[Edited] Ch. 48-49 (Patreon)

Chapter 48 - Building Lynnria
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I ran a thumb over the polished surface of the Key thoughtfully.

It was green this time, rounding out the colors mentioned in the three-by-three riddle. Further, the hidden safe Jax had unlocked had turned out to also contain a trio of yellow, hexagonal prisms. With the blue ones still tied to Lynnria’s waist, we had now assembled two-thirds of the puzzle pieces we needed to complete this Dungeon. Presumably.

The pattern being what it was, this Key should eventually lead us to a trio of green prisms, however I was not altogether certain why we might need them. We had sort of… brute-forced our way through large swathes of the puzzle already. However, Xhinn’s hint had led us to this latest batch, so I had to assume they were still relevant.

“I still says it were the door with them two Mina birds on it,” Jax groused. For the third time.

Mina birds, at least from the depiction I had seen, kind of resembled ravens except they had a quasi-dimetrodon-like ridge of feathers running from the base of their beak all the way down their back. Though, if they were even black, I had no idea. It had only been a wood carving.

Of course, none of that helped explain why they might be a solution to the current puzzle.

“What do Mina birds have to do with needles?” I asked.

“They… collect shite. And needles is shiny. I guess,” Jax said, clearly grasping at straws. “But there ain’t no clearer sign of misfortune! Seen a pair the morning afore I were bound, I did.”

Arx turned to affix Jax with a scandalized glare. “And that was unfortunate?”

“Course not, ye crusted arsepiece,” Jax shot back. “It were me mates what had the poor time of it.”

I sighed, dismissing the current door to seek out the next.

After recovering from my fall—with magical assistance, of course—we had elected to explore one of the hallways extending from either side of the entry door. Specifically, the one Lynnria’s grandfather had disappeared down. She had insisted.

Though, if there had been any signs of the missing warrior, we had missed them. I did not even know what we should be looking for. It was just a hallway… if an unusual one. It seemed to me that the structure extended in a straight line without any sort of obvious end until it disappeared over the horizon. Which is not a thing I had ever imagined possible for an indoor area.

But here we were.

Meanwhile, the hall seemed divided into subsections rather like an open apartment complex. Periodically, a window would appear—each looking out onto some strange, illogical vista and each completely different from the last. In front of the window, there would be a small collection of furniture arranged into a little social nook. Then, on the opposite side, there would be a door, each of which featured a Keyhole directly in its center.

The implications were obvious: pick the correct door.

And with the way Keys tended to work, I doubted we would have more than a single guess.

“So many puzzles,” Lynnria groaned as we briefly paused in front of yet another.

This one did not feature any of the more obvious decorations many of the others did, however from the claw marks liberally gouging its surface, it looked to have been attacked by a bear. Unfortunate? Arguably. Needler? Bit of a stretch.

I continued on.

Lynnria audibly pouted, likely from being ignored. “Seriously, does no one else wonder why this Dungeon has nothing but mazes and puzzles?”

“The Dungeon always has puzzles,” Arx countered. “Nothing unusual about that.”

“Yes, but where are all the monsters?”

“That golem not good enough for you?” I asked absently.

“That wasn’t a monster! It was an obstacle, and if we’d had any choice in the matter, we’d never have even tried to fight it. There was no way we could have taken that thing without the pill you had stowed, and even then we barely survived. We should be rolling in Gems of Power and treasure by this point.”

She paused for a moment to shake out her legs, grimacing. “All we seem to do is walk, run and think! I hate thinking. I had enough of that from my tutors. And my calves are killing me. How do you two walk around as if nothing is bothering you when we can’t even put our heels on the ground? Especially with… with those massive… things on your chest! You can’t tell me your backs aren’t in agony.”

Jax responded to exactly none of that and instead turned to me. “Master, yer pet be hungry.”

“I am not!”

“Do you really think they’re massive?” Arx asked, predictably latching onto the most superficial portion of Lynnria’s diatribe. Her face contorted into a thoughtful frown while she hefted them underneath an arm. “They’re still barely even big enough to extend past my wrist. Dearest, can you see them from behind?”

She turned away quickly and reached up to grab at her horns, then shook her front from side to side.

“Yeah, a little. Especially when you jiggle them like that,” I reported.

Arx twirled back around, grinning from ear to ear.

“Quit showing off, ye bloated cow,” Jax protested, though her heart was not in it. She glanced back toward Lynnria. “And ye are so hungry. We been walking for near on two hours. I can feel it starting to gnaw at ye.”

Arx was still too elated to rise to the admittedly weak provocation and instead pranced over to ruffle Lynnria’s hair. “Pity she can’t feed properly yet. With all the fun earlier, I’m still brimming with Energy.” Tail twitching mischievously, she turned and presented herself to the younger woman like a cat requesting back scritches—upright tail and all. “Are you sure you don’t want some? It’s right there for the taking.”

From her expression, you would have thought Arx had just offered Lynnria a dead rat she had picked up from the floor.

“Must you be so vile?”

Jax rolled her eyes. “Master…?”

I sighed, still too engrossed in the puzzle—and still too thoroughly sated—to be in the mood for this sort of thing. However, like any good shepherd, it was my responsibility to tend to my flock. The Dolilim had their needs.

Turning, I twisted my belt to one side, exposing my already-rising member—helped along by the the Hammer, of course. As I said, thoroughly sated. Regardless, I decided to set it for happiness this time. Lynnria could use the mood booster.

Whatever front she was putting on vanished the instant Lynnria laid eyes on it, and she practically launched herself toward me, her padded knees sliding across the polished floor as if she had just scored a match goal. I was in her mouth not an instant later, and she began to work at me—a lamb at her mother’s teat.

Or more specifically… well, no. I would rather not pursue that particular metaphor.

“She were right about one thing,” Jax mused—from her tone, thoughtful. However, she and Arx were watching the proceedings like a pair of hounds during meal prep. “Me claws ain’t pierced no lick of flesh since we got here, nor nothing else besides. Be thirsting fer Life now. Can feel it, almost.”

“It’s not like there have been no monsters,” I said over the suckling noises. Jax had said something about seeing them in her section, I felt sure. “Is it really so uncommon?”

“I’ve been in my share of puzzle-heavy Dungeons,” Arx replied. “But one with no Gem rewards? The whole time? Completely unheard of.”

“Hmm.”

It was an interesting observation but, like so many of the ones we had made, it was not one we could do much with. What were we supposed to do? Form up a picket line?

Distracted, I motioned to Jax. The exercise had made me a tad peckish myself and, especially with those heals earlier, I felt a need for a pick-me-up.

She stepped forward with a confident sway, then paused within easy reach, ready for whatever I might like to do with her.

I grinned before reaching up to give one of her perky nipples a solid flick with my forefinger. She trembled for a few moments while pain and heady waves of pleasure warred over her features, but she made no move to shield her chest. If anything, she only presented herself more fully. However, despite being the originator of that little fetish, I was not one for sadism. That had only ever been a trait intended to help her fight better. So I left it at that.

Instead, I simply dragged a finger through her freshly engorged flesh and brought it to my lips. The potent whiskey-spice flavor I discovered there had experienced no lapse at all in potency. If anything, the Life was stronger than ever.

