Although Lyota was sitting with her eyes closed, assuming a meditative position in a relatively isolated part of the Floor Four meadow, she could still tell when the dungeon master's avatar began to approach her. It would have been hard not to - despite the fact that it wasn't the dungeon's true body, it was the manifestation of her will and attention, which meant that her presence felt much more strongly than it had on any floor aside from the core chamber itself. The spirit does at least come to a halt about eight feet away rather than coming right up next to her, and Lyota can hear it as she takes a seat on the grass herself. Although the fury demon puts everything she can into maintaining her calm exterior, at least one shudder does escape through her body.
"You're a real glutton for punishment, ain't ya? Of course, for you, I take it this is the kind of 'punishment' that would be like a kid staring at a cake they aren't allowed to eat, huh? Got me curious, though. You're staying away from the core chamber, so I won't throw you out, but why did you come here? Am I really that scrumptious-looking?"
Sighing, Lyota opens her eyes and looks into Xenia's own. "It...is difficult to pry myself away, I will admit. But what truly brought me here more than anything else was my own curiosity. I am aware that you do not 'owe' me any answers. But I hoped that if I observed you and your...rituals, if you could call it that, perhaps I would still learn something. This has been a bust, however. The man gave himself to you willingly, I detected no sin in your slaying of him, regardless of your rather...unsubtle methods."
"Glad to know I'm doing at least that much right, then. But I got some questions of my own, if you don't mind me asking."
The red-skinned woman nods. "I am willing to speak. What do you wish to know?"
Xenia waggles a hand. "Fury demon stuff I suppose, nothing personal. For starters, I know your type feed off of the punishment of sins, or something like that. Super-biblical I bet, probably more so than succubi are. Not that I was ever good at that shit. Point is, let's say a dude punches an old lady, you punish the dick, feed from it, and walk off. Can another fury demon line up behind you and do the same thing? For the same crime, I mean?"
The demon finds herself a little surprised at this somewhat technical line of questioning. "Ah? No. The act releases a kind of stored metaphysical energy which we absorb, it does not simply reform on its own. If they continued to avoid a proper punishment for their crime, it would perhaps rebuild slightly in time, but it's certainly not the kind of meal one can 'line up' for."
"So your punishment, what? Actually absolves a person of their sins or something? Or temporarily?"
Lyota chuckles, finding the question amusing despite herself. "If you want a true understanding of sin and the removal thereof, you should talk to the gods - or at least some of their high-ranking clerics. In comparison, we furies are more akin to janitors, the final line of...clean-up. However, I can tell you that it depends on the specific nature of the sin involved, and there is no exact system. Take the example of punching an old woman, as you said. Such a person would owe a moral debt to at least two parties - the state, whose laws they broke, and the woman, whom they physically injured. In some cases, historically speaking, we furies were agents of the state and were thus able to consume that portion of their sin through punishment. Here in the Rainlands however I have no such jurisdiction. Whatever I might do to such a man, it does not reduce their debt to the state in the least, and so I would gain nothing from it."
Xenia scratches her head. "But you would gain something from, what, the debt the dude owes to the old lady?"
"It's a more basic, primal form of justice. The ideal situation would be one in which we would force the man to put himself at her mercies, offering apology and whatever form of recompense she required. Failing that, we would at least gain something from making him suffer for the crime, ensuring that he felt in at least some way regretful for his deeds."
"So..." Xenia trails off in thought for a while, and Lyota takes the opportunity to refocus on her calming exercises. As much as she wants to analyze just why the dungeon spirit would be asking her these questions, she can tell her mind is barely in any condition to do much analysis at the moment, and so she simply focuses instead on watching the spirit's reactions and waiting for her next question. Eventually, it comes. "Let's say there was a crime, and the victim died a long time ago. And you're way outside of the jurisdiction where it happened. How do you punish a criminal like that?"
"That...sounds like a rather detailed hypothetical."
"Hey, if you don't wanna answer the questions, you can leave at any time."
Sighing again, Lyota takes a deep breath and attempts to consider the scenario. "A victim's loved ones can stand in for them to an extent. But if there is no one else to whom the debt can be repaid, it eventually falls to the ultimate debt-collectors."
Suddenly interested, Xenia leans forward. "Huh? And who would that be?"
"The gods, of course. 'Jurisdiction' may be a complicated matter to determine - who did the victim worship, what gods ruled over the territory where the crime occurred, did the specific crime involve some sort of act offending a specific god, and that sort of thing. For minor crimes, we furies tend to ignore such lost cases - simply determining which Church we ought to send the sinner towards would consume more effort than the reward is worth."
