This Ascent to Divinity is Lewder Than Expected

7.35 – Team Artificer

They found Fe inside a waiting room at the d'Celestin manor, fiddling her thumbs as she sat on a plush chair, visibly seeming out of place. Zoey sympathized. The d'Celestin estate was outrageously wealthy in the sort of way only the rulers of half the world could be. She had felt out of place her first few days too. Honestly, she still felt out of place, just not as much so.

It was great seeing the white-haired sheepgirl again in person rather than in a dream, so she couldn't help the smile that spread on her lips. Fe spotted her as she walked in, and she bounced up on her feet.

"Oh. The whole team came?"

"Only one new addition," Zoey said, leaning down to hug Fe, who returned it. "Fe, this is Astrid. Astrid, Fe."

"Greetings," Astrid grunted, nodding at the sheepgirl who gave a quick wave in response.

"Nice to meet you! That makes five, then, a full team. Good for you all."

Everyone exchanged their own hellos, with only Delta being familiar enough—or maybe comfortable enough—to also hug the sheepgirl. Rosalie gave some polite words, and Maddy smiled in her usual beamingly friendly way. The illusionist hadn't interacted with Fe much, Zoey was pretty sure. Maddy knew more about Fe from what everyone had said than any personal experiences.

"They got you a room? You all sorted out?" Zoey asked. "Sabina can show you around the workshops, I'm sure she'd love to."

"I only got here a bit ago," Fe said, waving both hands in front of her in embarrassment. "But yes, I have a room, which is extremely generous. I thought I was going to have to find my own accommodations. I can't thank you enough." She directed that more at Rosalie than anyone, which was fair, seeing how this was her family's estate.

"It's the least we could do for uprooting your whole life," Zoey said. Regardless of how this was as much an opportunity for Fe as a convenience for their team. "Mind if we take this somewhere more private, though? We've got a lot to talk about."

The truth of the matter was that if Enzo wanted to spy on them, he could, so there wasn't much point worrying about it. That said, they should at least take the sensitive topics to places more secure than a public waiting room. That was common sense.

Which meant Rosalie's bedroom, since it had the most thorough sound blocking spells, a necessity of their … er, nightly activities.

"Of course," Fe said. Her cheeks colored, no doubt inferring what sorts of 'sensitive topics' were on the docket.

During the walk through the expansive estate's hallways, Zoey questioned Fe on how her trip had gone, how she'd been, so on—the usual catching-up niceties. When their party of six arrived in Rosalie's bedroom, the chit-chat tapered off. Maddy plopped down on the bed and began kicking her feet, Delta joined her and cozied up, and Rosalie and Astrid remained standing, so Zoey did too. They were all facing Fe, which clearly flustered her, since she was being put on the spot. But she'd always been that funny mix of timid yet comfortable with it; she squirmed a bit but didn't wilt at the attention.

"So," Fe said. "Down to business. There's two things we need to address. The specifics of our professional arrangement, and whatever you five have picked up since we last saw each other."

"That's the general idea, yes," Rosalie said. "I'm under the impression Zoey told you we would like to employ you as our exclusive, but more importantly, discreet artificer?"

Fe bobbed her head seriously. She seemed to have digested the shocking announcement of Rosalie's fame in the day and a half since Zoey had told her of the d'Celestin's involvement, because she treated her the same as before.

"I'm flattered. I won't treat your trust lightly. Any dealings of ours will be kept completely confidential, I swear it." She shifted in place. "As long as the Lord d'Celestin himself doesn't come asking questions, of course." She winced. "You understand there's limits to keeping secrets?" She trailed off hopefully, looking at Zoey.

"We have an understanding with Enzo," Zoey said, and for some reason that made Fe's eyes widen. She realized a moment later that calling the world's most powerful man by his first name was, by many regards, inappropriate—as an understatement. Astrid had given her strange looks for it too. "He shouldn't come interrogating you. And if he does, just, uh, respectfully deflect, if you can? If he presses, you can answer. He has some idea of what's going on. I don't think he really wants to know the details."

"Shockingly, Princess's dad doesn't wanna hear about her magical buttplug," Delta snickered.

Fe twitched, then shot a wide-eyed look at Rosalie. Rosalie's face rapidly turned red.

"I'm not wearing it now," she protested. "And—it's hardly mine!" She glared at Delta before facing back to Fe, continuing to hastily defend herself. "We haven't even used those in the last two shards. They're from the first, essentially useless now. We'll probably smelt them down."

"Ah," Astrid said. "… buttplug? What is this word?"

Everyone turned to face the Harkvalen warrior. The tall, red-headed, well-built woman shifted in place at their attention.

"I don't know the word," she added redundantly, as if that'd been why they had faced her.

"It's a plug that goes up your butt," Delta cheerfully explained. "Wait, I think I have them on me, so I can show you." Her head tilted as she mentally rummaged through her inventory, and sure enough, a box appeared in her hands a second later.

Cracking it open and withdrawing the largest of the metal objects inside, she tossed it at Astrid, who caught it easily, though only to hold it away like it was made of some toxic material. Her cheeks turned pink as she eyed the object.

"Ah," she said. "This is … gear. To you." She turned the world's most dubious look on Zoey.

"I didn't choose my class," Zoey defended. "But yeah. We know, it's weird."

Though these days, the buttplugs seemed rather tame.

They'd told Astrid about the strange shards they ventured into and had mentioned the items that came from them too, but only in a general sense. Astrid didn't know the full arsenal of gear they had at their fingertips, not that they used most of it on a daily basis; most had quickly grown outdated. The downside to advancing so fast.

There were probably legions of lifetime delvers spread across the world who magically fell into a bad mood at the sheer ungratefulness of that thought, Zoey mused. Old gear running out of usefulness because they were outgrowing it so insanely fast was hardly a real downside.

"I think we're due a new one, soon," Delta said. "Any of you believe in that whole, make a wish before going into a shard, and it's more likely that specific item will show up?" She laughed. "Usually it's about hoping for a new bow or sword or something, but maybe if all five of us pray for a higher level buttplug, it'll happen."

"As usual, ignore her," Rosalie said, covering her face with one hand.

"Um," Fe said. "Right. What did you mean by smelt it down? Is the metal valuable?"

"Oh. Yeah, that's the big thing we need you to handle, as soon as you can." Dragging the relevant item out of her inventory, Zoey felt the weight of a small, black metal cauldron settle in her grip. It was plain looking, not that the ornateness of an item indicated its strength. "We want it inspected and cleared as soon as possible."

The danger of an item behaving differently from what its description implied was low, but the risk did exist. Up to being a 'cursed item', though they hadn't run into one of those yet; they were rare.

Nonetheless, it was good practice to have all items inspected before being used. Not just to minimize risk, but to ascertain more beneficial ways to utilize the magical artifact as well. There could be hidden functions.

The item smelter's description was simple:

Item Smelter: Melt magical items down into their most fundamental form, producing a potent reagent for permanent stat boosting potions.

"Fascinating," Fe murmured with complete earnestness. "Sabina must have been thrilled to see this."

"She was," Zoey said. "Unfortunately, it's been off limits, since we're pretty sure it's gonna be most effective with my brand of items, and there's a limited supply of testing with those."

"Like the buttplug," Delta said cheerfully.

Taking her girlfriend's advice, Zoey ignored the foxgirl. "We doubt it'll turn mundane items into anything useful. That'd be too strong. It's past time we liquefied all of our outdated items so we get some use out of them."

"Speaking of," Delta said. "Time to take inventory, right? We've been putting that off."

Zoey nodded.

It was, indeed, time to sort through the mess of items they'd collected over their various shard expeditions.