by Alston Sleet
I was doing the equivalent of a gem dance, that is holding still but mentally excited. It had worked! I could embed spells, concepts, memories, ideas, impressions, even sensory experiences! I didn’t have all of Jorgen, Jous, Frankle, Tres, and Merce’s lives, but I had so much of it inside me. I knew what they spent time doing, what they cared about, the things they practiced and felt strongly about. Spells were easy, the few spells that Tres had were practically impressed into his mind with indelible ink, but so was the memory of Jorgen working the forge and his hate of it.
I could pass out skill stones! This was simply awesome! I had grander possibilities in my mind though, longer reach skill stones. Things like language stones. I wasn’t sure I could make it work, but the options were fantastic. How about things like a prayer book for Coldona? Forced propaganda that you didn’t have to believe, but you did have to understand, that was almost a scary level of power.
I needed to think long and hard about it, but combined with the patterns for animals and low-level monsters that I had recently gained and started to play around with? My dungeon had just jumped in power and reward.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Females Be Crazy Yo!
The couple failed to return for multiple nights. I spent my time building up numerous monsters in the arenas and the triggers to switch them out, as well as building up a collection of skill stones in a new treasury sorted by skill types. It was oddly satisfying to see hundreds of copies of each skill stone all labeled and marked across shelf after shelf. I made my skill hall room into a long tunnel lined with shelves. I built it with a plan for a long and prosperous future.
When they finally did return to challenge my arenas, their night of dungeon crawling was cut short when Romeo found Shortstop standing around inside my vestibule waiting for Lady Lizard. She had just finished the third stage of my magic challenge, a fun problem involving hitting a set of three targets with your own ranged spell. The Chieftan-to-be used it as a chance to practice her new spell, and I was impressed with her quick progression. I had included all of Tres’ memories of the spell, every quirk, and improvement, everything he had, and apparently, she was learning from those memories. It’s like riding a bike, just because someone tells you about how to ride does not mean you know how to ride, but expert instruction helps. Direct memory transfer is probably better than expert instruction even.
So Lady Lizard is making her run, screwing around a bit blasting away trying to improve, her targeting being a tad skewed, when Romeo stomped into the vestibule. Shortstop showed the lizard equivalent of surprised guilt, but then returned to a neutral face. Romeo started screaming at Shortstop, his multi-colored tail bouncing around from his agitation. Shortstop just stood there stoically and listened until there was a break to which he made some comment which left Romeo practically apoplectic then silently fuming.
When the lady champion finally returned to the vestibule, she had the view of both lizards staring her down. If she had been blonde, human, and a valley girl the reaction would have been a toss of her hair and ignoring the stares. As it was, she raised her jaw into the air, turned on her tail, and marched toward the hallway of challenges.
Romeo was having none of that and cut her actions off by rushing in front of her while hollering something. Shortstop seemed resigned, but she wanted to challenge whatever Romeo was saying. Her arguing devolved into fuming and a childish look. The love lizard triangle trio then marched out of my gateway before Romeo roused some kids to guard my door. I had a feeling that I would not be having any further dungeon crawls, at least for the foreseeable future. It was too bad since it had only been here for twelve days total.
Spending the next eighteen days here without any challengers would be useful to improve my dungeon, but relatively dull. Luckily, 'bored' seems to be an emotion that dungeons are immune to.
While the next few days were uneventful, I decided to try and contact Coldona again. I was trying to avoid interacting with the gods. No good can come from the interest of someone that powerful, but then again, she is my patron goddess, and I am her [High Priest]. Ignoring her will only end in tears. Most likely mine.
Focusing on the unique prayer skill, I triggered [Directed Prayer].
“Hello Coldona, this is Dale? Um? I'm your [High Priest]. I was just checking in and wanted to know if there was anything you needed or wanted?”
Way to go Dale. What, are you thirteen and calling a girl you like on the phone for the first time?
The response was slow in coming, but when it did, it didn’t sound very godly (goddessly?), “Ooooh! Dale! You are so wonderful, I’m so happy! Oooooh!”
O…K…
“I woke up today with only ten legs! Ten! I haven’t had ten legs in almost two hundred years! I’m so excited! Also, I’m not as angry at things, and I’m not very snappy, and I’m not so overwhelmed by baby animals and treasure!”
Coldona just continued spewing happy sounds in the background of my mind as she listed off body parts she wanted to go and how she didn’t think blood would taste as good now, and other such disturbing and cute comments.
If she didn’t sound so upbeat and happy about the entire thing, her ‘bloodlust’ and ‘shiny magic thing’ comments would be so much worse. She seemed to be even more off balance than she was when I tried to contact her before. I was honestly kind of worried about her.
Cutting her off after a bit I decided to see if I could get ahold of a…well…not an adult, but a less flighty goddess, “Coldona, I’m happy for you, but is there any chance you could get Denda for me? I just wanted to check on a few things with her, and you seem really excited, and I don’t really want to bother you while you are in such a good mood.”