"Fuck! Dammit!" Xenia begins to swear, and she climbs up back to her feet so she can begin pacing around. "Who even were the gods around then, that was so damn long ago! Do any of em even pay attention to this realm, even if I wanted to try and make up somehow!?"
Lyota's face screws up in confusion. "...What in the world is this situation which you are describing? You've committed some...ancient misdeed?"
Pausing, Xenia eyes Lyota cautiously for a bit. "...I'm like, sixty percent sure that Dragonlord's figured out my deal, but if they ain't, or ain't said shit to you, I'm keeping it to myself. But what you're saying is you don't even have the ability to feed off my crimes even if you wanted to?"
"If...if they are of such a sort as you describe, then not fully, no. But your sins are so great, that even the relative scraps that could be obtained by making you suffer and regret would be an enormous feast."
"Yay. Joy. How would you even pull that off? Ever punished a dungeon core before?"
Lyota finds herself unable to meet Xenia's gaze, and her eyes turn towards the ground. "I'm not...entirely certain of that myself. I know mystical constructs exist which can hurt dungeon cores, but I do not possess any, and I would not be in a position to use one even if I did." As she says that, however, a feeling does enter her body, pulling energy into her bones. Now that she notices it, she realizes that it's been there since almost as soon as she arrived, yet she was simply too distracted by her emotions and her attempts to quell them to identify it. Eyes widening, she stares into Xenia's face again.
"Except...my presence here alone is...am I hurting you? Am I making you suffer just by sitting here?"
"It's...what? No! That's...that's crazy." Xenia turns away, now the one to find herself suddenly shy. "Okay, you know what, I think we've done enough personal sharing for the day!" Turning around entirely, Xenia shouts out to the other guests milling around the snack tables. "Alright, party time's over! Thanks for swinging by and giving me a dude to kill, but unless you wanna fight some bosses or something, time for everyone to get the fuck out of my house! I got an orc to clean up and bossify!"
Lyota worries somewhat that she may have provoked the dungeon spirit with her question, but if she did, it hardly seems like the time to try and press the issue. Climbing to her feet, she begins to make her way towards the exit portal Xenia sets up, but at a rather lingering pace. The Church members exit first - with the Paladin perhaps intentionally trying to put some distance between Lyota and herself, to the fury demon's slight amusement - and with the Association members lingering somewhat themselves. Sely eventually peels herself away from Taly though, and after a few minutes Lyota is the last member of the odd party to remain. A fact which Xenia notices.
"Yo. Not great at picking up hints, huh? Look, it was a nice chat, but I think we've had enough of each other for one day."
"...Perhaps. But I do feel the need to perhaps clarify one point, dungeon master." Again, Lyota locks her eyes with Xenia's. "I do not enjoy causing suffering, and I don't know any fury demons who do. It is a necessity of our kind, sometimes, but that part of the process is not always an enjoyable one. For your sake, I hope you find some balm for whatever wound you carry."
Xenia's expression is more than a little hard to read, and before she gives anything away, she waves Lyota on through the portal. "Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. But if it's a problem I've got, I've had it for a long time, and I got other shit to do. See you around, or not, I ain't your boss. Ta-ta now."
Lyota bows at the unusual dismissal, and steps on through the portal.
| ------------------------ NEW CONSTRUCT PATTERN QUALITIES ACQUIRED/UPGRADED: LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED: KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED: |
| ------------------------ YOU HAVE SCORED YOUR FIRST KILL WITH A DUNGEON AVATAR. AVATARS CAN NOW WITHSTAND A SINGLE MINOR OR MODERATE COMBAT STRIKE BEFORE BEING DISPERSED. |
An hour later, Xenia found herself standing in one of the Floor Two apartments alongside Lollyp, Sincere and Taly. They'd taken over the former suite used by the Church pair, doing some redecorating and turning the extra bedroom into something of an armory so that the new boss would have a chance to try out a variety of weapons. The main question remained though - what form to give the man?
"It's rabbit time."
Taly shoots Xenia a look, followed soon after by the other bosses. "Rabbit time."
"Yup. I've been sitting on eleven souls, not counting the big guy's himself, so it's time to finally push the bunnies up to B-tier! I probably should've done this earlier, this could be a huge upgrade to BB and a bunch of other monsters too."
Sincere seems unimpressed. "Even in the B-tier, do you think there would be something worthwhile as a boss in, ah, lagomorphs?"
