Mordecai gently took the unconscious ratling boy from a confused-looking Kazue. “I did mention that he is a perpetually adolescent boy. And to be clear, yes, this is Li Zarb, the shattered one. But we shouldn’t specify that to most of our guests.” He smiled at the sleeping form in his arms, who was currently mumbling something about ‘paradise’ and ‘fluffy’. “A lot of people encounter a shard at least once during their lives, but few ever realize it. We’ll cover some rules in a moment.”
He looked up and scanned the room. The primary mess of battle had been absorbed by the dungeon already, but cleaning up the broken furniture and such as going to take a little longer. “As soon as the hall is presentable, we can let the guests from the puzzle path back in. But we need to have a conference in the war room.”
It took a little while to gather everyone, with Akahana taking the longest as she needed to make sure the worst injured of their prisoners were stable. He’d called in Takehiko, Shizoku, Brongrim, and Nainvil, to join them in addition to Akahana and Ricardo.
Kazue had set up a new couch in the corner to let Li nap on while Mordecai had some of the bunkin get more food ready for the ratling and made sure to let the head chef know that Li thought his food was delicious. Moriko settled in to meditate for a little while, gathering her chi once more.
He took care of one other small task as well. He used normal dungeon mana, not the pool of mana reserved for treasure, to create a copy of the special opal that had come with the mushroom elixir. It was still too precious for them to make as a normal treasure yet, but this was a special circumstance. He then reached into one of Li’s pouches to replace the original that had been resting within. Which had last been residing in the dungeon’s storage. He felt it when that mana was pulled out of his control and converted into reality by Li’s own nature, for Li believed the stone in his possession to be a real object. So now it was.
For now, Mordecai placed the original in one of his pockets. He knew how to make an area secure against Li’s wanderings, but that would have to wait. Mordecai quickly double-checked that there was nothing of particular value to the dungeon in the ratling boy’s possession. The remaining items were not precious enough to bother with, so he left those alone. Half of Li’s possessions would be changed out within a day or so anyway.
Once everyone was present, Mordecai cast a sound barrier around Li and quickly went over the rules of interacting with Li. “First, it doesn’t matter that you know he’s a god, Li does not know. Do not treat him like one, nor try to convince him that he is, or any such thing. You will only confuse or frighten him, and frightening him is a bad idea. All stories, fables, sermons, etc. you have read or heard about people just being nice to a random ratling kid and good fortune befalling them are roughly correct. Li does not choose for anything to happen regarding luck or chance, they just do. Just be kind to the boy and let nature take its course, and things should turn out well enough. Try to take advantage of him by being falsely nice, and the luck tends to twist. It’s worse for people who are mean, whether they are mean to him, to other kids, or to people he likes.”
“There are times he needs to be manipulated a bit in order to go about one’s day. The most important thing here is to never lie and always be patient and kind. It’s not particularly hard, but it might be best to let me handle it until you get the gist. Just don’t overdo it. He’s childlike, but he’s also a god with an instinctive understanding of things and erratically perfect intuition.” Mordecai went through the list hurriedly, knowing that putting up the sound barrier had created an unpredictable timer. “Any urgent questions regarding—never mind.”
Mordecai made a ‘silence’ gesture, then dispelled the sound barrier between them and Li, then carried on with a different topic while pretending not to notice the ratling beginning to stir. “I think I’ve found out how the scrying sensor was pushed down here. And I suspect the guardsmen were tricked, but I am going to let them stew for a bit before I question them.”
“Stew are we having stew? I don’t think you should stew people Mordecai I don’t think they’d taste very good, especially if you don’t wash them first then again you should always wash your food before you cook it oh this all looks so tasty,” Li was already digging into the food on the table near him, his inhalation of the dishes having no effect on the speed of his talking. “Oh, cookies, I got to have a lot of cookies at a traveling circus I was visiting recently they had all sorts of yummy food and the cookies were made by this one angry girl …”
And that was the end of all conversation for a little while as the ratling rambled on, telling ever more of his ‘recent’ adventures. The experience left a few of the guests a little stunned.
----------------------------------------
Elsewhere:
“How can you not know how he was that strong?!” The angry snarl came from a robed man whose hands were clenched in rage. “And how does he have so many bosses available?”
“I am what your predecessors have made of me master; I have only the vaguest guesses for most of your questions.” Came the reply from a woman kneeling on the ground, her head bowed.
“Then give me your guesses, prove that it was worth keeping you intact in preparation for the demon’s return.” He growled at her, swatting a burned-out crystal orb off of its stand. “The tokens verified that they were on the sixth floor and that the core was nearby.”
“Yes, Master. The numbers he had available seems the easiest to explain, for there are indeed two cores in that dungeon. The four-tail was another dungeon avatar.” The man frowned, then looked at the walls where various images were being projected from other crystals in the array, captured from the scrying. The woman continued on. “I have no idea how that was possible, for I can not figure out a way to merge two dungeons that does not obliterate both cores in an explosion. But the reality seems to be before us.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“As for the rest,” She gave a small shrug. “He was much older than I am before he was sealed, and could experiment as he wished. I can only speculate that he learned tricks or techniques during his previous existence that he has somehow brought with him, despite being limited to this much smaller dungeon. His avatar moved with speed and power even while gathering and wielding magic and keeping situational awareness. While I could create an avatar that could match or surpass anything he has demonstrated so far, I do not understand how he has been able to combine so many disparate abilities at once.”
