With the clan reunited, it was time for a celebration, so I naturally flexed my Storage and Mystik Wok to cook up a feast. Not that the locals didn’t help, but it is easy for me to put protein on the table.
Spoiler [collapse]Big-Tusked Mammoth was our beast of the day, while Deepsea Macrotrema and Golden Flying Fish were our sea protein.
SpoilerI even cooked up a copy of Geminiplant, I mean Gigaplant, so we’d have some greens.
Spoiler [collapse]… sadly it wasn’t all that good compared to something like Mystic Tomato or Bean Soldier, so I probably won’t cook one up again.
Spoiler
Besides, the local seaweed is really good and we even got some plants from the island. The dragons brought them along when they ‘invaded’ our dinner.
And because they did, I ended up cooking up a Fortress Whale, just so we wouldn’t run out of food.
Spoiler [collapse]
After our feast, Cailie took me aside and led me into the dungeon. Specifically to meet with her sister. She wanted to have a little chat with her sister and just wanted me for reassurance, I think.
“Oh look. The worthless one. What do you want?” Amilie asked when she saw us.
“Ironic. Calling me useless. I feel like that honor now belongs to you.” Cailie responded.
“Humph. Like you could have ever been anything without that human.”
“Like you would have ever been anything without the greater spirit’s blessing.” Cailie quipped. “But I’m not here to flaunt my victory. I just have one question. What did you do to mother’s grave?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would. Which is why I asked.”
“Well too bad, because I’m not telling.” Amilie smirked.
“... are you sure? Maybe you could have a change of heart?” Cailie asked, while squeezing my hand, clearly giving me a sign with her word choice.
“No. Not telling.” Amilie repeated.
I then did what Cailie hinted at and got a card out of Collection and activated it.
“Change of Heart.”
Spoiler [collapse]
We looked as Amilie’s eyes went just a bit cloudy before she answered our question, with her voice sounding like it lacked any emotion.
“I destroyed the gravestone and took her body to the depths of the dungeon. I used it in an experiment of making undead soldiers for myself.” Amilie said.
Holy! What the fuck is wrong with her? She used her mother’s body for that? She is a fucking psychopath.
“... I see. Thanks. And goodbye.” Cailie said, before dragging us out of the room.
Amilie yelled something behind us, but I honestly didn’t listen. It doesn’t matter.
“... Brian.”
“You want to go get her body, right?”
“... Yes. It isn't a problem, right?”
“Nah. It shouldn’t take all that long. This dungeon is so low on miasma that there are barely any monsters inside, so we can just swim our way through.”
“Alright. Then let’s g…”
“We should first tell everyone that we are going. And there might be others like your mom inside, so we need to recover them as well.”
We had a quick chat with the clan, and we took stock of the graveyard. Sadly Naidalie’s, Cailie’s mom, gravestone was the only one missing, so we couldn’t go based on that.
The clan members were a bit hesitant to literally dig up graves, but because of the proof we already had, they did agree to it. So between Alice and a few of the locals who could use Earth Magic, we soon had stock of how many bodies had been taken.
… and it wasn’t exactly a nice result. Every body that had died in the last ten years had been taken. The older ones hadn’t, probably because they had begun to decompose to the point where they would be useless for whatever Amilie was doing.
I took stock of how many bodies we needed to find and the names of the bodies. I think my Storage can identify them, so we can confirm that we got them all.
We then rested for the night and headed for the dungeon the next morning.
After breakfast, we headed for the dungeon. It was just the three of us, as I didn’t want any of the locals holding us back. Sure a few of them are evolved merfolk, but they are mostly the older people. A lot of the younger ones haven’t evolved yet. And when I say ‘younger ones’, I don’t mean the teenagers, but also the people in their twenties and early thirties.
And besides, this is basically a recovery mission. We just want the bodies of the people from the dungeon, nothing more. We are going as fast as possible.
For fighting powers, because this place is practically void of monsters, I went with something simple. I called out for Rain the water spirit and synchroed with her. It was both an apology for what Thalassa did, as well as just general practice.
That is because magic can be used for so much more than just attacking. Like boosting our movement by controlling the water.
So with a powerful stream of water pushing us through the dungeon, we made excellent time diving into the depths.
“That was Amazing!” Alice called out when we finally reached our target area. “We need to do that again!”
“... it was interesting.” Cailie added. She wasn’t exactly opposed to what happened, but was a bit more hesitant to go crazy.
“We do still have a return trip, so …”
“Can’t we just teleport back?” Cailie asked.
