“... why are you here again?” I asked the merfolk girl, who had come to interrupt my picnic with Alice and Lua.
She was, at least I’m decently sure, the same merfolk whom I helped return home yesterday, so why is she back here?
Also, she looks even worse than she did yesterday. Yesterday, she was just dirty and disheveled, now she looks like she has been whipped or something, with visible bleeding wounds all over her body.
“... Cailie? Why are you here?” I asked again.
“I … I …”
“Brian, this isn’t the time for that.” Lua interrupted. “Let me heal her first.”
Lua quickly rushed to the water, not caring that her feet were getting wet.
“Get over here! We need to get her out of the water.” Lua called to me.
I quickly snapped out of my crazy thoughts and did as ordered.
“Cailie, do you mind if I lift you?” I asked.
The girl didn’t verbally answer, but did nod her head a bit, so I took a hold of her and lifted her into my arms. I then used telekinesis to give her some additional support, so that her tail or head would be hanging limp.
“Alice, can you clear the blanket?” I asked, as we walked back to where our picnic blanket was set up.
Alice did as I asked, putting everything away in Storage. She even put the blanket there for a second, before bringing it back out, probably to instantly clean any breadcrumbs and other dirt from it.
I then brought out my water buffalo travel pelt and had Alice spread that on top of the blanket, just to add some softer, and more waterproof, material between the merfolk and the ground. I must have been smart when I actually bought a waterproof travel pelt.
I set Cailie down on the pelt, and let Lua do her thing. Maybe I should try to get a healing skill as well? Mana Healing should at least be possible. Sure I have my cards, but having a skill might be good as well.
As Lua was healing the girl, I began asking her some questions.
“Cailie, why are you back here? Didn’t you make it home?” I do have an idea, but I’d really rather confirm it. I don’t want to jump to conclusions.
“Brian. Not now.” Lua interrupted my questioning.
“... no. I can… tell him.” Cailie said. “... I was … banished again.”
Yeah. I kind of guessed that part.
“They said… I didn’t do… my punishment… because I got… help from you…” Cailie explained. “So they sent me… here again…”
“... Brian, what did she say?” Alice asked.
I quickly told what Cailie told me to Lua and Alice.
“... that still doesn’t explain these wounds.” Lua said, as she kept healing Cailie. “She didn’t have any last time, right?”
“Not that I saw.” I responded, before I asked her about it. “Cailie, the wounds… how did those..?”
“... I … I got… beaten up… by my sister…” She answered.
… wow. Some sibling rivalry right there. I don’t think whipping someone bloody is just beating them up. Also, how does a mermaid even use a whip? Wouldn’t one be extremely awkward to use under water? Are those even whip marks or are they something else?
“I see. I’m so sorry.” I told her. “... may I ask something. Why were you banished in the first place?” Admittedly, this was something I probably should have asked the first time we met, but I didn’t think it was something that mattered at that time. I didn’t need to know her story, I just needed Cailie to stop attacking fishermen.
“... they said it is… because I’m useless. … because I hide away… and don’t earn my food.” Cailie admitted. “Coming here… and having to hunt… was supposed to teach me how to be useful. … but instead… I cheated… so I was banished again.”
“I see.” So that’s the reason. Sounds… dumb, but also something that someone might do. “I suppose that means I can’t just send you back again.” I told her. But still. Calling someone useless is just … well, actually I do that quite a lot with some of my cards, so I really have no right to say anything, but at least I can offer her an alternative. “Then, if they don’t want you, would you like to come with us?” I asked.
This had actually been something I considered the first time I met Cailie in the dungeon, but I didn’t know if I could do it. She was still trapped by the dungeon and I just didn’t know enough about the slave dungeon system to do anything but play by the rules. But I did have Laura search the system for info about them, and that led to me figuring out a few things. One of them being a way I can get people that are trapped in prison style slave dungeons free.
I did also figure out a few things about merfolk. Some of the info came from a book I analyzed in the Sawyer family library, back when I did that analysis raid on it.1Happened in CH.190 There were a few things I wanted to know, like do merfolk actually have to live in water and so on. The quick answer is, no. But they do need to keep their skin relatively wet, because their skin dries out a lot faster than … surface beings. But there are no breathing issues, or otherwise. There was something about their gills weakening if they never swam, but as long as they swim a few times a week, this shouldn’t be an issue. Yes. Merfolk have both lungs and gills, so they can breathe either on land or in the water.
“... I … can’t … the dungeon … will just … summon me back.” Cailie answered.
“Don’t worry. I can deal with that problem.” I told her.
“But… if I get monsters again… it will just… teleport me back… and they will … banish me again.”
