Red took in an unnecessary breath as he watched the glowing forms begin to fade and be replaced by those of Velua WatchfulBronze and Lotus. His avatar had fully returned, the crystalline form back to the body he had gotten used to. The disconnect felt from the dream was deep whenever he gazed down at his arms. He couldn’t shake how different his weak crystalline form was from what he knew was his original body.
He was crouched down next to Lotus, waiting for her to regain consciousness from the clear pain she was in. He was unaware of the affliction that he had caused to all living individuals in his dungeon, that moment somewhat blocked for him. Whether it was his dungeon system, or his mind attempting to preserve itself.
“Red, please. Please Dad… please make it stop hurting.” Croaked the voice of Lotus as she began to tremble on the ground. Concern was plastered across Red’s face as he saw that she was in pain. Tears pricked against his eyes as he heard what she had called him. He didn’t care what the system was saying about waiting until everyone was moving with the flow of time. He reached down and pulled Lotus from her fetal position into a firm hug.
“It’s okay, Lotus. I’m here. You’re safe. I am so sorry I made you hurt.” He whispered, believing that forcing her to fight against Velua had caused her great pain. The dwarf had been brutal and fast, and her skills with the blade had dug deep into his boss’ body. She didn’t deserve that, Lotus had never done a thing to earn being carved up. He needed to change things, he understood that now.
Lotus sniffled, tears streaming down her face as her arms lifted and tightly wound around Red’s torso. She squeezed with all her might, unable to even wind the unyielding avatar. She continued to cry against his shoulder, candy pink hair covering her face as her lithe fey form shook with sobs. “It hurt so much, and you were hurting so much. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough.” She choked out, her words able to be heard as the sound passed through his form unobstructed.
“It’s not your fault, Lotus. You didn’t have any control over the bastard in the back. You did great. You were an amazing fight.” He said softly as he tried to console her and calm the weeping Queen. His first minion was in agony, the first intelligent creature that he had in this world, and she was turned into a war machine. He had turned his home into a killing floor because that was what he was supposed to do as a dungeon. All his times failing… and now when he was finally on the path to doing things right did he realize the folly. He was no killer, and he should not have forced his creatures to take up that mantle for him.
He patted Lotus on the head before he gently pulled away and turned to look at Velua. It was time that he did what he should have done from the start. Make his presence known and show them that they could just take the damn hammer instead of going through this big song and dance number. He watched as the glow began to fade from Velua before his eyes went wide and a protective hand went over Lotus’ eyes. The poor Queen was still on her knees holding onto his legs like a child weeping in public. She had earned it, and he would not let anyone else say otherwise.
He was shocked because the dungeon system had no filter for non-dungeon items being absorbed for additional mana. While he had been asleep, his background system had stripped off everything on Velua’s person; including her clothes. He waved his hand summoned up his system and fumbled for his item menus as he heard her begin to wake up.
“What the hell is goin’- Where are my clothes?!” Velua shouted, having been groggily waking from the stasis of the dungeon before she felt the breeze on her backside. Before she had a chance to even process the fact that Lotus was fully healed again, streams of red mana flowed from the core and wove themselves into the shape of a dress, a simple orange piece with a black belt and shoulder straps appeared before her. She scrambled for it, pulling it on quickly to try and hide her shame. She was panicky though, as she realized her weapons, supplies, and everything else she had brought with her had disappeared along with her modesty.
She panted as she put on the dress and looked around, freezing at the fully healed Lotus and trying to back away. She cringed as her foot stepped onto a rough pile of mulch that had once been a pew. Lotus finally lifted her face from its downcast position, tears having stopped before they welled up at the sight of Velua. She stood and rushed over, lifting the dwarf in a hug that would have cracked a human’s ribs. Velua was blushing deeply while gasping for air, so confused.
“Wh-what is going on?” She wheezed as she tried to pry the surprisingly strong arms of the fey queen off of her, the effort rather futile since it seemed Lotus needed someone to hug who could feel the desperation of those motions. Velua was going to snap at the fey before a red box appeared in the air before her with words straight from the core of the place she was in.
