Dungeon Menagerie 14

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRei

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 14

-VB-

Mori looked at his master. 

His master was … 

She was a diamond in the rough. A very rough diamond, one might say. Her connection to the greater beings above was not what he cared about, though. 

Not many humans, after all, could adapt as she did with the Dungeon, that festering hole that oozed miasma. 

Vanessa was adapting well, but he could also see that it wasn’t fast enough, especially since there was only him and master to venture the Dungeon. It was enough for now, but she would come across a wall she won’t be able to climb. 

Was it time? 

“Hey.”

The chaurus bug looked at him. “Yessh?” she crooned with crackles of its mandibles. 

“Can you get master down from your back? I need to talk to her.”

“Oohh? Oookkkaayy,” she crackled as she did just that. 

“Eh, what are you doing, Chauky?” 

Ugh. 

If there was one thing he wanted to complain about, then it was the fact that his master was horrible when it came to names. He got lucky because he could understand human language, but the chaurus? Hah! She got stuck with the name Chauky. Because she was black as charcoal and its name started with “chau”rus. It was a horror that happened in realtime, made worse by the fact that that could have been him in her shoes. 

“Oi, idiot girl,” he cawed at her. 

She turned toward him with a frown. 

Whether it was because of her connection with that power of hers or because she was just that sharp, she got a lot of his intent when he spoke but not quite the exact words. 

“... What is it, Mori?” she asked him cautiously. 

He snorted before he reached up with his wings and grabbed at his blinds. Instead of taking the entire thing, he unfolded it just enough that it was half his wingspan. Then he handed it to her. 

She stared at him.

He stared at her. 

She looked down at his gift.

He waited for her to take it.

“... What is it for…?” she asked hesitantly. 

Admittedly, his gift wasn’t, eh, the cleanest gift one might encounter. It was definitely not the kind of gift one gave a girl. 

But it was a gift that meant more than just a show of appreciation. 

“Take it already. And put it on your head,” he said as he gestured to his own head with his free wing. 

She looked down at the gift, looked back up at him, and then pointed at her head.

“Yes.”

“I mean… I don’t know. It’s not like -”

“Hurry it up and put it on!” he cawed loudly at her.

“Geez, alright, alright!” she whined as she took the roll of linen bandage and wrapped it around her head. But not over her eyes.

He sighed. 

He reached out slowly so she could see him move and then pushed the bandage down so that they covered her eyes. 

“Hey, what are you -?!” Then she stopped fussing. She looked around. “Um. How can I see?” she asked him and herself as she spun around in place. “Wait, is this why you can walk around and still see? You don’t have super senses?!” 

If he still had his eyes, then he would have rolled them around in exasperation. 

Then she stopped. “Wait, doesn’t that mean you have functioning eyes behind your blinds?”

He shook his head. Didn’t they go over this before? 

He lifted his own bandage, and she flinched. “Ah. Right. Forgot. I think. Um. Sorry,” she winced, growing only more upset as she continued.

He rolled his head instead. 

Then he looked around to see a … punching bag. That was a term that Vanessa used often when she wanted a training dummy. 

Mori paused when he found one not too far away. 

“Vanessa. There.”

She turned to look in the direction he was looking, and she saw the War Shadow he spotted. “Oh, it’s a War Shadow,” she hummed. 

Then he pushed her toward it. 

She looked at him quizzically before shrugging. She could deal with a War Shadow on her own. 

“Chauky-.”

“No, by yourself.”

Chauky stopped and turned her large head toward him. 

“I want her to see what my gift does for her,” he explained. 

Vanessa, of course, didn’t get the details of his explanation. Probably, she only heard something along the lines of ‘you go fight by yourself.’

She stepped forward and the lone War Shadow menacingly stalked up to her. 

And as soon as it got within its striking distance, it jumped to cross the distance quickly and strike with the weight of its body behind it. 

But instead of hitting Vanessa, who was still slow, he hit the ground. And Vanessa was staring at the War Shadow in surprise while she found herself having moved far faster than she expected. 

Then she pressed her advantage as the War Shadow tried to recover. 

She moved faster, again, and struck harder, faster. 

“That is the effect of my Justitia,” Mori hummed. “You will move and strike faster. It will serve you well.”

The War Shadow died in just two rapid strikes that decapitated its head. 

-VB-

“Caw caw caw.”

Vanessa looked over her shoulder and stared at Mori. 

He was definitely trying to say something complicated to her, but she didn’t get it at all. 

“... Thank you,” she said still, because she was thankful for his gift. “I -.”

And then the Celestial Menagerie blossomed again.

She closed her mouth with a click as she waited for it to show what she got. 

Crrttt….

Huh?

[Tzzzttzzz tttzz…]

She frowned. 

That … never happened before. 

[T**et o**ed on.]

Huh? That sounded like words. 

Error. Error. Error. Breach in progress -.

Uh oh.

[I found you.]

“W-Who are you…?” she asked.

Mori suddenly grew taut and his feathers stood up on their roots. 

“CAW!” he screeched abruptly, making her jump.

[Intriguing. Unexplainable. You must be … analyzed.]

Objection. This is against the rules.

She heard a screech. A crack in reality, huh? How can she hear cracks in reality? 

“CAW!” 

She whirled around, heeding Mori’s warning call, and saw she -.

Some kind of serrated metal fragments loosely moving together like a tentacle whipped out of a literal crack in reality in the air and struck her. 

She screamed in pain even though she tried to dodge with her new speed, because the whip had struck her along the back.

And then the crack shattered and the fragmented metal tentacle broke away into dark motes that disappeared in the air. 

Vanessa collapsed on all four limbs in pain as she gasped to somehow stall the pain.

Mori hissed at Chauky and then sped off.

She wasn’t sure how long she was there for, but the pain ebbed and flowed away, leaving her covered in blood and sweat… but no longer in pain.

She groaned as she got back up, leaning on her spear from how weak she felt. When she looked up, she saw Mori coming back with blood dripping from his feet. He must have gone out to hunt as quickly as possible to heal her. 

“T-Thanks, Mori,” she grinned weakly. 

He stared at her before cawing at Chauky. Chauky quickly picked her up, and as she laid on Chauky’s back, they left the Dungeon in a hurry. 

-VB-

New Skill Acquired.

Touch of the Void - “You’ve stared into the void. And the void reached out.” The user is watched. The Void judges.