Maybe there was some credence to the notion of it being tied to their Energy levels. Though, that it should be stronger now, after having walked for over an hour? I could only wonder at the potential of emotions as an Energy source. Just the bit of mild socializing we had been engaging in seemed to have been enough not only to sustain her but to fill her more completely than ever!

Lynnria’s rhythmic action abruptly halted as she was overcome by a bout of shivering. “Whistling—” She swallowed, then cast a furtive glance at the peanut gallery before refocusing on me. “W-what did you just do? It tastes so much better now!”

“Course it do, pet,” Jax said with an affectionate little scratch behind Lynnria’s elongated ear. Which she leaned into. A bit. “There be more Life in him.”

“There is? How? When?”

She grinned. “Easy to lose yer ownself down there, ain’t it? How do ye think?”

Lynnria looked between us uncertainly for a moment before the draw of my erection inevitably pulled her lips to the side.

“Here,” Jax said abruptly, pulling it away—to Lynnria’s moan of protest. With a wicked grin on her face, she turned me to face her then straddled my length.

While she worked her ever-moistened lips over me, I quirked an eyebrow. Not that I minded the softness of Jax’s body pressing against me—or any of the rest of it, frankly—but this little session was supposed to just be a quick snack for Lynnria. Jax was anything but hungry.

“Aren’t we being a tad greedy?” I asked.

She winked at me.

“That’ll do, I’m thinking.” She stepped back and turned me to face Lynnria again. “Now try it.”

On seeing the clear fluid now liberally coating my manhood, Lynnria’s expression immediately flashed to one of horror and revulsion. You would have thought Jax had just dumped a bucket of ketchup over a prime rib. However, the draw of what laid beneath was too great for her to resist for long, and she began to hesitatingly attempt to wipe it off.

But she soon became impatient—or perhaps overwhelmed by the happiness exuding from my pores—and dove back in. I suppose she forgot what was bothering her after that. From her pleased gurgling noises, the flavor was not so wretched as she had been expecting.

“Okay, that’s done. Now, per your request, I have put together a few—oh.” Mia’s untimely reentry to the conversation was cut short as soon as it began. “Perhaps this is a bad time?”

“It’s just a quick snack,” Arx explained when I did not. Jax’s addition to the proceedings had unexpectedly turned up the dial on Lynnria’s enthusiasm, so I was having a little trouble with things like words.

“What was ye doing in there, anyway?” the redhead asked. “Ye was gone so long, we near on forgot about ye.”

“I would have been done a lot faster if someone hadn’t started—slapping my tit—” She pulled away for a moment to let the tics out of her system before continuing like nothing had happened. “Hadn’t started casting spells with absolutely no warning. And anyway, there is no use asking questions you have no hope of understanding the answers to.”

Jax sniffed. “Ye ain’t gotta tell us all the fiddly bits. Just sum it up.”

“Sum it up? Do you have any idea what a base-centered orthorhombic light-fractal is? Informational exchange through energy dimensions? M-plane anchoring?”

A glazed look passed over Jax’s eyes, and she turned to Arx—who shrugged with some exaggeration.

“Sum it up… like we’re complete idiots?” my second suggested.

Mia sighed. “Fine. We have caused a… a thing to… sprout? Something vaguely like a root, I suppose. From Lynnria’s Core.”

“Like that tree in my dream?” Arx asked.

“Yes, like that—dick in my—” She pulled away again for more ticking. “Yes. Similar… at least figuratively. Though there are differences. The specifics of which are too complex to get into. However, per my initial theories, it has resulted in a connection which should allow her to manifest her skills in the same way as you two.”

Jax twirled a claw in front of her. “That being…?”

“Without incantations,” Arx supplied.

“Oh~” Mia purred. “Yes, indeed. It is rather pleasant when you answer your own questions.”

Speaking of pleasant, it was about then that ‘snack-time’ was coming to a head, and the conversation had to wait until its participants finished howling and grunting like a couple of wild animals. Not that anyone minded overmuch.

“Hoo… okay, then,” I said breathlessly. “Feeling better, Lynnria?”

It took her a few seconds to respond as she was desperately trying not to let any of her hard-won spoils go to waste—and she seemed to be crying a little—but she nodded.

“Good…. Good.” I glanced toward our audience. “That is the good kind of crying, right?”

They also nodded. In perfect unison.

Hmm… One day, I was going to need to learn to tell the difference, but the concept of crying for joy was just so foreign to me. I could scarcely imagine being so overcome that you had to break down into tears.

For a moment, I pursued the idea that I ought to give Lynnria an admittedly well-earned kiss just to get a better feel for her mental state. I knew she would appreciate it—probably even because of my motives. But from the way she was licking her fingers, she seemed a little busy.

Also, I knew from our many conversations that she was much more similar to a male in terms of mental outlook and sexual expectations, so she would probably be just as confused by the idea of aftercare as I was.

“Cool,” I said instead. Then winced. Man. Why do you gotta be so awkward? Quick. Change the subject… “You had some sort of ability for us to look at, Mia?”

“A few, yesssnnnah~” She took a few heavy breaths of her own. “Lord sovereign… please, be merciful. You held that spell so long earlier.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I grimaced. “Does that mean you also need a little uh… pampering?”

Arx stepped forward eagerly, but Mia was quick to shout, “No! No… Quite the opposite, I assure you. If anything I’m a bit… sore.”

Sore? How does a non-corporeal being get sore? Ah, whatever. It was hardly the weirdest aspect of Mia’s existence. With an apologetic shake of my head, I motioned Arx back. “Alright, then. That reminds me, though… My spells are supposed to provide some sort of emotional influence on my companions, but when I cast your levitation on Arx earlier, she got all freaked out and sick to her stomach.”

“‘Snails, Dearest… you didn’t have to tell her about it,” Arx protested.

“It should be working fine,” Mia replied, ignoring her. “At the moment, it’s just a randomized, Class-based spell attachment. And you haven’t spent any points toward improving or controlling it, so it’s still quite subtle. Fear and nausea could easily overpower such a weak effect.”

“I got over it,” Arx mumbled under her breath.

Distracted, I reached up to begin stroking one of her horns.

Spell attachments? I had never given it much thought, but now that Mia had drawn it to my attention, there might actually be quite a bit of potential to the idea. Never mind uplifting emotional boons, what if I could actually influence their combat acumen?

There was a certain economy to a fight, after all. As a spell caster, there was only so much I could accomplish in any given moment. If I could passively attach even minor buffs to them with each spell, that would eventually have a huge impact.

It was rather like discovering I had one of those MMO skill-trees waiting for me in the background—except I had to make up the tree as I went. And every point spent to improve it was an entire spell less in my overall arsenal.

Damn it. It was not the first time I bemoaned the open-ended nature of this system, and it would not be the last.

“I’ll have to give that some thought, Mia. Although, now that we’re on the topic, I actually have quite a few questions about how my Class is supposed to work—”

Mia let out something of a panicked squeal.

“—which I will be asking later. Go ahead and show us what you have for now.”

