I arrive home in the depths of my dungeon. Apparently I am the only one able to see the rope that binds Bless to me, but I don’t want her to see more of my dungeon than she has to either. The bunnies must have been hard at work, because the room I used [Gate] to reach was one that I thought would be empty, but instead there is a rather large and angry looking earth dragon snarling at us when we arrive.

The room is cut off from the rest of the dungeon, so the dragon must either be something they are testing out, or they are using the room as a staging area of some kind, but either way it shouldn’t matter it being here with Bless.

I thought it might help keep Bless in line, but by the look on her face she doesn’t seem that impressed. She can’t use her magic, and she has no gear, but now I am wondering if I should move the dragon just so she doesn’t try to hurt it while we are away…

I am also rather surprised Bless hasn’t said anything. I thought she would try to talk her way out of this, or given the difference in our strengths, even threaten me, but instead she has just kept silent while seeming to judge me with her eyes.

Perhaps she thinks one of the other traitors will come for her. I guess it is a possibility, so I need to do my best to make sure none of them find out she is here in my dungeon. I barely made it out alive from the scrape with Rosalina much less if it was a stronger traitor.

“This place will have to do for now. The dragon won’t bother you unless you try something yourself, and I will have a screen open to you at all times, so if you do try anything I will see it, so just try to behave yourself.”

Bless just ignores me while moving over to sit down against the wall. I guess I can’t really blame her, her situation seems pretty grim. I don’t know how important what she is doing to Madam Erin’s dungeon is to the traitors, but if they don’t attempt to save her the only fate that awaits her, is death by Dyson’s hands once this situation is resolved.

“I meant what I said to Dyson, I can’t change what will happen to you in the end, but if there is something I can do to make your time here a bit more comfortable, I will be willing to listen. Within reason of course.”

Bless still doesn’t say anything, so I just open a screen that shows this room, and then transfer Angela, Desiree, and myself to the house. Explaining things to Belinda goes about as well as I imagined, but it takes a fair deal more explaining to the others staying at the house.

The cord wrapped tightly around my hand is still visible, but it no longer shows it being strung across the floor, but through the screen I can still see the other end of it around Bless’s neck. She pulls on it a few times and wanders the room, but for the most part that is all she has done.

Nobody else can see the cord, and Tanya and Exavier saw Angela and Desiree with Dyson on a previous trip to Tobes, so that makes things go a bit easier. Desiree’s eyes are the only thing that stand out from making her appear to be a bat beastkin, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem, because Quinn hasn’t quit hitting on either of them.

He tries to impress them with moves he learned in Sofia’s course at the university, but up until a few days ago he had only received basic combat training during his military training, and that was a few years ago, so to say he didn’t impress them would be an understatement.

Desiree seems to enjoy the attention, though she makes no attempts to reciprocate his advances, but even she quickly grows tired of him, and we finally have to tell him to back off before Dyson becomes offended by his actions.

That seems to do the trick, but it isn’t till I provide them with a change of clothes so they can change out of their armor, that Quinn quits his leering… Finally when things start settling down I show them to their rooms.

Desiree: “Angela and I share our bed with Dyson, I highly doubt separate rooms here are necessary.”

“We do have quite a few visitors lately, but we are still not bad enough to have to force you to share a room, surely you would prefer your own rooms?”

Angela: “We will be without Master tonight, so the last thing I want is to be without Desiree as well…”

“I just thought… You know, never mind. If that is what you both want, then I’m not going to force you to sleep in separate rooms.”

Desiree: “This room will do just fine.”

“If you two need anything else, just let me know.”

Desiree: “Is that an offer?”

“Within reason…”

Angela: “Desiree, you wouldn’t do that to Master!”

Desiree: “Of course not. It is just all the others in the house have quite a few interesting thoughts rooting around in their heads, and Two-Twelve’s are rather boring, so I hoped to stimulate a few myself. Unfortunately even his wife was far more interesting than he is..” –She says while licking her lips and showing off her long fangs.-

“I thought it would go without saying, but I ask you to not dig around in our heads while you are…”

Desiree: “It’s not just something I can stop. You don’t walk around naked, and hold others responsible for seeing you that way do you?”

“Then I ask you to keep it to yourself.”

Desiree: “Are you sure? I am sure I could give you a few tips, from the things I have read from the missus.”

“Yes, quite sure.”

Desiree: “Your loss.”

Angela and Desiree then head into their room and I can’t help shaking my head… If keeping an eye on Bless wasn’t enough to worry about, I now got to worry about Desiree poking around in our heads as well.

I start to head to bed myself, but I notice that Bless seems to be calling for me down in the dungeon. I gave Lilah and the other bunnies a heads up, and told them to keep an eye on her as well, so I go to the dungeon core room first.

