Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Routine

Thanks to this I started getting into a routine over the next month of waking up early, stopping by the hostess, delving to floor fifteen or sixteen, spending a good six or seven hours getting knocked around and killing any and all monsters that want to come at me. then I'd turn in the excess materials or stones i had to the guild to keep up appearances, head over to the hostess again to eat dinner, head to the Blue pharmacy to restock on potions and turn in my empty vials and finally head back to the church to spend the rest of the night working on the statue until bed time.-

It was a very rinse and repeat process but that was sort of the way this worked for most adventurers in truth. Contrary to what it may seem this life was actually very simple most days and rarely worth mentioning. Bell was having a less simple time of things over the last month however and I even had to step in at one point because things were escalating when they really didn't need to. As it turned out those people from the Soma familia that fucked around and found out kicked the proverbial hornets nest when they went missing.-

Aggression between our familia started blooming but the soma familia couldn't declare a war game even if they REALLY wanted to. Reason being Soma didn't give enough of a shit anymore to actually declare one. The god was never seen in denatus meetings and was for the most part removed from this situation entirely. His whole familia was basically acting solely under the orders of his captain and a mortal could only do so much based on the laws of this world.-

Hestia however wasn't the sort of person to put forth a war game unless the other side was a REALLY big issue and the soma familia was not. They were rich sure but they weren't strong by any means with most of their members being level two and the captain himself only being a low level three minleveler. For reference a minleveler is someone who gets a single stat to the minimum needed to level up(B rank) before they level up. After reaching level three the guy pretty much stopped adventuring and focused on lording over the Soma familia and as such was only at the start of level three.-

Even worse was that the guy had this habit of making anyone getting close to level three in the familia vanish to protect his spot as top dog. Yeah real nasty piece of work that one but hardy a threat to even Bell so i left the matter alone until the guy started hiring mercenary type adventurers to come after Bell. Don't get me wrong it was the right move on the guys part once he figured out no one in his familia could handle Bell or me. That said the Soma familias wealth was a VERY dangerous factor when applied to mercenary type adventurers.-

The wine they sold went for hundreds of thousands to up to a couple million valis a gallon jar depending on quality and they had been selling hundreds of jars a month for years now. Naturally this meant that the amount of money they can throw at mercenaries allows them to hire the dangerously powerful ones sitting at level four and five without sweating. So far the Soma captain had only had level threes harassing Bell but the precedent was there for him to get someone higher involved and so I stepped in.-

My solution was simply to have Hestia march into the Soma familias headquarters with Lili and Bell in tow before forcing soma to settle this matter personally. This was where thing took a turn for the worst as far as the captain of the familia went as soma gave the Pallum girl a test. She had to drink a cup of undiluted divine wine and while under it's effects choose to forsake more wine to join our familia. The captain thought she'd fail and choose more wine but to his horror the girl chose to leave the Soma familia to join ours.-

The reason this was to his horror was because this single seemingly simple act of not losing herself to the wine woke the wine god from his stupor. He regained his spark of passion and all but begged Lili to stay as he finally found a mortal who could enjoy his wine without losing themselves. She ended up joining us anyways while the god stripped the captain of his falna for his transgressions before taking control of the familia again. And that as they say was that as far as that whole fiasco was concerned and we even got allied to the Soma familia as a bonus.-

Beyond that it was business as usual in the Hestia familia with Bell and I both delving most days and if not working on improving some other facet of our abilities. In my case creating this statue was proving to be a worthy challenge in and of itself as I needed to be hyper aware of each and every minute detail to deliver my standard quality for my creations. I'm talking fur density, fur patterning, fur texture, fur length, skin texturing, veins, arteries, capillaries, muscle definition, cloth texture, realism, expression, the whole shebang. -

I went all out on this statue and towards the end of the month you could tell as if it wasn't obviously made of crystal the statue looked moments away from standing up and walking around. I thought about shading the entire thing in the colors the creature would actually have but I decided against it due to the fact that it would ruin the natural beauty of the crystal. Finally a scant three days before the end of the month I completed the statue and finally allowed Hestia, Bell and Lili to take in it's radiant splendor.-

As I discovered over the last month I REALLY didn't like people seeing my unfinished work and had been keeping everyone at bay until it was done.

"It's so pretty!" Hestia said with big bright eyes when she finally saw my creation.

"Lili thinks you might have gone overboard." the small Pallum girl said in shock as she examined the statue in closer detail.

"Maybe we can have one for our familia too! How about a minotaur since we both used one to level up!?" Bell suggested excitedly.

"Vetoed! Nope! Absolutely not! I have been getting knocked around by those steaks for the past month and I'll eat my shoes before creating a life-sized statue of one that'll stick around for longer than a day or two!" I shot down that idea immediately.