“Familiar how?” Hilda asked suspiciously, watching the fuzzy little thing over the rim of her cracked shield. There were holes in her breastplate, and in her breast as well, but she dared not free her hands to attempt any special abilities on the newcomer. Not that she had any except castigate and damn her nose if she had any idea what it did. It sounded scary though, like it cast… a gate!

“You silly goose,” the thing tittered like a crystal bell, “don’t you know what a familiar is?”

“I know what ‘familiar’ means!” Hilda sulked. “I speak Common as well as any human! Are you also going to start blaming me for things I can’t understand and then throw spells at me?”

“No. I’m not violent.” The little creature smiled and flew closer to the dwarf. “A familiar,” she explained, “is a type of emissary. My warlock has made a pact with a powerful fairy prince. I oversee the pact and serve as a link between the fairy and the warlock. This is what it means to be a familiar”

Up close, the creature looked kinda pretty. As much as Hilda could read the thing’s insectile expression, she (Hilda assumed it’s a she on account of the little tits) looked sad and concerned. Not aggressive. Then again, she was a cross between an oversized moth and an elf with huge puppy eyes. Her most expressive part was a pair of feathery antennae that were as expressive as an old dwarf’s eyebrows. Hilda doubted the familiar could look threatening even if she wanted to.

“Well, your master is an asshole.” Hilda said, feeling safe enough to lower her shield and straighten her back. “Didn’t even let me have dinner in peace…”

The familiar shrugged apologetically as she landed on a sculpture of some hideous fishfrog that probably ate fairies like her in real life. She folded her wings behind her back and sat down with her pale feet dangling over the deformed idol’s stone eyes. “Yeah, he is. But he means well.”

“He?” Hilda asked. “Isn’t it xe or xer or zer?” She pressed her back to the wall and allowed herself to slide into a sitting position. “Isn’t he like eight different races and classes put together?”

The familiar pressed a tiny hand to her mouth and snickered. “No. Seejavy is just a human warlock.” She waved her tiny hand around her head, “all that stuff you saw… It's just an affectation. His heart is in the right place but, hm” she paused, pressing a single finger to her lower lip as if deep in thought, “he’s a crazy, mindless, bigoted, delusional psychopath. The fey prince I serve only accepted my master’s pact on a dare. We fairies love dares. They are fun!”

“Fun…” Hilda shook her head. “He took away all the treasures I could win.” Hilda sighed. “Then he almost killed me…”

The fairy’s antennae dropped. “I’m sorry about that. He usually doesn’t kill creatures that aren’t classified as monsters, only beats them very severely and humiliates them profoundly.”

“But why? That’s what monsters do.” Hilda thought about Philly, the dark elf with the pretty hair, the silly gargoyles. “Actually, many monsters are not as bad.”

The familiar shrugged. “He is doing it in the name of equality, justice and an end to prejudice.”

“But it’s not fair!” Hilda shouted without planning to. “I’m a poor woman who serves as a paladin in a cult that usually excludes women. I belong to a race exiled from their world, nearly driven to extinction, and not very fondly welcomed on this planet.” Hilda said, “Shouldn’t he be helping me? Like give me some of his treasure for, um,” she paused to consider how her assailant would phrase it, “racial justice?”

“What you say is true, but you look very similar to people from the human nation Seejavy comes from. They have the same hair and skin color… maybe a little bit lighter, but not by a lot.”

“Hey!” Hilda protested. “They look like us. We’re more ancient. Besides, what does it have to do with almost murdering me because I wanted to make a sandwich? It’s not like there’s a shortage of bread and chocolate in this dungeon…”

The little fairy sighed musically. “I told you my master is crazy, didn’t I? Look, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’ll tell my master that I searched this section of the dungeon and couldn’t find you because you’re such a great master of stealth and deception.” The fairy again pressed her tiny hand to her mouth and giggled.

“Can you talk him into not looting the lower levels of the dungeon… please? He isn’t gaining anything from it and he’s really screwing me in the process. It’s not fair.”

The sprite sighed again. “He’s not doing this for XP or gold. He’s doing it for, as you said, racial justice.”

Hilda didn’t even bother asking what this meant. She only knew one kind of justice. The justice of the gods. Anything else was injustice. Instead of delving deeper into madness, she decided to change the subject. “Can you at least tell me where your master is headed next so I don’t run into him again?”

The sprite shrugged. “I guess he’ll be going west. He’s a bit scared of running into a pair of human fanatics exploring the dungeon top to bottom. They’re both magic resistant and are likely to burn him at their nightly pyre simply because he doesn’t conform to human norms.”

Hilda frowned. “I didn’t realize humans had norms. They all look so different to me…”

“They don’t,” the fairy agreed. “These two lunatics just made those norms up. They won’t hesitate to murder anyone who doesn’t conform to the norms they just made up though.”

