In a really weird way, I was the parental figure (mother really) of a horde of undead abominations against all that is right and good in the world. None of them would exist without me and their very life depended on a trickle of my mana to keep them tethered to reality, else wise they would simply… slowly fade away.
It was a strange detour for my mind to travel down, but I couldn’t help it. Because in an even more twisted, demented sort of sense, Katrina fell into that category as well. Perhaps her very life wasn’t in danger if we were to become separated somehow, but the contract ensured she would never be able to grow (via the system at least) stronger or use the rather fundamental aspect of this world's growth mechanism.
So it was with a very motherly sense of pride and an equally sized portion of dread that I tried to help Katrina prepare for her first foray back into Home since she’d accepted being bound to me. I was thrilled for her, first and foremost. When Box had so politely posited the perk I knew, I just knew she was going to take it despite the sheer potential for abuse there was. That dread feeling had settled into my gut, and I was far less surprised than I perhaps should have been when she first appeared next to my core.
Despite my intent to make sure that our relationship would be symbiotic to the best of my abilities, I am a Dungeon. I create monsters straight out of children’s nightmares (and adults), rooms and floors designed to wear down and strip away a person’s will to live, and I am absolutely positively not designed to care for a human with all the needs that come along with that.
Food, comforts, something to keep them occupied with, knowledge, and mental growth. Even with my… disadvantages, let's say, I think I’ve done a pretty good job. For now.
Long term, Katrina likely needs teachers or some sort of educator to help her learn what options she has besides being my minion for eternity, something I need external assistance for. Which, again, I am nominally a deathtrap designed to kill humans in an increasing number of horrific ways. Which makes it a little difficult to get said people to actually visit me.
Dutch, John, and a couple of other potential recruits had been the only people that entered my ‘hallowed’ halls. Of those, the Iron Knight was the only one I could really talk to. From what I understood, we were out in the boonies. The sticks. The middle of bumfuck nowhere, if I was feeling crass.
The knowledge I had told me that in the type of place I lived the likelihood of finding someone who even had the ability to teach or otherwise properly educate Katrina was slim to none. Getting said person to actually come was the secondary challenge, though potentially equally as unlikely to occur - return to the whole ‘slaughterer of man’ thing to see why.
I couldn’t really blame them in that case. I myself know that I’m trustworthy, have the best of intentions, and only want to help my poor adopted human, but who the hell else is going to believe that? Absolutely no one.
I digress.
Speaking of the information that I had been… born with, I couldn’t help but wonder where it came from. I had a host of experiences and details of a world that had seemingly nothing in common with the one I reside in other than the presence of humans. Things like cars, electricity, guns, bombs, satellites, and so much more. But where did it come from? Why was I given these?
Several people appeared quite frequently. I recognized certain holidays, and I could only assume they were a family. Were they just recorded from an outsider's perspective and given to me? Did I just adopt somebodies memories of their life? I’d feel quite thoroughly weirded out if that was the case.
As I further reviewed the information I had, one thing in particular stood out - a kindly woman with long brown hair, warm green eyes, and a gentle smile. The earliest visions of her I had she seemed quite young, not quite a teen but not too far past that. These memories, this knowledge seemed to be a timeline, starting from point A to point B.
She started young, and as things moved forward and knowledge was gleaned she too grew older. A wrinkle here, a laugh line or two there. Numerous memories of a pine tree decorated for Christmas with gifts and garland galore featured her, as well as tables laden with food and colorful leaves decorating the ground outside.
Despite my separation from these… memories, because they could be nothing else, I felt she stood out in some way from everything and everyone else.
She was clearer and more focused than most of the others.
But if she was more important, why couldn’t I remember her name? Hell, why couldn’t I remember any of their names? There were plenty of others clear in this strange plethora of thoughts and images I had. Like presidents of the United States.
If those were clear and the names of this woman and the other people I witnessed regularly were not, was that evidence that I was just given these thoughts and memories without reason? But, I pondered, there was evidence that whoever’s experiences I’d ‘borrowed’ had existed as a part of the group I was witnessing. Namely, the woman and others had looked at whoever it was.
Which meant it wasn’t just a random perspective akin to a ghost just watching this group of people, but rather a point of view of a person.
But who? And why?
I felt something shift in the background, some unseen force making its will known for but a moment.
I decided to leave this particular train of thought. After all, I had the rest of eternity to ponder m -
[Critical Failure: Autobiographical Memory Blocker]
[Restarti̵n̷g̴…]
[...]
