Epic 245

Woo, got it out only a day late! Thank you so much for the ideas and support. Hope you all enjoy!

Getting close to holidays so might need to take next fri/sat off to travel and do stuff, but ill keep you all updated as best I can ^^

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u7rIqGSHjWXb9-H8VT3TuU48r5ulkiPj1IFixWrjjv4/edit?usp=sharing

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“And this is where I once fell down a well.”

“I don’t care.”

“And over there, I got stuck in a bush because it was tended to by Mrs Dabberghast,” Vas continued to point out things around Durence as behind him Beta felt like she was stuck in the world’s worst tour. On her back, taped shut to their sheath, Gamma continued to egg Vas on, the sick sweet teasing tone landing on Vas’ naive mind.

Beta was stuck between a little rock and a yappy sword.

“I don’t care,” she responded, not even putting any venom into her words now. She had long run dry as Vas proved to be a vessel of optimism so deep she couldn’t see the bottom.

“And that’s Miss Ruli,” Vas said, pointing to a figure who was bent over, examining a stand offering fishing rods that nearby signs said they were made of “Mermaid Tears, freshly harvested’, ‘Wood of a 1000 year old cursed shrubbery’, or even ‘recycled college student dreams’. 

Beta could go fishing, but her method was a little about bait and hook and more… direct.

But the woman made Beta pause as the unmistakable drift of power coming off her reminded of the Abyss and the demon world inside. Her aura, even contained, was impossible to miss.

Beta’s eyes narrowed to slits as she focused on the relaxed half-demon who had more power in her thumb than some of the Dark Drakes she had encountered below. The sword on her back looked inert volcanic stone, but the black veins pulsed with power that would sear Beta’s shifting flesh.

Beta’s hands shifted to wicked claws as the urge to fight rose up in her. 

“Miss Ruli!” Vas called and the giant woman turned with a bored expression then raised a brow. She saw Beta, she could sense Beta, and yet she was… disinterested?

“I got a dozen holy weapon forms, spiked incense balls to holy steel chairs wielded by a feisty priestess. Just give me the word,” Gamma prodded, trying to offer their service.

Ruli walked over and Beta’s heart, or the flesh pretending to be it, began to pulse faster in anticipation. The power the woman possessed only seemed to grow more intense, yet all the mortals around her seemed ignorant to it, protected or insulated from her demonic aura by the ambient Dungeon Mana from Miss Delta.

As Ruli finally stood before them, Beta opened her mouth to invite her to wreck this village, burn it all down in a conflagration of destiny and blood, to darken the skies with their cries, and-

Ruli stuck a piece of jerky into Beta’s mouth and the taste made her mind go blank for a moment.

“Bad mood brats need snacks,” Ruli insisted.

“Oh, Beta, why didn’t you say you were hungry?” Vas said in shock as if he had failed her.

“Me next!” Gamma preened and leaned out of their sheath for jerky and Ruli moved, grabbing the sword before burying Gamma into the dirt to the hilt.

“Trouble makers need a time out,” Ruli said smoothly, clapping her hands free of dust.

Vas looked between the still stunned Beta and the muffled outraged Gamma and then slowly up at Ruli.

“You’re fine. You could stand to be more outgoing and rebellious,” Ruli decided, nodding sagely to herself. The jerky was bland and merely salted, but Beta swallowed it without chewing, letting her throat shift into a dozen tine blades to shred it.

“You dare-” she began and before she could blink, more jerky was shoved into her mouth, the taste once again making her mind go blank, unable to comprehend both the speed of Ruli and the audacity.

“Alpha already let me know you two are related to Delta and himself, so I get you’re both something impressive, if you weren’t here in Durence,” Ruli said, crossing her arms, muscles rippling to show a dozen scars and old battle wounds healed over.

“But since I know Delta, I guess I can overlook your bad manners,” the demon woman said and the words had an odd tone about them.

Beta swallowed the jerky, a sudden worry building in her gut.

“How do you know Miss Delta? Demons, even half-ones, don’t make Dungeons happy. You’re not feeding off her, are you?” Beta asked, her hair falling in front of her face for a moment, her claws now splintering into more deadly forms, a mix of feline, canine, and some hooks she got from spiders.

Ruli blinked then a slow smile spread across her face, an insidious evil expression in Beta’s mind.

“Oh, you don’t know? Me and Delta are really close. I can see her avatar and she let me… touch her core,” Ruli said and Beta’s legs cracked as she grew a foot rapidly, the shapes gaining inhuman segments as outrage filled her mind. Her feet dug into the street, stone pressing inward rather than breaking, as her balance adjusted to a body that no longer agreed with its old proportions.

“You… did what?” Beta demanded. Her tone stayed measured, though every word landed heavier than the last.

