An hour later, an emergency dungeon meeting has brought Xenia's main council back down to her core chamber. After taking a few minutes to describe Trush's duel with the Perlin nobles and its outcome, Xenia lays out the main issue at hand.
"So, as my inventory screen says, I now have the soul of one Deylia Niyen in my stash. As a full, reincarnated soul that is, not just soul store fodder."
Lollyp seems confused as she considers the events of the duel. "So the dungeon system considers what she did a willing sacrifice? I mean, she didn't do it for you, she did it for that other guy, right? I guess that counts?"
Xenia nods. "Apparently! And that leads to our first problem. I guarantee you that woman did not intend to actually become a member of the dungeon. Either she didn't realize what sacrificing herself would mean, or she had no more than half a second to think it over even if she did. That's never happened before. Lollyp, you might not have known about the curse, but you did at least intend to become part of the dungeon staff in some form, yeah? Sincere, Taly, you didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, but you did at least have the time to consider whether or not you'd rather just, y'know...die like a normal mortal."
Taly chuckles. "It was a choice, if perhaps not a great one. But I've got no regrets."
"Glad to hear it. But now we've got a woman's soul here, one which belongs to someone who probably doesn't want to be here. That bothers me."
Sincere shrugs, unconcerned. "Not at all a hard problem to solve. Simply grant her a body, ask her what she wants, and if she'd rather move on, the soul store awaits. Is there another complication?"
"Only if she wants to stay, Sin-man. Cause, like...we went through a lot of trouble setting up that system with the Church of Bounty, you know? We make her part of the team, and we're not going to be able to hide that we've got a new boss who skipped the queue. So the second problem is, we take her on, we risk having other people try and hop over the Church and get themselves killed in here, and all that effort's gonna be for nothing."
Trush gives a deep sigh, before raising his eyes to meet Xenia's. "That may be so. But...I cannot help but feel that it would be wrong for us to decide her fate, based on what's most convenient for us."
The dungeon master winces at that, but Beatrice frowns. "Hey, Trush, I understand if you feel bad for her, for what happened. But if she did it expecting nothing, and is currently experiencing nothing...I mean, Xen doesn't owe her a spot. It's not fair if Xenia needs to blow up all her plans just to account for one impulsive decision from a Challenger."
The Knight grunts. "It's true that I would at least like the opportunity to apologize to her, for being unable to halt my blow in time - even if she truly did bring it on herself. Hells, it was the second time she interfered in the duel! If I hadn't already killed her, I probably would have killed her. But still, despite that...her actions, her sacrifice, was noble not just in title but in deed, and I would not wish to see her so easily discarded."
Xenia interjects. "Honestly, I agree with Trush. Mostly I bring it up so we can maybe brainstorm a little on how to manage it. One good thing at least, a noble servant of her age? Almost no chance she's got kids, so that part of our cover story's probably intact. But how to make sure we don't start getting flooded by desperate suicides?"
Sincere's lip quirks. "If we need a story, I've read a thousand and written a few myself. The key point about Deylia's death is that she came to the dungeon with no expectations of receiving anything from us, and gave her life for...let's say, the 'pure love' she had for another, whether that's the case or not. I daresay I can write up a missive that Bountiful Mother Hammerdown can distribute, showing that this is not the sort of situation one can artificially engineer ahead of time."
The spirit eyes her council, but none seem particularly opposed, so after a bit of thought on the matter herself she nods. "Let's give it a shot. Maybe we can workshop something with her, see what makes a good cover story. Which means the next thing is...what do we actually do with her? And fuck her shitty timing, I was all set to spend the evening prepping for our Day Two Hundred party tonight!"
Taly answers without hesitation. "Floor Five. I don't know about bodies, really, but as far as slots go? Floor Five, definitely. Assuming she's not opposed, of course."
Beatrice gives the banshee a disbelieving look. "...What? I think someone mentioned she and that bowman of hers did try the place out yesterday, so sure, she clearly doesn't hate the place. But running it? That's a different matter entirely!"
"Yes, but look at her classes. She's a Supporter, not a combat specialist. Sure, we can give her abilities from anything in the library, plus of course monster powers. But that'd be nothing compared to what she has lived experience with, and as a reincarnate she doesn't benefit from being 'shaped' to fit her monster form. Make her boss of Floor Seven? No way, she's definitely not going to be that tough. Make her boss of one of the easy floors? Aside from needing to maybe redo a bunch of theming, that's basically signing her up to getting killed again every day, maybe multiple times. That's a lot to put on someone who didn't volunteer for it. Honestly, I'm not sure how Lollyp handles it so well."
