raised her as an adopted daughter.

In return, Iyana asked about how Scarlett had managed to slay the Dragon of Devastation, and later about her strange request before the emperor to acknowledge Arlene, a woman who had been branded a traitor and criminal by the empire, as a member of her house.

Iyana probably gave the more honest answers of the two, if you counted everything Scarlett carefully chose to omit, but Scarlett still found herself sharing more than she thought she would have.

Maybe it was the atmosphere.

When Scarlett felt the spring had probably done all it could, they climbed out. She would happily have stayed in the water longer, but she wasn’t particularly keen to still be half-dressed when Pellin returned.

The moment Scarlett stepped onto the warm white stone, her hydrokinesis made short work of the water clinging to her skin and hair. With another thought, the [Charm of Expeditious Change] returned her clothes as well.

She was very satisfied to confirm that there was no pain or anything involved with using her magic this time. It really felt as if the waters had healed her entirely, which was genuinely amazing considering it wasn’t the sort of damage that a normal healer could affect.

Scarlett offered to dry Iyana off in the same way, but the woman declined, so Scarlett simply pulled out another towel for her and left the mist hanging around the pool while she went to take a closer look at Pellin’s hut.

A few minutes later, Iyana joined her, once again clad in full plate. Her still-damp hair had been pulled into a rough braid that lay against the back of her armour.

“What now?” the woman asked.

“We wait some more,” Scarlett replied. “There is little else we can do. Although…”

She reached into her pouch again and pulled out several waterskins. After emptying each of them onto the ground, she pointed towards the pool. With a snap of her fingers, the lingering steam gathered together and condensed into a small sphere of water, joined a moment later by a thin stream that rose directly from the spring. Once the sphere had grown to roughly a metre across, Scarlett floated it over and began filling the waterskins one by one.

Unfortunately, one of the few things she didn’t have tucked away in her [Pouch of Holding] was a collection of large containers, and the pouch itself couldn’t store loose water. She had tested that many months ago without success.

Still, she had enough waterskins to hold a few dozen litres, and after some thought, she remembered an old chest she had picked up during a dungeon run and never gotten around to removing. It wasn’t completely watertight, but it seemed sealed well enough that she could use it to hold quite a bit more for the time being.

It was a little regrettable that she would probably have to give some of the water to Iyana since she had promised the woman a ‘cut’, but this would still leave Scarlett with enough to experiment with later.

While they continued waiting, Scarlett also took the opportunity to stretch and get a better sense of her body’s current condition. It became clear pretty quickly that there really weren’t any lingering injuries left. In fact, she felt better than she had in quite some time.

Who knew? Maybe she could even run a marathon right now.

[Mana: 23102/23679]

Scarlett’s eyes widened slightly when the system window appeared.

That was noticeably more than she’d had this morning.

It used to be that her [Depraved Solitude’s Choker] made up the vast majority of her mana reserve. After upgrading her [Third-rate Mana Veins] to [Second-rate Mana Veins] with the Stillwork of Shattered Glass, she had managed to shift that balance until the item accounted for only about half of her total mana.

Now, though, in the span of a single day, her reserve had increased by almost three thousand more.

As absurdly powerful as the Stillwork could be if you had the time to use it properly—as Jahror, who taught it to Scarlett, had displayed—that was almost equivalent to three months of steady improvement.

Scarlett somehow doubted she could simply sit down in the spring again and receive the same benefit a second time, but this was still an excellent bonus. The more interesting question was whether the water would retain any of those properties once removed from the spring. Could she offer Rosa, Evelyne, and the others something similar if they bathed in what she brought back?

Just as she was thinking that, she heard a noise from inside the hut.

She stooped slightly to peer through the entrance—which was sized more for Pellin than either of them—but couldn’t see anything inside. When she straightened again, though, the Idol suddenly appeared in the opening, dragging something behind him.

Scarlett stepped back as Pellin hauled out a sack made from broad leaves and scraps of half-frayed cloth sewn together in no particular pattern. Then he grabbed the walking stick leaning against the hut and slammed its end into the ground.

“Ladieees, fair and strong! Indeed, I am back! You are bathed? Good! Brilliant! Oustaaanding! Now, rewards and awards!”

Pellin opened the sack and reached inside, first pulling out a sword.

