Chapter Eleven
Reve stared at him, blinked her lone eye once, then shook her head.
“Their treatment of me makes sense if you remember I was born on a lower floor than them. Dungeon monsters instinctively fear spawn from the floors below them—it is what drives them forward during a dungeon break. They’re fleeing us.”
“What floor were you born on?” Skylar asked. Vester saw she’d already pulled out a golem arm to resume working on it, but she was still interested in joining the conversation.
“The thirteenth… I think,” Reve said with a frown. “Evolution isn’t a straightforward process, but I do not believe I could be from much deeper. My previous body wasn’t powerful enough to compete against Adventurers higher than level 50.”
The way she says that makes me feel like she believes her body is now powerful enough to compete with level 50 Adventurers, Vester thought, and I kind of believe her.
She did survive every fight she had with Denny and his Party…
though it makes me wonder how class levels work for evolved monsters.
If this were a video game, people would be calling her broken to be able to level on top of having a body that powerful.
Li Ra whistled. “I am glad to have you on our team,” the oni said with a nod of her head.
The Frontier Duelist had taken out a kit to clean her weapons, and she was currently using a tiny pick to clear debris from around the focusing crystals on her rifle.
It reminded Vester of one of those curved hooks the dentists used; Li was employing a similar motion to dig out grime from around the inset gemstone.
The sound of her clearing her throat signaled Kora bringing attention to herself. “While I also appreciate having Reve with us, and admire her strength, I believe we should get more details about the Quest first?” The kitsune turned her milky gaze on Vester and cocked her head, clearly waiting.
“Non wants me to perform the communication ritual before the blood elflings,” Vester began, “Specifically, to ‘carve, cast, and take part’ in the ritual… with an emphasis on making it look impressive. It’s also a Divine Quest, so I believe it was issued straight from the Goddess of Chaos herself.”
Anything else Vester might have said was cut off when every member of his Party stiffened and took on the vague look of someone reading a notification.
Ordinal’s System is kind of weird, he mused.
It doesn’t disrupt people much in combat, but when we’re not fighting the notifications can be incredibly hard to ignore.
I’m glad it doesn’t constantly throw things in my face, though, because that would be so distracting.
It’s odd to have to summon a Grimoire to read about and implement my progress, but I am glad it doesn’t just pop up on its own at weird times.
Sometimes he thought it might be better if people grew without having to check their books, but then he considered how disruptive having his attributes change during a fight could be. Kora had taught him to fence with speed and precision—his dexterity shifting on the fly would throw his timing off.
I’m betting they’re all getting some kind of Quest related to mine, he thought.
Reve was the first to turn her attention back to the Party. The Avatar of Life flared her wings, then folded them down around her body like a cloak.
“I have received a Quest instructing me to safeguard the Avatar of Chaos,” she explained. “It offers no explanation for what my reward shall be, though the punishment would be… unpleasant.” Reve actually blushed, which confused the hell out of Vester.
“What is the punishment?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
‘Non, you’d better not be doing anything weird,’ he prayed at his goddess.
‘I’ve yelled at you before for getting involved in my love life, I will yell more if I have to.’
His prayer went unanswered, as he knew it would, and Reve didn’t seem inclined to answer him either.
Krysta let out a giggle. “I dunno, the punishment might not be that bad—just depends on who is doing it!”
the pandali countered. She curled her tail before herself and hugged her arms around it, resting her chin on a curve of furry muscle while she sat upon a box.
“Ah!” she yelped when Skylar leaned out and swatted the back of her head.
“Is there anything you won’t make perverted?”
Skylar asked with an exasperated huff. “And don’t say that it’d be hot if Vester got to watch!”
The djinn rolled her lavender eyes, then looked at Vester.
His curiosity must have been written all over his face, because she sighed at him.
“The punishment is spankings,” Skylar offered flatly.
Divine Quest: Funishment.
Requirement: If a punishment is to be issued to the Avatar of Chaos’ Party, the Avatar of Chaos must be the one to perform the punishment.
No clothing or armor may be used to mitigate the damage delivered.
The punishment must be rendered barehanded, without the use of artificial device or assistance.