As if in some sort of demonstration, Lollyp grabs a blob of slimy flesh from her chest and plops it down onto the table in front of her. "I'll be honest, I've definitely gotten the impression I'm less bothered about getting chopped up into pieces than you rigids are. I mean, it barely even hurts me most of the time."
Xenia stares at the bit of Lollyp-slime for a moment before shaking her head. "Uh, yeah, I think Taly's got a point. We'll maybe need to define a more specific role for her, if she's not going to be fighting, but...a Supporter for Floor Five? Making it more of a general safe zone? I can see that working out. Can give her an apartment up there too, since I think Floor Two's about maxed out. As for the specific form..." She trails off in thought, before eventually coming to a conclusion. "We'll have to get her agreement on it, but I think I've got an idea on how we can make her sound more like a one-off special case..."
It only took half an hour for a new apartment to be set up, thanks to Xenia's experience with copying the existing ones, combined with the fact that they had no idea how to decorate it personally for the woman none of them knew, and so they didn't bother doing anything special. It did have something of a Section Four styling to it, with the false windows and hideaway cabin appearance, although it had no true door and was connected to the rest of Floor Five and the dungeon only via shortcut portals. To avoid crowding the possible newest member of the dungeon family, only Xenia, Trush, and Taly were present for her arrival, with the hope that the former Challengers would best be able to ease her into things.
Eventually, as her soul awakens, Deylia opens her eyes to find herself on a comfortable bed with green covers. She looks around and finds herself surrounded by two people she's never met along with the man who killed her, which makes her calm reaction rather impressive, considering everything. "I...the dungeon's healed me? Even though I violated the terms of your challenge, Sir Sharptongue?"
The woman standing to her right, with a unique style of black-and-white-striped hair and a fashion sense unlike any Deylia's seen before gives a single shake of her head. "Not...in the way you're probably thinking. Trush here did absolutely kill the fuck out of you. It was real gory, lemme tell you."
The red-eyed woman to Deylia's left sighs and puts her face in one palm, so Deylia keeps her attention on the woman who spoke. "Then I'm not sure I...wait." Deylia shoots up in the bed as a realization crosses her face. She looks down at her body, relieved for a moment to see it looks as she remembers it, save for her garments which are unfamiliar. That is, until she gets to her hands and legs. They have the same fur-covered, paw-like appearance as do the limbs on Trush's form, save that Deylia finds herself to have a golden-brown color of fur rather than Trush's dark black. "...You...turned me into a rabbit."
Xenia sits down on a chair next to the bed, and leans in close. "A very special kind of rabbit. But before we get into that, we need to talk about some other things. First off, I'm Xenia, master of the dungeon, glad to meet you. Second, you seemed to know about Trush's past, so I assume you're familiar with how he joined the dungeon?"
"Yes, but...that was with the aid of the Church of Bounty, yes? I've never spoken with them! Let alone completed their process to become part of the dungeon!" Shaking her head, a memory suddenly seems to return to her. "Wait, wait - Raylin! Sansie! Are - are the others alright?"
Trush takes care of this question. "The lad had some injuries still, but he'll likely fully recover - that heal you gave him for his hand was quite a mighty one. After the duel, your friends left along with...ah, your remains."
"Oh...that's...that's good. But why am I here, then?"
Xenia snorts. "Well, like you said, you didn't use the Church system, and that's liable to be a headache and a half. But the important part is, well, you willingly sacrificed yourself in the dungeon, and that's the core of the matter. If you don't want to be here, you don't have to be, but you should at least get the option. Now that you've got some time to think about it."
The Maid's eyes lose some focus, as she begins to think about her fate. "Does...am I stuck here for eternity then? If I choose to stay? ...Killing people?"
Taly leans in on other other side, planting a comforting hand on Deylia's shoulder, although the effect is negated somewhat by her status as an undead monster. "To answer your first question - mostly. There is an option for spending a bit of time outside, but it's not an option for returning to your old life. If you don't want to move on, yeah, you're basically stuck in the neighborhood at least for as long as you want to stay. As for the second question, well...we might have a good option that means you don't actually need to do that."
Deylia's been rather confused ever since this all started, but the last statement only brings her to a new record level. "Eh? What other role is there in a dungeon, other than violence and murder? ...Unless you mean the door. Oh gods, please don't turn me into a door!"
"Whoa, whoa, definitely not!" Xenia runs a hand along Deylia's back, attempting to calm her. "We can change the body you've been given, but what you've got right now? It's brand new, no dungeon's ever made something like you before. You, Deylia...are a Rabbit Priestess." She pauses, then adds an addendum. "Not that the crossbreed titles are fixed. We can change that too if you'd like something better."
"But...what does that mean? I've never done more than visit a church!"
The dungeon master gives the recently-dead woman a smile. "Well, tell me something, Deylia. Have you ever wanted to meet a goddess?"
