Moira woke up with a terrible itch on her leg. She screamed in pain as her brain decoded the itch. She was thirsty and hungry but still forced herself to sit up. She was on a blanket at the clearing but there were no trees in sight. Instead, a tall tower, at least sixty feet was above her. All around, a maze of barricades and sharpened logs blocked access to the rest of the Dungeon.
Minutes later, the boy came back.
"Moira, you are awake. Thank goodness," he said, hinting he had little hope she'd recover her senses.
She moved her parched lips and groaned. "Water."
He summoned a canteen from a card and gave it to her. She drank half of it and stopped only because her stomach threatened to throw it up.
"Moira, we need to talk," He said. "Your leg, it's not good."
She looked down. The stone splint was still there but there was a purple bruise growing on her leg. Moira knew what it was. "It's rotting, isn't it?"
"Yes. I think we need to cut it. I think we can save the knee, but without a doctor we're limited. It's a war zone outside, we can't go out and find someone to help. Your unit left but it's been only a few minutes outside. Out there, we're enemies. I can't just take you and go there. Besides, you know too much. I said too much, sorry."
"Do it," She said. Moira was no stranger to hard decisions. "I want to live. I would even betray my country to keep on living. Yes, your answer. I never gave it, did I? I would choose the princess' happiness."
He smiled and shook his head. "It is fine, Moira. That was days ago."
"Days!" she gasped.
"I used all the healing magic I had. Here," He gave her a stick wrapped in cloth. "Bite it. I'm going to cut and cauterize your wound."
She fainted from the pain. Moira would wake up only on the next day, but she was feeling much better. When she checked, the leg was gone and a white bandage was covering the stump.
"Good morning," The boy said. "Here, tea," He offered her a mug. While she eagerly drank, he spoke. "Your leg is much better. I cut all the affected flesh and sealed the wound. You'll live."
"As a cripple," She lamented. "How long was I out this time?"
He checked his timepiece. "In the Dungeon, it's been eight days since we met. You must be hungry, I have some soup for you. As for being a cripple, it's not set on stone yet. I am going to show you some things I made while you were out and make you a proposal. If you agree, we can move forward from there."
"And if I don't, I still die," She mused sardonically. "Not much of a choice."
"Sorry," he apologized but still looked adamant.
Moira had no doubt Nero would kill her if she refused to work for him. If only he caved in to her feminine charm.
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Nero took one of the paintings he made while Moira was unconscious and showed it to her after she ate. "Do you know who is in this painting?" The painting was a formal one, with Serena in a fancy dress posing. The canvas he used wasn't too large. A foot tall by two-thirds of a foot wide.
Her eyes went wide. "It's the princess!" She shook her head, disbelief visible in her face. "You're a soldier at the leonal's castle. You've seen a painting of the princess or even saw her in person, didn't you?"
"Yes, I met Serena. Not here. She is no longer in Tyre's reach."
She ran her finger over the painting. "This proves nothing. You just took a premade pose and changed the features to match her."
He smiled. It was good she was doubting him. Nero summoned another painting from his pouch but didn't show it to her yet. "A painter could've fooled you with one painting. What about two?" He showed the other painting. It also had Crystal but in a completely different pose. She was sitting by the picnic table on their camp at Rafflesia's entrance. One of his fond memories. "Or three?" The third painting showed Serena in combat, casting her [Holy Bolt] at a shambler that was not depicted. He kept them coming. The other was partly a self-portrait. It showed him and Crystal sitting side-by-side on the shelter's beach. Next, one of her floating in the water. The last one was one of their family sitting on the dinner table, sharing a peasant meal.
"I don't believe," Moira said without much conviction in her voice.
"We have time. Let me tell you a story," Nero said.
He told the tale of a princess. Tortured, scorned, abandoned, trapped in a Dungeon, fighting monsters alone to survive, living as a feral person for six months. Of their encounter. The three months they spent. The hunting parties they sent after her. Of Crysopae's betrayal. How she cast away her heritage, discarded the damaged persona, and embraced a new life as the adoptive daughter of some adventurers. Finally, Nero met Moira's eyes.
"You call her princess, a tool for politics. A bargaining chip between nations. I call her sister, one of the three most important women in my life. Fuck Tyre, fuck Coriander, fuck this stupid war."
Moira looked away from him and looked at the paintings. She ran her finger over the nereid's features. "Is she happy now?"
"Crystal is dearly loved by her new family," Nero replied with emphasis on Serena's new name. "She renounced her title and is no longer a princess. She's just Crystal, my sister."