Hilda rolled her eyes. “Charming. So I can’t go west because your crazy master is there. I can’t go south because the monsters there are too strong for me and the other directions are walls. Guess I’ll just stay here and wait for my, um, followers, while someone else wins this dungeon. Thanks a lot.”

The sprite replied with a shrug, both with her hands and her antennae.

Hilda sighed. “You understand this isn’t justice, yes? This is bullying.”

“It’s complicated--”

“No, it isn’t! Justice would be giving the gold your master looted from this corridor to me. I’m the only woman in my Hundred. I live in a small cave with a hurdle of sisters and no father. My people were hunted almost to extinction and came to this planet naked and afraid. If your master cares about justice, he should give some money to every dwarf he meets! Tell me I’m wrong!”

While Hilda ranted, the sprite nodded sympathetically like an adult listening to a crying toddler. “Well, dwarfs are doing well now. Whole caverns of precious gems, armies clad in metal…”

“Okay, but I’m really, really poor. What you see is literally all I have. Technically, I don’t even own my shield and armor. They were given to me by my Hundred. I don’t even own my tunic…” Hilda pouted, trying to look cute. She wasn’t great at it, but it never hurt to try. Well, unless someone stabbed you in the face a few hours before… Unlike attacks and saving throws, failed diplomacy attempts usually didn’t have dire consequences.

The sprite hopped off the devil frog statue and buzzed through the air to hover in front of the dwarf’s face. The gentle wind from her wings smelled like the first gale of autumn. She petted the dwarf’s cheek with a tiny, ticklish hand. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.” Hilda said. “I’m just… I thought I’d go to the dungeon, kill a few monsters, pick up a few treasure chests and return home. On the first day I wasted all my spells on fighting a stupid rat guarding a few coins. Then I met a penniless monster that just wanted to kiss me even though it’s breath smells like the alleyway behind a troglodyte restaurant. I was robbed by a halfling whose life I saved from an ogre. And now… and now…” to her great surprise, Hilda really was crying, hugging her knees like she did when she was a child and no one had time to look at her very detailed drawings of castles and mansions.

“Aw,” the fairy said, petting the dwarf’s bulbous nose, “well, there’s a couple of rooms beyond the pantry my master hasn’t been to because they smell funny and… and well these idols are worth something -- 500 gp I think -- and I’m kind of a monster so you can defeat me if you want to…”

“You?” Hilda barked a joyless laugh. “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. If someone could package you in boxes and sell you to little girls they’d be rich inside a year.”

“Well…” The fairy said, “I’m still technically a monster. I don’t have a class... So… well, your armor is bound to be worth some 1,000 gp, right?”

“Yes… Thanks for reminding me the sum that will be deducted from my wages in the future…”

The sprite ignored the dwarf’s jab and went on. “Okay, so if you take it off and leave it on the floor and leave the room, it will be my treasure, right?”

Hilda frowned. Why is everyone in this dungeon so eager to undress me? “Yes…”

“Then you could return and defeat me and win back your armor, so that’s 1,000 gp more, yes? I don’t mind being defeated by you, I’ve only got the one hit point and my master will just summon me again when he needs me. I could visit my charm meanwhile, water my lilies, feed my butterflies…”

Hilda narrowed her eyes. “Is this a trick to lower my armor class so your master could kill me more easily?”

The fairy snorted and flew down to hover in front of the dwarf’s armor. She inserted a tiny finger into one of the holes in Hilda’s breastplate. “Yes, your armor is going to protect you so well from frost or hellfire…” She flew up to hover in front of the dwarf’s face again. “I’m trying to help you, you silly goose. Don’t be mean.”

Hilda frowned. “If your plan works, I’ll be 93% toward my goal. Literally any treasure in any room will be enough to win this dungeon. This will really help me!” Hilda exclaimed and then added hastily, “um, to achieve racial justice.”

“Yay!” the sprite clapped her tiny hands. “You’re not crying anymore! I’m so happy!”

Hilda knew you weren’t supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth (not that the fairy had a visible mouth…) but she just couldn’t help herself. “Why are you doing this? Sounds like you serve two masters and this helps neither of them.”

“Oh,” the sprite said. “I’m doing this in the name of justice. Real justice. The kind of justice that cleans up after fake justice. Chaos doesn’t have to be evil, you know…”

Before Hilda could reply, the fairy flew away and cupped her hands into fists like a boxer preparing for a match. “Okay fatso, let’s fight.”

Current Loot

Purse (750 gp)

Silver cup (750 gp)

+2 sword (2000 gp)

Ornate Box (1800 gp)

Gold Cup (2500 gp)

Ugly frog statue (500 gp)

Dwarf armor, used (1000 gp)

Progress: 93%