“Not my dungeon, so no.”
“You say that, but we know you left the backdoor open so you can take control of it.” Alice pointed out.
“That is for safety reasons. I just want to be able to take over if this dungeon is on the verge of dying again.”
“Can a dungeon even die?” Alice asked.
“Well a normal dungeon would only die if you destroy the dungeon core and the core pedestal, but this isn’t a normal dungeon.” I answered. “This is a dragon heart dungeon, and it is more alive than a regular dungeon. If it runs out of mana, the heart stops beating. And if it stays still for too long, the dungeon will die. Sure you can revive it by replacing the core, but it wouldn’t exactly be the same dungeon.
And as you might remember, this dungeon is super low on resources. Sure I brought over some mana from HomeBase, but not enough to where it can just be used for random teleportation.”
“... you really need to learn how to teleport with Space Magic.” Alice noted.
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“... can we try to find anyone so we can get out?” Cailie asked. “... I don’t like how this place feels.”
“No wonder. This place has a higher than usual miasma density.” I told Cailie. “Not bad enough that the System can’t protect us, but you are half spirit, so you might be a bit more vulnerable to it.”
“... Is Rain going to be alright?” Cailie asked.
“As long as she is synhcroed with me, she should be.” I told her. “But we also have something we can try. Your new skill. It should be able to purify miasma, so why don’t you give it a try.”
“Ah! Yes. I’ll do that!” Cailie yelped, as she focused on her new skill.
It took her a moment to figure out how to use the skill, but after a bit, bursts of green light began emanating from her body. They were actually invisible to the naked eye, but I was able to follow them with Mana Vision.
The green wind pushed against the dark miasma, and with just a bit of resistance, the wind overpowered the darkness and cleared it away.
I used my Mana Vision to guide us to areas with even thicker miasma, as I assumed that is where Amilie’s zombie factory would be, while Cailie was using her skill to clear away the miasma and Alice was killing any monsters we came across.
I do kind of feel bad, because I’d have preferred having the dungeon absorb this miasma, but the dungeon should not absorb the miasma that is already inside of it. And if you ask why, it is because the miasma inside the dungeon is already a part of the dungeon.
Having a dungeon consume miasma from inside of itself is like cutting off your own arm and eating it because you have no other food. Technically something you can do, but not something you ever should do.
We eventually found a wall that seemed to be the source of the miasma. I hadn’t spotted this hidden area when I was the dungeon master, but that might be because I was focusing on keeping the dungeon alive, and nothing in here is alive, so I didn’t notice it when I scanned for living prisoners. Kind of like how I didn’t pay attention to the dungeon master grave room.
“Alice, Erasure Magic please.” I requested.
“... why not Earth Magic?” Alice asked.
“This is a dungeon. Dungeon earth isn’t exactly regular earth. So just erase a part of the wall and hopefully we’ll find a room on the other side.”
“... well, you are the dungeon expert.” Alice said, before she raised her right arm towards the wall. “Unnecessary parts of creation shall be removed, Vanish.” She chanted to cast the spell.
The wall just beyond her arm quickly began to crumble away, as it was first reduced to dust, before that dust just vanished away.
And behind it, as expected, we found a decently sized cavern. It had multiple stone workstations, each holding a body of a mer-folk.
“... this … I really didn’t think she’d do something like this.” Cailie muttered, as she watched over the carnegie.
The bodies weren’t exactly in one piece. All of them, except the body of Cailie’s mother, had been cut up in horrific ways. Some looked like Amilie had tried to combine multiple mer-folk into one Frankenstein’s monster, while others were just a mix of two mer-folk.
Cailie’s mom at least was still in one piece, and she was held inside one of those magic crystals that the previous dungeon master’s bodies were housed in.
“... what do we do with them?” Cailie asked.
“That is your call. We can either bring them back to the surface, or we can use Erasure Magic on them. I would offer to bury them in my Storage, but honestly, I don’t think Tahlia would want that.”
“... let’s take them back. Even if they are … like this, you can still recognize their faces. And people need to know just how bad my sister was.” Cailie decided.
“Alright.” I agreed. “But they do have quite a bit of miasma all over their bodies, so can you get rid of it?”
“Y-Yes.” Cailie said, before she again activated her unique skill.
“Alice, can you get rid of the crystal around Cailie’s mom.”
“On it.”
After Cailie purified the miasma on the mer-folk, and Alice Erased the crystal holding Cailie’s mom, I took all of the mer-folk into Storage.
We then checked the lab for any sort of research notes, but after not finding anything, I decided to just destroy the thing. With Rain’s help, we caused a localized storm inside the room.
