“So, see, what I did to the corpse of Pedrissimo was to investigate what I could do with corpses.” I said to Mariana, who paid attention tilting her head but not telepathing anything.

The halls of our home-dungeon were eerily still as we walked them, buy I paid no mind. I was too busy leading my accomplice to my latest creation. “So, in a purely scientific pursuit, I discovered that i could add preprogrammed tasks to bodies, Mar.” Mariana sat her butt in place and blinked, bored.

I snapped my fingers in front of her. “Earth calling Mar, Earth calling Mar, Mar answer.”

Mariana licked my fingers and continued in silence. I willed my belts, who felt heavier than usual, to slap her. They didn’t respond.

Then I noticed the absolute lack of life bars. Not over Mariana’s head, not over mine. I couldn’t bring up the multiple informative windows, or even my inventory with the use of my mind. “Am I dreaming?” I asked, and then bit my hand between the index and the thumb. It hurt. “I am not. What’s going on?”

Mariana remained silent, wagging her tail against the floor, as if it were a windscreen wiper.

“I guess you cannot talk, like a Golden retriever ought to. Do you understand me?”

Mariana began panting, her stare lost and betraying an empty mind.

That could be a yes or a no, because Mariana was Mariana.

I raised the index, middle and ring fingers of my right hand. “Count to three by tapping your paw on the floor, Mar.”

Mariana threw herself on her side, still wagging her tail and panting, drooling onto the floor. “Okay, she returned to her natural state.”

I sat beside the mass of drooling hair and pondered my situation for a second. “Maybe I fried the system by installing Doom on the corpse.”

I heard an approximately female, approximately elf, and approximately stupid voice calling me from behind. It was our party tank. “Walter! We need to gather in the main room!” She called for me with a concerned tone.

“Let’s go see what the witches want, Mariana.”

Mariana’s understanding of the situation seemed to remain at zero. “You are stupider than normal. Come.”

And when she saw me walking towards the main room, Mariana followed.

I barged into the boss room because, luckily, they had left the door open. Like, you know how hard that thing would be to open without videogame magic? PRacically impossible.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The girls and Cornelio (honorary girl) were gathered at the table. A tall stool had been placed, and, atop it, a thermos wearing a bowtie rested. From the mouth of the thermos sprouted Vera’s head.

“Everything magic stopped working but she can still do that. I fucking hatelove this place.”

“¿Qué jacé’, animal?” Vera greeted me after hearing my mellifluous voice.

I took a seat in front of Sabrina, Florencia, and Florencia’s lapdog (Cornelio). I tried to ignore the Thermos-flowerpot of horror by my side.

Mariana, on her part, acted like a normal dog, and began lap-testing with her head. There was no food on the table, but there was a chance it could spawn and fall from it, or so she probably thought.

“So…what is happening?”

Sabrina, joining her hands, chuckled and snorted. “We are defenseless. Except Flor. She has a sword. And gains,” she stated nervously.

“Oh, come on Sab, I am not that strong.”

Cornelio took a Fork out of his pocket and handed it to Florencia. “Could you make me a bracelet, dear sister?”

Florencia snatched the Fork from Cornelio’s hands and bent it into a circle as if it were a piece of rubber. The universe didn’t mind the fact the fork was made of bone, so I didn’t, either.

“Madre diabla ‘e la lu’ mala, se rompió la realidá’.”

I thought about headbutting the table but, without the protection of a lifebar, a lethal concussion was very likely.

“Verita querida, cerrá el hoyo de golfa que tenés por boquita.” I rhymed skillfully and gentlemanly.

“Is golfa female golf?” The fork bender asked.

I looked at Sabrina and she remained still, quivering to not shake her head. I would spare Flor’s innocence this time. “Well… balls go into them sometimes, so, yes, there is a similarity.”

Cornelio extended his hand, anxious to be given the fork back. “Thanks sis, I love you!” he said after receiving it.

“I love you too, little brother.” Florencia said and pulled on a not-as-annoyed-as-he-should Cornelio’s cheek.

“Well, so, save for Florencia and Mariana, who has sharp teeth even if she fosters an incapability for violence against mankind…”

“Walter, she mauled the boss that occupied this room.” Sabrina pointed out.

“Reddit mods are not human in my book!” I blurted out, as if her words had been unfiltered heresy. Recovering the composure, I cleared my throat and continued. “We are totally incapable of defending against, for example, a random sexual predator that were stronger than us…”

“Walter, you will say what you are thinking right now and here.”

“I am just afraid Flor will rape me because I am too damn sexy,” I deadpanned.

Florencia smiled nervously and blinked several times, “What?”

“You are the strongest person in this room. I am the only one not related to you, and your siblings have no reason to not let you torture me. And the episode at the butcher’s left me…” I started cleaning one of my nails.” Very, very traumatized.”

“You don’t look like it.” Cornelio pointed out, still playing with his bent fork.

“Cut down the victim blaming. That skin I was parading wasn’t mine.”

Mariana kept on playing reverse musical chairs with our laps.

“Anyway, we should be safe in here, unless the system takes several days to return and Flor has to resort to cannibalism to get her daily dose of protein,” Sabrina said. “and nobody will rape anybody, excepting Mariana and legs. Understood?” to say this, she tilted her head forward and spoke to us like we had reduced learning capabilities.

During a blink, health bars appeared over our heads, and Mariana telepathed the loudest “A” any mind had ever thought of.

“The Demiurge should be fixing the system.” Flor commented.

I stood from the table and headed to the market.

“Walter, where are you going?” Cornelio said, the two of his eyes that were exposed looking at em with suspicion.

“I am getting bored like a monkey that time-traveled to the Late Silurian and sat on a rock to wait for trees to evolve. I will go look for some board games or cards to kill time.”

And so, with Mariana following, or maybe, to be more accurate: orbiting elliptically around me, I took a stroll to the super that I owned now.