“If we do it like we did last time.” I told her. “But we don’t have to do it that way.”
“???” Cailie just looked at me confused.
“I’ll show you.” I told her. “After Lua has healed you, let’s head into the dungeon.”
After the healing finished, Cailie was looking quite a bit better. Lua even used her water magic to wash away all the dirt and grime from her body, so I got a good look at her.
Her hair was black, with maybe just a hint of dark green mixed in. I thought it was just black previously, because the dirt and grim had hid all of the green. Her tail was also dark green in color.
I summoned myself a Amphibious Bugroth, while Alice summoned her MK-3. I also gave Lua and Ria a MK-3. Agunan can’t use my cards, well he can the ones that don’t have toploaders or sleeves, but he cannot use ones with those, so I asked him to stay here and protect the carriage. Sure he probably could just dive, but I'll leave him in charge of protecting our stuff.
Spoiler
[collapse]
With our undersea rides here, the five of us headed into the undersea dungeon.
“It really is tiny…” Ria commented, as we got out of our Bugroths.
“Yeah. Especially with four Bugroths in here. They do take up quite a bit of space.”
“And after going through that massive dungeon, any other would feel tiny.” Alice added. “I visited TinaWood with Mother, and even it felt so small.”
Yeah. I guess that would happen when just a single one of the large open floors of HomeBase is larger than the entirety of TinaWood.
“... Brian, are you sure about this? Helping her again, I mean.” Lua asked.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“This isn’t our problem to solve.”
“... maybe not, but it’s not like this is something overly challenging to solve.” I reasoned. “And I hate seeing people who have no place to go.” I added in a quieter voice. “So I’d like to help Cailie find another place where she will be accepted, even if she has some flaws.”
Feeling like you belong is important. And a lot of the people around me are the ones that made me feel like I belong here when I just appeared in this world. Lua being one of the first humans… wait, she is a dhampir, so that doesn’t check out. Anyway, with Lua being one of the first humanoids I ran into, and Alice, well it was mostly her father but still, opening her home to me, it makes me happy to think about that. Had the Watchman family been worse, or had Prime Rib tried to abuse me or rob me or something, there is a reasonable chance I could have turned evil and just began destroying the world or something. Well probably not, but I very well might have burned Alewatch to the ground.
So yeah. Because they helped me find a place where I belong, I now feel like I should help Cailie find a place where she can belong. Even if this Nixie clan doesn’t want her, I’m sure there is a place out there for her.
“... why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I’m naive or something?” I asked Lua.
“... no. I think it is commendable. Trying to help in that way.” Lua answered.
“Then you will help me with this?”
“Isn’t that what it means to be together? Or did you explain it to me wrong?”
“No. But just because we are together, doesn’t mean we agree on everything, so thank you.”
“Now just show me how you will deal with this dungeon. Because that is the part that I don’t yet know.”
“Don’t worry. I did come up with a plan.”
I walked up to the core, where Cailie was waiting for me.
“... Mister blessed…”
“Just call me Brian, please.” I told Cailie. “Do you mind if I call you Cailie as well?”
“... I … that is fine. … Can you really… free me? Without sending me back?”
“You are lucky Alice can’t understand you, or otherwise she’d give a snide comment right about now.” I told the mermaid. Honestly, I’d have liked one. It proves that Alice knows me.
But honestly speaking, this won’t take long. And there are a few ways I could do this.
First, I could … abuse authority. In this case, the authority I have as a Chaos God Dungeon founder. Because of that, I can bring any dungeon with a deceased dungeon founder under my control. But I don’t want to do that. Instead, I’ll go with the card route.
“Outstanding Dog Marron.” I quickly summoned my tribute puppy, before I activated the next card. “Enemy Controller. I tribute Marron to take temporary control of Dungeon 21_013.”
Spoiler
[collapse]
This was in my opinion a lot better idea. With Enemy Controller, I can get temporary founder access to the dungeon core, so I can do what I want with it, and after I’m done, it will return to its usual state.
The card quickly did its thing, and a Sega Genesis style controller appeared in my hands. From it, a magical cord extended and connected to the dungeon core.
I used the controller to navigate the dungeon menu that opened before me, and with it, I quickly released Cailie from her position as the dungeon master, without activating the teleport back function.
Like yesterday, Cailie’s dungeon master terminal snapped away from her arm, clanged on the floor and disappeared. But unlike last time, the teleportation circle never appeared.
Then I added a little backdoor function to the dungeon, where whenever a new master is locked into here, the dungeon will send a notification to HomeBase. I tried to add a way where I could remote watch this place from anywhere, but that was too much, so just the notification would have to do. If someone else gets trapped, I can just come and greet them, and see if they need my help.