Conditional: This Quest will automatically fail if revealed to anyone. This Quest cannot be shared with anyone. This Quest must be fulfilled within 24 hours of the trigger event.
Reward: Punishment is its own reward!
Punishment: I’ll be really sad if you refuse me and have to do it myself while you watch… and then I won’t be held responsible for anything I do!
Vester resisted the temptation to pinch the bridge of his nose with every ounce of self-control he possessed. He was tempted to try and strangle the goddess, since he was fairly certain she’d survive it. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up toward the ceiling.
‘Non, there will come a time when I’m your equal, and I promise that when I am, you’re going to get all the ‘funishment’ you can handle! You are worse than Krysta, and she’s already considering failing her Quest on purpose!’
His prayer done, he turned his attention to his Party. “Can I count on all of you to help?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Elondolin mentioned these dungeon spawn have some kind of insect-worship thing going on—they might not be thrilled to have me summoning a goddess in their presence.”
The reminder sobered Krysta, and her daydreaming look faded into a frown. “I didn’t think of that,” she murmured, clearly embarrassed at the oversight.
“It’s okay, I’d forgotten too,” Skylar admitted, rubbing Krysta’s back gently. The pandali leaned back into the contact, and Skylar took a moment from working on her golem to just relax with Krysta.
“Reve, do you think you can convince them to allow Vester to perform that ritual?” Kora asked. The question made sense to Vester. With the blood elflings deferring to Reve, the bat-winged woman was their best chance for things to go peacefully.
“Possibly,” Reve said. “I am not familiar with their culture, but if I say the ritual is meant to summon a powerful creature to empower them they… may allow it. The Great Dungeon sometimes shakes up floors that way, altering the structure by changing dynamics.”
“How does that work?” Li Ra asked, curiosity getting the better of her. The oni leaned toward Reve, eager. Vester wanted to hear it too, so he didn’t mind the topic shift.
“I would like to start by saying I have no concrete knowledge of what occurs,” Reve started, taking a moment to scratch her jaw with her metal finger, “but it has always seemed like some monsters have the dungeon’s attention. Their evolutions make them special,
eventually transforming them from a normal creature to a Boss. When a new Boss rises on a floor they can displace the old one, which alters the creatures that follow when they come into being. The new monsters inevitably force the environment to adjust to suit them.”
“The environment changes to reflect the monsters spawning, not the other way around?” Krysta asked, fascinated. She loved learning new things, so Vester wasn’t surprised she was riveted. “The Adventurer’s Guild documentation believes it works the other way around.”
Kora nodded, agreeing with Krysta. Vester found himself hiding a smile. He’d have expected Kora to try and steer them back into planning for his Quest, but she was just as captivated by learning about the Great Dungeon as Krysta.
“The environment and the monsters influence each other,” Reve explained.
“My floor was a place of endless caves, chasms, and cliffs. Almost all of the monsters there can fly or walk on walls. I have vague memories that the dominant beast on my floor was a serpent that breathed fire, and that the crevasses were filled with magma;
but then a great lizard with stone skin defeated the serpent, and the magma receded. By the time the dungeon broke, there was no longer any flowing magma on the floor at all.”
Considering Non said that the dungeons are pockets of Ordinal where the fabric of reality has grown thin and the dimensions would tear and breach into other planes, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that things don’t work in a way that I understand…
Still, I guess it makes sense that they’re imposing organization onto the breakdown of existence—that’s the whole point.
Keeping those Horror things she talked about from slipping onto Ordinal.
The conversation went on a while longer, with Krysta and Kora asking more questions.
Skylar returned to her tinkering, and Li Ra came to sit down next to Vester.
The oni leaned against him, slipped her arm around his waist, and rested her head on his shoulder.
Vester leaned back, and for a little while he let his worries go to just enjoy being together with someone he loved.
They sat like that for over an hour, and Vester almost fell asleep when he found Skylar gently tapping him on the shoulder.
“Got a moment?” she asked softly. After looking around, Vester realized the reason for her hesitance was Li Ra, who was sleeping, her nose wrinkled and a thin line of drool falling onto Vester’s shoulder.