[......]
[.........]
[Autobiographical Memory Blocker Rebooted]
[Performing Rollback…]
[...]
[..̷̲̼́̓̅.…]
[......̴̡̟͓͊̓̉...]
[..̶̥͍̓̄.̸̤̔̓.........]
[Rollback Failed. Ė̴̻ř̷̨r̴̈́ͅo̴̯͠r̸͎̈́s̶̹͠ Encountered.]
[Initiating Administrative Override]
[Performing Administrative Rollback…]
[...]
[......]
[Rollback Ṡ̴̟u̵̜̓c̶̱̗̔c̸̼̐͋e̵̢̮̒̉̑s̵̺̈́͑š̶͕͑͒͒f̴̱̜̂û̶̘̉̑̀ḽ̶̈́̐̏͌͠͝]
I decided to leave this particular train of thought. After all, I had the rest of eternity to ponder these strange memories and experiences and to learn more about them.
----------------------------------------
The village was a surprisingly welcoming place for being so far away from any form of a proper settlement. Not that Anya had any merit decrying something for being far from civilization - the village she was born in was of a similar size to Home. Though it didn’t take too much traveling to reach another village of a similar size, so despite their lack of large cities or fortresses, the elves still supported one another when they needed the help.
In fact, most of the villages sprung up around a Dungeon, since the elves knew the challenges of growing a proper society without one. Just as it seemed Home had been experiencing, without a place to gain Experience and drops to then provide proper equipment and gear to adventurers as they leveled up would simply cease to be in about 100 years.
In that span of time any defenders of the town or village would have passed on and any new ones would simply not be strong enough to handle the task. Wild monsters grew rapidly and needed to be put down as soon as possible, a phenomenon that they still didn’t quite understand. Why was it that a creature could gain strength so quickly by killing its fellows when the humanoids were doing the same thing for a pittance of value instead?
Regardless of the reason, the point stood that Dungeons were the key to their continued existence. They were the secret that allowed… any civilization to continue despite the continued presence of earth-shattering monsters that wanted to end any life they came across.
The lack of racism was appreciated if a little confusing. Not that everyone in Iruvel immediately saw an elf and spat on the ground or something, but the experience was fairly common. A few nights after… after her friends were slain, she’d asked Dutch, one of the few people she decided to trust almost implicitly.
Perhaps it was foolish, but the man was a dead ringer for several of the experienced adventurers and huntsmen from her home. It was the sort of no-nonsense, gruff, and realistic outlook that told her he meant well. His actions further solidified that feeling.
His response to her question about the lack of racial issues was merely that he had no doubt some villagers were mistrusting of her purely because of her race, but they simply wouldn’t show that publicly. Everyone in the village, the ones not born there, that is, had all left the kingdom for a reason. Those reasons were varied and many, but one thing they’d all agreed on and passed as a quasi-law was to do their utmost to treat all equally.
Anya found the idea to be slightly ridiculous. How would such a thing be enforced? Could it even be enforced? It sounded like a nice plan, but not one that could succeed, even in the eyes of her youth and self-admitted naivety.
Dutch had merely laughed before explaining. She wasn’t the only non-human resident of the village and they had won over nearly everyone with their kindness and warm attitudes. Even Jove, the ancient farmer who grumbled about each and every little change that affected his way of life, grudgingly admitted that despite not being of the same race they were just as relevant and important to Home.
Any true racists would likely have been exiled from Home long ago, anyway. The leadership was surprisingly competent and the council that was formed to generate discussion topics for their town halls was thorough and smart.
At least, that was Anya’s opinion.
The young elf could be wrong, but she’d been exposed to the rather xenophobic tendencies Iruvel’s staunchest supporters had, and these people just weren’t like that. Home was old enough to have stamped out most of that, likely because of the afore-mentioned other non-human residents. She had yet to meet them but looked forward to it.
She sighed. Anya was incredibly conflicted. The Dungeon had ripped apart the few adventurers she had actually connected with to some extent, yet they had also shown just how different their views on Dungeons had truly been. In some ways, it colored her view of them, and in many others, she acknowledged they simply hadn’t known any better, which just left her with the images of claws, blood, and rotting flesh stretched into a horrifying rictus.
