Damien's temporary Avatar took a step back from the wall, placing its hands on its hips and craning its neck to examine his work.
"Well," he finally remarked, "I think that's about as good as it's going to get."
Maia politely refrained from comment on the quality of his calligraphy. Her husband was a man possessing many admirable talents... but this was clearly not among them.
"What does it say?" she asked, instead.
Learning the human language was not an immediate priority for her, but she did have every intention of doing so eventually. Perhaps she, too, could send a letter to his mother, introducing herself, presenting her lineage and qualifications, and begging her – belated – permission to join the Lemaire Clan. Surely, Maia thought, she would be understanding of the delay. Damien's Clan Annals advised "better late than never" and "it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission", did they not?
"Oh, it's the same message as before, I just touched it up some to make the words a little more readable. Carving letters into stone with these things," he held up the Human Worker's spatulate clawed hands, "is a lot harder than it looks!"
With one blunt finger, it pointed at the first group of characters – starting from the left side, she noted, and moving to the right as he read. How interesting.
"This line says 'My name is Damien Lemaire'," he began, running the digit over the engraved words. "Then 'I was a human Hero, but I was murdered'." The individual letters were large enough that moving along the next line required a series of side-steps. "Here, it reads, 'I now control this Dungeon and the Monsters inside it. My wish is to coexist peacefully with Heroes. I mean you no harm.'"
In light of this new information, Maia considered the ritual obeisance that she and her detachment had dutifully performed before the mysterious rows of carvings each time they entered.
...better not to think about it, she decided. That had been Maia the Chosen, the Chieftain's Daughter, and that woman no longer existed. In her place now stood Maia the Twice-Chosen, the Goddess Ascendant.
"And beneath it?" she asked, when she realized she had allowed the conversation to lapse.
"It repeats, just in other languages. The second one written is in," he used a word that the translator hesitantly rendered as "javelin-language". Almost certainly a literal translation of a proper name – belonging to another Clan, perhaps, or possibly to a geographic region? Gesturing to the next, he added another unfamiliar term, translated as "shrewmouse-island-language", and then finally "plains-language", which Damien claimed with evident embarrassment to be "only passingly familiar with."
The notion of so many different languages was fascinating. Maia considered herself to be quite well-educated, by her own people's standards, and she knew three: common speech, the old tongue, and the argot used for trade with the dwellers of the southern plains. That Damien was conversant in at least four – and seemingly worried that might prove insufficient to make himself understood by his people – made her wonder just how disorganized the human world must be.
Perhaps it was a consequence of the insufficient respect they accorded to the natural hierarchy, she mused.
"Alright, then. Just need to leave this," withdrawing a folded sheet of paper covered in more scrawled human characters, he deposited it on the floor in front of the Portal, "right here, and we should be good to go."
Damien released his control of the Worker, allowing it to slump down.
Maia tilted her head in the affirmative. "It is as you requested."
She busied herself with various minor housekeeping tasks while the display-window's time-keeper ran down, taking advantage of the fact that – unlike the Dungeon's Summoned Monsters – she would be able to move between rooms even after the Chosen had entered.
Even in the unnaturally sterile environment of the House of Fate, there was always cleaning to do. The state of a realm was a reflection of the ruler, after all. Their demesne would not reflect poorly on the God who inhabited it, or on the head-wife who served him. Not if she had anything to say about it.
The remaining time passed quickly. She was in the process of replacing a hanging carpet after dusting it when she felt the subtle change in her awareness indicating that the expected visitors had finally arrived.
Maia did not run – that would be undignified – but she walked briskly to her assigned position.
"How many?" she inquired as she rounded the last corner. Damien, she knew, had remained in his spirit-form, and would be able to observe the Chosen as they entered.
"And the ones who betrayed you are among them?"
<...yeah, Sean and Naomi are right there.>
"You knew that they would be among the next group to enter?"
"I see." She paused. "So... how do you wish to approach this?"
It was not an idle question, nor was it intended to be rhetorical – she was genuinely curious about how Damien intended to handle this confrontation that he had so carefully engineered.
She knew the way she would proceed, of course. The way any shouriioku worthy of the name would proceed, for that matter. The Noh Annals rarely counseled forgiveness, and for those who betrayed an oath, violated the sacred trust that existed between Chosen of the same Clan? Death was the only suitable punishment.
Yet she often found it difficult to predict in advance when he would object to an obvious imperative. Despite her best efforts, human standards of behavior were still quite opaque to her, especially when it came to matters of life and death.
In this case, she considered it to be Damien's affair, as the one who had been wronged. While she felt an almost-overwhelming revulsion when thinking about the companions who betrayed him, she was prepared to follow his lead without complaint. He had given her the same consideration, allowing her to take the lead in punishing the treacherous Yuu Clan for their malfeasance, and it seemed only fair to return his respect for her customs and beliefs here.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
If he chose to reach some sort of accommodation, she may not approve, but she would... accept his decision.
Eventually.
...probably.
The construct standing idle beside her – this one having been created in Damien's true image – lifted its head, eyes taking on their familiar deific glow as his spirit occupied the previously-empty form. He took a deep breath, then blew it out.
At last, he said, "I want to know." He paused. "Why they did it, I mean. I want them to tell me, face to face, why they killed me. And after that... I guess I'll have to decide what to do with them."
The pendulum trap in the foyer had been disengaged, the waiting pitfalls covered over. There were none placed in the [Guardroom] beyond that.
She and Damien had both learned their lessons from her disastrous attempt to confront the Yuu party back on her own home-world. There would be no lone individual sent out to confront the human Chosen.