He held up a finger, signaling Skylar to give him a moment, then carefully worked his way out from under Li’s sleeping form.
To his surprise, Kora slipped into the spot he’d been sitting, which allowed him to lower Li Ra’s head to Kora’s shoulder instead.
The kitsune offered him a wink and motioned for him to go with Skylar.
Vester and the Artifice Maker moved farther down the cargo hold so they wouldn’t disrupt the others, and then Skylar sat down on a crate with a sigh. Vester sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her and giving her a hug. “You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted with a sniffle. “I know it’s stupid, and I know they’re just golems, but I’m going to miss Beaky and Splinter…” She rubbed her face against his neck, and he felt tears fall against his throat. “It’s so stupid…”
“Hey,” he said, pitching his voice low and tightening his arms around her.
“It’s not stupid to love something you made. You create their cores out of your own magic, and you build their bodies with your own hands. If that doesn’t give you a right to feel affection toward them, nothing does. We’ve both seen delvers cry at the loss of a piece of gear,
so why should you do less for your puppets?”
“You think so?” she asked. “I know they’re not alive—they don’t really have personalities or anything—but I always feel like they’re my kids… which is…”
“You didn’t have a family growing up,” Vester whispered.
“I think it’s natural that you’d want to fill the void with something connected to you. Dungeon diving is dangerous work, and it’s not like we can bring pets with us down here. We’re gone for weeks, sometimes longer, so plants would struggle.
What better to give affection to then something you can repair endlessly?”
Skylar blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again. A few seconds later she nodded her head and hugged him back, clutching him close while she let some of her pent-up emotions out. Vester stroked his hand down her back, his fingers half-curling around her wrist-thick braid.
She hasn’t lost a golem core in a while, he thought, not since the early floors, back when we were just getting started.
I’m not sure she realized how much she humanizes the golems in her own mind.
With how close her creations are getting to living creatures in terms of complexity, it’s probably even harder to avoid thinking about them like real beings.
It took some time for Skylar to fully calm, but when she did, she planted a kiss on Vester’s lips and then nudged his shoulder. “Go play with the others,” she said, her voice a little hoarse from crying, “I’m going to ignore you for a while and get back to working on Woody’s new body.”
“Okay, but I’m here if you need me,” he promised.
“I know,” she said with a half-smile. Then Vester rose to give her room to start taking her golem pieces back out of her inventory.
He went back to where the others had gathered and found that Krysta had transformed into her red panda form and curled up on Kora’s lap.
The kitsune was now asleep, and Li was still resting against her shoulder, snoring softly.
Reve was the only one awake, and the Avatar of Life offered him a solemn nod before signaling he should walk with her to the other side of the cargo bay.
I’m going to wear a path across this hold if this keeps up, he thought in amusement.
He didn’t hesitate to walk past the sleeping trio and follow Reve to the corner of the cargo area away from where Skylar was working.
“What’s up?” he asked once Reve had turned back to face him.
Confusion spread across his face, and she glanced up at the strange, chitinous rafters that made up the interior of the ship.
Vester didn’t let her ask the question he saw forming on her lips.
“It’s an expression from Earth—I’m not actually asking what’s above us.”
“Oh,” she said, though it was obvious she still did not understand.
She tapped her metal fingers against her mithril thigh, the soft tink-tink-tink sound clear from how close together they stood.
Reve didn’t have any real issues getting into someone’s personal space, so far as he’d seen.
She had a tendency to stand closer than most would while holding a conversation.
“What are the requirements to become one of your lovers?”
she asked, somehow sounding blunt, anxious, and shy all at once.
She just sort of blurted the question while staring hard at him with her solitary eye.
She’d also bent at the knees and waist, like she was trying to get closer to his own height—which left her head looming over Vester’s.
The juxtaposition of expression, posture, and earnestness almost saw Vester burst into laughter. He took a deep breath, then a second, and finally reached up and patted a hand on her shoulder.
“How about we sit down and talk?” he said as gently as he could. He didn’t want her to feel like he was making light of her question, but he also needed a moment. “This… might take a while.”