He frowned at her, his frustration making him want to snap out questions he already knew the answer to. The wretched thing would eventually break its bonds if he let it grow in power, and it would attack them if allowed, but that growth was undoubtedly tied to how the demon dungeon had managed to do all the things it had done so far. Perhaps he should have gone himself to ensure the job got done, but if he had fallen, and the ring he wore had fallen into the possession of that dungeon instead of passing on to a worthy heir, then there was no telling what havoc it could have wrecked with control over a second dungeon.
He was too angry to think, he needed to clear his mind. He looked up to the images on the wall and settled it upon one of the forms there as he licked his lips and smiled cruelly. “Take on her appearance. I want you to struggle only enough to make it fun. I won’t need your avatar again before dawn, anyway.”
“As it pleases you, Master.”
----------------------------------------
On the streets of a northern Imperial city.
The sun was setting, and for those who had no wealth or connections, the streets in this part of the city would soon be a dangerous place to be. A lanky figure in a hooded cloak made its way uncertainly along the shadowed areas, looking for something they could not find.
Fuyuko forced herself to breathe faster, calling up the sense of panic she’d had so many years ago. Memories from when she was smaller, the fear of cruel figures, the lingering pain of loss, the confusion of a lost child. That was what she was, a child who was lost, alone, afraid, and in terrible need of sanctuary, stumbling blindly into a dark corner, begging, praying for any sort of safety.
The teenage girl gasped in brief surprise as she suddenly found herself in a corridor leading down into a dim, warm room, and heard the laughter of children at play. Then she slowly let out a breath in relief. She’d done it; she’d managed to find sanctuary again. It was getting harder to find her way here.
Fuyuko had barely made her way into the first room, filled with lumps of bedding and random crates and pieces of furniture, when a voice startled her. “Wow, that seems hard. But you won’t be able to keep fooling yourself like that for much longer.”
The voice belonged to a nephilim girl with black feathered wings, and Fuyuko frowned at her. “Who are you?”
The girl waved her hand carelessly from where she was sitting on a crate, a leather backpack resting on the ground near her feet. “Just someone who knows some things for now. And I don’t really have long. For you, I am the person pointing out options. And you have only so many. You won’t be able to find Sanctuary for much longer; you’re too old for its protection and not ready to be a Caretaker. So what will you do? No apprenticeship or job, homeless, you’ll be prey for the gangs before long. If you’re lucky, you’ll just suffer ‘initiation’ and be made to work for them. If they are scared of you, well, it’ll be worse.” The weird smile on the nephilim girl’s face made Fuyuko tug her hood down lower.
“You could try and find a ‘patron’, a rich man with a taste for the exotic. But if he likes you as you are now, he won’t like you much in five years. Maybe you can leave the city, but then what? Become a lone hunter? What do you know of surviving in the wilderness? And a bandit gang would be no better than a city gang. Maybe you can find one of the tribes that will accept you, and to be fair; if you do find one of them, you will likely find warmth and acceptance. But they are in remote places for a reason, can you reach them before the attempt kills you?”
Panic gripped Fuyuko, and it paralyzed her, rooting her in place. These were many of the same thoughts that had been filling her mind for over a year, and she’d come to no solution. The dark-winged girl continued on. “Of course, you could go south. There are a lot of stories about how nice they are there. But there are also rumors of them being wicked abominations of corrupted bloodlines. Then again, that seems like the right sort of place for people like you and me too, doesn’t it?” Fuyuko wanted to disappear, this strange girl knew far too much.
“And if you do go south, what then? Go to the capital, beg for mercy from a church? Dormire doesn’t hold much sway there, and the empyreal pillars tend to be much more generous, so it could work. Or maybe find some nice farmer willing to take you on as a hand, find a nice farm boy to settle down with. Not a bad life, if you want it. Then there are bands of adventurers, those odd-ball groups of mercenaries hired to handle dangerous things that normal guards aren’t well trained for, or to go explore remote areas and find rare plants and stuff.” The girl pursed her lips and put a finger against them thoughtfully. “Though you don’t really have experience fighting monsters and stuff. I guess you’d need to find someone to teach you, and that could be hard. But maybe you can find a way to train at that new dungeon that was born near the river and mountains. Unless you think the stories about dungeons just being a type of demon monster to be true.”
She shrugged and hopped off the crate. “That’s all I had in my head.” The girl looked smaller, maybe younger? That had to be a trick of the light. “Don’t bother coming to find me later, I won’t remember this conversation much longer.” She giggled. “Choices, options, free will, it’s all kind of funny now that I get it. I mean, it’s important to be able to choose. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do what other people want either. So long as it’s your choice.” She frowned slightly. “I chose something, it was important but now I can’t remember. Oh well, I am sure I will remember eventually.” She smiled at Fuyuko. “I’m going to find the other children and go play now. I think this is going to be lots of fun.”
“Wait!” Fuyuko called out, and the smaller girl paused with a curious look on her face. “Why are you telling me all this? What do you want? And why are you leaving your pack?” That last was added with a frown as she noticed the girl had completely ignored the bag on the ground.
“Oh, that’s not my bag, silly. I don’t think it belongs to anyone right now.” The nephilim girl giggled again, sounding even younger. “I think it belongs to whoever takes it. And I just want to go play, that’s why I am here. What I chose to do, I think. Though I had to accept doing something else first, but I can’t remember what. Oh well.” The nephilim’s smile was much sweeter, more innocent this time. “I’m going to go now. Bye-bye!”
Fuyuko couldn’t find anything else to say as she gaped, the girl was visibly getting younger, shrinking as she skipped away until she looked like she was about 5. Once she shook off her shock, her gaze fell on the pack, and she bit her lip with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness. She knelt down to examine the pack, only to find her shock redoubled when she saw the symbol etched into the leather.