I don’t see any of the bunnies except for Lila and the three news ones, but that is due to the fact there is a new partition separating the bunnies’ bedrooms from the rest of the dungeon core room that hasn’t been there before.

The three new bunnies are lying on cots set up on this side of the partition and even though Levi and Lily seem to already be asleep, Leveret appears to be looking through [Menu]. Lila likewise is sitting in one of the chairs, and she is still not in her night clothes while looking over the dungeon.

“Is everything alright?”

Lila: “Perfectly fine, Master. We have had a group of adventurers stay overnight in the dungeon the last two nights, and with Bless now here we thought it would be a good idea to have someone keep an eye on things all night, just in case.”

“I guess that isn’t such a bad idea, but this isn’t going to put a strain on any of you is it?”

Lila: “I still got my day off today, so it shouldn’t be an issue, and we are discussing about making the addition of a night shift permanent once Lily is trained.”

“I am sure there isn’t much going on overnight, are you sure that is even necessary?”

Lila: “It is rather boring, but…” –She looks over to Leveret and speaks quietly enough that he can’t hear.- “With how much Lilah has taken a liking to Leveret I am not sure she is going to give him to Ceres when their training is done, so maybe with two new additions we can have a pair on the night shift to keep each other company.”

Leveret was lying in bed looking over [Menu] and that isn’t to say he wasn’t listening in on the conversation as well, but once Lila started speaking in whispers, it seemed to peak his interest even more, because he is making a bad attempt in trying to listen into the conversation while pretending not to.

“Well, I guess we will see. In any case, with you still keeping an eye on the dungeon it makes things a bit easier. It looks like Bless wants to speak about something, so if you will watch my back while I am down there I would appreciate it.”

Lila: “Of course.” –She then speaks to Leveret.- “And if you are not going to go to bed as instructed, perhaps you can come give me a hand watching Master’s back?”

Leveret’s nose twitches and he jumps from his bed to come sit in on of the chairs next to Lila while saying: “Don’t worry Master, we will make sure nothing happens to you!”

“Alright, but if you do stay up with Lila for a while, make sure it doesn’t affect your training with Lilah tomorrow.”

Leveret: “Yes sir!” –He says excitedly.-

I look down at the cord wrapped around my hand and then transfer down to the room that holds Bless. Once I arrive Bless quickly stops her movement, in which she was doing to get our attention, and sits back down on the floor.

Bless: “I thought you said you were going to keep an eye on me, I have been trying to get your attention for at least thirty minutes!”

“It hasn’t even been half that… Besides I said I would try to make things a bit more comfortable for you, but you are still a prisoner, and I am not at your beck and call.”

Bless: “You call this comfortable? I have been sitting on this cold hard floor for hours, with this dragon breathing down my neck!”

“You have been silent up till now, so whose fault is that?

I don’t know exactly how strong Bless was before joining the traitors, but I do know she was still leagues stronger than I am, so there is no telling how strong she is now. I don’t want to risk giving her a weapon even if it is makeshift from something I have given her, so I am hesitant in summoning anything in for her.

I don’t want to have to huddle on the stone floor either, so I summon a light straw mattress and a few blankets. It is not exactly luxury, but it will at least let her get off the floor.

Bless: “Really… That is it?”

“I think I preferred you when you were silent. Look, I can’t risk you putting me or anyone from my dungeon in danger, so this is the best I can do.”

She gets up moving over to the mattress, wraps herself in one of the blankets, and then plops down on it.

Bless: “Is the dragon really necessary? I can’t exactly go anywhere, and all its snarling and rumbling growls are going to do is keep me from being able to sleep!”

The dragon isn’t a rift monster, so I store it away in my crystal for the time being freeing up half the space in the room, and Bless seems genuinely surprised I removed the dragon from the room.

“There, that should make things a bit more comfortable for you.”

Bless: “You are awfully accommodating for someone who is just going to kill me in the end.”

“I’m not. As I said I have no control over what happens to you after this, but I can at least make sure you don’t have to suffer all the way up to that point.”

Bless: “Why not just let me go then? I will be out of here, and you won’t even have to think about me again.”

“And you will what, release Madam Erin and her dungeon?”

Bless: “Just like you I have no control what happens with Madam Erin next.”

“Well I’m sorry, but the traitors can’t be left alone after all they have done, and it was your choice to help them.”

Bless: “You know as well as I do the Elders were a bunch of lazy murderers themselves, you can’t tell me that the dungeon cores are not better off without them.”

“And what about the hundreds of other dungeon cores they killed in the process?”