Moira nodded and wiped her tears. "My life is worthless now," She said pointing at her leg stump. "But you convinced me. I can see your love in these paintings."
Nero stood up and turned his back to the crippled nereid. He inserted a new build he started, one with a very specific Skill. He faced her and held his weapon across his chest.
> [Artist] - blue Class - Bound to Nero.
>
> Reason [+6]
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> Perception [+4]
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> Charisma [+5]
>
> Special: Increase your Charisma by half your Reason.
>
> Special: Increase your Charisma by half your Willpower.
>
> Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
>
> [Truth-Telling] - Spend X mana, where X is a fifth of the highest level person in a radius of Perception feet. You can tell the degree of truthfulness of the person's statements for the next 10 minutes. You cannot lie or dismiss the spell until the duration ends. Effects based on your Charisma, resisted by half of the target's Willpower.
>
> Empty Skill slot
>
> Empty Skill slot
>
> Empty Skill slot
>
> Empty Skill slot
>
> Empty Skill slot
It was one of the cards he bought at the guild but never needed to use it until now. He thought of breaking it with Rodther but there was a convenient truth-teller with the soldier escort. Now he had no choice.
"Moira. Forsake your country and swear you'll dedicate your life to serving her. I'll take you out of the Dungeon to meet my sister."
She nodded. "If she accepts me, I will be happy to dedicate my life to her service."
He sensed it was true. "Good, good," Nero nodded. "Now, we need to do something about that leg of yours. I can't regrow limbs, but I bet I can make a new one," He said with feigned enthusiasm.
Moira couldn't believe. "Make...?"
He nodded. "Yes. I'm a [Gadgeteer]. And I bet you noticed already I can use more than six Skills and change Classes, just to skip that awkward conversation again."
He would need to wait eight minutes until [Truth-Telling] ended. It was inconvenient as hell.
"There's a story there, I'm sure of it. Are you making me a clockwork leg?"
Nero nodded. "Yes. There is a part on one of the books my mentors at the Lyceum gave me that describes those prosthetic gadgets. I'll make one out of green-grade material for you and it will use up one of your Accessory slots."
"You stripped me naked. I have nothing equipped," Moira joked.
Nero blushed, "I'm sorry about that but I had to make sure you had no hidden weapons."
She shrugged. "I could still have hidden a dagger or two."
Nero blinked in disbelief. Only after a minute, he understood what she meant. "Good gracious!" He roared, his face burning with shame. "I would never think a lady would..."
"I'm not a lady," Moira deadpanned. "I am - was a soldier. And yes, if it meant defeating my enemy I would hide a dagger there."
Nero covered his face with his hand. The worst part was that he knew she was telling the truth because the damned Skill was active. Now he knew why truth-tellers behaved like zombies with their Skill active.
"But two?" He gasped.
"There's more than one hole one can hide things in. But you caught us by surprise and I didn't have the time nor the mind to do it."
Nero was fighting his imagination from providing too much information. He lost miserably. "Can we pretend this conversation never happened?"
"We can but it will just be awkward," She replied with a slightly sultry voice. "You're the one with the gun here so it is your call. I don't mind if you want to check for weapons..."
Nero clenched his lips and frowned. He was still under the influence of [Truth-Telling] and knew the truthfulness of her words.
"I'm married," He spoke slowly. "Happily married, Moira. Don't tempt ever again."
"Prosthetics?" Moira offered an olive branch in the form of a change of subject. "You are my master now, not an enemy."
"You'll serve my sister, not me," Nero protested.
"I'll serve your family," Moira settled in the middle.
"You'll be paid. Not as much as a princess' bodyguard should but she's..."
"No longer a princess. Got it. What about my new leg?" She wiggled her eyebrows.
Nero groaned. This woman was obviously too comfortable in her own skin. One bullet would solve his problem and weigh on his conscience for a lifetime. As provocative as she was, Moria didn't violate rule three. She did as he asked and she would be a good guinea... test subject for his gadgeteering.
"I need to set up my forge, a charcoal pit, and time. Fortunately, we have all the time in the world here in the Dungeon. Meanwhile, let me climb up to kill the next batch of respawns."
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It took three weeks of Dungeon time to set up his field workshop and to draw the schematic for her prosthetic leg. Checking his timepiece, Nero found he would get out a second before midnight if he used [Egress] that very instant. Less than three minutes of real-time elapsed. He wasn't going out, though. No. He intended to use Serena's device to skip a day and then abuse his [Dungeon Breaker] Skill to exit several hours before sunset. Then he'd run homeward for two hours, get a portal set and return to the tower.