There, happy sounding, nonconfrontational, and maybe the scary little goddess can check to make sure the bloodlust-ing happy goddess is OK. Maybe get her some meds to calm her down?
Coldona promised she would get Denda to talk to me. What she said was, “I’ll get sissy to talk to you while I go do something. I’m so happy that I don’t want to hurt anyone, well, as much! Yay!”
…and then the magical prayer phone went silent. Alright, new plan, wait for a few hundred years and try to talk to my crazy goddess again.
“Oh, she will even out soon enough Dale.”
I can’t sputter in fright, but Denda could read my mind, so she was able to get the full effect of my crystalline heart attack. At this point, I’m convinced she was planning it.
With a deadpan voice, she answered my thoughts, “Of course I am.”
The small halfling goddess was dressed in a conservative housemaker style dress, which in no way matched the wicked daggers strapped to her wide black belt. Her nearly glowing yellow eyes stared at my floating point of view before turning to my gem.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
I paused to consider how to say it, but then realized that she knew what I was thinking and so that wasn’t going to help me, “Um…is Coldona ok? She sounds kind of…um…odd.”
Waving my concerns aside Denda smiled as she wandered around my core room, “She is fine. Her domain is fluctuating wildly, she is gaining massive amounts of power, and what, and who she is, is fighting with what her domain is trying to make her be. Combine that with rapid shifts in her form, and anyone would be out of sorts. She has also swung wildly between really angry and really happy, you contacted her at a perfect time.”
Huh, sounds like puberty mixed with PMS.
“…And if you had made that joke at the wrong time, she would have cast [Smite] on you and screwed up everyone’s plans. Please refrain from contacting her for a bit longer, she is still in a delicate stage, and your juvenile mortal male human humor will not be helpful.”
The glowing yellow-eyed stare told me that I was pushing the envelope. All right then.
She seemed to take my silence as acquiescence before she continued, “Dale, I’m glad you seem to enjoy dealing with so many non-human species, but I would appreciate it
if you went south and returned to the kingdom of Redun, maybe try out the capital or one of the larger villages. Humans have a much stronger communication network.”
When I agreed to her plan, being able to understand once again what the heck the challengers are saying sounded like a nice bonus, she ended her request with her now trademark Cheshire fade out. The original cat had never creeped me out, but watching it happen in real time was just weird.
After the weirdness of the female goddesses in my life, I was glad to return to the relative normalness which was my peeping Tom spying of Human sized Lizards using a magical eye in the sky. You know, Normal.
My guess had been right, no one was going into my dungeon now, and oh man was the younger men of the tribe pissed over that. Even as they guarded the gate, they were furious about Shortstop and Lady Lizard having enjoyed my hospitality. I couldn’t understand their words, but the death stares whenever those two walked around said it all.
This was a pretty significant change in the way they looked at both of them. He had been seen as an authority figure, even if Romeo got more respect, but she had practically been worshipped. She said to do something, and the young men didn’t just do it, they ran.
Most of this smoldered in sullen resentment, but things changed when the rest of the tribe returned. Marching down the exit tunnel came older males, and a few females, with worked leather armor. Each trooper was festooned with necklaces of teeth and carrying large herd animals strapped to poles. The procession of hunters and game was followed by a female in unassuming gear. If it hadn’t been for the steely-eyed males who marched with her, spears prepared to skewer anyone who approached, I would have hardly noticed her.
The female hunt leader had aged dull scales, her movements were careful and almost mincing. Her tail was still held above the ground, but not by much. Everything about her steps screamed aged elder.
When the troop finally noticed the gateway, and the three men guarding it, there had been a bit of a pile up as the procession had slowed. The chief shuffled her way towards the gateway, but Lady Lizard and Shortstop interrupted her movements. Lady Lizard made some loud proclamation which was then followed by nearly everyone staring at her and hissing.
Whatever she said, it was like pissing in someones cereal because no one was happy with her. Even Shortstop looked faintly annoyed, but he stood behind her and tapped his spear on the ground. After his tap, the rest of the men who were not carrying things repeated it. That seemed to be some kind of signal since the march of the meat restarted and dragged off their bounty to be butchered and smoked.
The animals were fascinating, the elk-like thing was just ‘elk’ in my patterns, but it wasn’t actually an elk. It just was mostly kind-of-sort-of an elk. I wasn’t a biologist, but I don’t think elks had dark green and brown camo fur. I wonder how many things I had names for were actually just ‘close enough’ that I knew them as those things? My work creating monsters in my arenas had focused mostly on the fantastical, but I should probably create some of the other stuff just to see.
When the food had been stowed away and the day was almost over, the communal campfire had a bit of extra food but also some odd speech making. My lack of understanding of the language didn’t deter me from figuring things out. It was boasting, storytelling, praising, and even jokes at some people’s expense. The ceremony where a large tooth was handed off to eight younger males was easy enough to figure out when I noticed the young men left behind practically had stars in their eyes and drifted off with a daydreaming look.