Guy hovers into the room to handle that question. "Indubitably! Tiers are, for the most part, standardized rankings, you understand. There may be a few exceptions, such as dragons usually being a bit overpowered as a category, and specific cases like False Mortals being rather weak, but generally speaking a B-tier boss is a B-tier boss. Which is to say, the new fellow should be roughly on par with any of you!"
Lollyp presses the point. "But are you sure Trush would want to be a bunny?"
"What can I say, Lolly Pop? I've got a good feeling about this." With a wide grin, the dungeon master goes through her menus and spends ten souls, pushing Lagomorphs from C+ to B. "And there we go, I knew there was gonna be something good to pop up! Lagomorph Champions - Champion, right in the name like he said, right? Champion subtype...Bunny Knight."
"Seriously?" Taly rubs her forehead, but fails to hide the grin on her face as she chastises her boss.
"Hey, careful with the preconceptions, eh? Let's just turn that muscle slider up to max and...see what we get here." With a wave of her hand, the body of an unconscious man appears on the apartment's bed. It's humanoid, with an ethnicity which would be uncertain by Earth standards but tending towards rather dark skin, including black hair and...fur. While the Knight's main body is simply covered in skin like a human's, its arms and legs suddenly sprout fur and change shape halfway down the limbs, with thick paw-like hands and massive rabbit-style feet. Its face is perhaps mostly normal, save for an oddly-shaped nose, but rather than human ears a pair of long black rabbit ears sprout from the top of its head.
The figure is already quite well-sculpted to start with, its muscular abs and chest plain to see, but once Xenia boosts the body to boss-level it becomes something else entirely. The body bulges, taking on much more orc-like proportions, and while the chest doesn't sprout fur exactly, the chest hair it grows isn't that far off. Even with the upper torso's impressiveness however, it doesn't take long for four pairs of eyes to drift downward and examine an even more impressive bit of anatomy. Frozen in place, Xenia's hand hovers over her menus before she can implant the monster body with a soul, and Lollyp is the one to speak up first.
"Well! Looks like he's gonna be well-equipped for doing all sorts of rabbit-type activities, eh, eh?"
"Oh no. Oh no oh no."
Taly gives her boss a worried look as Xenia begins to repeat herself. "Did, ah...something go wrong, Xenia?"
"Oh no. Oh no, he's hot."
Although Lyota was sitting with her eyes closed, assuming a meditative position in a relatively isolated part of the Floor Four meadow, she could still tell when the dungeon master's avatar began to approach her. It would have been hard not to - despite the fact that it wasn't the dungeon's true body, it was the manifestation of her will and attention, which meant that her presence felt much more strongly than it had on any floor aside from the core chamber itself. The spirit does at least come to a halt about eight feet away rather than coming right up next to her, and Lyota can hear it as she takes a seat on the grass herself. Although the fury demon puts everything she can into maintaining her calm exterior, at least one shudder does escape through her body.
"You're a real glutton for punishment, ain't ya? Of course, for you, I take it this is the kind of 'punishment' that would be like a kid staring at a cake they aren't allowed to eat, huh? Got me curious, though. You're staying away from the core chamber, so I won't throw you out, but why did you come here? Am I really that scrumptious-looking?"
Sighing, Lyota opens her eyes and looks into Xenia's own. "It...is difficult to pry myself away, I will admit. But what truly brought me here more than anything else was my own curiosity. I am aware that you do not 'owe' me any answers. But I hoped that if I observed you and your...rituals, if you could call it that, perhaps I would still learn something. This has been a bust, however. The man gave himself to you willingly, I detected no sin in your slaying of him, regardless of your rather...unsubtle methods."
"Glad to know I'm doing at least that much right, then. But I got some questions of my own, if you don't mind me asking."
The red-skinned woman nods. "I am willing to speak. What do you wish to know?"
Xenia waggles a hand. "Fury demon stuff I suppose, nothing personal. For starters, I know your type feed off of the punishment of sins, or something like that. Super-biblical I bet, probably more so than succubi are. Not that I was ever good at that shit. Point is, let's say a dude punches an old lady, you punish the dick, feed from it, and walk off. Can another fury demon line up behind you and do the same thing? For the same crime, I mean?"
The demon finds herself a little surprised at this somewhat technical line of questioning. "Ah? No. The act releases a kind of stored metaphysical energy which we absorb, it does not simply reform on its own. If they continued to avoid a proper punishment for their crime, it would perhaps rebuild slightly in time, but it's certainly not the kind of meal one can 'line up' for."
"So your punishment, what? Actually absolves a person of their sins or something? Or temporarily?"