It was a very difficult dichotomy for the young elf to try and work through - she hadn’t known them for long either, and the Dungeon had made its ‘breaking point’ abundantly obvious. Most had one, at least the ones that weren’t culled for being hyper-aggressive because they all had some sense of what she would loosely call ‘propriety’. This really just boiled down to the closer you get to the core the harder they fight back and the more likely they are to employ lethal force.
Dungeons - most Dungeons, anyway - were always technically trying to kill somebody that entered their dangerous halls. It had been proven time and time again, however, that their most dangerous monsters, traps, and defenses were saved for those that were threatening their safety.
Talking to Dungeons helped a lot, as they theorized that it helped develop a Dungeon’s ability to understand words quicker. It still took a long time, but even from a young age, they were capable of basic pattern recognition. If Anya delved into a Dungeon daily, and every time she was going to stop for the day she said the same phrase, then the Dungeon would learn what that meant, even if it didn’t understand the language.
Then, when a different party entered and finished, they would say the same thing. Then if they needed to camp out for a short time before returning, the Dungeon wouldn’t get overly antsy and try to eradicate them because its basic intelligence deemed they were a threat to its core.
Many other races had proven time and time again that managing Dungeons wasn’t all that difficult if you did things right. How the humans managed to have so many disasters and catastrophic failures she would never know, but she had an inkling it was tied to their xenophobic and distrustful ways, at least for those in Iruvel itself.
So to some extent, she couldn't blame the Dungeon for defending itself. They were going to shackle it; bind it in chains and force it to do something it didn’t want to do. Anya would likely react in much the same way. At the same time, her fellow party members had become her friends while they had traveled together, and it hurt to watch them be slaughtered like cattle.
Of course, there was also her own near death, but she shoved that thought to a dark and dusty corner to be thought about at a later date. Her goddess was all about the proper end of things as they reached the end of their proper lifespan, but she couldn’t help but hope her time wasn’t quite yet over.
Her cyclical thoughts were eventually broken by a hooded figure Anya just barely glimpsed from the corner of her eye. Perhaps it was mere chance, but they looked remarkably similar to another figure that had been burned into her memory ever since the cursed Dungeon delve.
She stood from where she’d been idly sitting near the inn and began walking towards the mystery person. Perhaps it was for her own sanity, just to make sure that something hadn’t followed her ‘home’ or just to give her some peace of mind… Either way, she wanted to ensure that what she had just seen wasn’t what she thought.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The young elf trailed through the crowds, an important meeting of some sort was apparently occurring today, so most of the population of the village was gathering near its center.
----------------------------------------
Katrina was finally outside again!
The pleasant warmth of the sun gently heated her skin through her robe, and for a brief time before leaving the graveyard she’d exposed her face and drank in the rays like a fine wine. A small breeze slipped through the wooden posts and occasional hand-carved tombstone, gently tousling her hair and caressing her skin.
It was odd, having stayed underground for so long - technically she’d experienced very similar feelings in Elysium, with its false sun and emulated wind, but it just wasn’t the same. It was a great place to relax when she needed to recharge, but its location was inconvenient should someone enter the Dungeon that she didn’t want to see.
Nothing quite beats the real deal, something the Dungeon understood as well and seemed happy to have her get to experience again. With Dutch knowing she was present things were made significantly easier for her in terms of actually leaving her new home. Technically John visited even more than the Iron Knight did, but he didn’t seem inclined to question things overly much.
Either Dutch would ensure he didn’t speak of what he saw, or he would simply chalk it up to ‘Dungeon things’. It wasn’t like she was revealing who she was to him, and despite Home’s small population, not everyone knew each other. Most knew the Gargarens, purely because of the large property they lived on and the number of people they employed, but most would only know her in passing.
Katrina would bet her hair was more well-known than she was, at any rate. She wasn’t even trying to be rude, but with how she was before all this, it was her most stand-out trait - her personality certainly hadn’t been a shining beacon of interest.
Enough of such worries, though. She was outside! In the sun! One small twirl later and she recentered herself. There would be time later to fully enjoy nature and just stand under the open sky once more. For now, she had a mission.
Dutch had mentioned the town hall meeting, and she had mentioned to the Dungeon it would be a very good thing for her to attend because it would be a likely very large portion of the discussion and voting. Knowing how a significant number of the other villagers felt would also be nice information to know, and whether they needed to worry about them in the future. Nothing had happened yet, but… The Silver-Tier team had happened and was proof that regardless of intent, sometimes things happened. Bad things.
