The small reptilian woman backs away from me slightly and looks around again, then down at her hands with a startled expression as she realizes she doesn't have her spear anymore,
“W-Where... Where am I? Who are you? A-And how did we get here?” she stammers out, her voice is soft and admittedly fragile sounding, a far cry from the somewhat bone chilling way her species spoke before I could understand them. I think about the question for a bit, not entirely sure how to start answering her questions, or whether I should start off with the bombshell of ‘Oh hey I'm the local dungeon’ type thing. Apparently, my inward musings were taking longer than she had liked and she took another tentative step backwards while pulling her hands to her chest.
“Can you understand me?” she says, once more breaking the deafening silence.
“Yes, sorry, I was lost in thought for a moment.” I say, keeping my voice as soothing as I'm able on account of how frightened she seems to be. To hopefully help settle her fears a little I sit down on the floor, crossing my legs and resting my elbows on my thighs.
“As for your other questions, you're more or less in my mind, or something equivalent I'd have to guess. I don't have a name as far as I know, but I call myself Lance and so do my friends, I'm.. uh.” I stop for a moment and consider how to put my thoughts into something that would make sense but not seem outlandish.
“Do you know what a dungeon is by chance?” I say, still keeping my tone soft and friendly.
“No, not really. The word sounds familiar from stories I was told as a youngling but…” her words trail off and she looks around. “How did we get here?” she asks again, the smallest hint of fear still present in her voice.
“Don't worry, I'll get to that, but for it to make sense I need to explain a couple things first.” She looks around once again and nods before also sitting down, although she makes sure to stay out of arm's reach and wraps her tail into her lap, gently rubbing at the scales near the tip.
“As I said, my name is Lance, and I am a dungeon, more specifically this body.” I say as I gesture to myself. “Is my avatar, it's who I was before I became what I am now. Do you remember that glowing orange crystal you touched that allowed you to see me?” She nods again but stays silent.
“That crystal is my heart, you could say that it's the concentrated essence of my being, and you touching it allowed me to let your consciousness into my mind, that is where we are now.” She looks at me with an intense stare but it seems more like she is looking through me than at me as she processes the information. And to be fair I was also still processing it. I still haven't found that hidden library of knowledge that I intrinsically ‘know’ but don't really know until I need it, and it's starting to become annoying that I'm learning as much about myself as any new person is when we discuss topics that specifically pertain to me. She refocuses on me and opens her mouth to say something but decides to rethink her words for a moment before trying again.
“Why did you bring me here?” The trepidation in her voice is there but I think she is starting to catch on.
“I wanted to offer a contract to you and your… friends? Siblings maybe? The other three Kobolds in your group. But before that I wanted to get to know you, don't worry, no time is passing outside of here.” I say but don't really believe what’s coming out of my mouth, and before she can ask any questions I wave my hand over the ground between us, which feels unnatural as if I'm being puppeteered by something with strings reaching far above out of sight above. To both of our surprise, a window opens up showing the inside of the core room. Inside are two Kobolds standing still as statues and a foggy, ghostly form resembling what I'm assuming is what she saw me as kneeling in front of the one touching the core. The view expands outward, showing a cutaway of the dungeon from a bird's eye view all the ants now looking the size of actual mundane ants from this distance before zooming back in on the other two kobolds, still by the flooded room. One stoking the fire with a new log and the other waiting by the door, bow in hand. The embers floating suspended above the still flames. I'm still inspecting the scene in front of me with awe when the kobold looks back up at me.
“Sisters, they’re my sisters.” she says, inspecting me as if expecting some form of reaction, and the fidgeting with her tail quickens a bit. “What would you like to know about us?”
“Well… what would you be comfortable with telling me?”
“Umm, We’re outcasts, other larger tribes consumed our tribes, and we found each other after avoiding capture. We aren't siblings by blood or brood, but there is no place for us in other tribes so we hide by the large pool and just try to survive off of what we can catch or steal without being spotted by other tribe's hunting parties. I'm the only mature one out of the four of us so I have taken the role of caretaker for them but without a large enough group their maturing has slowed almost to a halt. And they are stuck as younglings just before maturity. Until we can find more outcasts for our tribe I mean. There isn't really anything else to say about us.” I mull over the information as it rolls in, they are orphans after losing their tribes, and nothing in the species description mentioned slowed growth in small numbers. Maybe the extra mana I produce will help restart the process for them without needing more orphaned kobolds, unless the group I unintentionally exiled from the main cavern counts towards their group.