“You get her! Drag her!” Gamma said, voice deeply muffled from the soil they were buried in. They shifted under the ground, wriggling as if trying to offer support.

“In fact, Delta gave me Mana directly and I just can’t get enough. I might visit again, you see, she lets me have all the secrets and free stuff I want. Because she’s fallen under my spell, you see,” Ruli said, tapping her chin, eyes unfocused, as if counting future visits.

“Keep your grubby hands off Miss D!” Beta snarled and leapt, only for Ruli to lift her leg up, her foot easily above her head as her grin stretched before she brought it down in a meteoric heel strike, burying Beta into the ground as much of Gamma.

“Are you winning? Beta, grunt once if you’re winning!” Gamma called. Beta laid there, trying to understand how her monstrous form, a thing designed to be the perfect killing machine, had been stunned three times in a row by the same woman.

“Hah, I like your vibe, kid! I think I’ll keep you,” Ruli said, bending down to pat Beta’s head. Beta’s shoulders sagged a fraction, surrendering to the stronger woman. Unless Beta had time to change or find the right form, Ruli could kill her here and now.

“Can you just keep people?” Vas asked curiously, as if this were an interesting technical detail.

“Sure you can, just ignore their agency as a person and use them like a toy,” Gamma said. The words echoed out of the weapon casing as it slid free of the hole and landed on the street, inert except for the quiet hum of something very alert.

“So, one feral cat and one theatre kid,” Ruli said, glancing between them, then pointing at Vas, “you can be the artsy kid. Deo can be the good one, and Grim can be the one who sells you gum for 5 copper when it’s worth 2.” She paused, considering the arrangement, then smiled.

“It’s like I have my own very little class of misfits. Mr Jones would be proud of me, or jealous.”

Beta raised her head and spat out grit, glaring.

“I already have a teacher and she’s not a giant muscle-headed brute. She’s nice, patient, and does her best! That’s why I won’t let you… use her. ” Beta panted and Ruli tilted her head.

“You decide a lot for other people then act like you don’t care about them but still try to murder anyone who bugs them. Has anyone ever told you that’s kind of annoying?” Ruli asked and Beta’s rage was once again stunned into a non-violent pause .

Beta opened her mouth, then closed it. Her hands curled, then relaxed, like her body had not received matching instructions.

“I am not annoying,” she said finally, quieter.

Ruli hummed. “Like a cat that screams when picked up but follows you room to room anyway. You care… in your own way. But don’t worry! I see through your spiky shell and to the softer, but still mean girl inside,” she said then looked around as if expecting someone.

Beta blinked when Ruli exhaled as if relieved, only for them both to tense as a shadow loomed over them, appearing almost out of thin air.

“I sent you to get onions and you found me children. I don’t eat children anymore, their bones haven’t finished fusing and get everywhere,” an older woman with Ruli’s features said, looking like the dourest old woman around.

“Children, meet the living concept of being old and cranky, my mother,” Ruli said flatly, waving vaguely at the shorter woman who immediately pinched Ruli’s arm and the woman yelped. Beta stared at the sheer strength that single pinch held to even affect Ruli.

All her senses, every beast she had ever absorbed, screamed at her that she was before two very different predators. One of power and the other of absolute skill.

“Respect your mother,” the older woman sighed as if she didn’t expect any such thing to happen in her lifetime.

“Hello, Elder Mila!” Vas said brightly and the woman gruffly handed him a piece of candy that looked like time itself was too afraid to touch.

Mila’s eyes swept over Beta and for a moment, she looked surprised.

“Ruli, you found yourself a mini-you. Eating dirt and hissing at everything like a wild animal. I had given up on grandchildren, but sudden cloning is still good enough for me,” she said dryly.

“My name,” Beta stood up slowly, “is Beta, you old crone,” she snapped and Mila examined her nails.

“I don’t care,” she replied and Beta felt her heart tremble at the words being flung back at her.

“Still, you all should come have dinner with us. The more people between me and the pig that Ruli becomes when food is put before her, the better. Betty, you can sit next to grandmother,” Mila insisted and Beta wasn’t sure how she suddenly ended up under the arms of the impossibly strong woman, but she reached out, panicking.

“Gamma, do something!” she yelled.

“I believe in you! Prayers and wishes!” the sword called.

Mila paused before stomping the ground without looking back and Gamma was suddenly launched into the air, spinning like a lethal windmill before Mila caught them in her other hand.

“I said… come to dinner,” Mila repeated, voice flat.

“Y-Yes… ma’am,” Gamma stuttered.

“Pretty sure that was how she and Dad went on their first date,” Ruli told Vas with a sigh.

“She made him come to dinner?” Vas blinked, trying to imagine that.