It didn't escape his notice that he could basically link two places he visited together across vast distances, but the opportunity for abuse of dimensional travel as a long-term mobility strategy would be explored later. Right now he only wanted to avoid a revenge-crazed army that wanted to ruin his sister's life. Easy.
During this time he changed the whole Dungeon. There was not a tree in sight and even the boss' room was now visible from the top of the watchtower thanks to some heavy stone manipulation. He made two platforms for them to sleep on, one at forty feet high for him and another twenty feet below for Moira. He also gathered over a hundred [Egress] cards from boss kills alone. The Dungeon had no specialty card drop and he probably plummeted its grade was the bottom of gray. The boss spawned at level sixteen now, a disappointment. Nero slowed down his boss-killing and forced respawns for fear the Dungeon might just vanish from Essence starvation. He did harvest three million as kills a hundred yards away from Moira's location wouldn't suffer from interference from her absorption rate. Nero found out she was level twenty-six.
Moira kept teasing, or lightly harassing, Nero. He thought it must be some kind of nereid thing. Legends do tell the tale of nereids and mermaids that seduced sailors and fishermen into ruin. Crystal and her trauma at Tyre's hands must've impacted her more than he thought possible if what Moira did was their racial behavior.
Between clearing the Dungeon, drafting the schematic for Moira's new Accessory, harvesting trees, tending to Moira's healing leg, making charcoal, and burning charcoal to forge the parts, time flew by. Nero tried to cram as many modifiers as he could into the green-grade accessory. By itself, the leg could very well be white-grade. Once he finished a schematic he was satisfied with, Nero took a step back and examined each line. He fixed a little mistake and then double-checked it again. When it came to assembling the item, he used a cannibalized card reader from a salvaged Arbitrium, not Hamil's. It would be too morbid. He achieved what Rodther suggested. An accessory that could hold one extra Skill. One big advantage of adding the modifiers as the item was designed was that they stressed the final item as much as the modifier cards of a summoned piece of gear and not twice as much as when adding modifiers later on.
"Is this my new leg?" Moira asked, clearly excited to ditch the crutch she was using to move around their tiny camp.
Aesthetics weren't Nero's main concern, especially because the leg would be hidden inside a sock and a boot. Instead, he tried to make it as close to the real thing as possible, using a stone mold created from the severed leg and foot. There were no exposed gears or mechanism but the four small toes were one single piece. He only separated hallux to give her full control over her movement. The card slot was at the back of the calf.
Nero nodded. "Yes, it is. I'll need your permission to bind it to your Arbitrium. Please open your main card slot."
"So you do want to put something inside!" Moira teased.
He ignored her. Using [Essence Manipulation] and a preprogrammed diagnosis card with the accessory's information inserted into the main slot, Nero bound the item to Moira's Arbitrium. He knew the information but still made a point of checking it on her display.
> [Skilled Clockwork Prosthetic Leg of Defense +2] - green Equipment - Accessory - bound to Moria.
>
> +3 Strength
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> +3 Vigor
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> +3 Endurance
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> +3 Agility
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> Special: This item replaces the whole leg beneath the knee.
>
> Special: Increase your armor value by 3.
>
> Special: This item has an extra skill slot. The Skill becomes unusable if the item is removed.
>
> Modifier Installed: Enchant +2 [2], Defense [1], Skill Slot [4].
Specially attuned converters transmitted a resonance wave at all times through Moira, knitting her lifeforce and increasing her body's toughness. Nero was eager to test the Skill slot but refrained from doing so. He would let Moira get used to her newfound mobility before doing so. One thing Nero couldn't do was to emulate the sense of touch. The foot joint moved to keep the limb aligned with the ground and she could issue mental commands to move the foot after she got used to the mechanical limb but all the feeling of touch she had was at the stub of leg underneath her knee.
Wobbling like a newborn dove, she tried to walk without the crutch. After a few steps around the walled area of the entrance clearing, she grew confident enough to move naturally. The limb had a faint whirring sound as the clockwork components and actuator gears did their job to emulate the natural motions of the real limb.
Moira pounced and hugged Nero. She proceeded to plant a big kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, milord," she rejoiced and clung to him. "I pledge my life, my body, and my sword to your family."
What she didn't expect was that Nero was an expert at peeling women off of him. He got to train with Altia, a master of clinging every morning, after all. He deftly escaped her embrace and chuckled while she pouted.
"I intend to make use of your services as a frontline defender, Moira. I guess it is time you go to your temporary quarters. Our time here in this Dungeon is at an end."