“Uh huh… well, first off, Lynnria, I have taken your poison idea and—” She paused. “I’m sorry. I just… naturally assumed as one of our lord master’s… Well, would you prefer this conversation to be private? That would be the normal order of business.”

Lynnria was still trembling a bit, but she shook her head. “No. We talk our skills out for the good of the Clan. Right?”

“How else’d ye do it?” Jax asked.

“Liiiike I uuused to,” Arx slurred airily. It was then I realized I was still rubbing her horn. And her mouth was beginning to hang open.

Jax eyed her for a moment. “Aye… that’d put a right boak on it.”

Boak? As my hand fell away, Arx unconsciously tried to follow it down—and collapsed to the floor.

“Um…” I gave my head a quick shake before refocusing on Jax. “I thought that one had something to do with vomit.”

She glanced up at me for a moment before returning her stare to her floundering sister. “Aye?”

Fair enough. “Go on, Mia.”

“Uh… yes. As I was saying, it is not possible to intentionally poison yourselves for your own benefit… with skills, anyway. However, per our Lord’s suggestion, I have been toying with the ideas of Life Energy storage and contamination.”

When did I suggest contaminating our Life Energy? That did not sound right. Although, I had to suppose the description of Life Berries could be interpreted that way. If someone else ate them.

Mia continued, “Now, creating a set of Energy Storage Runes was fairly simple. Once you give me the go-ahead—”

“Hold on,” Jax interrupted, finally tearing herself away from the spectacle of Arx crawling across the floor. “Why ain’t ye doing the bit with them blue cards like the master sees? Now that we’s all connected-like, I been wanting to see what he’s been on about.”

“But… you can’t even—gag on a dick!” She pulled away to make a series of popping noises before finishing her thought, “Can’t even read!”

“You could still read ‘em to me.”

“But…! That…!” Mia let out an exasperated growl. “Never mind! You don’t have the architecture for visuals. I would have to install it during your next torpor.”

“But I’s Boundary-locked, ye eighth-copper slag! I cannay go into torpor ‘til I take top-three in a tourney!”

“Be grateful I’m even considering the idea, you… you ill-mannered… woman!”

Jax’s jaw worked to one side, probably trying to decide how to react to such a poor attempt at deliberate insult. Eventually, she went with, “Not a woman.”

“Female, then!” Mia sighed tiredly. “I’m not even sure how I would replicate our lord’s architecture, and even if I could reverse-engineer it, the whole thing would have to be adapted to your unique physiology and mental landscape. You have no idea how much work you just dumped in front of me on nothing more than a whim!”

“Let’s call it a flex-goal, then,” I suggested. It was best to nip this argument in the bud before it started getting out of hand. “Besides, I can think of a number of uses for them having something like that. Teaching Jax to read, for one.”

“For them? Meaning you want…?” Mia groaned in defeat. “Yes… my lord. Of course. I’ll just… add it to my extremely-short not-at-all-overwhelming docket, then. Shall I?”

“I’d rather ye taught me yer ownself, Master,” Jax whined, pouting just a little.

Uh huh. “Sure. If you can manage to keep your hands off me for longer than five minutes at a stretch.”

Her little act dissolved instantly. “Shite.”

“May I continue, please?”

I found a little footstool to rest on before waving Mia on.

“Now, as I was saying…” She paused. “Blast. With you idiots interrupting me all the time, now I’ve gone and forgotten.”

“Something about storage and permissions,” Lynnria provided.

None of us bothered to refute the ‘idiots’ part. Even Jax.

“Ah, yes!” She cleared her throat. “Once you agree to taking the skill, you will be provided with a set of instructions which will allow you to engrave a small circle into your flesh… which sounds bad, but really it’s just a bit of scratching. Nothing gruesome. Any Life you collect can be harvested and stored within indefinitely, however for now, you are still restricted in what types of Life you may harvest. Extracting it from animal remains or vegetation will require secondary skill purchases.”

“And before you ask, I don’t know how much you will be able to store at a time. I wasn’t able to set any parameters for that, so it may well be unlimited. Although, it may cause some… swelling… if it gets to be too much.”

Lynnria gulped. “Swelling?”

“Fuck a table leg,” Mia agreed. “Naturally, skill level will play a role in that. As well as the density and purity levels of the Energy once extracted for use.”

I nodded along with the description. “Well, aside from the swelling bit, that all sounds pretty useful. It would be really nice to have some Energy stores built up before delving into any future Dungeons.”

Starving to death was an activity rather recently and emphatically scratched off my bucket list.

Lynnria pulled out her ‘Earthen bow’ and began stroking it thoughtfully. “Yes, it does. You haven’t mentioned a duration for the ability, though.”

“Again, there isn’t room to specify. I assume not very long if left unused, however the Runes should persist indefinitely once Life is inserted. And I would expect a need to reapply if emptied.”

“That’s all well and good,” Arx said from the nearby high-backed chair she had managed to pour herself into. “But she still needs something to fight with besides that little stick. I realize you said we couldn’t use it that way, but that was kind of the point of suggesting a poison ability in the first place. It was meant as a double-use skill.”

“Yes, I was just coming to that,” Mia replied. “To restate: because you cannot intentionally poison yourselves with your own skills, you cannot benefit in such a way that would utilize your Status Ailment Life chain. However, as the Life Berry example shows us, it is possible to come at the problem from the other direction. Instead of creating a poison you would then feed from, you may instead create a substance which you consider food… yet others consider poison.”

I nodded along. That was why I had suggested this in the first place, after all. All we needed now was some way of applying said poison.

However, Mia was not finished. “Once extracted again, the Life should present as a form of dense liquid—again depending on skill level and the amount you have crammed in there. Besides just consuming it directly, you can use it as something very like a blood-contact poison.”

“Meaning we’d have to rub it onto a blade or an arrow,” Lynnria interjected for clarity’s sake.

“Or your claws, yes. The effect of the poison is undetermined. However, inserting a foreign and condensed Life Energy into someone’s bloodstream has the potential to induce any number of reactions. I would expect some weakness at a bare minimum.”

“That being what you meant by contamination,” I said, understanding finally.

Jax sighed before flopping across Arx’s lap—to the other’s chagrin. “I dunno. Seems to me it’s just another poison like what the Master’s got already—and not even as good! ‘Sides, if Life Energy can do all that, couldn’t we just use what’s in our fannies?”

“Not dense enough—cherry boy!”

Jax’s head jerked up. However, her outrage faded quickly, replaced by a grin of amusement tugging at her features. “That one weren’t bad. Pity ye can’t pull such out when it’s called fer.”

“Yes. Pity,” Mia agreed. Followed by an dismissive sniff. “If you want the poison to do something more interesting, you’ll need to specify. At Lynnria’s current strength, there is only so much I can do with a single skill point. Unless, of course, you would like me to use her second one. She still has it remaining from when she gained her Class.”

That tidbit of information sparked a lengthy debate regarding the various avenues we might take this hypothetical poison, during which I maintained a thoughtful silence.

My own ability caused horrific pain through its corrosive properties and exploded violently if exposed to flame, so damage was not a… huge concern.