An hour later, an emergency dungeon meeting has brought Xenia's main council back down to her core chamber. After taking a few minutes to describe Trush's duel with the Perlin nobles and its outcome, Xenia lays out the main issue at hand.
"So, as my inventory screen says, I now have the soul of one Deylia Niyen in my stash. As a full, reincarnated soul that is, not just soul store fodder."
Lollyp seems confused as she considers the events of the duel. "So the dungeon system considers what she did a willing sacrifice? I mean, she didn't do it for you, she did it for that other guy, right? I guess that counts?"
Xenia nods. "Apparently! And that leads to our first problem. I guarantee you that woman did not intend to actually become a member of the dungeon. Either she didn't realize what sacrificing herself would mean, or she had no more than half a second to think it over even if she did. That's never happened before. Lollyp, you might not have known about the curse, but you did at least intend to become part of the dungeon staff in some form, yeah? Sincere, Taly, you didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, but you did at least have the time to consider whether or not you'd rather just, y'know...die like a normal mortal."
Taly chuckles. "It was a choice, if perhaps not a great one. But I've got no regrets."
"Glad to hear it. But now we've got a woman's soul here, one which belongs to someone who probably doesn't want to be here. That bothers me."
Sincere shrugs, unconcerned. "Not at all a hard problem to solve. Simply grant her a body, ask her what she wants, and if she'd rather move on, the soul store awaits. Is there another complication?"
"Only if she wants to stay, Sin-man. Cause, like...we went through a lot of trouble setting up that system with the Church of Bounty, you know? We make her part of the team, and we're not going to be able to hide that we've got a new boss who skipped the queue. So the second problem is, we take her on, we risk having other people try and hop over the Church and get themselves killed in here, and all that effort's gonna be for nothing."
Trush gives a deep sigh, before raising his eyes to meet Xenia's. "That may be so. But...I cannot help but feel that it would be wrong for us to decide her fate, based on what's most convenient for us."
The dungeon master winces at that, but Beatrice frowns. "Hey, Trush, I understand if you feel bad for her, for what happened. But if she did it expecting nothing, and is currently experiencing nothing...I mean, Xen doesn't owe her a spot. It's not fair if Xenia needs to blow up all her plans just to account for one impulsive decision from a Challenger."
The Knight grunts. "It's true that I would at least like the opportunity to apologize to her, for being unable to halt my blow in time - even if she truly did bring it on herself. Hells, it was the second time she interfered in the duel! If I hadn't already killed her, I probably would have killed her. But still, despite that...her actions, her sacrifice, was noble not just in title but in deed, and I would not wish to see her so easily discarded."
Xenia interjects. "Honestly, I agree with Trush. Mostly I bring it up so we can maybe brainstorm a little on how to manage it. One good thing at least, a noble servant of her age? Almost no chance she's got kids, so that part of our cover story's probably intact. But how to make sure we don't start getting flooded by desperate suicides?"
Sincere's lip quirks. "If we need a story, I've read a thousand and written a few myself. The key point about Deylia's death is that she came to the dungeon with no expectations of receiving anything from us, and gave her life for...let's say, the 'pure love' she had for another, whether that's the case or not. I daresay I can write up a missive that Bountiful Mother Hammerdown can distribute, showing that this is not the sort of situation one can artificially engineer ahead of time."
The spirit eyes her council, but none seem particularly opposed, so after a bit of thought on the matter herself she nods. "Let's give it a shot. Maybe we can workshop something with her, see what makes a good cover story. Which means the next thing is...what do we actually do with her? And fuck her shitty timing, I was all set to spend the evening prepping for our Day Two Hundred party tonight!"
Taly answers without hesitation. "Floor Five. I don't know about bodies, really, but as far as slots go? Floor Five, definitely. Assuming she's not opposed, of course."
Beatrice gives the banshee a disbelieving look. "...What? I think someone mentioned she and that bowman of hers did try the place out yesterday, so sure, she clearly doesn't hate the place. But running it? That's a different matter entirely!"
"Yes, but look at her classes. She's a Supporter, not a combat specialist. Sure, we can give her abilities from anything in the library, plus of course monster powers. But that'd be nothing compared to what she has lived experience with, and as a reincarnate she doesn't benefit from being 'shaped' to fit her monster form. Make her boss of Floor Seven? No way, she's definitely not going to be that tough. Make her boss of one of the easy floors? Aside from needing to maybe redo a bunch of theming, that's basically signing her up to getting killed again every day, maybe multiple times. That's a lot to put on someone who didn't volunteer for it. Honestly, I'm not sure how Lollyp handles it so well."
