Chapter 51: That is no bird (1/2)

Ilea enjoyed the bath for half an hour before getting out again. She went and grabbed her canteen and checked if the centurion had dropped anything. Other than some remaining shrapnel quite far away from the crater she didn’t find anything.

‘These dungeons must be super shit for normal adventurers who go in for the treasure...’ she thought but smiled as she touched her necklace. ‘Dunno how many would’ve gotten that one...’

She put all her fifty stat points into Vitality. ‘I can take on a centurion now but that blast...’ she thought and got her backpack that she had left at the entrance. “Why do I still have that...” she thought as she removed the green ivy from her pack. Shrugging she put it back in. ‘It’s everywhere, can’t be something special...’

The only other way out of the room was a big archway similar to the one that had led to the teleportation gate. It looked rather nice to Ilea, although not as intricately decorated as the teleportation device itself. She touched it as she went through, looking back at the seemingly idyllic scene behind her, were it not for the crater and burnt trees left behind.

In the next hour, Ilea walked through several big hallways with dozens of rooms to each side. She checked every single one of them with her sphere but couldn’t find anything other than some old stone beds and other furniture.

‘Not residential though...’ she thought as she walked through another huge spartan looking room with dozens of beds. “Barracks!” she suddenly exclaimed loudly as it finally clicked. There were weird contraptions on the walls that would likely hold weapons, the furniture was aligned perfectly symmetrical to allow the same storage for everyone that had claimed one of these beds.

‘So I’m in the heart of the Taleen military here...’ she thought and continued on. A couple big rooms later, she came up on a massive hall with hundreds of tables. “So this is where you ate hmm?” she asked nobody. There were no dwarves or even skeletons remaining who could’ve answered the intruder to their ancient home.

Ilea walked through the eerily quiet room. The absence of gears and noisy pipes was immediately noticeable. “How long since the last meal was served here?” She picked up a mug that stood on one of the tables. There was nearly no dust on it and the greenish metal shined on splendidly, reflecting the light above.

“Guess now that I have space...where’s the kitchen?” she asked and made the mug vanish. Four more followed as she made her way towards the kitchen. The fact that she had beaten a centurion made Ilea more and more giddy as she jumped on top of a nearby table and continued her way like that.

Wings sprouted from her back as she flew upwards and twirled before landing on the counter where the dwarves must’ve gotten their meals from millenia past. “Kitchen utensils here I come!” sadly there wasn’t as much left as Ilea assumed. A nice set of kitchen knifes joined her collection though, as did two pots, one of them looking quite similar to a wok.

Finding nothing else interesting, Ilea moved on. Three more doors led away from the big dining hall and she intended to explore all of them. One inevitably led to a massive cleaning room, sadly without any clothes inside. “If I have to wash an army’s clothes I know where to go though. Seeing the guardians I bet these weird as fuck washing machines still work as well...” she touched one of them and wasn’t surprised to see some runes light up on the side of it.

Not knowing how to use them though, she moved on to the next door that led away from the big hall. Sadly from the cleaning room only small storage rooms were attached that held what Ilea thought to be the taleen equivalent to cleaning pods. ‘Is this whole world an ad as well?’ she thought as she thought of eating one. She didn’t though, although with her resistances and healing power it would’ve been quite the miracle pod to actually hurt her in any significant way.

The next big door that led away from the mess hall held something quite interesting. Ilea took out her notebook and put the word Armory next to the rune she had drawn before entering the first door to the left in the great hall’s first room. The words Wash room, treasury, teleportation room and some others were already on the page of her interpretations. They were certainly no perfect translation but Ilea thought that good language professors could already do quite a bit with that.

She opened her arms and smirked as she greeted the room before her. “I had hoped for clothes...but this...” before her stretched several hundred meters of carefully placed gear on racks and tables. Admittedly most of it was missing but the things that remained were still more than plenty to arm a small town with incredibly high quality gear.

Ilea walked up to the nearest rack and took one of the spears into her hand. [Taleen Spear – High Quality] she balanced it on her finger and then shrugged. “I have no idea what I’m doing.” she then twirled the spear, surprising her at her own grace and made it vanish into her necklace. Ilea ran around the room, trying out different weapons and wondering at the uses of some of the devices.

In the next twenty five minutes, Ilea had stocked her necklace with over a hundred weapons and was ready to move on to the piles of armor and clothes that were both strewn around on tables while others were carefully put onto mannequins without heads.

‘Most of this stuff sadly doesn’t fit me...’ she thought but still moved through the things and looked at most of it. To her disappointment there was nothing that wasn’t at least a little green but she did find some clothes and armors that actually fit her. Apparently not all the dwarves were built the same, at least some taller and thinner dwarves must’ve existed. Or they made armor for other people as well, Ilea didn’t know. In total she’d found five whole armor sets that fit her somewhat well. Nothing comparable to her drake armor but at least it didn’t fall down after she got it on and fastened it with enough straps.

The clothes were easier as she could cut through parts and make them fit a little better. She kept ten sets of clothes that she thought fit her the best.

She got on one set of clothes and one set of armor on top. Checking her movements she felt it wasn’t particularly limiting. Even the sets for apparently very tall and skinny dwarves had rather short arm and leg pieces, leaving quite a bit of space free where Ilea’s joints were. The clothes were quite similar to the legate’s, plain and greenish with a bit of shine to them. The armor on the other hand was a little darker, albeit still green.

It was made from the same metal as the guardians but after Ilea went over it with a piece of cloth it shined much more. She looked into a mirror that was placed nearby and admitted that she looked like quite the warrior. ‘Although the blue eyes certainly don’t fit...’

“I have just the thing for that though...” she said and walked to the pile of helmets she’d tried on and deemed fitting enough. Where the dwarves were orderly and identical in weapons and armor, they seemed to have quite a bit of diversity in headgear. At least to an extent.

The helmets were of course all made from the same green metal but some had horns on top while others had spikes that reached to the side and downwards. Ilea assumed that some of them once held feathers or other things, looking at the old straps and metal rings and attachments that adorned some of the helmets.

In the end Ilea chose ten different helmets. Four with horns, two with spikes, three with wing like attachments and one that didn’t have any attachments. All of them covered her face completely, leaving only small slits for her eyes. Her necklace showed 181/250 holding capacity at that point. ‘I’ll definitely sell a bunch of this, food is certainly preferable...’ she thought as she put on one of the helmets with horns. They went a little to the side and then forward in a slight upward angle.

Activating her wings, she found they grew outwards from her armor without any problems. She looked into the mirror again and found a quite dangerous looking Taleen warrior looking back at her. Summoning one of the spears, she held it up in one arm and smiled. ‘Should’ve gone for a heavy spear or hammer class with all that gear...’ she thought but didn’t really mean it.