Lyota chuckles, finding the question amusing despite herself. "If you want a true understanding of sin and the removal thereof, you should talk to the gods - or at least some of their high-ranking clerics. In comparison, we furies are more akin to janitors, the final line of...clean-up. However, I can tell you that it depends on the specific nature of the sin involved, and there is no exact system. Take the example of punching an old woman, as you said. Such a person would owe a moral debt to at least two parties - the state, whose laws they broke, and the woman, whom they physically injured. In some cases, historically speaking, we furies were agents of the state and were thus able to consume that portion of their sin through punishment. Here in the Rainlands however I have no such jurisdiction. Whatever I might do to such a man, it does not reduce their debt to the state in the least, and so I would gain nothing from it."
Xenia scratches her head. "But you would gain something from, what, the debt the dude owes to the old lady?"
"It's a more basic, primal form of justice. The ideal situation would be one in which we would force the man to put himself at her mercies, offering apology and whatever form of recompense she required. Failing that, we would at least gain something from making him suffer for the crime, ensuring that he felt in at least some way regretful for his deeds."
"So..." Xenia trails off in thought for a while, and Lyota takes the opportunity to refocus on her calming exercises. As much as she wants to analyze just why the dungeon spirit would be asking her these questions, she can tell her mind is barely in any condition to do much analysis at the moment, and so she simply focuses instead on watching the spirit's reactions and waiting for her next question. Eventually, it comes. "Let's say there was a crime, and the victim died a long time ago. And you're way outside of the jurisdiction where it happened. How do you punish a criminal like that?"
"That...sounds like a rather detailed hypothetical."
"Hey, if you don't wanna answer the questions, you can leave at any time."
Sighing again, Lyota takes a deep breath and attempts to consider the scenario. "A victim's loved ones can stand in for them to an extent. But if there is no one else to whom the debt can be repaid, it eventually falls to the ultimate debt-collectors."
Suddenly interested, Xenia leans forward. "Huh? And who would that be?"
"The gods, of course. 'Jurisdiction' may be a complicated matter to determine - who did the victim worship, what gods ruled over the territory where the crime occurred, did the specific crime involve some sort of act offending a specific god, and that sort of thing. For minor crimes, we furies tend to ignore such lost cases - simply determining which Church we ought to send the sinner towards would consume more effort than the reward is worth."
"Fuck! Dammit!" Xenia begins to swear, and she climbs up back to her feet so she can begin pacing around. "Who even were the gods around then, that was so damn long ago! Do any of em even pay attention to this realm, even if I wanted to try and make up somehow!?"
Lyota's face screws up in confusion. "...What in the world is this situation which you are describing? You've committed some...ancient misdeed?"
Pausing, Xenia eyes Lyota cautiously for a bit. "...I'm like, sixty percent sure that Dragonlord's figured out my deal, but if they ain't, or ain't said shit to you, I'm keeping it to myself. But what you're saying is you don't even have the ability to feed off my crimes even if you wanted to?"
"If...if they are of such a sort as you describe, then not fully, no. But your sins are so great, that even the relative scraps that could be obtained by making you suffer and regret would be an enormous feast."
"Yay. Joy. How would you even pull that off? Ever punished a dungeon core before?"
Lyota finds herself unable to meet Xenia's gaze, and her eyes turn towards the ground. "I'm not...entirely certain of that myself. I know mystical constructs exist which can hurt dungeon cores, but I do not possess any, and I would not be in a position to use one even if I did." As she says that, however, a feeling does enter her body, pulling energy into her bones. Now that she notices it, she realizes that it's been there since almost as soon as she arrived, yet she was simply too distracted by her emotions and her attempts to quell them to identify it. Eyes widening, she stares into Xenia's face again.
"Except...my presence here alone is...am I hurting you? Am I making you suffer just by sitting here?"
"It's...what? No! That's...that's crazy." Xenia turns away, now the one to find herself suddenly shy. "Okay, you know what, I think we've done enough personal sharing for the day!" Turning around entirely, Xenia shouts out to the other guests milling around the snack tables. "Alright, party time's over! Thanks for swinging by and giving me a dude to kill, but unless you wanna fight some bosses or something, time for everyone to get the fuck out of my house! I got an orc to clean up and bossify!"