“I am very sorry, Velua. It looks like after I broke down, my body digested your items to help preserve itself. I will try to replace as much of what I consumed as I can.” Red offered, hoping that by consuming some of the items Red would be able to reproduce them for Velua. He had no idea if any of those were of sentimental value to the woman. The last thing he would want is to have eaten some ancient object that had passed down a hundred years. He could probably make a copy, but it would be far from any kind of actual meaningful replacement.
“I-it is fine, mighty red core. I apologize for you having to intervene on my behalf. A mighty being such as yourself should not have had to deal with such… politics.” She offered, her voice soft and somewhat fearful as her eyes went from the screen to look at Red’s core. Her eyes on his core caused some instinctual fear to bubble within him, making him shift on his avatar’s feet back and forth.
“Uh… Hey, Lotus. Do you mind bringing Velua back to the tree? The dungeon crawl is over, she won. But, we have some things we need to talk about.” Red asked his floor boss, hoping that she would be willing to help the dwarf get somewhere less rotten. He watched her nod before she set down the dwarf and offered her hand to her.
“I apologize for my rudeness earlier… might I escort you to my kingdom? It would be far more hospitable than this dreary old temple.” She offered with a smile as she gestured towards the exit, hoping the dwarf would be willing to go.
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“But if you’re healed, won’t that demon slime be back to normal?” She asked with a bit of naivety that made Lotus smile. A small chuckle turned into a full laugh at the thought she was scared of the second to last actor in their little play. “What? Do you mean Glut? He is a big sweetheart. Now that Red has decided the run is over, he is harmless.” She offered with a smile as she headed to the door that opened seemingly on its own, when in fact it was Red opening the door for the two of them. ”Glut? He was a named minion? I thought the only named minion was you and Arabella.” Velua stated as she followed her out of the room and saw that the slime was making his way for the door. He turned his head, the helmet of slime leather showing where his face was supposed to be. “What? Why would you think that? All of the fairies are named by this point, and most of the dungeon experience minions are too.” Lotus responded with a bit of confusion, wondering why they wouldn’t have names.
“Hey, Lotus. The workday is done, right? I was supposed to be showing Snips and a few of those new Brownie guys how to play cards.” He asked as he looked at her, rather certain he wasn’t supposed to address Red directly when there was a mortal in the room. His entire demeanor was different as well, slouching and hanging his arms as if the act of keeping them rigid was itself a chore. He no longer seemed like the powerful yet beaten demonic general that he had been before the boss room fight.
“Yeah, work day is done. Go ahead and enjoy yourself, Glut. If you could tell Ivy and her team that I am gonna need to see them soon, I’d appreciate it.” Red offered an answer, showing that he didn’t care too much about Velua knowing where he was. The slime gave a nod and a thumbs up, showing that he could easily comply with the request.
“Sure thing, boss. They’re probably getting stir-crazy after all the crazy shit happened.” Glut said to Red, not seeming to mind too much for the extra bit of work. Velua was watching the entire exchange closely, clearly confused by the one-sided conversation. It didn’t help that she was currently in uncharted territory. She had never heard of a dungeon core talking to someone directly like this before, or allowing their monsters to act like ordinary people when an outsider was around.
“So… wait. Is this just how dungeons are when there aren’t normal people around? Just a bunch of coworkers shooting the shit in the same place that they live?” Velua asked as she followed Lotus and Glut into the next room, unaware of Red as they entered back into the mausoleum. She did spare a glance, glad to see the names were still there despite the dungeon’s stress. She even thought she saw another two names had been scratched in as if Dle and Molin’s were scribbled into the wall as part of the memorial.
“Well, yeah. Do you think we are all just sitting around pretending to be things constantly? That would be so exhausting. I think I’d pop myself if Red wanted us to constantly be playing our roles.” Glut grunted as they entered the battle room where the two sets of slimes were standing around and chatting. They were speaking in more of a slime tongue, blurbs and burbles being the words, but their hand gestures were enough for Velua to get the gist of a conversation.
