Chapter 133

"Lilith! Are you okay?" Mimi rushed to my side and looked over me. My entire right side hurt, no way that's not going to bruise. Good thing one of my lovers is a healer.

"I'm okay Mimi, just a little bruised up. What happened?" I asked shaking my head. "I didn't see what hit me."

Mimi's cat ears went back and she looked guilty. "Whatever happened to the room sent you flying at me. You slammed right into me without moving. My body is so dense you just bounced right off..."

I gave her a reassuring smile and pulled her into a side hug with my good arm. "Don't worry Mimi, it's not your fault. We weren't sure what was going to happen."

She wrapped herself around me, luckily her arms wrapped around my hard cuirass otherwise I'd probably be wincing from how hard she was squeezing my bruised side. "I'm glad you're okay. I... I don't know what I would do if I hurt you..."

I kissed her forehead. "It's okay Mimi, it was an accident and more my fault than yours. Now let's get to Bella, I could use a bit of healing."

I limped over to the doorway of the office with Mimi's support. I was feeling pretty beat up from running into Mimi at like, forty miles an hour or something. No wonder I felt like I had been hit by a truck. Mimi opened the door to reveal a line of guards with raised spears. They seemed to be ready just in case something they weren't expecting came through.

The moment Jasper saw me he ordered the guards to back off and move out of the way for us.

"Lilith! Are you okay? What happened?" Bella came over and began to fuss over me, her fussing always made me smile. Since I was only banged up, rather than bleeding to death, I was able to appreciate how cute she was.

"I'm okay Bella, just a bit bruised up. I think the space we were in shrunk back down as soon as Mimi took care of the knot of stagnant mana." I pat Bella on the shoulder to reassure her a bit.

Morrigan rubbed her chin. "The spatial expansion in the room collapsed instantly? Strange, did the spatial expansion effect go back to normal instantly because the dungeon hadn't completely formed yet? Or was this spatial expansion actually unstable? I don't know much about spatial magic so wouldn't know what to look for."

Bella ran her diagnostic magic through me and nodded. "Mostly bruising, there's some internal damage but nothing I can't fix." I felt her magic seep into me, it made my body relax and I leaned harder against Mimi. It felt like dipping into a hot spring. Once the healing finished I stood up and stretched. There was a bit of fatigue in my muscles but I was only feeling a bit tired now, not like I had been stepped on.

"Thank you Bella and thanks for helping me over here Mimi." She smiled and hugged me again in response, relieved that I was feeling better.

Torien was peeking into the empty room but turned around after only a quick glance. "Whatever was in the office before is gone now, the room is empty."

Jasper stepped past us and into the room to look around. "That's a shame, I would have liked to bury the Baron and secure some of his documents. It seems his body was consumed by the... dungeon-like space that had once been here."

Morrigan looked around. "Now that you bring it up, the Miasma has reduced to almost nothing. The concentration of miasma had been much higher even out here in the hallway but now most of it has faded after Mimi uh, dispersed all of the stagnant mana."

"What's that mean?" Jasper asked.

Her eyes scanned the hallway. "It means there won't be any more areas like the one we fought the dullahan in and there's not much demonic miasma left here either. We haven't searched the lowest floor of the castle yet but I doubt there will be many, if any, demons left at all. Contrary to what you would normally expect."

I tilted my head. "Why would we expect there to be demons on the lowest floor anyway?"

Jasper raised an eyebrow to my question but Morrigan didn't notice and explained. "For two reasons, demons tend to prefer hiding in dark quiet places, like the banshee we found in that basement yesterday. Demons also like to congregate around suffering, the theory goes that suffering creates small amounts of miasma that demons find appealing. Naturally, the dungeons in the bottom level of the castle would attract any demons that would be here normally."

I noticed that when she said dungeons that time, their actual word for it was different. Dungeon in the sense of prison is a different word from the explorable monster-killing spaces I think of as dungeons. I've been hearing them both as 'dungeon' though so I have to focus on the context. My concept of dungeons in video games is so strong to me that my [World Traveler] title is translating it that way automatically.

Morrigan continued, "Maybe the presence of the... proto-dungeon was attracting the demons away from other places in the castle."

Jasper tapped his foot. "We'll still have to check that area to properly clear out the entire castle. But it would be nice if what you say is true and we don't have to face any more powerful demons. The last two were challenging."

Morrigan straightened up. "Oh of course, I wasn't suggesting otherwise, just that we can expect resistance to be lighter."

He nodded. "Good, is everyone ready to move then?"

I was about to nod but a sudden thought popped into my head. "Oh, where did you take that woman we found up here? That attendant, the malnourished one?"

"A couple of my guards are watching over her like you asked, why?"

"Do you think you can arrange to have her kept near Nathaniel once we've finished up here?" I asked.

"Why Nathaniel?"

"I think she might have information that would be of mutual interest to the two of us. I don't want her to disappear once we're done here."