The raging waters ripped apart everything in the room, leaving what looked like a partially collapsed cavern behind.
We then used a similar water stream as we did when we got down here to get back up to the surface.
The reaction of the clan to the atrocities Amilie committed in the dungeon were understandably horrified. Thankfully we didn’t invite any children to see their parents, because they would legitimately get some nightmares if they’d seen them.
The mer-folk decided that the only thing that could be done to the bodies was to get rid of them completely. Naturally we could have had Alice do so, but I decided there was a different, more appropriate way.
The mer-folk here see dragons as their guardians, so if a dragon reduces the bodies to nothing, it should be a very appropriate way for them to go.
So we headed for the water’s surface, while I picked which dragon I’d use, and I chose one of the newer ones I had. But for me to be able to summon it, I had to call out a few monsters first.
So I began summoning.
“Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth. Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger. Crystal Beast Cobalt Eagle. Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus. Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat. Crystal Beast Emerald Tortoise. And Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle. Appear, my seven Crystal Beasts!”
SpoilerAfter calling out all of the required monsters, I was ready to move onto the main event.
“With all seven Crystal Beasts on my field, I special summon the Rainbow Dragon!”
Spoiler [collapse]
With my dragon now here, there were only two more things to do. Starting with.
“Rainbow Dragon, activate your ability, Rainbow Overdrive.” I ordered my dragon.1You can send all "Crystal Beast" monsters you control to the GY; this card gains 1000 ATK for each monster sent to the GY.
The dragon absorbed all seven of the Crystal Beasts I had summoned, raising its attack stat to 11,000.
I then brought out the mangled bodies of all the mer-folk, holding them in the air with Telekinesis.
“Let’s give them a proper sendoff. Reduce them to nothing. Over the Rainbow!”
With my order, Rainbow Dragon shot out a full powered beam from its mouth. It fully consumed all of the bodies, and hopefully its rainbow hue was able to give their souls the peace they deserve.
With everything here taken care of, we headed for HomeBase. Naturally the two mer-folk who were going to be studying there were with us, so we’ll be coming for a visit eventually.
Maybe I’ll even invite more of the clan members to HomeBase. Because despite everything, they are still Cailie’s family.
With the clan reunited, it was time for a celebration, so I naturally flexed my Storage and Mystik Wok to cook up a feast. Not that the locals didn’t help, but it is easy for me to put protein on the table.
Spoiler [collapse]Big-Tusked Mammoth was our beast of the day, while Deepsea Macrotrema and Golden Flying Fish were our sea protein.
SpoilerI even cooked up a copy of Geminiplant, I mean Gigaplant, so we’d have some greens.
Spoiler [collapse]… sadly it wasn’t all that good compared to something like Mystic Tomato or Bean Soldier, so I probably won’t cook one up again.
Spoiler
Besides, the local seaweed is really good and we even got some plants from the island. The dragons brought them along when they ‘invaded’ our dinner.
And because they did, I ended up cooking up a Fortress Whale, just so we wouldn’t run out of food.
Spoiler [collapse]
After our feast, Cailie took me aside and led me into the dungeon. Specifically to meet with her sister. She wanted to have a little chat with her sister and just wanted me for reassurance, I think.
“Oh look. The worthless one. What do you want?” Amilie asked when she saw us.
“Ironic. Calling me useless. I feel like that honor now belongs to you.” Cailie responded.
“Humph. Like you could have ever been anything without that human.”
“Like you would have ever been anything without the greater spirit’s blessing.” Cailie quipped. “But I’m not here to flaunt my victory. I just have one question. What did you do to mother’s grave?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would. Which is why I asked.”
“Well too bad, because I’m not telling.” Amilie smirked.
“... are you sure? Maybe you could have a change of heart?” Cailie asked, while squeezing my hand, clearly giving me a sign with her word choice.
“No. Not telling.” Amilie repeated.
I then did what Cailie hinted at and got a card out of Collection and activated it.
“Change of Heart.”
Spoiler [collapse]
We looked as Amilie’s eyes went just a bit cloudy before she answered our question, with her voice sounding like it lacked any emotion.
“I destroyed the gravestone and took her body to the depths of the dungeon. I used it in an experiment of making undead soldiers for myself.” Amilie said.
Holy! What the fuck is wrong with her? She used her mother’s body for that? She is a fucking psychopath.
“... I see. Thanks. And goodbye.” Cailie said, before dragging us out of the room.
