Faryea was confused.

It was a feeling she'd become well acquainted with as a Witch's familiar. Though she had an instinctual grasp of magic, as one might assume would be normal for a monster that had ‘Hex’ innately, she still only a level eight Imp. Per the ‘Call Familiar’ spell description, her job was to provide twelve extra inventory slots and complete menial tasks. That was it. At less than a third of her mistress’s boss’s own level, she was always out of her league in combat and, as a D-Rank monster, she was locked out of gaining the class levels that would grant her proficiency in crafting. As often as she wanted to ask questions about potion brewing or ritual casting, it’d been well-established that breaking her boss’s concentration would not be tolerated.

In the end, she’d suppressed her curiosity and resigned herself to watching silently and cleaning things up after the explosions had finished. Though her worries and hunches were sometimes depressingly prescient, she often found herself wondering whether such things were vindicating her instincts or her pessimism.

So far, it looked like her time as a Dungeon Minion would be more of the same.

Okay, that was unfair. This was an entirely different breed of confusion. A complete sort bewilderment, exemplified by her riddle of a first task. Her real boss, Miss Shadowspire, was an oft transparent taskmaster, even as she refused to divulge her full intentions on principle. Faryea’s cursory knowledge of a Witch’s crafts and abilities frequently allowed her to divine the finished product, or at least make educated guesses. The dungeon’s request, on the other hand, had her completely stumped.

She scrolled through her inventory, now full of painfully mundane items, checking them off against the list in her head.

Rope. Check.

Ladder. Check

Bucket of water. Check.

'Something metal-y; whatever you can find'. Scrap Iron cut-offs. Double-check.

Candles...

That was all but two of the requests wrapped up, not counting ‘anything interesting you happen across’ (not that she was holding out hope; the quiet little town was about as far away from anything interest as you might get). So far, it'd been fairly easy. Despite their simple, salt of the earth nature, the townspeople were surprisingly accepting of the two infernally aligned guests. All she needed to say was 'the boss needs it' (technically true, for she never specified who was her boss) and both the blacksmith and that one farmer at the market who'd first greeted them were more than happy to help.

The candles, on the other hand, were a different story. When she'd asked the nice farmer about borrowing some, the imp been handed a horrible, misshapen thing made of what she could only guess had to be tallow. So shocked, she'd nearly fumbled the offering. Once out of sight, a quick test showed it burnt with a horrible, ashen smoke that did make her drop it, despite her resistance to fire. She didn't have the necessary expertise to see its item level, but no self-respecting chandler would've ever let that see the light of day. No, she'd have to...have to ask her other boss for one.

Which was why she found herself out in the open, slowly navigating her way south. Asking around town had directed her towards a small field, where the boss had brought one of the prospective members of the Town Watch to unlock a class. It was easy enough to find them. Out in the open, a young-ish boy with short, brown hair fired arrows at a distant target. Jarod, she recalled vaguely. One of the few to volunteer for the position. Sat beneath a lonely tree, the only patch of shade in the area, the boss watched with her usual half-focused displeasure. As always, it was hard to tell whether it was something in the present that'd drawn her ire, or if she was bedevilled by some distant thought.

Such things had become common ever since her boss’s trouble with her boss.

At first, she wondered if she hadn’t been noticed, but as she approached, the boss addressed her.

"Faryea," she said, voice detached and attention still focused on the boy. Following her bosses eyes, she observed him for a moment. From his tense stance, wavering aim and reluctance to fire, he still obviously wasn't at home with the bow in his hands. Faryea had to guess this was what an F-rank in a Weapon Skill looked like. Reaching E-Rank was the main prerequisite for the Archer class. Humans had to start somewhere, she supposed.

Thought concluded, Faryea remembered her task.

"Um, boss-?"

"Faryea, what have I told you about starting sentences with 'um'?" her boss interrupted.

"S-sorry, boss," she replied, halting herself before she added more fuel to the fire, "I was hoping to ask to borrow a candle, please."

A moment passed without an answer, the field silent except for the semi-regular whistle of arrows, and Faryea faltered, wondering what she'd done wrong now. In a slow, deliberate movement, the boss sat up ever so slightly, attention fully on her familiar, as she asked, "What for, exactly...?"

"The, uh, the dungeon spirit asked for one," she answered reflexively. She froze, half cowering, as it became obvious that wasn't the right answer. Her boss finished sitting up and lean forward, expression intent.

"Faryea, how does the spirit know to ask for a candle, and what did it say it needed it for?" asked her boss, an intensity to her gaze rarely present outside combat.

"The, uh, the spirit's from...from another plane, it said. It, uh, still has its memories...and it didn't say why it needed it..." she trailed off. Listening to her own explanation made her realise just how potentially stupid she’d been.