Bless: “I don’t understand how it works, but he had too. To break the rules of [Menu] he has to kill other dungeon cores to make it possible, and if it gets rid of the Elders it is worth any cost.”

“As long as it isn’t you, is that it?”

Bless: “It doesn’t matter if the Elders are out of the way, if I am not here to see it…”

“I am not sure how the Elders operated in the past, but I do know the Elders are responsible for quite a few dungeon core deaths, but it is nothing compared to the number of dungeon cores the traitors have killed, so how are the traitors, the one that leads them, or you for that matter, any better for killing all those dungeon cores?”

Bless: “The purge was what put the Elders in power to begin with, so it only makes sense another one will be what it takes to get rid of them. We might lose a lot of dungeon cores in the process, but after the Elders are gone we can start to rebuild without being under their thumbs.”

“You are just trading the Elders for the traitors, nothing would change.”

Bless: “He has no plans on leading or controlling the dungeon cores. Once the Elders are dead, and a few other dungeon cores that could stand in the way, he will see to it that everything will go back to a time before the elders were put in charge, and then the “traitors” as you called them, will disband.”

“How can you trust him to follow through with that, and even trust your crystal to him when you don’t even know who he is?”

Bless: “Just because I don’t know who he is, that doesn’t mean I don’t know what he is planning. The copy of Barry’s dungeon, having me try to take over Madam Erin’s, even those rings were first made in an attempt to pose as another dungeon core to take over their dungeon. They were all ways for him to see if it is possible to become a dungeon core, because he isn’t one himself.”

“You don’t even think he is a dungeon core? He has already achieved so much, and has shown no hesitation in killing dungeon cores to suit his needs, so if that is true, what would stop him from taking the Elder’s place once they are gone?”

Bless: “The reason he has no desire to take their place, is because he has his sights set much higher than that.”

“And what exactly is that, become a god…?”

Bless: “Why not? Dungeon cores were always meant to be a replacement for the gods when they took off, but [Menu] severely limited our potential.”

“You’re more delusional then I thought, if you think he can become a god…”

Bless: “Honestly, I don’t, but that doesn’t matter, because that is what he believes, and he will die trying, so as long as he takes care of the Elders in the process, that is all that matters to me.”

“And the other traitors? Are they going to be content with all that power they have obtained since they joined him? What is to stop them from replacing the Elders when he doesn’t?”

Bless: “I don’t know the details, but he has a plan for that as well. To move up to their level within the group they were made aware that the power they were gaining was only temporary.”

“If becoming a dungeon core is what he is after, I could make him one…but after all the dungeon cores he has killed, and even the humans that have been affected by his actions. I can’t accept what he has done to get there.”

Bless: “Can’t accept it? You’re not free of blood on your hands yourself, Elder Two-Twelve. For whatever reason he wants you to remain alive, but you are starting to sound a lot like the other Elders, so if you don’t watch it, he may change his mind.”

“You told Dyson of only one connection to the traitors, are you saying you learned all of this from that one other dungeon core?”

Bless: “Of course not. You don’t think after all I have been through that I would give into Dyson’s torture after mere minutes do you…? I just told him what he wanted to hear, and he hungrily ate it up just as planed!”

“You don’t expect me to believe that this was all planed out, do you? What if Dyson killed you after torturing you?”

Bless: “I have to admit, arriving at your dungeon wasn’t part of the plan, but as long as I hold Madam Erin’s life over Dyson, he wouldn’t kill me until he knew for sure. I am sure he is meeting the welcoming party right about now, if he hasn’t been killed already. We haven’t gotten a notification bout his death yet, but I guess we wouldn’t, would we?

I quickly try to send a message to Dyson, but to no surprise I don’t get a response.

“Where did you send him?!”

Bless: “Where was it now…? –She says with a smirk while huddled in her blanket on the floor- “Was it to dungeon core #502…? Or was it dungeon core #107? It must have slipped my mind…”

I try Dyson again, but I am still not receiving any message. If things got too rough he could have used the justicar’s teleporting ability, so surely he is still ok… It has gotten late already, but I send a message to Lucille and Laura as well.

“We are not done here!”

Bless: “Well you know where to find me!” –She says as I transfer from the room.-

Lucille and Laura are not responding either, but even at the best of times, they still take forever to respond, so I send a message to Ceres as well. She responds in almost an instant, and tells me to meet her in the room our dungeons connect.

I quickly transfer there, but still don’t beat her, as she quickly asks me what is going on. I fill her in on the details I heard from Bless, and try sending another message to Dyson, Lucille, and Laura.

“We can’t afford to lose Dyson and Madam Erin… We have to do something.”

Ceres: “I agree, but what? If I could have just spoke to Amaterasu or Tsukuyomi perhaps I could be more help.”