As if in some sort of demonstration, Lollyp grabs a blob of slimy flesh from her chest and plops it down onto the table in front of her. "I'll be honest, I've definitely gotten the impression I'm less bothered about getting chopped up into pieces than you rigids are. I mean, it barely even hurts me most of the time."
Xenia stares at the bit of Lollyp-slime for a moment before shaking her head. "Uh, yeah, I think Taly's got a point. We'll maybe need to define a more specific role for her, if she's not going to be fighting, but...a Supporter for Floor Five? Making it more of a general safe zone? I can see that working out. Can give her an apartment up there too, since I think Floor Two's about maxed out. As for the specific form..." She trails off in thought, before eventually coming to a conclusion. "We'll have to get her agreement on it, but I think I've got an idea on how we can make her sound more like a one-off special case..."
It only took half an hour for a new apartment to be set up, thanks to Xenia's experience with copying the existing ones, combined with the fact that they had no idea how to decorate it personally for the woman none of them knew, and so they didn't bother doing anything special. It did have something of a Section Four styling to it, with the false windows and hideaway cabin appearance, although it had no true door and was connected to the rest of Floor Five and the dungeon only via shortcut portals. To avoid crowding the possible newest member of the dungeon family, only Xenia, Trush, and Taly were present for her arrival, with the hope that the former Challengers would best be able to ease her into things.
Eventually, as her soul awakens, Deylia opens her eyes to find herself on a comfortable bed with green covers. She looks around and finds herself surrounded by two people she's never met along with the man who killed her, which makes her calm reaction rather impressive, considering everything. "I...the dungeon's healed me? Even though I violated the terms of your challenge, Sir Sharptongue?"
The woman standing to her right, with a unique style of black-and-white-striped hair and a fashion sense unlike any Deylia's seen before gives a single shake of her head. "Not...in the way you're probably thinking. Trush here did absolutely kill the fuck out of you. It was real gory, lemme tell you."
The red-eyed woman to Deylia's left sighs and puts her face in one palm, so Deylia keeps her attention on the woman who spoke. "Then I'm not sure I...wait." Deylia shoots up in the bed as a realization crosses her face. She looks down at her body, relieved for a moment to see it looks as she remembers it, save for her garments which are unfamiliar. That is, until she gets to her hands and legs. They have the same fur-covered, paw-like appearance as do the limbs on Trush's form, save that Deylia finds herself to have a golden-brown color of fur rather than Trush's dark black. "...You...turned me into a rabbit."
Xenia sits down on a chair next to the bed, and leans in close. "A very special kind of rabbit. But before we get into that, we need to talk about some other things. First off, I'm Xenia, master of the dungeon, glad to meet you. Second, you seemed to know about Trush's past, so I assume you're familiar with how he joined the dungeon?"
"Yes, but...that was with the aid of the Church of Bounty, yes? I've never spoken with them! Let alone completed their process to become part of the dungeon!" Shaking her head, a memory suddenly seems to return to her. "Wait, wait - Raylin! Sansie! Are - are the others alright?"
Trush takes care of this question. "The lad had some injuries still, but he'll likely fully recover - that heal you gave him for his hand was quite a mighty one. After the duel, your friends left along with...ah, your remains."
"Oh...that's...that's good. But why am I here, then?"
Xenia snorts. "Well, like you said, you didn't use the Church system, and that's liable to be a headache and a half. But the important part is, well, you willingly sacrificed yourself in the dungeon, and that's the core of the matter. If you don't want to be here, you don't have to be, but you should at least get the option. Now that you've got some time to think about it."
The Maid's eyes lose some focus, as she begins to think about her fate. "Does...am I stuck here for eternity then? If I choose to stay? ...Killing people?"
Taly leans in on other other side, planting a comforting hand on Deylia's shoulder, although the effect is negated somewhat by her status as an undead monster. "To answer your first question - mostly. There is an option for spending a bit of time outside, but it's not an option for returning to your old life. If you don't want to move on, yeah, you're basically stuck in the neighborhood at least for as long as you want to stay. As for the second question, well...we might have a good option that means you don't actually need to do that."
Deylia's been rather confused ever since this all started, but the last statement only brings her to a new record level. "Eh? What other role is there in a dungeon, other than violence and murder? ...Unless you mean the door. Oh gods, please don't turn me into a door!"
"Whoa, whoa, definitely not!" Xenia runs a hand along Deylia's back, attempting to calm her. "We can change the body you've been given, but what you've got right now? It's brand new, no dungeon's ever made something like you before. You, Deylia...are a Rabbit Priestess." She pauses, then adds an addendum. "Not that the crossbreed titles are fixed. We can change that too if you'd like something better."
"But...what does that mean? I've never done more than visit a church!"
The dungeon master gives the recently-dead woman a smile. "Well, tell me something, Deylia. Have you ever wanted to meet a goddess?"
