In the middle of the night- or at least when the Sahii are sleeping- I send my sabertoothed panthersaur out to summon Mr. Crow. I do this by having her walk in and out of the alarm spell. Mr. Crow clearly notices because he wakes up, but ignores it the first time- guessing he can tell what crossed the barrier. The ward must have a weight detection limit or something though since he’s not being woken up by random bats and shit. But the catsaur just keeps doing it. At first he’s annoyed, trying to get back to sleep, then incredulous, then he gets irritated and gets up to investigate and/or kill the irritant.

Good thing the spell doesn’t have an ignore list.

He’s squinting and grumbling at the sky when he comes out- uh, is it not night? Midday siesta? Nocturnal? Diurnal? Just bitching about ‘what the fuck it’s two in the fucking morning?’ and didn’t actually get dressed, only wearing something like boxers. Everyone else uses something like a fundoshi, by the way. He starts trudging up the hill with one hand wreathed in an expanding ball of mana. It’s interesting, I want him to do it very close to me so I can get a better look- on second thought that’d be bad.

When he reaches the catsaur he’s obviously about to blast her when she turns away and starts to walk off. He is EXTREMELY irritated. Then she turns her head and chuffs at him, like, ‘You coming?’ Clever lass. He’s incredulous. “You… Want me to follow you?” Sorry dude, cats can’t speak English. Or Sahii or tradetounge or common or whatever. She chuffs at him again and flicks her tail. He follows.

My little helper leads him to a new entrance that I just recently excavated- I wanted to prepare my message in a place nobody would stumble on, so I just made a dead-end and opened it when I was ready. His aura is still unpleasant but at least it’s not so overpowering this time, presumably because my pearl isn’t in range. It feels like the area is… Less mine. Do I have an aura? A really fucking big but weak aura? So many questions in this dungeon business.

He gapes when he sees the murals. Honestly ‘mural’ is a bit grand for what they are, but he’s suitably impressed- likely more from the fact they exist than any quality on my part. I did alright. I’m going to practice more drawing in my spare time and I have nothing but spare time. He completely forgets about Lady Catsaur, first of her name, and she, in turn, ignores him and wanders deeper into my tunnels. Her errand is finished. I should do something nice for her.

Engraved on the wall is a series of images. I’m a comic artist now. As I said before, a simple style somewhat reminiscent of Egyptian art. 2D, stiff poses, a few simple colors I made out of copper and iron. Not sure how well it works- I don’t know what kinda lighting the moss puts off. Yeah, moss is lighting the entire room. I think. Maybe I should stick a tentacle in an eyeball some time and see if I can see using that somehow? Anyways, he can clearly see the murals and that’s what matters and fuck I’m so nervous I’m rambling even more than usual.

Talking to myself keeps me sane. Relatively. Borb is not a great conversationalist. The snorbs- snail orbs- are worse. They mostly just whisper and shout when they notice a bird. That makes Borb say and then I have to stop whatever I’m doing to calm them all down. I almost miss Wash. Almost. Creepy little fucker (which makes me about 20% creepy little fucker by volume).

Procrastination aside, he’s inspecting the murals. The first one, a man, an orb inside him inscribed with a Z. That’s me. The orb is my soul. The man getting hit by a car, orb exiting his body. A messy chaotic mass of lines, signifying I don’t know what happened. Another orb, this one with tentacles coming off of it, opening a toothy maw and swallowing my soul. The pearl with another orb stuck to it- the small pearl containing my Z soul and the big orb containing a W soul. Both souls in the big orb, merging. A combined soul with a big Z and a small W.

That’s part one. That’s my story. Next, Mr. Crow arriving with the scouts. He’s got an orb around him too and is labeled with a crow. Lotta circles on this canvas. It represents his aura. I engraved Dee and Dum holding hands. They’re all looking at my orb. Mr. Crow opening his mouth and a speech bubble coming out containing a raindrop. Me in the cave surrounded by raindrops. A view of the entire cave with a river flowing out of the cave and Dee and Dum standing in front of the cave, pointing their spears at other humans who have swords. Mr. Crow is drinking from the river. Gave this panel a wavy outline to indicate that it’s not a thing that actually happened, but what I hope with happen.

The villagers arriving- just a buncha stiff figures and crabs with stuff on their back. Notable are Mr. Crow standing next to his wife and their son prone, all three marked with a crow symbol. His son, still prone, with his soul visible- it has a big chunk missing. Not accurate to the actual damage but I quibble. Wavy outlines again, Mr. Crow carrying his son over his head and bringing him to my pearl. Me with tentacles in a couple of different animals and combining their small souls into a larger soul. Me cutting a slice out of that soul and putting it in Mr. Crow’s son. The slice and the soul combining into a healed soul. Three images arranged vertically with DOUBLE wavy outlines: The first is son standing up like he is all better, the second of the vertical images is of the son still laying there, soul healed but nothing apparently happening, and the third image is the son with his arms above his head, hunched over in classic Frankenstein pose. Gave him ghostly bits from the various animals. And by ghostly I mean a spotted outline.

I’m not sure if it was Frankenstein to make that pose, actually, but it represents B movie horror to me. Also it’s Frankenstein’s Monster. Victor Frankenstein was the scientist.

Cough.

The tl;dr, I can heal your son's soul, but I have no clue what’ll happen next. I hope that’s the message he’s getting.

Going off from the ‘healing successful’ branch, lots of people carrying plants and animals into my dungeon. Including big crabs. Especially big crabs. I’d do the healing for free, but better to get paid for it- first, he probably won’t see the cost as equivalent to the service performed and will feel he still owes me. Second, if you don’t charge for something big, people get suspicious. ‘What’s in it for him?’ Third, they might ask you to do more things for free. Fourth, I really want those giant crabs. I hope they can still live in the water after being desert-adapted. And fish- I really don’t see any way of getting fish myself except for tunneling a super long way which would take forever and might present some logistical problems because dungeon too big.

Mr. Crow has finished ‘reading’ the murals and is just standing there, touching the picture of his son being healed. His face is a mixture of overpowering shock and a growing tinge of hope. Then he takes a deep breath and fucking bolts.

What.

Oh fuck- oh damn is this a taboo thing!? Do they have stories of sentient dungeons destroying the world or is fucking with the soul major bad voodoo!? Is he gonna kill me- wait. why would he run if he wants to kill me? He can shoot kamehameha or something and all I have is two boar and a cat and god he’s running fucking fast- oh. Ohhhh.

He’s waking up his wife.

Good boy.