His brow furrowed. "Very well, I'll relay the orders. I find the request a bit suspicious but I agree that Nathaniel would be interested in someone who managed to evade the demons for this long and had been there when the men in black brigandine attacked this place. Regardless, I would like to get moving."

Jasper began to walk away and I let him get some distance between us before gesturing for the rest of my party to follow. All of us knew where we were headed, having passed the door, so this would be a good moment to regroup with my team.

Silva came up next to me and spoke quietly, "Whatever caused the proto-dungeon to form erased any clues we could have found on his body or in his journals."

I sighed. "I know. That's why I don't want that deer attendant of Fae's to escape."

She shook her head. "I don't trust that guard captain. Are you sure it's wise to trust him to manage her?"

"...I don't know what to think about him but I trust your instincts on something like this. That said, we don't have much of a choice. It would be weird if we tried to drag a malnourished woman through the dungeons and I don't want her to slip away when no one's looking. Having him take her to the priest would at least make sure she's accounted for." I scratched the base of my horn, this whole thing was making me anxious.

"What about the priest then? Do you trust him?" Torien asked.

I shrugged. "I haven't seen a reason to distrust him and he is looking into something for me. The only reason I might not want to share what she knows with him is that I would have to explain how I know that she's probably involved in all of this."

Silva's eyes narrowed. "This Order of Lilith? I thought it was a strange thing to ask for. Why are you interested in this anyway? Just because you share the name?"

I rubbed my eyes, trying to gather my thoughts. "Where I come from my name has significance. I didn't choose the name randomly, the name is related to succubi as a concept." The words I spoke made me furrow my brows once I heard them out loud. "...I named myself this before I knew I was a succubus. I suspected as much right from the start but... It's odd, the name just popped in my head when someone asked me for it the first time ...but before I knew for sure."

"Perhaps it's fate then." Morrigan's interjection made me pause.

After a moment I waved it off. "Coincidence more like. Actually more like an educated guess."

Morrigan shook her head. "No, I meant literally fate, as delivered by the goddess Moira. It's been said that she personally intervenes with the destiny of notable and important mortals. You've been noticed by at least two gods already, Moira the goddess of fate and future could have reasonably known of you before even them. Names have power, she could have guided you to choose an appropriate one for the future she sees for you."

I closed my eyes. Morrigan was starting to sound more like a priestess than a mage... However, when you had tangible proof of gods, it was harder to dismiss things as superstition. Still though, fate as a religious domain? Wouldn't everyone start attributing everything to her?

I shook my head. "We're getting off-topic, I trust the captain and priest to keep Matilda around. For their own interests, if not mine. With that much negative karma, I don't see how she wasn't involved in this attack somehow. Unless we find something in the dungeons, we don't have any other leads on the people in black brigandine."

"Alright." Silva nodded and left it at that.

Shortly after our conversation, we made it back to the door that led down to the dungeons. We were lagging behind so much that the door had already been opened and a trail of guards were headed down the stairs in front of us. The door housed a square staircase that spiraled around the rectangular room down the four floors.

About halfway down the stairs, I smiled wryly at the thought of an elevator. Two floors, stairs are fine, three, maybe I take the stairs, four, elevator for sure. I was surprised to find that I wasn't winded at all by the time I reached the bottom. None of my friends had any more trouble than I did with their magic-enhanced bodies either. Even the ten points in endurance you get for unlocking the stat made a huge difference. The guards weren't phased at all either but they probably had actually invested in the stat and surely had some kind of training regimen as well.

I looked around. The first room was an area with some small offices. It wasn't until further in that we started to see iron bars sectioning off some of the rooms. Contrary to how I would picture a fantasy prison dungeon, most of it was built from solid stone rather than the rusty metal cages I had pictured. There were still iron bars but they were mostly reserved for doors and inside walls of the small chambers, much like a prison from my home plane.

The miasma in the area was low as we expected so I wasn't feeling particularly on edge. It wasn't until I started smelling the decay of rotting flesh that I started to become concerned. After a while of following the guards, I spotted Jasper speaking with the fox woman we had fought the dullahan with.

He noticed me approaching right away and nodded to the woman who walked off before I got there. I also noticed she had kept that monster's bone whip. It was still hanging from her belt, I wonder if it was magical. There probably should have been a discussion about splitting spoils but the dullahan was the first thing to drop something that I wasn't particularly interested in. I'd rather leave it be, seems better not to rock the boat.

"Lilith," Jasper greeted me.

"What's happening? Did you find something?" I asked.

"Demon wise, surprisingly no. All of these bodies here were former prisoners that died in their cells because they weren't being fed, luckily the dungeons weren't very full up. They haven't even become zombies. We did find another survivor though, a demi-human man in his thirties. There's no record of him being here though and from the look of it, he wasn't with the men in the black brigandine, so we don't know what to do with him."

"He's not a prisoner?" I asked.

Jasper shook his head. "As far as we can tell no but without any records, we have no idea if he can be trusted."

"I think I can help, can you take me to him?"