Her boss studied her expression, allowing the magnitude of her potential, future error to sink in. She was gathering items at the behest of a dungeon spirit. One that'd retained its knowledge from a previous life. A complete being, in possession of one of the most powerful artefacts fathomable. One that could multiple any object it could get its hands on and synthesise unholy combinations of objects with a logic-breaking ease. As polite and agreeable as she’d found it, what little she knew about the spirit was from only a brief and shallow conversation. For all she knew, she could've been on the verge of handing it the keys to any number disastrous creations.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"What else did it ask you to retrieve?"

She rattled off the list, looking away in shame. The worst part was she still couldn’t see what was staring her in the face. Candles were a well-known part of plenty of magic rituals, as was water, but few could be performed without additional reagents. The other parts? They seemed mostly worthless. Knowing how these things went, there was probably something she was missing. Silently, she braced for that cold, dispassionate explanation of just how exactly those six items that had seemed so innocuous could be used for something horrific.

But it never came.

She hesitantly looked back up, expecting the dressing down to begin at any moment.

Far from the grave disappointment she'd expected, there was a sort of vague amusement to her boss's expression, punctuated by a sigh that she'd almost call relieved (though her pessimistic side would’ve probably called it ‘resigned’). Unable to see what assuaged her boss’s worries left Faryea only more confused.

"Boss...?"

"Yes, yes, take a candle. Just remember to bring it back. They’re level thirty three items, and I have to spend another entire week on that cart, just to pick up more from Ezzimire’s, I will be pissed." she answered, tone light and barely acknowledging her previous misgivings. Faryea nodded uncertainly. The boss wasn’t usually one for suddenly changing her mind like this (or being this ammenable in general).

"I, well, y'know...It's-You just said-It's a dungeon spirit, right?...Are you, uh, sure it's okay...?" she tested, still caught off-guard by the sudden turnaround. That earned her little more than an impatient eye roll.

"What'd I just s-Look, so long as it's not going to murder the brats and it doesn't do anything that'll bring the Knights down on us, it's fine," said her boss, before she returned her attention to the archer-in-training.

Faryea answered with a nod, still failing to follow her boss's train of thought, yet unsure what else she could say. They sat in what was almost a companionable silence for a while, watching the continuing volley of ill-aimed arrows, the boy seemingly unaware of the conversation that'd just occurred behind him. Watching the slow, failure-fraught progress (or, at least, she hoped it was progress), Faryea was glad she'd never had to unlock her own class.

Faryea had little experience with the usual class unlocking process, or progression of any kind, really. During the entirety of her time as a free demon, she’d gained a total of two levels, neither of which of her own volition. As a familiar, her experience gain was linked directly to her Mistress’s and self-improvement was rarely a consideration.

There was an unexpected bitterness attached to that thought. One she hoped was just an instinctual thing. She…well, she didn’t particularly like working for Miss Shadowspire. She could admit that to herself. It was dull, often demeaning work that she didn’t consider herself suited for, and rarely earned her gratitude, let alone anything more, but Faryea always tried to look on the brighter side. It was safe and it was stable. Those were meant to be positives. Her lack of immediate, tangible progress (or even its possibility) was part and parcel with that. More than anything, it was better than the alternatives she’d found.

It was better than being a wandering monster, hiding in the shadows, searching for an appropriately Dark-aligned victim (or worse, creating Dark-aligned victims), until the knights finally found and ended her.

It was better than serving one of the four big Demon Lords, destined to clamber over the bodies of her peers, until she eventually let her guard down, or attracted too much attention and found herself as someone’s next meal.

It wasn't exactly glamorous or engaging, but it was a peaceful existence, relatively speaking. It kept her fed without forcing her to resort to doing something terrible.

It was better than being dead.

That morbid thought turned over once in Faryea’s head before she realised exactly what she’d been thinking, the ensuing shock sending her crashing back to the real world. She wasn’t sure what brought such things to mind, but she was certain she needed to distract herself from it. Didn’t she have something she was…?

…

…

It was then that Faryea remembered that this wasn’t a social visit.

"AH! I, uh, I-I have to go. I still have, the, y'know, stuff and things," she stuttered, her mouth refusing to cooperate with her brain without at least two weeks warning. Mercifully, her boss didn’t scold her for it. As she jumped to her feet, she was given one last parting request.

"When you go back to the dungeon, tell it this. Two rooms with three level one Shambling Corpses. Give me that by next week and something for a party of level fives on the second floor after that. That's it. All I want is...Well, all I'm asking for is that, by the time the fighting starts to heat up, I can trust the brats to hold their own against a couple dire wolves long enough for someone to find me. "

And with that, it was obvious she was dismissed. Slowing only to gingerly pick a Beeswax Candle out of her boss’s bags, Faryea rushed off back towards the town, wings buzzing furiously, chased by the invisible spectre of her own imagined deadline. With the field rapidly shrinking behind her, she went over her inventory and list once more.

Rope, candles, ladder, water, metal...Ughhh, I should've asked the boss where I'd even find a 'Backgammon or Chess set'.!