Assuming the human Chosen did not flee when confronted by the message Damien had left for them, he would confront them when they entered the third room along the path, the northern [Drill Hall]. Maia would be with him, as would two full squads of their constructs: ten Cambion Warriors in groups of five, each led by a Cambion Vanguard.
Half of the mindless Summoned creatures were armed as they had been for their expeditions on the previous world, with a heavy one-handed sword and (she carefully prevented her instinctive distaste from showing on her face as she considered it) a banded wooden tower shield, as well as a pair of heavy throwing spears and a metal helmet.
The rest carried copies of Damien's new experiment cradled in their arms – a mechanical contraption that she considered even more distasteful than the tall shields. Constructs, inanimate beings that they were, could neither merit honor nor garner dishonor on the battlefield, and it was only for this reason that she did not object more heavily to the choices her husband had made in equipping them.
Their tasking from Fate was to measure the worth of any Chosen that dared to challenge them, she reminded herself. They were granted broad leeway in selecting the methods they would use to determine this... and the more unfair these challenges were, the better. It was only through adversity that a Chosen's true nature would be revealed.
She was forced to acknowledge that, distasteful as she might personally find them, Damien's inventions would be capable of putting a Chosen through a great deal of adversity. The memory of her own experience with the spring-cannons he created remained painfully fresh, and these new devices should prove far more lethal.
If he actually used them, that is.
A question which he seemingly had yet to decide how he would answer.
"Here they come," he said.
Carefully, Maia fixed her face in what she considered to be her second-most-imperious expression, and prepared to confront her husband's betrayers. The effect, she was sure, would be further enhanced by the imposing horns crowning her Ayura visage, one that had been hand-crafted by Damien at her direction.
At his behest, she was dressed in her traditional robes, rather than the retainer's attire. He had become suspiciously evasive when she suggested that seeing her in the white-and-black garb might make human visitors might respect her more.
From the gray haze that blocked their view between rooms during a challenge, a shadowy figure stepped out. Then more, fanning out into a loose semicircle on the far side of the room. Mutters passed back and forth between them as they took in the rank of silent constructs that had been arrayed in their path.
Maia examined the detachment of human Chosen with great interest. They were the first members of Damien's species she had seen with her own eyes – aside from him, that is.
The one in the lead was almost certainly Naomi. Damien never said as much, but it was easy enough for her to infer that he had possessed romantic designs on the woman who then betrayed him. As his description indicated, she was short and slender, with pale skin and curly brown hair. Somewhat more attractive than he had suggested, she decided, for a species that lacked horns entirely.
And if that was her now standing before them, then the man beside her, the largest member of the group, must be Damien's first-cousin Shon. There was some slight family resemblance between them, she could admit, but she would certainly not call him adorable. A large, blocky man, nearly shouriioku in size and shape, with crude features that seemed to have been permanently set into a scowl.
However, neither of the pair were the first to approach. Instead, it was one of the other male Chosen who came forward, casually holding the folded message between finger and thumb. He was short, even for a human, with unusual two-colored hair and a confident smile.
Chosen: Ken Kaneko
Level: 14
Merit: 29 / 100
Power: +4
Speed: +9
Agility: +9
Vitality: +2
Resilience: +2
Core Slot 1: Human (Rank B)
Core Slot 2: Air (Rank A)
Core Slot 3: Dragon (Rank C)
Core Slot 4: [Locked]
[…]
The man was impressive, she would readily concede. Certainly, at his Level, there would be few others who could contend with him in terms of Attributes.
And a «Core (Air)» at Rank A... how unusual. What was the statistical probability of this outcome, as her husband so enjoyed asking when confronted by absurd coincidences? It was conceivable that two such Cores had been awarded on his world at the same time – but was it likely?
If it was the same one over which Damien had been killed, what did that mean? Had he been complicit in the act of betrayal, or simply a carrion-feeder taking advantage of it after the fact? Or, perhaps, was he unaware of its provenance entirely?
Before she could inquire further, the man began speaking.
Damien replied, and the Chosen all seemed to jump, expressing varying degrees of startlement at a construct attempting to communicate with them. Even though she already understood that humans' knowledge of the cosmic order was quite lacking, it still was incredible to see their ignorance demonstrated firsthand.
Another rapid-fire flurry of human words followed. This time she was provided with a running transcript.
Damien told her.
It was absurd – these Chosen hadn't even bothered to pay their respects, let alone make an offering, yet they thought themselves worthy of... bartering? With a God? An incredible display of impudence.
Indeed, the murmured conversations between the human detachment were growing louder and more agitated, with Naomi and Shon taking a prominent role. Clearly, they had their own opinions on the subject, and were unafraid to voice them, but they hadn't gone further than that... yet. Glancing to either side, Maia ordered the front-line constructs to raise their weapons in a silent warning. Unfortunately, this did little to calm the situation.
Shon pushed forward, jabbing a finger at Damien and shouting. Without looking, his leader dismissively shoved him back into the formation.
He stumbled, nearly toppling, and fell against the Chosen beside him. That man staggered, the long haft of his weapon striking the detachment's rearguard in the back. In any other circumstance, it would have been a humorous sequence of events.
Here, the outcome was not in any way amusing. The rearguard, obviously believing he had been attacked, whirled and unleashed a prepared Ability. From the point of his halberd, a crackling bolt of violet lightning arced across the space. Maia blinked furiously, trying to clear the blotted afterimages floating before her eyes.
"Well... that... sucks," Damien wheezed, as his Avatar collapsed into a smoking heap – and the room around them erupted into chaos.