It was long and narrow, with a tapered blade and an unusual crossguard shaped almost like an X. The metal itself was nearly white, with faint lines running through it like veins trapped beneath ice, while the grip was wrapped in red-scaled leather and the pommel had been fashioned into the head of a fox.

“Champiiiiion, for you! Exquisite and impeccable, suitable for yooooouuu.”

He held it out towards Iyana, who studied the sword for a few seconds.

“I already have a sword,” she said, resting one hand on the pommel of the weapon at her side.

“Ah, but this is Winter’s Vulpine!” Pellin pushed the sword a little closer, almost insistently. “Onceeeee wielded by Lady Meriel of the Nine Snows! Lost three fingers, two husbands, and one entire castle, but never a duel! Hahaha!”

[Winter’s Vulpine (Legendary)]{A blade carried by a swordswoman who claimed winter favoured those too stubborn to freeze. Its edge remembers every cold victory}

Scarlett’s brow rose slightly.

“I would recommend that you accept it, Dame Iyana.”

A Legendary-tier sword wasn’t something you just found lying around. Scarlett didn’t recognise this one from the game, which suggested Pellin could adjust the reward depending on the challenger, but it looked powerful enough. More importantly, it really did look especially well suited to Iyana.

The knight glanced at Scarlett, then back at Pellin. Finally, she accepted the sword and held it in both hands as she examined the blade.

She gave it one testing swing.

A glittering arc of snow followed the motion before dissolving into the air.

Pellin nodded to himself, apparently satisfied. Then he turned towards Scarlett and reached into the sack again.

This time, he pulled out an instrument carved from richly red-tinted wood. Fine doodles and tiny scenes had been etched into nearly every groove and open stretch of its body — little roads, dancing figures, stars, animals, towers, and dozens of other images that seemed to blend into one another the longer Scarlett looked.

She recognised the type of instrument immediately, of course.

A klert.

Unlike the ones Scarlett knew Rosa to use, this one had an intricate lid of some black, glassy material covering its keys. Pellin flipped it open, revealing keys made from translucent crystal. When he pressed one, light stirred inside it like a cluster of tiny stars.

The melody strings were probably the strangest, since they were thin enough to almost disappear entirely when viewed from the wrong angle, and each one gave off a faint shimmer whenever the instrument moved.

It was a genuine masterpiece.

There was only one thing missing.

The crank.

Scarlett reached into her [Pouch of Holding] and pulled out the [Crank of the Teller’s Tune (Rare)] she had bought from Pellin earlier. There was a small socket at the bottom of the klert that matched it perfectly.

She fitted the crank into place.

A soft note sounded through the clearing.

[Crossroads Canticle (Legendary)]{A klert made for songs that have never been heard and roads that have never been walked. It favours those with a story worth telling}

Scarlett accepted the klert from Pellin and turned it over in her hands with a faint smile.

This would make for a decent gift to Rosa. She’d remembered that this dungeon was where you could obtain one of the best bard items in the game if you played your cards right, so it was good to see that part had worked out.

Although Scarlett would need a convincing excuse for why she was giving Rosa something like this without letting the woman’s ego grow even larger than it already was.

For now, she carefully put the klert into her [Pouch of Holding]. It was about as large an object as she could fit through the opening without trouble.

She looked back at Pellin.

“What more do you have?”

She would have received the klert for completing the challenge regardless of whether she had made the wager. Scarlett wasn’t sure about Iyana’s sword, but that had clearly been meant for the knight anyway.

What came next should be what Scarlett had actually earned by beating Pellin.

The Idol looked at her, then down at the sack. He didn’t reach inside again, though.

“You would not renege on your word, would you?” Scarlett asked.

His dark eyes snapped back to her. “Me? Neeeever! Reliable, dependable, responsiiiible! That is me!”

“Then what more do you have for me?”

Pellin’s strange face scrunched together. He raised one gold-capped finger. “Befooore you receive bounty, I would like to aaaaask a favour!”

Scarlett frowned. “That is not normally how arrangements such as these work.”

“Ah, but yooooou can change deal! It’s admissible if you do it!”

Her frown deepened. “What do you want?”

Pellin spread all of his fingers, then closed them into an excited fist. “Help me meeeeet that bard!”