Chapter 43: The Ideal Female Form

I recoiled from my listening.

That was…

Ugh.

I was loath to say it. But those repetitive low beats were what some people would consider… ‘music.’ The kind of music that some teenage dirtbag would pump through the blown out speakers of their daddy’s lowrider Chevy impala. This was not music for civilized folks. This was noise that ne'er–do–wells subjected others to because they needed to broadcast how much they were overcompensating.

This was basically hip-hop on a massive, industrial scale.

Lord have mercy.

I had a bad feeling about this. Like waking up to ear rupturing rap music in the middle of the night, being played from several blocks away. One just knew it was only a matter of time until the neighborhood went to Hell in a hand-basket.

Thankfully, judging by how faint it was, whatever or whoever was making that racket was miles away.

I didn’t need to listen in anymore. Frankly, I did not ever want to. But I didn’t want to be caught unawares with whatever was making that noise. What if there were caves near my Dungeon and I didn’t know? I needed vision.

I decided to drop my productive plans for the night.

It was time to snoop. Like any good neighborhood watch citizen would do.

I started up a fresh batch of gold, sat my incorporeal butt down in the chair next to the hearth, pulled out my Leyline Knitting needles, and then set to work.

While knitting a normal, non-magical blanket could take weeks–if not months sometimes, depending on the skill level of the fiber artist–Leyline Knitting was a much quicker process. The System Skill streamlined the process to be much faster and cover a much wider area.

On the other hand, even with magic, Stitching together an acre of soil onto my Dungeon could be a glacial process. Casting a wide Leyline Knitted blanket over the entire mountain would not be a reasonable approach. I had to be smart about how I went snooping around. I couldn’t just knock on every door until I found the culprit. I had to peep through the blinds, patiently watching until something happened.

I didn’t need to see everything. I just needed to see enough.

I opted for a sort of ‘strip mining’ approach by Stitching together ‘scarves’ out of Leylines, then dangling them vertically below the B2 floor at equidistant intervals. All I had to do was be patient until something interesting happened, then extend those Stitches even further down. It felt like fishing for trouble, but I knew this method would attract less attention than spreading out horizontally over the surface.

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If in the future my Dungeon floors continued to go to deeper levels, all the better. I would already have the groundwork set and could combine all my scarves into a nice warm blanket to see everything in between.

The problem was that since I was already aware of the constant noise, it was hard to not shut it out. Like hearing a rat scratching in the walls, one doesn’t simply put vermin out of mind. Sadly, the Bone Spur Gramophone was still out of juice for a few hours. So to avoid assailing my eardrums with auditory garbage, I instead focused on the raging storm outside. And despite the thunderous downpour, it was still a delightfully cozy ambience. A soothing balm for the soul. Nature’s music. Before the first mic ever dropped, our ancestors had relaxed to the rhythms of rain for millennia.

Once I was settled in, the hours sped by.

Funny how that happens. It reminded me of when I used to work third shift in my twenties. Sometimes the nights dragged on, exhaustion encroached, and a quick nap looked mighty tempting. Other nights the hours flew by. I wouldn't know what time it was until the highway began to roar like a river, surging with commuters, and the morning birds began their songs.

In seemingly no time at all, I was briefly jolted out of my groove by a lovely message informing me I was on the right track.

After that, my progress went marginally faster.

Halfway through the night I had to pause my Leyline Knitting when the Pyreplace finished Simmering up a Pot of gold. I had been so in the zone that I had forgotten to devise some distractions for Jimbo-no and Jellybee. Thankfully Spinemess had a good solution. Sneakier than a child feeding table scraps to the family dog, they figured out a way to avoid prying eyes by ‘watering’ themselves with the Neverwatch Pot after it cooled down.

I got another shiny batch going, then dove back into lengthening the boundaries of my Dungeon.

When I first came to this world, my Dungeon boundaries started out as a roughly spherical shape with my Core smack-dab at the center. At this point, my Dungeon encompassed not just ground and surrounding area, but a multitude of vertical lines and several rectangular shapes. This had become even more pronounced when Bonny snipped her bedroom from layout–taking out a big ol' square corner–leaving my top half looking like the state of Utah from the side. My Core was even approximately at the position of the Great Salt Lake on a map.

I didn’t mind though. In fact, I had to say, I was looking mighty fine.

My overall shape was a blocky jellyfish with scarf tendrils creeping into the mountain.

Truly the ideal female form.

By the end of the night, all my active Minions joined me around the hearth.

They were seemingly bored by the lack of orders.

Which was fair. However, I didn’t want to cause an accidental flood while digging. Or have them drag muddy footsteps all over the house.

So I set them to learning a new Skill. I Gardencrafted three sets of knitting hooks and taught them the basics. It wasn’t exactly the ideal learning–the cottage interior was dimly lit and a bit drafty–but we made do with a few lanterns and the green glow of our Witchpyres. Occasionally a bolt of lightning would light up the living room, adding an ominous flare to our humble crafting circle.

Even both Tippy Taps joined in. By actively harassing anyone with wayward string.

Me and my bony boys and girls gossiped the rest of the night away.

Time flies in good company.