Jax thought it best for it to induce the Lust Ailment. That way, her new—and thus far unused—Class suffix would have something to work off of. As a Tenebrous Warrior of Beguilement, she was supposed to receive stacking Strength and Agility bonuses based on the arousal levels of those around her. However, being Boundary-locked, she had yet to purchase skills to take full advantage of that ability.

Meanwhile, Arx thought it would be more useful for it to cause some sort of Confusion or Dazed effect. Anything we might do to throw the enemy off their game would be extremely helpful in combat. Putting them to sleep, making them stare off into space, or even better, making them attack one another would be way better than just giving one of our party members a buff.

Lynnria’s own idea was… a little more violent. She thought it would be really cool for the poison to make its victim explode… and then for the victim’s chunks to explode when they hit something. And then for anybody caught in that explosion to also explode. Ultimately resulting in a visceral popcorn spray of annihilation.

Paraphrasing, of course.

“Absolutely not!” Mia shouted.

“Oh, come on!” Lynnria groaned as she aimed a kick at an innocent pitcher of water… that was sitting on the table she had been pontificating from. However, her foot was quickly reminded that the furniture and everything on it was glued down, leaving her hopping in circles with foot in hand.

“First of all, never mind the restriction on multi-targeting within the Foundation Layers,” Mia began, “proliferation isn’t even available until the 3rd Stratum. And you want explosive proliferation? You would need to be in the 4th before we could ever consider it, and all of that presupposes some method of preventing all of these explosions you want dancing around everywhere from killing off your own party!”

“Donum’s explodes,” Lynnria countered petulantly.

“Donum’s is modeled upon a compound his party fairly encountered,” Mia counter-countered. “There is no need to define parameters in such cases, and the allied immunity it confers does not extend to explosive side-effects. It would be all too easy to blow yourselves up if you were careless.”

No need to define parameters? That was news to me. Though, Mia had already mentioned something to that effect when she was explaining the Create Lesser Dolilim spell, this was the first time I had really considered the implications. If it was possible to create spells by reference…

No, there has to be some sort of limitation. I knew of one already. Mia had even said it. I had to have encountered the thing before. But ‘encountered’ in what sense? Like… was it possible to create a space shuttle? I had seen one of those before on a school field trip.

Somehow, I doubted it. And that was just exactly the kind of ‘deeper’ question Mia would avoid, assuming she did not outright choke on the answer. I was going to have to figure it out through experimentation, I knew.

But now was not the time. I had something else in mind for Lynnria.

“Those are all excellent ideas,” I began. Even Lynnria’s, if a bit ambitious. “But I think the main issue is in how to apply the poison in the first place. From what I’m hearing, this isn’t a simple matter of a magical buff like mine is. This has to be meticulously applied to a blade. That would be fine if we already knew we were getting into a fight and had the time to prepare, but she’d have a lot of trouble with surprise attacks.”

I hesitated in saying the rest. I had been entertaining the vague hope of developing Lynnria into more of an offensive spell caster, but I was well aware how much that flew in the face of her expressed desires. Mages and Warriors have very different philosophies when it came to combat. Although, at the end of the day, there is not much difference between dying from a blade between your ribs or a hole burned through your chest.

So maybe if I phrase it correctly…?

“She really needs a better way to introduce the poison into her victim than just blood contact. Like… maybe she could release it as a gas. That way, she could just wave it into their faces.”

However, Mia shot that down immediately. “A gas would count as a multi-target ability.”

I nodded, having already expected the rejection. “Okay… if you could somehow make the poison work on skin contact, all she’d have to do is touch them. Better yet, you could even form it into some kind of projectile that she could launch from a distance. Unless… hmm. Maybe that’s too much.” I carefully schooled my face so as not to give up the game. “There would be a lot of skill involved in actually hitting anyone with it.”

Lynnria puffed out her chest immediately and began brandishing her dowel rod from her perch on the table. “I think I have already demonstrated my proficiency in that regard.”

I smiled. “True.”

Mia clicked over to her private channel. “Ah… a simple poison bolt spell. But one which requires skill-based targeting, appealing to her pride. She would even need to keep track of ammunition. Well played, my lord.”

“Still don’t do much,” Jax pointed out, oblivious. “But we could build on it yet. Don’t even have to be poison, really. Could be useful fer all kinda things. Potent magical cat-list, I seems to reckon the Faen callin’ it.” She glanced at her sister. “Reading fer one.”

Arx nodded along. “And range is an extremely useful component for an ability to have. ‘Hurt them before they can hurt you,’ as our old seneschal used to say.”

“Our Clan has a seneschal?” Lynnria asked doubtfully.

“No… no, that was…” Arx looked away. “Never mind. He’s long dead now.”

I gave Arx a curious glance. Filing that away for later…

Lynnria sighed. “Shame. Good ones are hard to come by.” She twisted her lips into a considering expression before starting up a circuit atop her end table. “I suppose a skill to shoot poison would be pretty interesting. Even if it only stuns, at first. But as you’ve said, we can build on it.”

“Excellent. I’ll get to work on those immediately,” Mia exclaimed. “In the meantime, I should mention one last item. Your Core reconfiguration has forced me to rework your initial skill, Luck Charm. Instead of relying on your Will to define its parameters, all you need do now is touch an object with the claw of your left hand’s pinky to apply a Rune of Luck. Then, if it is possible for that object to have some favorable outcome relative to yourself, the Rune will push for that chain of events. Naturally, our lord’s ability will compound this effect greatly.”

“And this is an improvement, ”Arx said, incredulous. “How did it work before? Twine and prayer?”

Lynnria bobbed her head to one side. “A lot like prayer, actually. I could never be sure when I had done the thing right or what effect it was even having. This should be much better in a fight. Although, it’d be difficult now to pull off that treasure-finding trick we did before.”

“It would require some creativity, yes. Improving a skill’s specificity of function necessarily limits its variety of use. By definition.”

Lynnria took a considering look at her now apparently-enchanted pinky. “What else—” She paused to rephrase. “I would like to know the specifics of the ability, please. Like how long the Rune lasts. Stuff like that.”

“Currently, the Rune will only operate for a few seconds. And you will no longer need to worry about whether or not it is having an effect. The Rune will always work… though its effect will be quite weak at first. Naturally, both of these parameters may be improved through skill levels and our lord’s ability to buffer it.”

I slapped my knees. Conversation done, I decided it best we move on. There was a seemingly infinite array of doors ahead of us, and we were not going to find the right one just sitting there… even if I did enjoy delving into the occasional technical discussion over the minutia of skill function.

Post-fellatio.

Speaking of, it had been some time since Lynnria’s last luck ‘discharge’ and, unlike her elders, she had yet to purchase a tolerance ability for it. Though that was assuming she was even able to. It might have been another of those lilim-specific abilities. Either way, I was reluctant to suggest it. Despite the danger of her collapsing into a quivering heap of uncontrolled lust, the side-effect of the ability was to noticeably raise her baseline arousal levels. And it was kind of refreshing to have someone hanging around that was only an occasional horn dog.

Especially when the symptoms were manageable.

