Chapter 36

I'm not sure how long I slept but when I woke up I saw Torien sitting in the corner sharpening her knives. I woke up feeling a little cramped with Bella holding on to me from the right and Morrigan holding on to me from the left. Looking down at myself I noticed how much taller I was than the both of them. I decided I was feeling pretty uncomfortable now that I was awake so I gently slid out from between them, getting a bit of a grumble from Morrigan in response.

I quietly stretched out now that I was free from the cuddle pile on the too small mattresses before sitting down near Torien. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Eh, not too bad. It looks like I rolled off the mattress and slept mostly on the floor though," she said with a grin.

"It looks like the girls decided to use me as a Teddy bear last night, I woke up stiff as a board."

"Teddy bear?"

"Oh uh, stuffed animal?"

"Mmm" she nodded. "You say some weird stuff you know."

"Yeah, I know," I said smiling.

"While I'm glad you're getting along with my sister, I hope you can keep some distance. She has a tendency to get heartbroken pretty easily. And you already have Bella."

"...So you know then?"

"Know?"

"Never mind."

"That my sister likes girls?"

"I-... She doesn't think you know."

"She doesn't? Hmm, it's so obvious to me though. She hides it pretty well from most people but she gets all awkward and fidgety. I even know her type."

There was a quiet pause. "You two should probably talk about it." I looked over to confirm Morrigan was still asleep. "She- She's afraid of you abandoning her over it."

Torien's smile fell. "You think so?"

"She told me last night. She opened up to me a lot since she knows that I like girls too."

"...I see."

"I told her you wouldn't though. I can tell you love your sister a lot, I didn't think something like that would come between you."

Torien's smile returned, though not as strong as before. "Thanks, I'm glad you think so. I promise I'll talk to her about it soon."

I nodded. "So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Do you like girls too?"

Torien leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "I've never really thought about it much. I'm not like Mori that gets crushes everywhere she goes. I think some girls are pretty and some guys are handsome but I never really pictured myself with any of them. Honestly, I'm just trying to do everything I can to keep my sister safe. I don't really have time for crushes."

I laugh, "It's not like anyone ever really has time for a crush, they just sort of happen. Still, I'll tell you the same thing I told Morrigan last night, I'll be here for you whenever you need it."

"Sure, same here. We're a team after all."

I hold my hand out, "Team?"

"Team," she says shaking my hand.

Torien goes back to sharpening her knives for a while before looking back at the bed. "Do you think we should wake them soon?"

"Mmm, I dunno. It's hard to tell time here so I think maybe we should let them sleep as long as they need it. I don't really need much sleep in the first place so it's hard for me to gauge how much other people need."

She nods. "Sounds good then, we're already gonna be late when we get back, probably shouldn't rush too much. I just hope we can get out of here in one piece, we're probably near the end of the dungeon but the enemies in the courtyard were strong."

I start practicing some light magic while we wait, just trying to draw lines in the air using light manipulation. "The enemies in the next part of the dungeon are mimics, as far as the stories go, they can look like just about anything. We'll need to be careful for the next stretch. Also, yesterday Morrigan was moving around a lot of fire aspect mana, I'm concerned about the flammability of the area as well."

"Magical fire behaves a bit differently from traditional fire. It can still spread like a normal fire but it's pretty easy for Mori to pull the aspected mana out of the fire and extinguish it nearly instantly. The only real concern would be if there is something like oil or tar around."

Morrigan sat up so quickly it startled me a little. "Mmm, someone's talking about magic," she says groggily while rubbing her eyes.

"I was just telling Lilith not to worry about you lighting the whole dungeon on fire." Torien had a cheeky grin on her face while looking at me.

"Mmm maybe I should if she thinks so lowly of my [Magic Control]."

"Nah it's fine. Torien was just telling me about how magic fire works, I never knew you could just pull the fire aspected mana out afterwards."

Morrigan looked at me. "Your skillset seems all over the place Lilith. You are clearly more than just a sword fighter, but you have weird gaps in your knowledge of magic despite having some skill with it."

I tap my fingers on my bag. I really want to divulge more about myself but I don't feel safe telling people my secrets if a potential owner orders them to spill it. At this point I'm probably dead set on buying out their slave contracts if I can but I don't know if I'll have the resources to do it yet. I'm crossing my fingers I can get enough from selling Bitch but I have no idea what'll happen with that.

