Chapter Fifteen

Three, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang’s restaurant, New York City, Day 66

“How about this?” Three asked, carefully constructing a tall corridor that, higher up, opened up into one larger chamber, gradually getting better at it as it practiced.

“No, its too small, it needs to be about… twice this size I think” Ms. Winters replied.

“You’re twice as big as you were, the whole point of me carving out what you remember of the outside here is so you can train for a return, it should be properly sized. What’s next?” Three asked.

After looking around the few short segments of imitation alleyway, Ms. Winters selected a junction and began to instruct Three on what to construct further, and this continued on for several hours, gradually carving out a cavernous chamber around a few branching paths, with little metal stairs anchored here and there with balconies every floor. By that point however, Ms. Winters couldn’t remember any more, so that’s what they were left with. Three continued to refine the construction long afterwards, moving the entrance to a tunnel emerging from an appropriately sized hole as its own entrance.

While it was distracted however, it sensed its creator trying to establish a telepathic connection, and continued its work until she forcibly established the link once again. Three stopped working before she could screw it over again, waiting for her to start the conversation, and was surprised, “Hello, Three, how are you doing?”

Suspicious, but hopeful, Three answered “Hello, creator, I have been modeling the lands above with the help of my creature, so that it may learn to seek out more creatures for me.”

“Creator? Why’d it call you creator, Nature?” came a cheerful and energetic voice down the connection, “Didn’t you bother to introduce yourself?”

“O-of course, it just calls me that because it loves me so much!” Nature replied, voice shaking, “Right, Three?”

“Not really.” Three replied, to a sharp gasp and some laughter and chuckles coming down the connection, “Hello, friends of N-” Three began to call its creator’s name, only to feel a sharp pain, clearly Nature did not want it to name her, “my creator.” he finished with a frustrated sigh, “who might you be?”

“Hello, Three, I’m Despair, one of Nature’s fellow gods,” answered Despair, in a kindly old voice.

“You can call me Sun,” responded Sun, in a strong, masculine tone.

“I’m Storm! Your kitty is awesome!” Bubbled Storm, in a sweet, girly voice.

“Oh, really?” Three responded, surprised, “I know I only have one creature at the moment, I had to go into hiding and the other never returned. Ms. Winters made some mistakes, but made some pretty amazing progress recently, would you like me to connect him to the conversation?”

There was a collective gasp down the line, “You can do that?” Sun asked, seemingly stunned.

“Sure, go ahead, I’d love to talk to the big guy!” Storm replied.

Three momentarily started a telepathic conversation with Ms. Winters, saying “Hey, Ms. Winters? My Creator and her fellow gods just called, would you mind hooking up to this link?” he pushed a filament of the telepathic conversation toward the cat, who took a few tries but eventually got a hold of it and joined the conversation.

“Greeting, gods. Did you happen to have some reason to call upon my master? Three was in the middle of helping me prepare a training ground for another excursion to the surface, I made too many mistakes last time.”

“The surface?” Despair asked, “Is that how Ms. Winters has grown so much?”

Storm giggled, “Ms. Winters! I just noticed, he’s named Ms. Winters!” some other chuckles started coming down the link, causing Ms. Winters to tilt his head questioningly, “Hey, Nature, I think Three inherited your naming sense!” Full blown laughing began to come down the link.

“Um, what’s wrong with his name?” Three asked, concerned, “He’s had it as long as I’ve known him and I wouldn’t want it to hurt him.”

“Oh, you didn’t name him? Who did?” Sun asked, interested.

“Stan!” Ms. Winters answered, “I lived with him for years, but after I found Master, and came back on my excursion, he attacked me…” he stopped, too depressed to go on.

“Okay, Three, do you think you could explain to us what happened here?” Despair settled the conversation, “To be honest, we’re calling you because of Ms. Winters. We can get to the name later, but he is something we’ve been trying to accomplish with the help of our own dungeons and nobody has succeeded to nearly the degree you have, and we’d like to know why.”

“If you say so,” Three said, confused, but began to narrate his life story back to the spirits, with the occasional helpful interjection by Ms. Winters, and the occasional unhelpful interjections by Nature whenever it began bring up something she did, forcing it to continue on with its story without bringing the incidents up. He made sure to bring up his unusual starting state, lack of creatures, the arrival of Ms. Winters, the first exploration trip, Ms. Winter helpfully narrated what he remembered of the hunt, Ms. Winters bringing a human, analyzing her, saving her pattern in a mana crystal and channeling it into Ms. Winters, and then Ms. Winters’s unusual transition and training afterwards.

“Oh, boy,” Storm sighed when Three was finished, “That’s a bit of a mess.”

“Certainly, but the important thing is Three has a human pattern.” Despair said, “Would you mind giving a copy to us so that we can give it to the other dungeons and help them grow?”

Three pondered it for a while, before responding “I don’t mind, but wouldn’t it be better to create a repository of all patterns absorbed by dungeons and then give copies to each dungeon. I know most dungeons wouldn’t just create everything, but if a human pattern would be helpful, wouldn’t other patterns be helpful too? I mean, we’re already born with some patterns naturally, wouldn’t increasing that pool increase a dungeon’s ability to adapt and grow?” It tried to reason its response.

There was a long pause, before Despair responded “That would be wise, wouldn’t it? What do you think?”

“Agreed,” Sun said.

“Sounds great!” Storm replied.

“Isn’t my Three such a smart little dungeon?” Nature preened.

“So, it is unanimous then,” Despair responded, talking over an attempted interjection by Nature, “We will create a repository and redistribute patterns. Three, would you do the honors of being the first donor?”

Proud, Three channeled the standard human pattern it had obtained on the woman’s death through the link, and then asked a question that he was concerned over, “Now that that is dealt with, can you please explain what is wrong with Ms. Winters’s name?”

Storm chimed in her response, giggling between words, “Ms. Winters is a boy! His name makes him sound like he’s a girl!"

“What!” Ms. Winters exclaimed, “But I’ve been called that for years!”

“Didn’t Stan attack you?” Storm questioned.

Ms. Winters went quiet, stunned, “My life has been a lie,” he said, clearly distressed, “Stan has hated and mocked me my whole life…” after another pause to think, he suddenly sat up from his relaxed posture and said “Well, if I’m going to be different now, I’ll need a new name!” he decided suddenly.

“Ooh! Me! Me!” Storm cried through the link, “I’ve got one!”

“Uh, go ahead and suggest it?” Three asked, not having any good ideas itself.

“Winterfang!” She said, “It still has winter in the name, but now it has fang, referring to him being a cat, and it sounds more like a monster!”

“Oh, that’s cool! Yeah, I’m Winterfang!” Winterfang said, happily taking on the new name without a second thought.

“Well, congratulations Winterfang,” Three said to him, before returning his focus to the spirts, “Thank you for the name, is there anything else you would like to discuss?”

“Thank you for the human pattern and the suggestion, now, you mentioned you were injured…” Despair said, trailing off, waiting for a response

“Yes?” Three asked, wondering where that line of reasoning was going.

“We’ll donate the Miasma to repair your core, with that you should be able to make more progress,” He said, “Right, Nature?”

“Um-” Nature began, obviously having not expected that comment.

“Three has advanced our plans by a large margin, helping him to heal is reasonable,” Sun agreed.

“Yeah, let’s do it!” Storm said.

“Oh, fine!” Nature exclaimed from frustration, and Three felt the shackles on its miasma pool unleash for a moment as miasma surged down the link and into its core. Just before it had a chance to reach out and use it, everything went black and it sank into the darkness of unconsciouness as its core began to heal.