“I have an idea,” I said. Fumbling in my Pouch for a moment, I dug out a copper and tossed it up to Lynnria. “Put your Rune on this. Heads, we go in this door. Swords, we don’t.”

The Dolilim glanced at the door in question. This particular one featured a signboard depicting a man getting berated by his wife.

“But there’s no way this is the right door,” Arx protested. “We need an ‘unfortunate needler,’ not a ‘needled unfortunate.’”

“Nice,” I said, appreciating the word-play. I had not put it together before Arx said it aloud. “This is mostly just to disperse Lynnria’s luck, though.”

Lynnria let out a huff and folded her arms. “What for? I’m perfectly sated, now. Just because your… your p-p-pe—your thing makes the most delicious—” She swallowed abruptly, and a light shade of pink began to ascend from the collar of her shirt. “A-anyway, I know how much you like to tease me. You’re not about to… well, you’re hardly going to let me… have my way with… with you. Unless… unless you wanted to?”

Jax let out a companionable chuckle as she rolled onto her feet again. “Sure, he could, lass. Sure. But we can’t be rubbing at the Master all hours, can we? Now, climb yer bahoochie down off o’ there, and be about it.”

Lynnria sighed and, pouting a little, lightly hopped from the table. I could sympathize to a degree. When your mind is in the gutter, it can be difficult to think of much beyond reveling in it. Climbing out again barely even merits consideration.

As she came to stand to one side of me, she eyed the coin critically. I could feel the puff of hair at the base of her tail absently stroking the backs of me knees. “So… what? I just tap it?” she asked.

We waited for a moment, but Mia did not reply. It would seem she had already begun her assignment.

“With your left pinky, as I recall,” I confirmed presently. “After that, flip the coin, and we’ll see where it lands.”

“Seems… awfully easy. Don’t you think?” She cleared her throat and began to wiggle her fingers over top of the token. “Hear me, Coin of Mysteries. I am Donum Lynnria! First of my—”

“That’s enough of that!” I said quickly, recalling the incident at the pillar. “It was embarrassing enough the first time.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought you looked kind of sexy with your arms all spread out… and that interesting shadow the light was projecting through your skirt.”

Assembling the scene as she was describing it took me a handful of seconds, however once I realized what she was talking about, I had to take a moment to stare at her. “How can say something like that with a straight face when you can barely force yourself to say ‘penis’ without blushing like a tomato?”

Her face instantly tomato-ed. “Those are completely different things!” she said in a strangled tone. Then she blinked a few times. “What’s a tomato?”

“It’s a kind of large… tangy… berry?” Technically.

She grinned. “You mean like your—” She stopped herself again with a surreptitious glance at the others.

That was when the pieces clicked together. This moment had reminded me rather strongly of another… though it had been a different fruit under comparison at the time. She had not been so shy when it came to ball-to-fruit juxtapositions then, but we had also lacked an audience.

Hmm… just like her swearing. I was gradually beginning to figure this woman out. Somewhat.

Even so, it was not like I could just tell her she did not have to be shy. Becoming comfortable enough to be yourself in a new group could take time. She would come out of her shell eventually.

I bumped her hip. “I suppose. But a plum is definitely closer.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, relishing the private memory.

Arx tsked. “‘Stits, what is that flavor? Arousal, sure. But there’s this subtle tinge to it…”

Jax leaned over to stage whisper in her ear. “Yer right. There be sommat weird to it, but I can tell she be wanting a proper winching.”

I turned to them in confusion. “Like with a harness?”

Jax scowled and slapped my shoulder with the back of her hand.

“What?”

“I’ll just be about this, then. Shall I?” Lynnria said loudly. And blushing bright enough to read by. Hmm… does that mean she knows how to do it with a harness? Surely not. “Heads, we go in this door. Swords, we don’t.”

Before anyone else could pile onto her mounting heap of embarrassment, Lynnria tapped the coin with her pinky. At the moment of contact, a brief flash of dim light spread out from the tip of her claw, arranging itself into a pattern of some sort.

The Rune of Luck, I assumed. However, there was no describing its shape nor any hope of remembering it afterward. All that remained in our minds was the echo of its presence.

That and—at least for me—a vague notion of symmetry along a central axis.

Then Lynnria flipped the coin into the air. We all watched as the coin tumbled, gleaming end over end, then bounced off the floor. Then it bounced again. And again. Ultimately settling on its edge.

And began to slowly roll away.

“Uh…?” Lynnria uttered. “What does that mean?”

I had no idea, but I was not about to let the thing escape. A full copper piece was worth something like fifty bucks!

And it was picking up speed.

However, before I could grab it, the thing rolled under an inconveniently placed coffee table. By the time I had knelt to look for it, it had already traveled out and past, well on it’s way down the hall.

“After it!”

=====
Chapter 49 - A Familiar Pencil
=====

“How flaming long has it been since ye used up the Master’s luck?” Jax yelled over her shoulder as we pelted down the hallway.

“I don’t know!” Lynnria shouted, chest heaving. “Like… yesterday?”

“Watcher’s eye,” I groaned from my position trailing behind the pack. “You’re going to need to start keeping track. This is ridiculous!”

The wheezing conversation halted briefly while we navigated through yet another island of furniture, variously dodging, weaving, or hurtling over desks and divans depending on physical ability. I was mostly just trying not to trip over anything.

The coin we were all chasing did not seem to care about any of that, if indeed it had even noticed. It simply glided around the forest of table legs and draperies, somehow managing to find the single unobstructed path through all of it. It had picked up an incredible speed by that point, defying logic and reason to a preposterous degree. You would have thought the damned thing was in free fall, not innocently rolling down a hallway.

“Do you still see it?” I yelled.

“Yes,” Arx shouted from well ahead. At her Agility levels, she was much faster than the rest of us—because apparently, that was how that worked. “I’d have caught it already if it weren’t for all this crap in the way!”

Right about then, we came to a much wider area, for once devoid of furniture save for a familiar-looking rug. And a door on the windowed side of the hall. As we passed the double set of ascending stairs, the conspicuously nude statues, and the undeniable remains of the table Lynnria had broken earlier, there could only be one conclusion.

“The fuck?!” I huffed. “The hallway loops?”

“We wasn’t running backward,” Jax shot back, herself struggling not to gawk.

Almost before we had even processed that insanity, we were through and on down the hall again—as ever, straight as an arrow and with no signs of even a gentle curve.

I tried taking furtive glances at the doors as we passed them, trying to get some nebulous idea as to their signage, but without some catalog or notes to refer to, there was almost no hope of knowing whether these were the ones we had already passed by or if they had been replaced by new ones.

Because who knew what the Dungeon’s rules were anymore. They might as well have been assembled by a bunch of gerbils rolling around on a typewriter.

Distracted as I was, my shin took the opportunity to slam into an inconveniently placed footstool, and I slid to the floor in a heap.

“And done. I’m ready for testing now, if you’d all—” Mia paused. “Wait, what’s going on? What did I miss this time?”

“We’s already testing one o’ yer dead pish skills,” Jax yelled, her voice fading as she drew away.

Mia ignored the insult. “You are? Then… why are you lying on the floor, my liege?”