“Do you all have names?” I ask and she nods slowly.
“I am Vesh, the short one that followed me into the tunnel is Keva, that one.” she says, pointing to the kobold adding the log to their small fire. “ Is Hekal, and the last one with the bow is Lithal.” I nod along as I commit the names to memory.
“Like I said earlier, I wanted to offer you four contracts. You would get to live in the dungeon, and your needs for food and a safe place to stay would be met, and in return I want your help in raising all of the young that you helped escape the open water into the dungeon, you would be free to come and go at any time, and the rest of my friends would also, hopefully, become your friends in return.”
“Why were all of those hatchlings seeking sanctuary with you in the first place?” she asks, while looking into the large pool of water housing the tadpoles through the window on the floor. I get a slight feeling that I shouldn't tell her outright that I bound the hatchlings to the dungeon, but I'd rather not get caught in a lie later if I can help it, especially with them being contracts, I don't think I can keep them from harming me if I get onto their bad side given their proximity, there isn't really any way to ease into the topic either that I can think of so after a deep breath and a sigh
I get on with telling her.
“I can bind creatures to the dungeon, I have before, and I bound a number of the young and some of the unborn kobolds to me, however before I could intervene the tribes dumped them into the lake which was not within my intentions to have happen.”
“So they are slaves to you now?” She says with no small amount of fear and a small amount of anger in her voice.
“No, no, they still have their own free will and I don't plan to force them to do anything,”
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“But, what if they end up not wanting to be bound to you once they are aware?”
“They can leave then.” I say, “However I don't know if I can undo the bond, and the way it works is that any partner they make will become bound to me along with their offspring. And there are benefits to being bound to me, like heightened intelligence.” I decide to leave out the effectual immortality bit that comes along with names and the small kobold seems to carefully think over what I had told her so far. After a moment of silence that was beginning to turn awkward, I decided to speak up again.
“I must say you seem to be taking all of this rather well.”
“Oh does it look that way? That's a relief, I'm actually trying very hard not to freeze up whenever you talk, or break down into a crying mess right now”
“I might not be the most up to par with your specific way of sharing emotions, but nonetheless I honestly couldn't tell you were under much stress at all.” Although that might have not been completely true I still wanted to try and boost her confidence a little bit to help her through for a moment, especially with the questions and topic we’d be talking about next. A small smile creeps onto the edges of her features and she is even able to make eye contact with me for a moment, before turning back to looking at her tail.
“Now I'd like to get back to the main reason we’re here if you're alright with that.”
“You mean the contract thing you were talking about right?”
“Yes, it's completely up to you, since you're the guardian of the three others I'm assuming it's your call when it comes to them too.”
“You said you would feed and shelter us in return for taking care of the hatchlings right?”
“Yes, and you would be granted access to the rest of the dungeon instead of just the room you are camped out in currently.”
“I don't want to speak for the other three, but I think I would like to accept and once they are matured I'm sure they would too. We’ve been struggling to find enough food and I think we could use the help. Once the others have matured you can ask them for a contract individually, it's not my place to make that decision for them.” I nod as she finishes speaking, there's a good chance the others will still help her with the daycare duties regardless so this outcome isn't really a bad one.
“I can work with that I suppose, but I don't think I can let the others wander the dungeon until they have accepted contracts, it might not be safe for them, but regardless I accept those terms for your contract.”
We both just sit there for a moment looking at each other and the silence is once again turning awkward.
“Umm, how do we do a contract? Or was that just it?” she says as she looks at her hands, arms and tail. “I don't feel or look any different.”
“That's a good question…” I mumble under my breath and rub the back of my neck awkwardly. Then the small flashing light in my head turns on and I get up from my seated position onto my knees and form a medallion in my hands, still an odd lack of mana draw to make it.
“Would you mind giving me one of your hands?” I say after the medallion is fully formed.
“Umm, sure I guess.” she says as she lets go of her tail and reaches out towards me. I have to shuffle closer to be able to reach but I stay a respectful distance away since I can see her hand is visibly shaking.
“Everything is going to be alright.” I assure her as I reach out with the medallion cupped in my palm as I gently grip her hand and clench lightly, there is a flow of orange mana that exudes from my skin like mist and it wraps its way up my arm, and between our clasped hands, the medallion seems to begin warm up slightly and ring before it shrinks down to about half its original size and vanishes completely. I let go of her hand and pull back but she stays as she is, still as a statue seemingly in a daze or maybe shock. That's when I notice the imprint of the medallion on her palm. She just sits there in a bit of a daze and doesn't react to me letting go.