Lyota worries somewhat that she may have provoked the dungeon spirit with her question, but if she did, it hardly seems like the time to try and press the issue. Climbing to her feet, she begins to make her way towards the exit portal Xenia sets up, but at a rather lingering pace. The Church members exit first - with the Paladin perhaps intentionally trying to put some distance between Lyota and herself, to the fury demon's slight amusement - and with the Association members lingering somewhat themselves. Sely eventually peels herself away from Taly though, and after a few minutes Lyota is the last member of the odd party to remain. A fact which Xenia notices.
"Yo. Not great at picking up hints, huh? Look, it was a nice chat, but I think we've had enough of each other for one day."
"...Perhaps. But I do feel the need to perhaps clarify one point, dungeon master." Again, Lyota locks her eyes with Xenia's. "I do not enjoy causing suffering, and I don't know any fury demons who do. It is a necessity of our kind, sometimes, but that part of the process is not always an enjoyable one. For your sake, I hope you find some balm for whatever wound you carry."
Xenia's expression is more than a little hard to read, and before she gives anything away, she waves Lyota on through the portal. "Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. But if it's a problem I've got, I've had it for a long time, and I got other shit to do. See you around, or not, I ain't your boss. Ta-ta now."
Lyota bows at the unusual dismissal, and steps on through the portal.
| ------------------------ NEW CONSTRUCT PATTERN QUALITIES ACQUIRED/UPGRADED: LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED: KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED: |
| ------------------------ YOU HAVE SCORED YOUR FIRST KILL WITH A DUNGEON AVATAR. AVATARS CAN NOW WITHSTAND A SINGLE MINOR OR MODERATE COMBAT STRIKE BEFORE BEING DISPERSED. |
An hour later, Xenia found herself standing in one of the Floor Two apartments alongside Lollyp, Sincere and Taly. They'd taken over the former suite used by the Church pair, doing some redecorating and turning the extra bedroom into something of an armory so that the new boss would have a chance to try out a variety of weapons. The main question remained though - what form to give the man?
"It's rabbit time."
Taly shoots Xenia a look, followed soon after by the other bosses. "Rabbit time."
"Yup. I've been sitting on eleven souls, not counting the big guy's himself, so it's time to finally push the bunnies up to B-tier! I probably should've done this earlier, this could be a huge upgrade to BB and a bunch of other monsters too."
Sincere seems unimpressed. "Even in the B-tier, do you think there would be something worthwhile as a boss in, ah, lagomorphs?"
Guy hovers into the room to handle that question. "Indubitably! Tiers are, for the most part, standardized rankings, you understand. There may be a few exceptions, such as dragons usually being a bit overpowered as a category, and specific cases like False Mortals being rather weak, but generally speaking a B-tier boss is a B-tier boss. Which is to say, the new fellow should be roughly on par with any of you!"
Lollyp presses the point. "But are you sure Trush would want to be a bunny?"
"What can I say, Lolly Pop? I've got a good feeling about this." With a wide grin, the dungeon master goes through her menus and spends ten souls, pushing Lagomorphs from C+ to B. "And there we go, I knew there was gonna be something good to pop up! Lagomorph Champions - Champion, right in the name like he said, right? Champion subtype...Bunny Knight."
"Seriously?" Taly rubs her forehead, but fails to hide the grin on her face as she chastises her boss.
"Hey, careful with the preconceptions, eh? Let's just turn that muscle slider up to max and...see what we get here." With a wave of her hand, the body of an unconscious man appears on the apartment's bed. It's humanoid, with an ethnicity which would be uncertain by Earth standards but tending towards rather dark skin, including black hair and...fur. While the Knight's main body is simply covered in skin like a human's, its arms and legs suddenly sprout fur and change shape halfway down the limbs, with thick paw-like hands and massive rabbit-style feet. Its face is perhaps mostly normal, save for an oddly-shaped nose, but rather than human ears a pair of long black rabbit ears sprout from the top of its head.
The figure is already quite well-sculpted to start with, its muscular abs and chest plain to see, but once Xenia boosts the body to boss-level it becomes something else entirely. The body bulges, taking on much more orc-like proportions, and while the chest doesn't sprout fur exactly, the chest hair it grows isn't that far off. Even with the upper torso's impressiveness however, it doesn't take long for four pairs of eyes to drift downward and examine an even more impressive bit of anatomy. Frozen in place, Xenia's hand hovers over her menus before she can implant the monster body with a soul, and Lollyp is the one to speak up first.
"Well! Looks like he's gonna be well-equipped for doing all sorts of rabbit-type activities, eh, eh?"
"Oh no. Oh no oh no."
Taly gives her boss a worried look as Xenia begins to repeat herself. "Did, ah...something go wrong, Xenia?"
"Oh no. Oh no, he's hot."