Biting back the automatic, pained cursing I wanted to reply with, I instead stumbled to my feet to limp after my party. Because of course, the wizard would be the one to get left in the dirt. Maybe I should invest in something like an Expeditious Retreat? That’d be nice.

“Mia, what exactly does the Luck Rune do, anyway?” I panted.

“Mmm~?” Mia thrilled huskily. “Lord Donum…! Naughty. I haven’t even cleaned up yet.”

In other words, ‘no comment.’ “Fair enough.”

Right about then, there was a distant crash followed by a pair of equally distant, gray legs upending themselves over a table. “Son-of-a-’stoe-sucking whore!”

“Don’t… lose it!” Lynnria called, clearly winded. She might well have been quite the runner amongst her peers, but stats were stats. Even I had better stamina.

A sudden pain lanced through my rib-cage.

Slightly better stamina…

“Lose what?” Mia prompted.

“Coin…” I explained. Shortly. “Chasing… coin.”

“You’re chasing a coin,” Mia repeated—from her tone, as though reacting to a gaggle of five-year-olds reporting on little Jimmy’s heroic victory over the terrible, inch-long lizard they had happened upon. “And I gather our friend, Lynnria, has temporarily enchanted this coin with a Rune for good fortune? Did it never occur to you that losing it would be most unfortunate? Quite the opposite of the intent of the Rune, wouldn’t you say?”

I managed to suck in a deep breath. “Why, no, Mia. That hadn’t occurred to me. Because I don’t know how the damned Rune works!”

“Fair enough,” she chortled, echoing me. “Well, then. Until you do catch it, why don’t we take the opportunity to go over your skill advancements?”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“It’s not like you have anything better to do,” she reasoned. “But, if you’re too busy to attend to my literal purpose in life…”

I rolled my eyes. “Fiiiine. But no huge cards in my face. I have to see where I’m going.”

“But I’ve already updated…” She sighed mournfully. “Whatever. You only really care about the big milestones, anyway.”

“Explain to me why I should care about a bunch of one-point increases, and maybe I will,” I shot back, slowing to a much more sustainable jog. There was no chance for me to catch up to the Dolilim, anyway. Even with the obstacles.

She sniffed. “I suppose a single point isn’t so significant in the grand scheme of things. However, it is a step along the journey toward Mastery. And perhaps beyond.”

“Okay. An explanation as to what these steps are and what they mean might actually be helpful.”

She tsked. “I’m sure it would. However, you know I can’t reveal more than what is generally understood by the populace. You’re supposed to figure out the finer details yourself.”

What I knew was that what Mia could or could not reveal vacillated quite a bit depending on her mood. There was no way the information I was fishing for here was in any way more significant than some of the things she had told us while we were picking out Lynnria’s skills, much less the actual lessons in magic she had coached me through. She might have preferred to play her cards close to her chest, but she would lay them on the table in a heartbeat given the right circumstances.

She was a bit like a gossip that way. Maybe she’s just starved for attention.

“I’ll take what I can get. All I really know is Novice, Intermediate, and Competent.” I hoped, in rattling off what little I had managed to glean, that the incompleteness of my knowledge might shake something loose. “But other than a vague idea that each is better than the last, I’m in the weeds.”

“After those are Proficient, Expert, and Master,” she explained. Then, a moment later, she added, “Grandmaster, too. Though, that is exceedingly rare. No more than six or seven individuals achieve such a rank in a given generation—across all known skills.”

Bingo. “Wow… why so few?”

She giggled. “Flirt.”

For a moment, I thought she might have been done, however my reply was delayed by a need to pick my way through a small scene of overturned furniture and broken crockery. Apparently, she disliked being left in silence, because she continued.

“Improving one’s skills requires challenging oneself in their use, you see. You have experienced this before during your… infrequent training sessions.”

“I’ve been a little busy, Mia.”

“Yes, my lord,” she agreed—perhaps a tad too easily. “Of course, in the beginning, literally everything you do with a skill is a challenge, so progress comes quickly. Things slow considerably later on.”

I nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. It’s just like mundane skill progression.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Uh…”

I briefly considered getting into what life was like back on my own planet. She would have probably appreciated the candor, but that would require a whole lot of talking on my part. And I was right in the middle of catching my breath as I attempted to not get left behind by my trio of lovers.

“I’ll tell you later,” I promised, picking up the pace.

Mia hummed with a tinge of disappointment. “As… you wish.”

Another handful of seconds passed. Whether they passed awkwardly or not, I did not know. Sucking oxygen into an increasingly starved pair of lungs has a way of pulling one’s attention away from social mores.

Mia did not have that problem.

“I suppose there’s no harm in admitting,” she said finally, “the various tiers of proficiency are not anything particularly special. They mean specific things, of course, but they were only ever intended to be a little badge to let you know you’re doing well. And She-that-I-was usually includes a report on how the skill is evolving under your care.”

I missed a step. “You mean I don’t get bonuses for achieving them?”

“Bonuses?!” She made a disgruntled little sound. “No, no. That is a frustrating misconception. It implies an external force working on the skill, but that is not the case, at all! It is only your own Will continually working to push the skill in a direction you find most suitable for your needs.”

“For example… Efficacy in the Gloom, your accuracy spell—”

“I remember.”

She clucked at the interruption. “Yes, well. You requested that information be on the card, and since someone doesn’t want to be distracted—”

“Sorry, sorry… go on.”

“Anyway, you just managed to get it to level 20 during your most recent battle. You’ve been quite satisfied with it overall, so it has not evolved much. The only thing I’ve written here is a note about the slight improvement to the skill’s potency. By contrast, Windfall of the Thrall…” She paused expectantly.

“My luck aura,” I filled in.

She made a pleased sound. “Just so. It has recently ticked over to level 43—putting it within the range of Competent. However, despite your literal request on gaining the skill for it to continually push at your companions’ libidos, you have only ever been frustrated by this feature.”

“Because I can’t turn it off!” I growled. “Besides, at the time, Arx gained power from that sort of thing.”

“She still does,” Mia countered. “Both of your Dolilim feed from all the emotions around them. Not just your own. Jax, in particular, gains strength from this arousal. So despite the inconvenience, it is to the benefit of all.”

I groaned. It was a sound argument, but that did not mean I had to like it.

“Yes, okay. Fine. In my defense, living with three girls who are constantly horny is exhausting. Worse, I feel like I’m letting them down whenever I’m not in the mood. And I should be allowed to not be in the mood! For that matter, so should they!”

“Well, there’s not much you can do about that now. Both of your bonded companions have chosen to remove that state of being from themselves. ‘Not being in the mood’ is no longer in their natures.”

She paused for a moment to rifle through some papers then began to scratch something down.

“If you really feel like you’re letting them down,” she mused over the sounds of her writing, “I could craft a skill to change your own nature in accordance with theirs. It would have to be secondary to the skill’s primary function, however. We wouldn’t want the arousal to worsen with skill improvement. So perhaps as a negative side-effect? Yes… that would work to strengthen the ability.”

I made a pained sound in my throat. While it could be argued that I was becoming something like an incubus already, deliberately doing that to myself was going to be a tough pill to swallow.