After the food had been mostly eaten and people had calmed down, and the fires had started to fade out, the old female stood up and hushed the crowd. She started some kind of speech while everyone seemed uncomfortable. On the opposite side of the fire, Lady Lizard and Shortstop stood, Romeo, being relegated to standing on the older lizard lady’s portion of the crowd. With a few perfunctory statements, the chieftain gestured then nodded to Lady Lizard. With this signal, Lady Lizard stood and started an impassioned speech, one with vigor and strength, and a lot of eye rolling from the old guard supporting the chieftain though I did notice a few nods at times, grudging though they seemed.
Then…the campfire gathering broke up, and everyone went to sleep. My gateway was now being guarded by some of the older hunters, the young men not being allowed to stand watch. The only visit I had was the older lady who looked at my gateway from a few different directions, did a sniff and taste test on the stone, and then seemed to shrug and walk away. Disappointing but not beyond what I expected.
The rest of my night was uneventful but the next day started out surprisingly different.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fight! Fight! Dance Fight?
What…the…hell?
Are these lizards doing a…dance fight?
I’m joking, but not by much. The morning started with drums and these things which are like the unholy child of a whistle and a kazoo. The whole tribe woke up just a bit earlier than their regular start time, but the noise started almost instantly. I don’t sleep, and even I was wanting things to stop and restart after a cup of coffee and a few extra hours sleep.
The whole tribe marched out in outfits which seemed to signal which family group people came from. Visible markings and sigils grouped each family, from the same feather being attached in the same place to paint applied to the same areas of the face. Each marked their similarity to their family, but each family picked a different way of signaling this. It was like they were conforming while refusing to conform.
It was like high school all over again.
After the bleating, the blatting, and the dance walk - yes, seriously, the whole tribe dance walked in a slow shuffle type thing - they formed up at the communal fire. Chief old lady lizard was wearing a robe type ensemble which had lots of tiny metal bits sewn into the gown. Her face had a red and black paint in an odd pattern, odd because Lady Lizard had the same design on her face/snout. Given the way the rest of the tribe was set up, it seemed to indicate mother and daughter, or maybe grandmother and grand-daughter? It was hard to tell how old the chief was. She was definitely older, but was she grandmother or was Lizard Lady just much younger than I thought? Given I hadn’t seen another female in age between these two who was also in charge, I was going with mother-daughter. There were other females, just not in charge like these two were.
Most of the other females seemed to be running herd on small groups of the hunters. Even given that, there was a severe birth rate difference between males and females. The ratio was looking to be something like five to one and given Shortstop and Romeo’s behaviors, I’m guessing no one was into sharing here. Which was just too bad for Romeo. Because my boy Shortstop seemed to have sown this thing up tight. He was standing behind Lady Lizard, his new looking leathers subtly matching his girl, with his face painting almost matching. The black lines across his face matched hers, but the red paint was suspiciously missing.
After everyone had formed up and calmed down, Chief Lady started a long-winded speech. Even not being able to speak the language I could recognize a politician at work, though Lady Lizard seemed oddly pleased about the address as well. Romeo was genuinely pissed, his eyes strayed from Lady Lizard only long enough to glare at Shortstop.
This looked like a formal ceremony where the clan would determine rankings and importance, a way for men (and women) to show their importance and seek status. So, it was a bit like a football game in high school. Maybe less violent though. Slightly.
I fully expected to see some fights, and I was not disappointed. After the Chief Lady finished her speech, there was an awkward silence where lizard eyed lizard until one young stud in the back called something out. The crowd quickly moved away from him so that he could march proudly into the dirt patch in front of the fire pit. One of the older hunters seemed to shake his head at the sky before he walked out into the spot to meet him.
After Chief Lizard said a few words, the two combatants slapped their clawed han
ds together, and then the fight was on! And then the match was over.
The older lizard hunter took down junior, so perfunctorily it was almost over before I knew what had happened. Junior rushed in with his arms held wide, and the older hunter stepped in and just slammed his elbow into the side of Junior's head, full force, with his whole body twisting into it. Juniors arms never even came forward to break his fall, I think he was lights out before he touched the ground. The older hunter just picked him up off the ground, his biceps bulging as he lobbed Junior onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and walked him back to his troop.
Junior didn’t perform well, and he kind of made an idiot of himself, but you have to give it to him, he went all in. The hunter he picked to challenge was enormous, bulging, and obviously knew what he was doing. Come to think of it, that wasn’t really praiseworthy. Extra stupid in fact. Though the elder hunter seemed to think it was funny, he patted juniors head like an affectionate older brother after he propped him up next to the rest of his family. By the laughing friendly conversation from the rest of the family to the elder hunter, I don’t think they had expected much more from the whole thing.
Things continued in this vein for a while. A younger male or female would challenge one of the other older hunters, and they would smack claws then fight. Though I did notice females would only challenge females and males would just challenge males. When the women fought, it was usually a horribly violent affair. Claws, teeth, whipping tails, broken bones, and missing teeth. No one was permanently crippled, but the challenged women went into things like they had been personally insulted. The men seemed to see it as just a right of passage, just something that needed to happen. The women though…wow. It was like a discovery channel dominance fight between two crocs. It was scary.