Amilie yelled something behind us, but I honestly didn’t listen. It doesn’t matter.
“... Brian.”
“You want to go get her body, right?”
“... Yes. It isn't a problem, right?”
“Nah. It shouldn’t take all that long. This dungeon is so low on miasma that there are barely any monsters inside, so we can just swim our way through.”
“Alright. Then let’s g…”
“We should first tell everyone that we are going. And there might be others like your mom inside, so we need to recover them as well.”
We had a quick chat with the clan, and we took stock of the graveyard. Sadly Naidalie’s, Cailie’s mom, gravestone was the only one missing, so we couldn’t go based on that.
The clan members were a bit hesitant to literally dig up graves, but because of the proof we already had, they did agree to it. So between Alice and a few of the locals who could use Earth Magic, we soon had stock of how many bodies had been taken.
… and it wasn’t exactly a nice result. Every body that had died in the last ten years had been taken. The older ones hadn’t, probably because they had begun to decompose to the point where they would be useless for whatever Amilie was doing.
I took stock of how many bodies we needed to find and the names of the bodies. I think my Storage can identify them, so we can confirm that we got them all.
We then rested for the night and headed for the dungeon the next morning.
After breakfast, we headed for the dungeon. It was just the three of us, as I didn’t want any of the locals holding us back. Sure a few of them are evolved merfolk, but they are mostly the older people. A lot of the younger ones haven’t evolved yet. And when I say ‘younger ones’, I don’t mean the teenagers, but also the people in their twenties and early thirties.
And besides, this is basically a recovery mission. We just want the bodies of the people from the dungeon, nothing more. We are going as fast as possible.
For fighting powers, because this place is practically void of monsters, I went with something simple. I called out for Rain the water spirit and synchroed with her. It was both an apology for what Thalassa did, as well as just general practice.
That is because magic can be used for so much more than just attacking. Like boosting our movement by controlling the water.
So with a powerful stream of water pushing us through the dungeon, we made excellent time diving into the depths.
“That was Amazing!” Alice called out when we finally reached our target area. “We need to do that again!”
“... it was interesting.” Cailie added. She wasn’t exactly opposed to what happened, but was a bit more hesitant to go crazy.
“We do still have a return trip, so …”
“Can’t we just teleport back?” Cailie asked.
“Not my dungeon, so no.”
“You say that, but we know you left the backdoor open so you can take control of it.” Alice pointed out.
“That is for safety reasons. I just want to be able to take over if this dungeon is on the verge of dying again.”
“Can a dungeon even die?” Alice asked.
“Well a normal dungeon would only die if you destroy the dungeon core and the core pedestal, but this isn’t a normal dungeon.” I answered. “This is a dragon heart dungeon, and it is more alive than a regular dungeon. If it runs out of mana, the heart stops beating. And if it stays still for too long, the dungeon will die. Sure you can revive it by replacing the core, but it wouldn’t exactly be the same dungeon.
And as you might remember, this dungeon is super low on resources. Sure I brought over some mana from HomeBase, but not enough to where it can just be used for random teleportation.”
“... you really need to learn how to teleport with Space Magic.” Alice noted.
“I know. I’m working on it.”
“... can we try to find anyone so we can get out?” Cailie asked. “... I don’t like how this place feels.”
“No wonder. This place has a higher than usual miasma density.” I told Cailie. “Not bad enough that the System can’t protect us, but you are half spirit, so you might be a bit more vulnerable to it.”
“... Is Rain going to be alright?” Cailie asked.
“As long as she is synhcroed with me, she should be.” I told her. “But we also have something we can try. Your new skill. It should be able to purify miasma, so why don’t you give it a try.”
“Ah! Yes. I’ll do that!” Cailie yelped, as she focused on her new skill.
It took her a moment to figure out how to use the skill, but after a bit, bursts of green light began emanating from her body. They were actually invisible to the naked eye, but I was able to follow them with Mana Vision.
The green wind pushed against the dark miasma, and with just a bit of resistance, the wind overpowered the darkness and cleared it away.
I used my Mana Vision to guide us to areas with even thicker miasma, as I assumed that is where Amilie’s zombie factory would be, while Cailie was using her skill to clear away the miasma and Alice was killing any monsters we came across.
I do kind of feel bad, because I’d have preferred having the dungeon absorb this miasma, but the dungeon should not absorb the miasma that is already inside of it. And if you ask why, it is because the miasma inside the dungeon is already a part of the dungeon.
Having a dungeon consume miasma from inside of itself is like cutting off your own arm and eating it because you have no other food. Technically something you can do, but not something you ever should do.