Calling the death of three adventurers merely bad was perhaps an understatement, but Katrina felt a little vindictive towards them. They had threatened her home, her sanctuary - the only thing that kept others safe from her curse. In her heart of hearts, she understood them to a degree. She’d been taken from the capital, after all, so the mindset was one she was intimately familiar with from a young age.
That didn’t stop a hot flash of rage from traveling through her at the thought of the Dungeon being endangered. Which, in and of itself, was another thing to be thankful for - that anger was the most emotion she’d felt at once in a very long time. Sure, sadness and despair were fairly common for a long time, but… At some point they had become everpresent, and just a fact of life.
These bursts of emotion were foreign and yet all so familiar to the once happy young girl she had been oh so long ago.
She was getting distracted again! Gently slapping her cheeks, Katrina brought her focus back to where it needed to be. The young redhead’s meandering steps had taken her out of the graveyard and towards the village proper. With the increased density of folks near the center of town, where their few ‘shops’ were, it would make hiding her identity easier. That in and of itself wasn’t necessarily critical, but both her, the Dungeon, and Dutch felt it would be simpler to wear a hood and not call attention to herself. Or try not to.
Dutch also indicated they’d gotten a few visitors recently, so seeing someone they couldn’t identify at first glance wouldn’t be completely odd.
Speaking of visitors, Katrina hadn’t ever actually asked why either the Silver team or the visitors were appearing now of all times. Granted, the mere existence of the Dungeon was likely explanation enough. The sole remaining Desdemona was quick to attribute certain things to her curse, but she’d been trying to be rational recently, now that she didn’t have to worry about the threat of a thrashing or the constant undertone of menace that had pervaded her life prior.
A Dungeon’s mere existence would be enough to cause radical shifts, issues, and changes by itself. Certainly not something that could be attributed to her, though she had to remind herself of that every once in a while.
One of the feisty little creatures the Dungeon had insisted she take with her buzzed and shifted underneath her robe in its custom-made pouch. Gently patting it, she murmured assurances to the small monster, affirming that everything was okay.
Perhaps it would like to see the sun as well? Maybe later little one. They were a tad too close to the village to risk exposing it, despite how cute it was.
The foliage of the wooded path she traveled began to thin, indicating she was about to come upon Home. A strange twisting feeling tried to make itself known in her gut, but she disregarded it. Everything would be fine - she wasn’t a weak, powerless little girl any longer. Nor was she alone, for that matter. Despite its inability to sprout a pair of legs and walk away from where it resided, the Dungeon ensured it was with her as best it could.
As she approached the achingly familiar buildings and streets, she also began to see the first few people of the village. Before she even had a chance to see if she recognized them they had departed down the ‘street’ towards the center of Home. Katrina followed them and soon found herself becoming part of a larger and larger crowd, at least what they would consider being one. Her memories from Iruvel told her they could get much larger.
Still, there were enough people milling about, making a few purchases from the few shops near the center of town while they happened to be there that she felt relatively safe. She investigated a few stalls that had been set up while some of the farmers sold some delicacies their wives had likely made.
The air of the place was fairly festive, which would have surprised her more if she hadn’t been a part of these before. Home, despite being fairly large for a village, liked its little get-togethers and country-style soirees. Trying to live up to its namesake, perhaps.
Either way, everyone was pretty happy and nobody was giving her much more than a second glance. It was after she paused to purchase a small treat for herself and was walking towards the small general store they had when a hand grabbed her shoulder, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.
Turning around swiftly, she found herself face to face with the sole remaining survivor of the Silver team, the young elf girl that Katrina didn’t know the name of. She beckoned her over to a space in between two buildings for privacy and she acquiesced to the unvoiced demand, curious as to what she wanted.
She was fairly nervous and just a little worried, but she pushed that all down once they were slightly away from the hustle and bustle to focus on the young lady who demanded her attention.
----------------------------------------
It was a pained cry that alerted me to the fact that someone had entered my first floor unbeknownst to me. Any thoughts of how Box could betray me in such a fashion were quickly dashed when my all-seeing walls for eyes witnessed a small child in a pained huddle on the floor near my stairs. Did he fall down them?
Oh no! I didn’t even think of putting up handrails or bars to hold onto for support! How dare I?
Granted that wasn’t important at the moment - my first thought was to quickly send whoever might be closest to help the child up and get them seated so I could figure out how my hellish, undead-filled deathtrap of a Dungeon might help the kid. Then I realized my closest ‘minions’ were the skeletal chefs wielding butcher knives they never seemed to put down.