“You would have to come up with one hell of a skill…”

“Oh, I’m sure I can,” she murmured. I could just imagine the Cheshire grin spreading across her face. “Better than Lust resistance, that’s certain.”

“Hey, now. That’s a much needed skill around these parts.”

“Naturally,” she agreed off-handedly, returning the pencil to her desk with a click. I assumed. “In any event, because of your continued distaste, your aura has not been having quite the pronounced effect it once had. While the percentage increases to the Luck-based effects it provides have continued to ramp up as normal, the arousal side-effect has deteriorated markedly. It would now take well over a day to reduce one of your non-resistant companions into a quivering ball of need.”

That explained a few things. Lynnria had definitely been frisky earlier, but a quivering ball she was not. And from the merry chase her charm had sent us on, my aura had had plenty of time to work on her. This was turning into one hell of a luck proc.

“A bit of good news, for once,” I remarked, pleased. “Anything else of significance?”

“Well, the various skills related to your sexual prowess have—”

“Of significance!”

“Fiiine,” she groaned. “Let’s see…”

A prolonged series of fwipping noises—accompanied by quite a lot of polite swearing—sounded in my ear, and I realized with a guilty start that Mia must have been thumbing through a substantial pile of notes. A lot of effort had been expended to compile all that data, and here I was brushing it off as an inconvenience.

“Well… I suppose there is one thing,” she announced finally, defeated. “You have learned to Write.”

I frowned in confusion. “I already knew how to write.”

“No, my lord,” she said, almost flippantly, yet somehow still with a slight edge of significance. “You did not.”

Whatever she had meant by that, my attention was quickly pulled away. It seemed the rest of my party had finally stopped and were currently going through the throes of their post-marathon recovery. From the collection of hunched backs and heaving chests, they did not look to have been here for more than a couple of minutes.

The coin, I noticed on drawing even with them, had rolled to a stop—heads up—in front of an innocuous-looking door. The signboard swinging overhead bore the likeness of a hand, liberally bandaged and with a thimble on its pinky. The unfortunate needler?

It seemed like a bit of a stretch, but with the thimble, this might have been the shop of a seamstress or some such. They used needles. And with the bandages…?

Still, while I could not recall the details of each and every door we had passed, I was pretty sure we had not encountered this particular signboard. Which made no sense. But here we were.

Lynnria pointed a wavering claw at me. “You… cheater! You… you started jogging!”

I shrugged. “Mia wanted to go over my skill-ups.”

There was a collective groan.

“The lot of you can sodomize yourselves with a splintered broom handle,” Mia announced dismissively.

Arx and Lynnria both snorted with barely restrained mirth at that, but Jax seemed a little lost.

“What’s that mean?”

“Sodomy? It refers to the act of—fuck you! Fuck your tits! Fuck your father’s tits!” She cleared her throat loudly. “Yes… well, that. But anally.”

“Oh.” Jax pondered it for a moment, apparently with some seriousness. “I ain’t sure I like the sound of that… lessen the Master had two dicks. That could be fun. Might hurt with a broom handle, though.”

Slowly, her eyebrows began to climb upward.

I clapped my hands together sharply.

“Well! This seems to be our door.” I scooped up the coin, and brandished it like a bell on a stick for a bunch of cats. “Looks like it landed on heads. So we go in. That was the deal. Right?”

Arx hummed a few notes under her breath. “I’m not getting any negative vibes from it.”

“Good enough for me.”

So saying, I pulled out the green Key and, trying my utmost to project an air of confidence, slotted it into the triangular divot.

On contact, the metal Keyhole began to warp and flow, and I jerked back. We all watched, fascinated, as the now-liquid metal poured itself up and around the edges of the Key until finally solidifying again into the shape of a clawed hand. With the Key in its grip, the whole of it had transformed into a central doorknob—something like how I would imagine on a demonic, hobbit hole.

Which I thought was pretty clever. However, we were soon distracted by yet another rumbling at our feet. And this time, a bit of dust accompanied it to the floor.

I held up a finger. “Okay, that’s definitely a pattern. Any time we accomplish anything lately, the ground shakes.”

“You don’t think we broke anything serious when we escaped from that maze, do you?” Lynnria hazarded.

I gulped. That was not a particularly pleasant thought. However, if it was some series of aftershocks, why would the timing be so precise?

“Maybe using a Key temporarily weakens the integrity of the Dungeon? So if something big is happening elsewhere…” I left the thought unfinished.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Arx reasoned. “Not a lot is truly known about the inner workings of this place. And the rules of this area are stranger than most.”

“Not a lot we could do about it, even if we did,” Jax returned softly, sidling closer to me. Her claws began to explore the ridges of my back. “Now, is we going through this door? Or is we gonna explore the ‘inner workings’ of me bum?”

The door began to swing open almost without my realizing I had my hand on it.

However, before I could see what laid beyond, Jax’s arms encircled me from behind. Her sharp teeth nipped the valley between my shoulder blades, and the stiffened peaks at her chest pressed firmly into my skin, contrasting sharply—yet oh-so-pleasantly—with the pair of softnesses surrounding them.

“Liar,” she whispered knowingly, the heat from her breath bathing the space between us.

It would seem I had failed to prevent that particular weed from taking root in her mind. And Jax did not have to try very hard to spread it to mine. Not anymore.

Yeah… I don’t care what Mia comes up with, there’s no way I’m accepting that skill. I glanced down, silently admonishing my second brain. That’s enough out of you! How sore do you have to get before you’ve had enough?

“Woot ees zat?” a tremulous voice drifted from the portal ahead.

Jax immediately slipped in front of me with a low, threatening growl on her lips. She held her palm out and down, ready to summon her ax at a moment’s notice. The constant sexual firestorm she seemed to embody had been put on abrupt hold the moment a potential threat loomed.

“I see ligh-ta!” the voice called again. “Ees zere soomeone zere?”

We exchanged glances. That had been a rather unmistakable accent. Can’t be…

Jax rolled her shoulders and began to cautiously make her way forward. The voice had sounded innocuous enough—distressed even—but one never knew what tricks might be in store.

The room inside was lit quite dimly but without any obvious sources. There were no flames nor candles. The windows to one side showed only pitch blackness beyond. Even the wooden slats at our feet had no trace of illumination slipping between them.

It was eerie, in a way. You could see. But only just.

However, even the dim lighting could not conceal the piles of horrifically—and unforgettably—garish clothing scattered about. Of course, none of it was quite so lovingly displayed as the last time we had seen it. The whole place looked to be as disheveled as Dorothy’s house after having smashed into the Yellow Brick Road.

“Zere eez someone! I coon ‘ear you.”

Heads swiveled at the sound, but there was no one in evidence. The man’s voice had come from somewhere beyond the low counter, however all we could see was something flat and gray slowly descending just to the other side of it. It almost looked like an empty elevator platform.

“Quickly! Ze creez-tal! Tooch ze creez-tal-uh!”

Jax relaxed slightly and cocked her hip. We still were not certain what to make of this scenario, but it was at least clear there was no immediate threat.