We eventually found a wall that seemed to be the source of the miasma. I hadn’t spotted this hidden area when I was the dungeon master, but that might be because I was focusing on keeping the dungeon alive, and nothing in here is alive, so I didn’t notice it when I scanned for living prisoners. Kind of like how I didn’t pay attention to the dungeon master grave room.
“Alice, Erasure Magic please.” I requested.
“... why not Earth Magic?” Alice asked.
“This is a dungeon. Dungeon earth isn’t exactly regular earth. So just erase a part of the wall and hopefully we’ll find a room on the other side.”
“... well, you are the dungeon expert.” Alice said, before she raised her right arm towards the wall. “Unnecessary parts of creation shall be removed, Vanish.” She chanted to cast the spell.
The wall just beyond her arm quickly began to crumble away, as it was first reduced to dust, before that dust just vanished away.
And behind it, as expected, we found a decently sized cavern. It had multiple stone workstations, each holding a body of a mer-folk.
“... this … I really didn’t think she’d do something like this.” Cailie muttered, as she watched over the carnegie.
The bodies weren’t exactly in one piece. All of them, except the body of Cailie’s mother, had been cut up in horrific ways. Some looked like Amilie had tried to combine multiple mer-folk into one Frankenstein’s monster, while others were just a mix of two mer-folk.
Cailie’s mom at least was still in one piece, and she was held inside one of those magic crystals that the previous dungeon master’s bodies were housed in.
“... what do we do with them?” Cailie asked.
“That is your call. We can either bring them back to the surface, or we can use Erasure Magic on them. I would offer to bury them in my Storage, but honestly, I don’t think Tahlia would want that.”
“... let’s take them back. Even if they are … like this, you can still recognize their faces. And people need to know just how bad my sister was.” Cailie decided.
“Alright.” I agreed. “But they do have quite a bit of miasma all over their bodies, so can you get rid of it?”
“Y-Yes.” Cailie said, before she again activated her unique skill.
“Alice, can you get rid of the crystal around Cailie’s mom.”
“On it.”
After Cailie purified the miasma on the mer-folk, and Alice Erased the crystal holding Cailie’s mom, I took all of the mer-folk into Storage.
We then checked the lab for any sort of research notes, but after not finding anything, I decided to just destroy the thing. With Rain’s help, we caused a localized storm inside the room.
The raging waters ripped apart everything in the room, leaving what looked like a partially collapsed cavern behind.
We then used a similar water stream as we did when we got down here to get back up to the surface.
The reaction of the clan to the atrocities Amilie committed in the dungeon were understandably horrified. Thankfully we didn’t invite any children to see their parents, because they would legitimately get some nightmares if they’d seen them.
The mer-folk decided that the only thing that could be done to the bodies was to get rid of them completely. Naturally we could have had Alice do so, but I decided there was a different, more appropriate way.
The mer-folk here see dragons as their guardians, so if a dragon reduces the bodies to nothing, it should be a very appropriate way for them to go.
So we headed for the water’s surface, while I picked which dragon I’d use, and I chose one of the newer ones I had. But for me to be able to summon it, I had to call out a few monsters first.
So I began summoning.
“Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth. Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger. Crystal Beast Cobalt Eagle. Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus. Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat. Crystal Beast Emerald Tortoise. And Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle. Appear, my seven Crystal Beasts!”
SpoilerAfter calling out all of the required monsters, I was ready to move onto the main event.
“With all seven Crystal Beasts on my field, I special summon the Rainbow Dragon!”
Spoiler [collapse]
With my dragon now here, there were only two more things to do. Starting with.
“Rainbow Dragon, activate your ability, Rainbow Overdrive.” I ordered my dragon.1You can send all "Crystal Beast" monsters you control to the GY; this card gains 1000 ATK for each monster sent to the GY.
The dragon absorbed all seven of the Crystal Beasts I had summoned, raising its attack stat to 11,000.
I then brought out the mangled bodies of all the mer-folk, holding them in the air with Telekinesis.
“Let’s give them a proper sendoff. Reduce them to nothing. Over the Rainbow!”
With my order, Rainbow Dragon shot out a full powered beam from its mouth. It fully consumed all of the bodies, and hopefully its rainbow hue was able to give their souls the peace they deserve.
With everything here taken care of, we headed for HomeBase. Naturally the two mer-folk who were going to be studying there were with us, so we’ll be coming for a visit eventually.
Maybe I’ll even invite more of the clan members to HomeBase. Because despite everything, they are still Cailie’s family.