After that, I returned everything I could back to how they were, except Cailie’s relationship with this dungeon of course. Just so if anyone tries to look through the dungeon, it will look like everything is fine.
Then I just hit Execute and I was done. Soon after that, my controller disappeared.
“... I’m not… going back?” Cailie was questioning.
“Nope. I told you so.”
“... I … I … thank you…”
“Sure. No problem.”
“... but … what do I do… now?”
“We have time, so let’s find out, right?”
“... I … yes. I’ll… try.”
I brought Cailie to the inn with me, while Illusionist Faceless Mage made an illusion to hide her. It might be a bit unethical, but better this way, as Cailie really shouldn’t even be here.
Spoiler
[collapse]
That evening, I spoke with Mariina about Cailie. Mainly, I wanted to know if she had some knowledge on merfolk habitats, and maybe she had an idea on where we could take Cailie to. She offered one spot, the lake around the Hero’s country, but she didn’t have much knowledge on merfolk, so that was the only one she knew. That’s too bad.
Agunan also told us about a merfolk clan that lives in the western ocean, under the guardianship of a water dragon, so that was also an option. I really should head that way at some point. Maybe I’ll take a day trip there with Agunan.
“... I suppose I could prepare Sage’s tower’s identity papers for her, but she’d have to know magic for that.” Mariina offered. “Honestly speaking, you are better off flying somewhere in that ship of yours, and just having her register at an adventurer’s guild that has regular merfolk adventurers. Or just take her to another tribe that is willing to accept her. If you want my opinion, just take her to the Hero’s country and get in contact with the adventurer’s guild there. They will be able to help you way more than I can.”
We were talking about the small problem where Cailie doesn’t actually have any identifying papers, like an adventurer’s guild card, or my noble papers, so she cannot officially enter any guarded towns.
“I see. That is already good info, so I think we can do that instead. I’ll ask Cailie what she thinks tomorrow. Thanks for the idea.”
“If you want to pay me back, you can always tell me more about your cards. How about finally telling me about that ‘install’ thing?”
“... maybe some other time.”
“Then what is going on with you? Why does my spirit like you so much more now?”
“Haah...” I really shouldn't stay with her. All these questions are bad for my health.
“... why are you here again?” I asked the merfolk girl, who had come to interrupt my picnic with Alice and Lua.
She was, at least I’m decently sure, the same merfolk whom I helped return home yesterday, so why is she back here?
Also, she looks even worse than she did yesterday. Yesterday, she was just dirty and disheveled, now she looks like she has been whipped or something, with visible bleeding wounds all over her body.
“... Cailie? Why are you here?” I asked again.
“I … I …”
“Brian, this isn’t the time for that.” Lua interrupted. “Let me heal her first.”
Lua quickly rushed to the water, not caring that her feet were getting wet.
“Get over here! We need to get her out of the water.” Lua called to me.
I quickly snapped out of my crazy thoughts and did as ordered.
“Cailie, do you mind if I lift you?” I asked.
The girl didn’t verbally answer, but did nod her head a bit, so I took a hold of her and lifted her into my arms. I then used telekinesis to give her some additional support, so that her tail or head would be hanging limp.
“Alice, can you clear the blanket?” I asked, as we walked back to where our picnic blanket was set up.
Alice did as I asked, putting everything away in Storage. She even put the blanket there for a second, before bringing it back out, probably to instantly clean any breadcrumbs and other dirt from it.
I then brought out my water buffalo travel pelt and had Alice spread that on top of the blanket, just to add some softer, and more waterproof, material between the merfolk and the ground. I must have been smart when I actually bought a waterproof travel pelt.
I set Cailie down on the pelt, and let Lua do her thing. Maybe I should try to get a healing skill as well? Mana Healing should at least be possible. Sure I have my cards, but having a skill might be good as well.
As Lua was healing the girl, I began asking her some questions.
“Cailie, why are you back here? Didn’t you make it home?” I do have an idea, but I’d really rather confirm it. I don’t want to jump to conclusions.
“Brian. Not now.” Lua interrupted my questioning.
“... no. I can… tell him.” Cailie said. “... I was … banished again.”
Yeah. I kind of guessed that part.
“They said… I didn’t do… my punishment… because I got… help from you…” Cailie explained. “So they sent me… here again…”
“... Brian, what did she say?” Alice asked.
I quickly told what Cailie told me to Lua and Alice.
“... that still doesn’t explain these wounds.” Lua said, as she kept healing Cailie. “She didn’t have any last time, right?”