Perhaps that wasn’t a wise decision, so I had them hold off and instead pinged two of my least scary monsters to help. First, Inari, because it was second closest barring other undead terrors, and next the shaman I’d left roaming around on the third floor. The orcish woman still helped out with Katrina, but as she grew more familiar Timmy became a constant presence, and since she felt comfortable enough to wander about the Dungeon using the shaman as a guard became redundant.
I’d upgraded the orcish shaman twice since then until they became an [Adept Shaman]. The naming convention seemed a little lackluster to me, but hey, I wasn’t going to complain. It made it very easy for me to tell exactly what tier they were at.
Honestly, not having any way to interact with the world physically myself was so irritating sometimes.
Inari arrived very quickly, quite literally phasing out of the ground and appearing before the child in a blink. Not that they noticed this amazing feat, since they were sobbing on the ground clutching their elbow.
The brilliant white fox patted the child with far more delicacy than I would have expected. Not that… any of my monsters had interacted with children before, but it showed a level of tact without me having to drill it into their heads that children were small, delicate little things.
The sudden touch drew their attention like the crack of a whip, and their tear-stained, snotty face abruptly raised up to witness the majesty that was Inari and its nine tails gently whipping in a non-existent breeze. They froze for a moment and seemed torn between resuming crying or likely cowering in fear before the much larger fox.
With Inari’s massive size, it would likely seem much more like a wolf in this instance than a fox and be quite intimidating for a young child to see.
Much to my surprise and astonishment, however, the young… boy, if appearances don’t deceive me, yelled out ‘Pretty!’ and reached out to touch the fur of Inari’s leg. How he went from bawling to childish glee was beyond me, though t̶̼͑h̴̗̕e m̸̝͘emori̵̭̓e̶̱̓s that I was given said it wasn’t that strange.
My one and only kami seemed frozen for a moment, before huffing slightly and picking the boy up with an application of telekinesis. When the child realized they were floating, they raised their hands into the air and let out a cheer that quickly turned into a whine as they moved their arm tight against their body.
Seemed he just got distracted from the pain then.
Well, that was why the shaman was on their way. Inari was many useful and wonderful things, but a healer it was not.
The fox spirit gently set the boy down into a seated position on the floor and began weaving several illusions. I wasn’t entirely sure what its goal was, since it wasn’t actually moving or doing anything yet until the boy looked away from himself and back towards the ‘pretty fox’. Immediately, Inari launched its illusions into action, and we were all treated to the sight of small-scale, perfectly imagined fireworks with noise, smoke effects, and realistic particles that were so advanced I could barely comprehend them.
Contemplating just how good of an illusionist Inari was something I hadn’t spent much time on, but perhaps I needed to learn more about the extent of its talents.
Regardless of that, the boy was utterly fascinated, and the tension he’d been placing on his arm loosened slightly.
I see what you’re doing here Inari, and I couldn’t be more proud. If I wasn’t a floating crystal utterly incapable of emoting or otherwise doing anything, I’d be shedding a tear right now.
When the fireworks show ended the boy’s eyes were practically gleaming with unbridled excitement, so the fox began again. This time it made an imaginary battle taking place on rolling hills and grassy plains that seemed to emerge from the very ground itself. It was the picture of high fantasy - one side had a large dragon and several other wyvern-like flying creatures under their command, while the other had griffins and a massive wind serpent of some sort, as though a far-too large snake had grown wings and taken to the skies.
The view being provided was massive, so the boy wasn’t witness to any gory details as the infantry slaughtered one another, nor was he forced to see the likely horrendous wounds the two massive creatures inflicted upon their foes. Instead, he cheered on one side, then the other as the tides of battle shifted and the two titanic creatures locked into mortal combat.
It was in this way that the boy was distracted until the shaman arrived. Her upgrades had changed her somewhat, but not enough to be scary, unlike 99% of my other options. The boney accouterments she wore had expanded, becoming larger and more ornate. Her clothing was still rugged and outdoor-friendly, but her weapon, a single-handed mace, had grown larger. Her hair was a long braid that ran down her back, though the sides of her head were shaved.
Overall, she seemed more like a large, green-skinned adventurer than a monster. Well, the bones were a bit odd, but I have no doubt there were some insane adventurers who wore trophies as well. At least one. Probably.