“Well, she just removed his legs so he didn’t really have a choice,” Ruli said brightly as if the story made her think fondly of better times.

“Is he okay? Legs are important unless you’re a tree. Did he get them back?” Vas said, looking up at her and Ruli scoffed.

“What do you think she cooked for him?” she asked and then walked off without waiting for an answer.

Vas could only imagine being able to give such meaningful things to someone he cared about.

Was that what people meant when they said they ‘gave’ their hearts away to someone? It made so much more sense now!

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“Are you sure about this?” Maestro asked as he caused the shadows under his pyramid of music and song to swirl like a dirty pond being disturbed. Cois looked down at it, his crude staff blazing with his personal rune carved into the size, the thing hissing and smoking constantly, like a firecracker about to go off. 

“I am, but are you sure you can get me there?” Cois asked, suddenly suspicious and a hand knocked the back of his head up.

“Don’t be so rude,” Fera said rudely.

Maestro let out a boisterous laugh, spinning around the room as if the question was too ludicrous to even take seriously.

“I am the network that spans every room. No space in this Dungeon is beyond me, for all grand moments must have the appropriate music to match. I can enter the Fishgeon, I can play in the circus, and I can even peek outside on my good days,” Maestro proclaimed, then seeing the two goblins looked unimpressed, he leaned in, the singular haunting light in his mushroom head dancing between different sockets.

“But yes, I can get you both to the Secret Garden, if that is what your hearts desire,” he concluded.

“Delta let’s you have access?” Fera mused, rolling a cocktail stick around her fanged mouth.

“I don’t think she knows,” Maestro admitted, leaning back to float in the air for a moment. “She expects me to be wherever she expands. I will, of course, I am the singer of a thousand songs, all for her, but since she ‘expects’ me to have access, I simply get access,” Maestro explained, like he uncovered a loophole and not that Delta was simply unorganized.

“Oaky, but Nu and Prim let you have access?” Cois challenged and Maestro paused, taking a little longer to answer.

“I haven’t let anything out, but I’m far from the only one who has access,” he chided and that was news to Cois. He came to Maestro because the monster was connected Dungeon-wide.

“Who else can get into that insane place?” he had to ask, intrigued now.

“Merry, naturally,” Maestro said, lifting a finger to count. 

“How?” Fera blinked, also taken by surprise at that.

“Something about Delta having a domain over rats or something. Merry has a demi-form costing tons of DP according to Nu, but Delta hasn’t had time to check up on it. Another is my cute little sister, Missy. She has a wonderful talent for travelling through mushrooms to others,” Maestro said fondly and Cois had to remember the more demure mushroom monster of the Dungeon who could also shoot lasers out of her eyes.

Maestro sighed as if still overwhelmed with how cute his sister was which was strange. When Cois thought of Billy or Numb, he felt exasperation and urge to make sure they weren’t doing something stupid.

“Bob, like that was a question,” Maestro finally went on.

“The worm?” Fera questioned doubtfully.

“Do you recall what his actual species is?” Maestro said, drawing his words out with amusement.

“Not particularly,” Cois answered honestly.

“Abyssal Worm, as in… from the Abyss? One of those monstrous things Sis was worried would consume the Echoes?” Maestro prompted.

“How did Delta get a hold of such a thing?” Cois asked, thinking of the happy wiggly giant worm and how it didn’t really scream ‘danger from beyond the known realm’.

“One of the options was ‘gamble’ when unlocking things,” Maestro said, thinking back.

“Ah,” both goblins said in understanding.

A hundred well-trained adventurers wouldn’t beat Delta, but if someone walked past with a lotto stall, Delta wouldn’t last a second.

“Wyin can access it, but chooses not to. It lacks Sir Fran. I have heard of the Pygmies sometimes getting lost to the Secret Garden. On the third floor? King Jellagon can, but only when he is truly mad, as his form becomes too unwieldy for normal space, and on the still under-work four floors… hm, too soon to say,” Maestro admitted.

“I want to go down there because it contains the most intense and insane monster forms Delta might produce. I wish to find… a dragon,” Cois hissed out.

“Dragon?” Maestro repeated flatly.

“DRAG ON THESE-” Cois began to cackle only for a vine to push him into the swirling void.

“And you?” Maestro turned to Fera without pausing to consider what he did. 

“There’s drinks down there. I want the blood, sweat, and tears of the biggest thing there for the best cocktails I can make,” she said simply and Maestro bowed, forming a set of stairs from his vines down into the void.

“My lady,” he gestured and Fera nodded, allowing the charming brother of the mushroom trio to guide her down.

They both knew why she was going and it was only 80% about new drinks.

The other 20% was still screaming as he fell.