Dungeon Life

Chapter Three-Hundred Twenty

I come back to normal reality to see Teemo perched atop my core. Was I out for long?

He shakes his head at me. “Nah, not too long. I moved here because it felt like you were further away than you’ve ever been. Did you somehow pick up spatial affinity, Boss? It felt like you were about a mile sideways.”

I’m pretty sure it was a god thing. There’s some kind of plane where I can sorta see people. It’s difficult to explain. Did you hear any of the conversation I had with the Shield?

Teemo quirks an eyebrow. “That’s what that was? I could feel something, but it felt like my Voice and Herald titles were fighting over it.”

Heh, maybe we need to submit a bug report to Order.

Anomaly Logged

Oh. If only it was always so easy.

“What’d you two talk about? I know there was some kind of deal offered, but I don’t know what.”

The Shield and Order suggested I found a pantheon, and said they’d join if I did. I’m gonna take my time to think that one over.

Teemo laughs at that. “They’d join yours? If you run a pantheon like you do a dungeon, you’d probably accidentally absorb or overthrow all the others before long!”

Which is why I’m not going to do it for a while, if ever.

“Fair enough. Did you still want to talk to Torlon about illusions?” he asks, reminding me of what we were doing before I wandered off on a divine tangent.

That’d be great, yeah. Is Zorro around? If we’re going to ask about illusions, he should probably be with us. Teemo and I both check the other scions, and see that Zorro is, in fact, home at the moment. He’s currently down in the cavern layer, looking into a pool of water as he makes fine adjustments to his stray disguise. I give the bond a light tap with the request he come to the Sanctuary, and he drops his disguise in surprise at the attention.

I let some mirth seep through the bond as he navigates the shortcuts to get here, glad to see he’s getting better at them, and soon he’s standing before my core, tail tucked between his legs.

“You’re not in trouble, Zorro, so get that tail up,” speaks Teemo, still sitting on my core. The vulpine scion forces his tail out from between his legs, but it’s still not held at a confident angle. My Voice shrugs before continuing.

“Close enough. Anyway, Zorro, the Boss has something he’d like you to do. He knows you’ve been slipping out into Fourdock, and he’d like you to do that more. Leo and Poe aren’t wrong in that an Explorer wouldn’t be bad to have, but what the Boss really feels like he needs is someone to keep an eye on the delvers when they’re outside. He’s getting a lot of important attention, so he wants to have some kind of forewarning about what that attention could entail. Are you willing to not only go keep your ear to the ground, but also teach the other foxes to do the same?”

I feel an immediate acceptance from him, but I push that aside, causing him to tuck his tail once more before Teemo explains.

“You don’t have to, you know that, right? He’s not ordering, he’s offering. There’s a difference.”

Zorro makes adorable fox sounds as he explains himself, his tail even wagging a little by the time he’s done and Teemo relays what he had to say.

“He says he would really like that. He likes the delvers, thinks they’re interesting, and thinks he could keep us informed on Fourdock, though he thinks he’ll need better foxes to really accomplish it.”

I pat the bond with pride, glad Zorro is genuinely interested, instead of just doing what I tell him. I upgrade the fox spawner until just before it spits out a new fox type as Teemo keeps talking.

“Alrighty, Boss’ll upgrade that more once we get back from the Shield church. He wants us to ask Torlon about how easily illusions can be spotted, and see if he has any advice to offer, too.”

Zorro’s emotions are a bit jumbled at the news and the rapid pace now he’s accepted the new job, but I can feel his resolve building and attempting to organize the mess that is his mental state. Teemo slides down my core until he has to hop off at the equator, and lands right beside Zorro.

“Right, let's get going.” He leads Zorro through a shortcut and through the maze of connections, the two chatting along the way. Teemo encourages and thanks him for me, but I lose track of the conversation as I get distracted when they officially get marked as being on a sojourn. Teemo’s shortcuts are definitely using at least one extra dimension, but there’s apparently a demarcation of my territory even there.

It just seems strange to me, so I start tracing the boundaries as they go, like I’m trying to wrangle some terrible wiring inside a pc. I swear I’ve seen some lack of cable management somehow use an extra dimension, too…

I don’t get to map it out too much before Teemo and Zorro are standing outside the church with a bemused and aged wolfkin looking down at the pair. “Thedeim’s Herald? And… the fox scion, I think?” he says, one hand resting atop his broom while the other strokes his chin as he probes his memories.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“That’s us! I’m here as his Voice, not his Herald, though. He wants to ask Torlon about illusions and stuff.”

The wolfkin gives a kindly smile at that. “Ah, then welcome! I don’t think I’m prepared to accept a divine delegation, but friends are much easier! Much less ceremony, fewer choirs to organize and all that,” he jokes as he opens the door for my two scions. “I think he’s at the martial hall, helping Freddie train.”

Teemo and Zorro peer into the church as my Voice speaks up. “Where’s that? I haven’t gone around poking shortcuts here, so I’m not very familiar.”

The wolfkin holds the door open as he points out a boring door about halfway down the interior. “Just head through that door and down the hallway. The door at the end will open out into the courtyard, and you should be able to spot the training hall from there.”