“Not that I saw.” I responded, before I asked her about it. “Cailie, the wounds… how did those..?”
“... I … I got… beaten up… by my sister…” She answered.
… wow. Some sibling rivalry right there. I don’t think whipping someone bloody is just beating them up. Also, how does a mermaid even use a whip? Wouldn’t one be extremely awkward to use under water? Are those even whip marks or are they something else?
“I see. I’m so sorry.” I told her. “... may I ask something. Why were you banished in the first place?” Admittedly, this was something I probably should have asked the first time we met, but I didn’t think it was something that mattered at that time. I didn’t need to know her story, I just needed Cailie to stop attacking fishermen.
“... they said it is… because I’m useless. … because I hide away… and don’t earn my food.” Cailie admitted. “Coming here… and having to hunt… was supposed to teach me how to be useful. … but instead… I cheated… so I was banished again.”
“I see.” So that’s the reason. Sounds… dumb, but also something that someone might do. “I suppose that means I can’t just send you back again.” I told her. But still. Calling someone useless is just … well, actually I do that quite a lot with some of my cards, so I really have no right to say anything, but at least I can offer her an alternative. “Then, if they don’t want you, would you like to come with us?” I asked.
This had actually been something I considered the first time I met Cailie in the dungeon, but I didn’t know if I could do it. She was still trapped by the dungeon and I just didn’t know enough about the slave dungeon system to do anything but play by the rules. But I did have Laura search the system for info about them, and that led to me figuring out a few things. One of them being a way I can get people that are trapped in prison style slave dungeons free.
I did also figure out a few things about merfolk. Some of the info came from a book I analyzed in the Sawyer family library, back when I did that analysis raid on it.1Happened in CH.190 There were a few things I wanted to know, like do merfolk actually have to live in water and so on. The quick answer is, no. But they do need to keep their skin relatively wet, because their skin dries out a lot faster than … surface beings. But there are no breathing issues, or otherwise. There was something about their gills weakening if they never swam, but as long as they swim a few times a week, this shouldn’t be an issue. Yes. Merfolk have both lungs and gills, so they can breathe either on land or in the water.
“... I … can’t … the dungeon … will just … summon me back.” Cailie answered.
“Don’t worry. I can deal with that problem.” I told her.
“But… if I get monsters again… it will just… teleport me back… and they will … banish me again.”
“If we do it like we did last time.” I told her. “But we don’t have to do it that way.”
“???” Cailie just looked at me confused.
“I’ll show you.” I told her. “After Lua has healed you, let’s head into the dungeon.”
After the healing finished, Cailie was looking quite a bit better. Lua even used her water magic to wash away all the dirt and grime from her body, so I got a good look at her.
Her hair was black, with maybe just a hint of dark green mixed in. I thought it was just black previously, because the dirt and grim had hid all of the green. Her tail was also dark green in color.
I summoned myself a Amphibious Bugroth, while Alice summoned her MK-3. I also gave Lua and Ria a MK-3. Agunan can’t use my cards, well he can the ones that don’t have toploaders or sleeves, but he cannot use ones with those, so I asked him to stay here and protect the carriage. Sure he probably could just dive, but I'll leave him in charge of protecting our stuff.
Spoiler
[collapse]
With our undersea rides here, the five of us headed into the undersea dungeon.
“It really is tiny…” Ria commented, as we got out of our Bugroths.
“Yeah. Especially with four Bugroths in here. They do take up quite a bit of space.”
“And after going through that massive dungeon, any other would feel tiny.” Alice added. “I visited TinaWood with Mother, and even it felt so small.”
Yeah. I guess that would happen when just a single one of the large open floors of HomeBase is larger than the entirety of TinaWood.
“... Brian, are you sure about this? Helping her again, I mean.” Lua asked.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“This isn’t our problem to solve.”
“... maybe not, but it’s not like this is something overly challenging to solve.” I reasoned. “And I hate seeing people who have no place to go.” I added in a quieter voice. “So I’d like to help Cailie find another place where she will be accepted, even if she has some flaws.”
Feeling like you belong is important. And a lot of the people around me are the ones that made me feel like I belong here when I just appeared in this world. Lua being one of the first humans… wait, she is a dhampir, so that doesn’t check out. Anyway, with Lua being one of the first humanoids I ran into, and Alice, well it was mostly her father but still, opening her home to me, it makes me happy to think about that. Had the Watchman family been worse, or had Prime Rib tried to abuse me or rob me or something, there is a reasonable chance I could have turned evil and just began destroying the world or something. Well probably not, but I very well might have burned Alewatch to the ground.
