Dungeon Menagerie 15

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRei

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 15

-VB-

Vanessa groaned as she rolled in her bed.

Her bed?

… What was she doing before? When did she fall asleep?

She raised herself up and blearily looked out of her bedroom window, and looked out into the morning sunlight glistening off of the dew on the grass outside. 

…She didn’t remember. 

“Vanessa, you’re up.”

She turned toward the door of her room and saw Athena standing there. 

“Athena?” 

Her goddess sighed and walked over to her. 

“Your skill is troublesome,” she said as she gave her a piece of paper. She took it and read it.

And froze when she saw her latest skill. 

Then she frowned. “There’s nothing else?” she asked. 

“No,” Athena replied with a huff. “That’s all there is. And that’s what worries me.” She sat down on the bed by her foot and turned to look at her, hodling her left ankle with both of her hands. “I think it’s time we talk about your … other blessing in more detail.”

Vanessa nodded slowly. “You’re calling it a blessing.”

Athena let out a bark. “I would be stupid to not call it that! Your first friend may not be a divine, but he comes pretty close to being something Otherly. Which brings us to the issue at hand with your Skill. It is a divine thing, but it’s not something we ought not to underestimate. However, underestimating is exactly what we have been doing. We should have prepared for bigger problems.” She huffed. “I think it’s time we explore that Skill of yours in-depth, and the first thing we need to do is see if we can’t find out more about it beyond just a falna update.”

-VB-

Athena stared at Vanessa, who sat in a meditative cross legged position with her hands placed firmly on her crossed ankles and her eyes closed. 

She knew that this day was coming, but she didn’t think that it would be so soon. 

She thought that Mori was the special case, not the norm. The weird card that made soap bubbles and the giant insect reinforced that idea in her mind because neither of those were particularly more dangerous than what adventurers would find in the “newbie-friendly” upper floors of the Dungeon.

And then she felt it. 

She wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew that it was some sort of corrosive sentience that made contact with Vanessa. 

Athena shuddered. 

She viscerally hated whatever that had touched her only child, and that extended to the Skill that allowed it to happen.

‘Interesting times are always interesting when it happens to someone else,’ she thought to herself as she briefly raised her Arcana. If she did any more than this, then she would risk Ouranos visiting her home.

But she needed to do this because her only child was in danger. 

She moved to seal the Skill, which was not what she told Vanessa. 

‘Sorry, Vanessa,’ she thought to herself. ‘I would rather have you safe than have you die because your Skill drew on something you can’t handle.’

There was no guarantee that everything Vanessa summoned would be friendly. That thing hadn’t been, and that had been from a “failed” summon. What if it had come through? 

She wove her divinity to disconnect the Skill within Vanessa’s soul from reaching out again and -.

Athena stopped. 

She opened her eyes.

She wasn’t on Vanessa’s bed anymore. No, she was … she was somewhere else. She looked around.

There were stars everywhere. It was … the void of the sky. The deep emptiness where stars shined in far distance that even divines like herself could not cross. 

And then she looked up.

“Oh.”

Because there was a giant made out of stars. Not just stars. Entire … constellations. Entire clusters of stars. A whole galaxy. No, there were stars, yes, but there were also galaxies within the giant’s form. How big was that? How big was a galaxy? What about the distance between galaxies? 

The giant of stars wielded a hammer made out of stars, too, which swung down upon an anvil made out of stars which had a … 

She wasn’t sure anymore.

How fast were those stars moving when the giant wielded that hammer? 

But she knew something amidst all of the questions that was starting to take up too much of her head’s limited mental space.

This was real. 

This wasn’t some sort of illusion or a soul space inside Vanessa. 

This was something real, something powerful, and …

“... It’s not her, is it?” she muttered to herself. She found herself before something beyond her and any other god or goddess of the heaven she was from. 

The giant … 

What was she supposed to call it? If she was a goddess, then what was that? 

The giant set its hammer down. 

And looked straight at her. 

Hair all over her mortal shell stood up on their roots. 

-VB-

Vanessa woke up.

That was the only way she could describe the sensation of waking up from … whatever it was that Athena did to her to “look into the skill.” 

She looked up blearily and saw her goddess sitting exactly where she was before they started this.

Vanessa glanced out of the window and noted the angle of the shadow. 

… Have they been at this all morning? 

She turned to look at Athena. 

And frowned. 

“... Are you alright?” she asked cautiously. 

Athena blinked and looked up. “Ah. Yeah. Your goddess is fine. Magic and soulcraft is not exactly my forte, so I had a bit of trouble with … the limited usage of Arcana.”

Vanessa didn’t believe that for a second. If it was just “having it rough,” then she wouldn’t be pale as a ghost, sweating buckets like she ran a marathon, and shaking like an autumn leaf. 

No, Athena definitely saw something more than that. 

“... Alright. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t your shopping withdrawal,” she crooned cheekily. 

One of Athena’s forehead blood veins popped out and throbbed. Her goddess glared at her. 

In the next second, she was in the air with a leg lashing out into a kick.

“GAH!” 

“Your goddess is putting her time in the mortal plane into danger and that’s the thanks I get?! Get back here!” 

At least she wasn’t shaking in fear of whatever she saw. 

-VB-

A/N: pace is going to pick up for Vanessa’s personal growth starting next chapter.