A few patted Glut on the back or gave Lotus a respectful bow, the majority not even acknowledging the diminutive dwarf within their midst. They all were acting like they had better things to do than fight or attack the intruder within the dungeon’s space. Velua was perplexed at the state of affairs, having always believed that dungeons were just places full of aggressive creatures living out haggard existences.
“I understand that all of this is strange, Velua. But I promise that I will explain everything to you soon. My dungeon might run a bit differently from others, but you are safe here.” Another box appeared in front of Velua and showed that the Core understood her emotions better than she would have thought. She reached out and touched the box, fading away with a slight tingle to the finger that dismissed it.
“Alright, I suppose that I don’t have a choice when it comes to trusting you or not,” Velua said with a nod, aware that she was empty-handed at the moment. She had nothing but her movement skills to try and get away from attackers. Even then, she didn’t have any shoes to protect herself from broken glass or aggressive blades of grass. She would bring up the fact she couldn’t walk on the leech grass once they were outside of the crypt.
They walked through the temple and found that all of the traps were undone and the doors were wide open for them to travel through. There was no sign of the other MeltBlaze brothers who had died in this place. She found the puzzle room no longer had Dum’s skeleton, and the pure white lobsters of the entrance hall were sleeping near the offering tables. It was as if this was a world where the dwarven raiding party had never so much entered the dungeon, and she was a ghost to all the individuals living here. It was such an alien feeling to be around dungeon monsters, and not even a single one had tried to intimidate her for being in their space.
When they arrived back at the surface, Velua blinked as she realized that it was sunset once again, confused as to why seemingly no time had passed. “Uh… shouldn’t it be the middle of the night?” She commented as she looked at Lotus, Glut having not paused at the mouth of the temple. His purple form was slinking its way down the stairs with the clear intent of heading towards the river. She looked out farther and saw that fairies were now on this side of the tree as well, tending to plants or forming little groups to socialize. None of the larger ones that had been attending the party, but plenty of glowing lights that only grew brighter with the setting sun.
“That is partly my fault. When I enter the emergency state that ate your clothes, time does not exist within my space. So we lost almost a full day while waiting for me to heal.” Red explained, another red text box appearing for Velua to read. She didn’t tap it away this time, instead just allowing the information to fade away after a moment. She seemed more perplexed than surprised.
“Dungeons can mess with time?” She asked, looking once more to Lotus who simply shrugged as her wings unfurled from her back. She had kept them hidden during the fight since it only took one or two slashes to cause an immense amount of damage. They were still the dragonfly wings of her birth, but now were even longer and more immaculate. Patterns danced in the dying orange beams of sunlight, teardrops, and circles amongst the rectangular latticework of nature. They glittered with bright violet dust that seemed to wreath the wings in glowing light.
To Velua, she looked as if one of the small fairies had grown into a human, only to keep everything magnificent about their fey heritage on display. Lotus looked to Velua, brushing locks of pink out of her way as those deep azure lips smiled at her. “It is quite the long walk back to the front of the tree. Would you like to take a shortcut?” She asked with a smile as she offered her gloved hand, the intricate lacey glove immaculate despite the fight that they had been in eighteen hours previous.
Velua’s hairless cheeks were rosy as she looked at the offered hand, her mouth going dry as she tried to think of the perfect thing to say at this moment. For the life of her, she couldn’t even manage to form a single word. Instead, she kept her mouth clamped shut firmly before her stubby-fingered dwarven hand took Lotus’ own long elegant one. With the glove, Velua could still tell that her own hands were craggy rough sandpaper to the soft unblemished skin of the Queen. She said nothing, but couldn’t help but gasp in surprise as she was yanked towards Lotus. The Queen of Toxic leaned down and pushed her arms under Velua’s, wrapping her up in a hug before taking to the air with the red-faced dwarven cargo.