“Lucille and Laura still aren’t answering. I hope that doesn’t mean they are under attack as well… I don’t think we have any choice other than waking up Akil. I don’t care if he leaves the dungeon at this point, as long as he helps us…”

I transfer Ceres and myself to Akil’s room and even though his wing is still covering his head I hear a deep sigh come from underneath it, and it isn’t Akil snoring…

“Please we need your help!”

Akil: “Do you have any idea what time it is…?” –He says poking his head out from under his wing.-

“I’m sorry, but this is important.”

Akil: “You seem to think everything is important.”

“It isn’t only Madam Erin that is at risk, but Dyson as well, we can’t afford to lose both of them to the traitors.”

Akil: “I already told you how to take care of matters.”

Ceres: “Regaining my powers, even a small bit of them, is no easy task…”

Akil: “No one said it was easy, but it is hardly impossible.”

Ceres: “My siblings won’t even meet with me, so if I can’t even get them to do that, how am I supposed to convince them to lend me some of their power?”

Akil: “I never said you had to acquire it by persuasion.”

“We can’t fight any of Ceres’s siblings if that is what you mean…”

Akil: “Not many mortal weapons could hurt one of Ceres’s kind, even the sword of Exeter or Dyson’s blade would be as effective as a dull kitchen utensil, but Ceres alone if proof when fighting among themselves they are quite vulnerable.”

“I don’t see how that helps…”

Akil: “The ones that have died, had their power return to the pool, but if they lived through the encounter, then any pieces of them left behind, might just have enough power to get you through this situation.”

Ceres: “My clothing, bandages, and rags Two-Twelve used to care for me when I arrived in his dungeon injured might have worked, but the power in my blood dissipated when I became a dungeon core.”

“If not your power, then how about some from another one of your siblings?”

Ceres: “That would be like finding a needle in a haystack. We would have a far easier time trying to convince one of my siblings to help us!”

“Not if I already know of such an item… Not that I could ever afford it, but I can even summon it with my dungeon.”

Akil: “There is not much I’m unsure of, but the ability to copy one such item in your dungeon is one of them. It would depend on multiple factors, on one hand, if you copied the item and it pulled power from the pool then you could only create more so long as there is power in the pool, but on the other hand if it doesn’t pull power from the pool it wouldn’t really be a copy, just an item mimicking its effects.”

“Everything I have copied with my dungeon has at least been of equal quality of the original, and sometimes even better, but the original would be much easier to come by, because there is no way I could come up with 150 million xp to recreate it.”

Ceres: “What exactly are we talking about here?”

“Belphegor’s left eye, dungeon core #521 Tom has it. Although when I learned to copy it, I not only learned it but also learned to make items from godly quality. What if we summoned a much cheaper item while applying the godly quality, do you think that would work?”

Akil: “A copy of the eye itself is questionable, so I highly doubt it would work. After all, an item containing a god’s power will always be an item of godly quality, but not all items of godly quality will contain a god’s power.”

“Although Belphegor’s left eye seemed to carry a heavy curse, and that is the only reason Tom hasn’t used it yet.”

Akil: “That is because that power is only meant for the gods, but Ceres was once a goddess herself, so the question is, will the eye recognize her as such, or treat her as the dungeon core she is now.”

Ceres: “I can’t say that I relish in the thought of putting anything of Belphegor’s in my body, but are we even certain Tom still has this Belphegor’s eye?”

“I know Dyson showed interest in acquiring it from him, but as far as I know Tom still has it. It has already become quite late, but there is a way to find out.” –I say while sending Tom a message.-

Akil: “Now, will you leave me in peace?”

“I can’t promise we won’t be back, but if this works and we manage to save Madam Erin, and Dyson. I will let you sleep as long as you like!”

Akil: “I will remember you said that.” –He says burying his head back under his wings.-

Ceres and I then transfer from the room, and we wait a while but still haven’t received a response from Tom, Lucille, or Laura.

“I don’t want to just [Gate] to Tom’s dungeon without his knowledge, but if he doesn’t answer, we might not have a choice, because if Dyson is still alive, I don’t know if he can hold out until morning.”

Ceres: “We can’t afford to fight Tom right now either, it may be risky, but we may have no choice but wait for morning.”

I send another message to Tom stating how urgent it is that we speak with him, but after waiting a bit longer for a reply we are left with no other choice.

“I will wait till morning, but if we don’t receive a reply by then we are going to have to risk angering Tom by showing up on his doorstep uninvited.”

Ceres agrees, and we make plans to meet back in a few hours before heading home for the evening. I’m going to have to explain things to Belinda, but she is already asleep by the time I make it home, so I set [Menu] to wake me early in the morning and try to catch a few hours of sleep.