“Cool. Thanks!” Teemo and Zorro head off as the old wolfkin chuckles at the unique experience of giving my scions directions. They have to ask someone to open the door for them to get into the hallway, and get the attention of someone else actually in the hallway to open the way outside, but it all goes pretty smoothly. I wonder if the people are used to the kind of weirdness that tends to happen around me, or if they’re so used to guiding people through the temple that it barely registers that they’re doing the same for a pair of scions.

Whatever the reason, it’s a lot easier to get into the training hall, as the door is propped open to help with air flow. It looks to me like today is a cardio day as Freddie and Fiona run laps, with Torlon keeping track with a simple floating number display. I can see Zorro’s interest through the bond as Teemo shouts.

“Hey Torlon! You busy?”

The gnome looks up and smiles as he shakes his head. “Freddie is just helping me count to twenty, and demonstrating what it looks like, too.”

“Eight,” demonstrates the orc as he passes Torlon, and the counter ticks up by one.

“Good lad, helping out his senile teacher like that,” snarks Teemo, and Torlon smirks.

“That he is. So, what are you and… the fox scion doing here? I don’t think you’re looking to help me count, too?”

“Nope. The Boss wanted to pick your brain about illusions.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Then he’s come to the right brain. I might be losing my numbers, but I daresay there’s few in Fourdock who knows more about illusions than I do.”

“Yeah, the Boss and Tiny both still remember the things you pulled out when you ran Tiny’s maze.”

The gnome smiles at the memory. “I really should challenge Tiny again some day. I hear he’s refined his Fate affinity significantly since then. It’s always a challenge to avoid tipping off people with that affinity.”

“Yeah?” asks Teemo, Zorro taking a seat and looking up at the gnome as he explains.

“It’s always the little things that give away an illusion, and fate has a way of magnifying the little inconsistencies even without the user consciously doing it. Anyway, what did you want to know about illusions?”

“Things like that, for starters. The Boss is making waves and big people are starting to notice, so he wants to make sure he can catch wind of what they might do before they show up to do it. He could lean on Fate to divine it, but Tiny always says that sort of thing is unreliable at best, so he wants to disguise Zorro and the other foxes to have eyes and ears on the streets.”

“Nine,” comments Freddie as he passes, and Torlon looks thoughtful as he processes that.

“And he can’t use his believers for that because they’re concentrated in his enclaves?”

“Not as much as you might think, but he also doesn’t want to have a core tenet to be snitching.”

Torlon laughs at that. “A fair point! Spy foxes, hmm…” He turns his attention from Teemo to Zorro. “Can you turn invisible?”

In answer, he does just that, though Torlon immediately waves him off. “No, don’t. Invisibility is very difficult. Staying still is easier, but moving is incredibly difficult.”

Zorro reappears, looking dejected, as Teemo speaks up. “But we saw you-”

“Ten,” interrupts Freddie, trying to hide his enjoyment at getting to mess with Teemo and having a good excuse. My Voice glares at his back before continuing. “We didn’t see you when you did it. Even with his fancy dungeon senses, the Boss couldn’t keep track of you when you were facing off against Tiny.”

Torlon smiles. “That’s because I’m not boasting when I say I’m very good with illusions. And especially when infiltrating a place, being invisible can make it harder for you. What if there’s a door? What if someone bumps into you? Now you need to start layering more illusions to cover it up. It’s much simpler to make something that shouldn’t be there appear as something that does.”

Zorro yips and dons his stray dog illusion, and Torlon kneels down to inspect him. “Ah, that’s much better. When you cloak yourself like that, you only need to know yourself, not what your surroundings should look like from every angle and perspective.” He reaches down and pets Zorro, and it looks almost like a graphical z fighting error as he does so. He nods as he stands.

“It’s more difficult to maintain an illusion when someone is touching you, rustling your clothes or hair… or fur,” he comments with a smile, then chuckles at a memory. “I had to learn that when I started disguising myself as an elven child for a while, before joining the Shield. People love ruffling the hair of urchins, and I’d expect stray dogs to be the same.”

“So how-”

“Eleven.”

“Don’t make me make the laps longer, Freddie! I’ll do it!” threatens my Voice as he gets interrupted by Freddie once more, who is the picture of innocence as he continues to jog.

“Take a rest, Freddie,” manages Torlon with a straight face. I bet he has a lot of experience with not giving away the gag like that. “As for how to fix it, practice is the best method I’ve found. Or shorter, rougher hair. You’d need to actually trim it short and do something to make it more rough, but it’ll be a lot easier to convincingly conceal, and discourage all but the friendliest of people from touching too much.”

Zorro looks down at himself and I can feel him weighing his desire to do this against his desire to have soft floofy fur. Teemo gives him an understanding look, and even Torlon nods at his dilemma.

“Think of it as motivation. If you’re going to try to look like a stray, the closer you look, feel, and smell, the easier it will be to convince people. If you’re going to do this, you’ll have to get good if you want to have your luxurious pelt back.”

Zorro gives a long, forlorn foxy squeak, hanging his head and tail low in defeat. I pat the bond with him, trying to encourage him. Floof is the toll to pay for sneakiness.