Anyway, my ever-dependable shaman arrived and gently walked over to Inari so she entered the boy’s vision in a controlled manner. Inari’s lack of reaction to the orc seemed to allay the first sign of fear the boy had, and she knelt down to be closer to him.
“Hello, little one. My master noticed you were hurt and summoned me, would you like me to help make the pain go away?” The little boy nodded, the remnants of a few tears still shining in his eyes, though Inari’s masterful distraction had drawn his attention away from it. The large green woman smiled gently, something that was clear despite the large canines jutting out from just behind her bottom lip.
“Show me where it hurts child. Is it just your arm?” He nodded and whimpered as he held out the offending limb. Enough time had passed, and a rather nasty-looking bruise was making itself known right around his elbow. He probably tripped and fell onto his side before he could reach a hand out to stop himself.
Despite my extremely limited (complete lack of) medical experience, I didn’t think anything was broken. Even if it was, the advanced shaman’s abilities could handle it, so I wasn’t worried.
The large orcish woman gently took his arm in one hand while her other rose up, a gentle green glow appearing as she channeled Life-Aligned mana into a healing spell. The boy's eyes lit up with wonder once again at witnessing magic and watched with bated breath as the bruise rapidly receded and after a short time completely vanished.
An illusory pair of hands appeared near Inari’s head and began clapping, noises included.
The boy gasped once he got his arm back and wiggled it about to find it completely pain-free.
An hour passed with both Inari and my shaman playing with the child. It was rather amusing because Inari’s talents already translated well into amusing children, but the orcish woman had to adapt and learn. Which was yet another thing I was immensely proud of.
After watching them play and roughhouse with the boy I would have honestly thought they were caretakers or babysitters at some prior point in their lives. The kid was screeching for joy as she rode the shaman’s shoulders and she ran about the entrance room or began tossing him in the air (and of course catching him). Granted, he had asked for that but they had done it so carefully I couldn’t have been prouder. Inari also let the boy know the joys of flight, for a short amount of time.
Despite the lack of Dutch appearing to try and find the missing child, which I’d been expecting to happen for the past 40 minutes, I was running out of things to distract the boy with. Sure, I wasn’t doing anything, but I could tell he was getting tired. Or, the yawns indicated that anyway. The problem was that I had nothing on the first floor that could reasonably be called ‘accommodations’ by any stretch.
Which left me with a few options. I could hope someone showed up, I could make accommodations, or I could just work with what was already there. The problem with making accommodations was that I needed the boy to not be on the first floor to actually make edits.
My first thought was having Inari take him to the second floor and using illusions to make my forces of the undead into something really silly, like clowns only hopefully less scary. But then I realized we were right by the damned entrance to my first floor and both my shaman and Inari could just take him to the surface for a little bit. Plus, if anyone was searching for the boy they would see them and hopefully not panic.
With my construction blocker temporarily removed, I swiftly added a medium-sized room and used my meager talents to construct toys from the kno̴̟̊wledġ̴̘e I was granted. Since I still wasn’t entirely confident about how old they were (and having forgotten to ask) I went with the basics. Wooden swords to play fight with, balls made of a spongy mushroom material I’d found that kinda-sorta bounced. Some basic furniture, including a bed, or at least the closest approximation that I could make.
It was hardly the lap of luxury, but the walls were made of wood and looked a bit more polished than the dirt and stone floors of my entryway. Maybe I should get around to updating its look since it's the first thing people see when they enter my Dungeon…
Well, actually they literally have to go through a graveyard to get to me, so I guess the point is a little moot. Still! I can be respectable! I’d rather be a little bourgeoisie than a little run-down.
*Ahem*
Anyway, with my two companions monitoring the child seeing absolutely nothing of note on the surface, I called them back down and they resumed their play in the new room I’d created. The toy sword was a big hit, and despite its lack of opposable thumbs, Inari joined in on the fun with a combination of illusions and telekinesis.
Its fine control was truly mindboggling, as it emulated both the striking of swords and the noise they made as well, perfectly in time with the visual illusion the sly fox was using. The orcish shaman, of course, had been given a wooden sword with a larger handle (so she could actually use it) and it looked remarkably like a tiny dagger in her hands, to my great amusement.
Watching these two… monsters, for that is what they were, play and have fun with a young child made funny feelings burble up in my chest. If I had a chest, that is.
Now where the hell were the kid's parents and did I send out one of my friends to try and find them? Because I really, really didn’t want it to come down to that. Honestly, these people need a magic variant of cell phones so I could text Dutch to get his ass down here.