“Hello, umm, Vesh, are you still with me here?” I say and she snaps out of her frozen state.
“I'm um yes, I'm here, wherever here is…” her words trail off as she looks at her hand, gently rubbing the glowing orange markings on her palm with her other hand. "I saw something, like dreams or memories playing out in my head." I consider that for a moment but don't say anything about it. Instead, I decide to direct the conversation back to the matter at hand.
“Now close your hand and think about those markings on your palm.” I say, still not really sure where I'm getting the information for this from. She does so, and also closes her eyes to focus. Soon she opens her eyes with a start and uncurls her fingers, a half-sized medallion is sitting there, as if it's been there the whole time, tilting her head she closes her hand again and focuses, opening her hand the medallion is gone once more.
“Would you like to go back now?” I say, shaking her out of her focused daze once more.
“Umm, sure, yes, that's fine with me.” her words were barely above a whisper and I had almost missed it, but she was visibly more excited along with a slight but unmistakable vibration going through her tail. We both stand up and I gently place a hand on her shoulder.
“Be seeing you around Vesh,” I say and almost instantly, before she can say anything we’re back in my sanctum, and indeed it seems no time has passed. We both take our hands off of my core and she steps back however she still seems to be able to see me or, at least my general position, as her eyes seem to slightly struggle with tracking me. I form a link and she jumps slightly at my words.
”It’s safe for you to wander around, but until your siblings have their own medallions I need you to try and keep them in the flooded room until I can form contracts with them too. If you need me for anything just think about talking to me and we should be able to converse like this.” Not saying anything she nods slightly and quietly moves around the pillar to Keva where they whisper quietly for a moment before she convinces the younger kobold to head back down the tunnel. She takes one last look over her shoulder at my form, still hovering over by the exit to the rest of the dungeon before she too hurries off after her sister back to their small camp.
I open a connection with Cardinal and Onyx, and after we share some greetings I retell the experience I just had with the young kobold and the information I had learned about myself.
“As much as I know you don't like new people all that much, would the two of you be willing to meet Vesh, our newest contracted member?”
“It's not that we don't like meeting new people, my liege.” says Onyx, breathing somewhat heavily, maybe he's dragging a large kill back to the dungeon. “We have an instinctual aversion to having other beings in the presence of the queen, like how you've described the panic you felt when Cardinal found your core before you two had met properly. That's how we feel when she’s around other people who aren't of the colony, but it's not just her or the children nearby, an uneasiness rushes over the entire colony similar to how you shiver and get your goosed bumps when you're uncomfortable only a fair bit worse.”
“That's fair I Suppose, it's instincts or a survival mechanism. And it's ‘goosebumps’. ” I say, considering their side of the point, and trying to find a way around the colony having an instant anxiety attack every time Vesh or her sisters come around.
“Do you think it would be easier on your collective psyche since she is bound to me in a similar way that you are?” I propose, and this time Cardinal answers.
“Perhaps, however, we’ll just have to try and see, preferably sometime when Onyx is back, I don't think she’ll be outright hostile towards me with how you described her, and I'm willing to go as far as assuming she will be more afraid of me than I will be of her. But for the sake of my own instincts, as you put it, I'd like Onyx to be there too.”
“That can be arranged.” I say “How far are you from-.” I begin to ask before I'm hit with three pins at the base of my neck all in rapid succession.
“I think that was the group we sent with the adventurer's party.” Onyx says, I can't hear it per se but I can feel him crack his mandibles together over the connection, and it's like the reverberation of a gunshot going off in my head, he is very unhappy about losing some of his brood it seems. “I am relatively nearby, I can go check on them with my hunting party. If all is well we can go back to hunting, but if they need help we can assist.” I can tell by the tone of his voice that even if I tell him he shouldn't, which realistically I should, he probably would be adamant about checking anyway and just saying his hunt took a while.
“You are more or less autonomous so I won't stop you, as long as Cardinal is okay with it.” I say.
There is a short feeling of apprehension from her over our link but another sharp pin hits me and that apprehension from her is gone almost instantly.
“Go check dearest. We’ll be fine here in the meantime.” Onyx nods through the connection and his end closes, which allows Cardinal to turn her full attention to me.
"Now, about our earlier conversation about better communication.” she says with a small smirk in her voice and I can tell I'm really not going to enjoy this as much as she will. Almost like a kid who knows they were wrong about to have a stern talk with a parent.