So yeah. Because they helped me find a place where I belong, I now feel like I should help Cailie find a place where she can belong. Even if this Nixie clan doesn’t want her, I’m sure there is a place out there for her.
“... why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I’m naive or something?” I asked Lua.
“... no. I think it is commendable. Trying to help in that way.” Lua answered.
“Then you will help me with this?”
“Isn’t that what it means to be together? Or did you explain it to me wrong?”
“No. But just because we are together, doesn’t mean we agree on everything, so thank you.”
“Now just show me how you will deal with this dungeon. Because that is the part that I don’t yet know.”
“Don’t worry. I did come up with a plan.”
I walked up to the core, where Cailie was waiting for me.
“... Mister blessed…”
“Just call me Brian, please.” I told Cailie. “Do you mind if I call you Cailie as well?”
“... I … that is fine. … Can you really… free me? Without sending me back?”
“You are lucky Alice can’t understand you, or otherwise she’d give a snide comment right about now.” I told the mermaid. Honestly, I’d have liked one. It proves that Alice knows me.
But honestly speaking, this won’t take long. And there are a few ways I could do this.
First, I could … abuse authority. In this case, the authority I have as a Chaos God Dungeon founder. Because of that, I can bring any dungeon with a deceased dungeon founder under my control. But I don’t want to do that. Instead, I’ll go with the card route.
“Outstanding Dog Marron.” I quickly summoned my tribute puppy, before I activated the next card. “Enemy Controller. I tribute Marron to take temporary control of Dungeon 21_013.”
Spoiler
[collapse]
This was in my opinion a lot better idea. With Enemy Controller, I can get temporary founder access to the dungeon core, so I can do what I want with it, and after I’m done, it will return to its usual state.
The card quickly did its thing, and a Sega Genesis style controller appeared in my hands. From it, a magical cord extended and connected to the dungeon core.
I used the controller to navigate the dungeon menu that opened before me, and with it, I quickly released Cailie from her position as the dungeon master, without activating the teleport back function.
Like yesterday, Cailie’s dungeon master terminal snapped away from her arm, clanged on the floor and disappeared. But unlike last time, the teleportation circle never appeared.
Then I added a little backdoor function to the dungeon, where whenever a new master is locked into here, the dungeon will send a notification to HomeBase. I tried to add a way where I could remote watch this place from anywhere, but that was too much, so just the notification would have to do. If someone else gets trapped, I can just come and greet them, and see if they need my help.
After that, I returned everything I could back to how they were, except Cailie’s relationship with this dungeon of course. Just so if anyone tries to look through the dungeon, it will look like everything is fine.
Then I just hit Execute and I was done. Soon after that, my controller disappeared.
“... I’m not… going back?” Cailie was questioning.
“Nope. I told you so.”
“... I … I … thank you…”
“Sure. No problem.”
“... but … what do I do… now?”
“We have time, so let’s find out, right?”
“... I … yes. I’ll… try.”
I brought Cailie to the inn with me, while Illusionist Faceless Mage made an illusion to hide her. It might be a bit unethical, but better this way, as Cailie really shouldn’t even be here.
Spoiler
[collapse]
That evening, I spoke with Mariina about Cailie. Mainly, I wanted to know if she had some knowledge on merfolk habitats, and maybe she had an idea on where we could take Cailie to. She offered one spot, the lake around the Hero’s country, but she didn’t have much knowledge on merfolk, so that was the only one she knew. That’s too bad.
Agunan also told us about a merfolk clan that lives in the western ocean, under the guardianship of a water dragon, so that was also an option. I really should head that way at some point. Maybe I’ll take a day trip there with Agunan.
“... I suppose I could prepare Sage’s tower’s identity papers for her, but she’d have to know magic for that.” Mariina offered. “Honestly speaking, you are better off flying somewhere in that ship of yours, and just having her register at an adventurer’s guild that has regular merfolk adventurers. Or just take her to another tribe that is willing to accept her. If you want my opinion, just take her to the Hero’s country and get in contact with the adventurer’s guild there. They will be able to help you way more than I can.”
We were talking about the small problem where Cailie doesn’t actually have any identifying papers, like an adventurer’s guild card, or my noble papers, so she cannot officially enter any guarded towns.
“I see. That is already good info, so I think we can do that instead. I’ll ask Cailie what she thinks tomorrow. Thanks for the idea.”
“If you want to pay me back, you can always tell me more about your cards. How about finally telling me about that ‘install’ thing?”
“... maybe some other time.”
“Then what is going on with you? Why does my spirit like you so much more now?”
“Haah...” I really shouldn't stay with her. All these questions are bad for my health.