She folded her arms in front of her chest. “The what?”

“I think he said ‘crystal,’” I hazarded, very much guessing.

“Like that one?”

We turned to find Lynnria pointing toward a typical—if small—example of a Dungeon touch-stone innocently hovering over an iron lamp stand installed into the doorframe. Below it, there was a small, wooden sign that bore the inscription, ‘Customers.’

“‘Urr-ay, you foolz-ah! Before I am ponk-tured like ze ov-air-proofed bread!”

“Ponk-tured like bread…?”I blinked a couple of times, but there was no use in pondering foreign idioms right then. Whatever he was on about, the man seemed in genuine distress. “Tap that crystal, will you, Lynnria?”

She nodded, complying quickly.

However, rather than the riddles that so often came with installations like these, all that came of her touch was a cheerful little chime followed by the appearance of a small, holographic screen hovering about a finger’s width away from the crystal’s face. The girls all crowded close at this, fascinated. However, there was only a simple timer displayed there, dutifully counting down from one hour.

The rough scraping of stone on stone sounded behind us, and we all turned to see the elevator rising toward the ceiling. And then the series of spikes arrayed beneath it.

“By zee Grace of Maeve…” The man breathed a sigh of relief as he rose to his feet.

I did not know whether to be surprised or not at once more crossing paths with this particular individual. As ever, the tailor we had hired back in Raialie looked like a pencil dressed for an anime convention. But with more feathers. It was… a look.

The man paused on seeing us. Whatever fleeting gratitude he had been showing was quickly replaced by a barely concealed disdain.

“Ew… it eez you sree.”

The man did something that might have been a roll of his shoulders—perhaps in discomfort or just to resettle his extravagant outfit—except he did not seem to have any, so it appeared as if his stick-like arms momentarily drifted up his torso. Then, he dipped below the counter to retrieve an enormous hat and began fastidiously dusting it off.

“I see you have managed to lose those rags you were wearing before,” he continued in his own language. “Much as I dislike seeing all those jiggling… lumps your women seem so proud of, it is a marked improvement. No style is at least better than bad style.”

For a moment, I was half-afraid the targets of his scorn might say or do something regrettable. And I was half-tempted to let them. This guy…

However, to my surprise, neither of them seemed to give a rat’s fart about his opinions. They made no move to cover themselves. Nor did they hiss or growl as they often did when challenged. The man might as well have been a disgruntled bug in their eyes.

Then again, they were not smiling, either.

“My women have very nice lumps, thank you very much,” I said finally, not quite able to suppress my irritation. And from the series of provocative smiles and poses going on along my peripheral, much to certain individuals’ amusement. “And you’re welcome!”

He shrugged… I think.

“Yes, very good, I’m sure,” he drawled before gesturing toward Lynnria. “This one is new. Seems familiar, though.”

She glanced at us, mystified, before addressing the man. “I’m… sorry. I don’t speak your language… sir? Ma’am? F-forgive me, I’m not even sure what kind you hail from.”

His left eyebrow rose so quickly, it was difficult to tell it had even moved. I almost thought I heard a little poink accompanying the gesture.

“You don’t recognize him?” I asked. “He’s a tailor from your hometown.”

“Oh, and because I’m a local, I’m just supposed to know everybody?” She shook her head teasingly. “Besides, I’ve only lived in Raialie for a little over a year.”

The tailor scratched at a spot just below his mouth approximately where his chin ought to be. If he had one. “A year, you say? Hmm… by any chanze, deed you wonze leeve in Bradfirth?”

Lynnria hesitated and began studying the floor. “I may have… passed through there. Once.”

Both of the Dolilim glanced at her before sending me a significant look. Not that they had needed to. She might as well have just held up a sign:

Hi! I’m Lynnria. And I’m keeping secrets!

But her act seemed good enough for the tailor.

“Zat must be eet,” he murmured.

His eyes flickered to my poor attempt at a loin cloth. I could not describe the look that passed over his face, but nauseated might be the closest.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting me to finish your commission?” he said, again in his own language. “I had just started on it when this whole debacle began. It’s in the back room,” he jerked a thumb over his non-shoulder, indicating the room in question, “so we’ll have to wait for the poison gas to clear.”

Arx perked up. “Did you say poison? We can handle poison if you need us to retrieve something for you.”

The tailor favored her with a condescending look before tapping at some sort of invisible barrier just over the counter. “I’m sure you could. But as you can see, that isn’t exactly possible. You cannot pass back here, while I cannot escape there. I am forced to work as a shopkeeper for the Dungeon’s pleasure until I complete my assignment.”

“And with poison in the back room, you have no choice but to stand behind the counter while spikes come down on you?” I asked, horrified. The guy was kind of a prick, but that did not mean I wanted to see him be pricked. “Until what? Someone happens to wander in?”

“I will admit, they move slowly. And I can drive them back. Irritating as that might be.” He pressed a hand to his chest and let out a wretched sigh before reaching below the counter to present a half-finished chemise. Shaking it angrily, he sobbed, “I have been made to knit! Can you imagine?! Me? A tailor of my caliber?”

I glanced up at the spikes above. “You have to knit… to keep from dying?”

He merely nodded, still too emotional to reply.

Man… Crafting Classes have it rough. It was like a cross between a sweat shop and the Temple of Doom in here.

“So what happened afore we came in?” Jax asked dryly. “Too good for a knitting needle, was ye? Couldn’t handle it no more?”

He looked down… his face at her. “I’ll have you know, I hadn’t slept since I got here! I must have drifted off. My only reprieve from the constant knitting is when a group of you types come in, and all they ever want is for me to do more work! None of them ever seem to care even a whit for my art, either. It’s been nothing but patchwork on sweat-soaked, bloody underclothes for days!”

“Ach, ye poor fannybaws. Me heart aches fer ye. Truly.”

From her deadpan delivery, Jax might as well have been holding up a sign of her own. But hers simply read:

Twat.

Because apparently, my imagination was being directed by Tex Avery this afternoon.

“So you have seen other Questers,” I said. “From Raialie?”

“Questers, yes. From Raialie?” He performed another of his shoulder-less shrugs. “You are the first I have recognized. Not all have spoken a language I am familiar with.”

That’s weird.

I turned to Arx. “Raialie is pretty deep into laoi territory, right? Would there be any Questers there who are unable to speak the language?”

“It’s… possible,” she allowed. “Questers range pretty far afield in search of Mouths. But I doubt they’d travel all the way there without at least someone with a translation ability.”

Meaning there had either been an unusual confluence of foreign individuals with no surviving translators roaming about town… or this tailor was being graced with customers who had entered from other Mouths. The latter of which should have been against the rules… as I understood them, anyway. Then again, I happened to know for a matter of absolute fact that the rules and what people thought were the rules were not necessarily the same. By design.

About then, a soft chime sounded from the back.

“That would be the poison clearing,” the tailor informed us, effectively cutting off that line of questioning. However, he made no move toward the door. From his distracted tapping at the counter, he seemed to want something. “Perhaps, you aren’t in… too much of a hurry?”

And here it comes…

I folded my arms. “Somewhat. Why?”