"I might tell you more about myself later, for now lets just focus on the dungeon."

Morrigan nodded stiffly, perhaps she feels like she overstepped her bounds. Maybe she did, but I find it hard to fault someone for noticing the weirdness surrounding me. Adding Torien and Morrigan to my party permanently will help me shore up a lot of my gaps in knowledge if I'm able to tell them more about myself later.

I decide that I want to keep moving. As much fun as it is to hang out and chat, I'd really like to get out of this dungeon now. It's probably not that time sensitive but I'd like to get back to town shortly after Bitch's auction if possible.

I kneel next to my sleeping deer girl and kiss her gently on the forehead. Bella's eyes flick open and she smiles warmly up at me before returning a peck to my cheek.

"Good morning Lilith."

"Morning sleepy doe. It's time to get moving. I think we're going to go crazy if we have to stay in this dungeon too much longer."

Bella sits up and stretches before flattening out the wrinkles in her adventuring dress. "I feel pretty well rested, it's probably good to get up."

"Should we all have breakfast then?"

Bella and I look at each other before I reply, "You two go ahead. We don't usually eat much in the morning."

Torien frowns but just shrugs and splits up some rations between her and her sister.

"Oh hey, we found a fancy bathroom yesterday! We should probably check for mimics but it'll beat going in a corner," Morrigan proudly mentions.

"Lets hope the Toilet isn't a mimic," Torien says while tearing off a piece of her salted jerky.

"Can they do that?" Morrigan asks looking at me.

"Uhm, maybe? We should definitely check before we sit down on it though."

The four of us finish packing away our things and tidy up the little safe room before getting ready to open the door.

"We probably shouldn't split up this time, and we're going to have to check everything to make sure it's not a mimic. Do you think I should just poke everything with my sword?"

"I could probably use fire magic, there seems to be a lot of ambient fire magic in the mansion-like hallways for some reason."

"We'll give it a try."

I opened the door to the hallway and almost directly in front of the door was a table with a very familiar candlestick looking very obviously out of place on the dresser covered in knocked over and scattered bottles.

I point to the candlestick. "Mimic."

Torien starts to pull together ambient fire magic but before she could cast anything the candlestick starts running down the hall full bore.

"Shoot, how did they recognize me so easily?" said the mimic running down the hall.

The four of us looked at one another in shock. Morrigan lets go of all of the fire magic. "Did that monster just speak?"

"Is that even possible?" Bella asks.

"Intelligent monsters are extremely rare... They're not always hostile but when they are it's a huge problem. This dungeon just keeps getting worse and worse."

"We were already planning on destroying this place, does an intelligent monster change anything?" I asked.

"No," Torien said. "Intelligent monsters are so rare that it's more than likely the only one in this dungeon. If the monster is hostile then it's kill on sight."

"What if it's not?" Bella asked.

Torien fiddled with the pommel of her dagger in its sheath. "Some people would still kill it on sight but it's okay to reason with it if possible. It living inside a dungeon that we plan to destroy creates a problem though. It might not want us to kill the dungeon but since it has demons in it, this dungeon is absolutely destroy on sight."

"Sooo, we should try and talk to it then?" I asked.

Torien sighed. "Gods this dungeon is turning into a headache. I don't know if it's a good idea. If it takes issue with us destroying its home then it could turn hostile immediately. If it doesn't it might go loose into the wilds and who knows what'll happen. But if it's too strong it might need the ambient miasma of the dungeon to survive and it'll have no other choice but to turn hostile. I can't make this kind of decision."

I bit my lip in thought for a moment. "I think we should try to reason with it. I might have a way to help it leave if it comes down to it." Morrigan gives me an interested look but doesn't say anything. Instead she just creates a half-dozen fireballs that slowly circle her staff similar to the icicles from earlier.

Walking down the hallway is a lot more tense than it was the first time we were here. Before it seemed as if there were no enemies so we just walked casually while looking around. This time everything looked like an enemy. Morrigan had her fireballs flowing around touching anything that looked suspicious to her, which was almost everything. A few things caught fire but to my relief Morrigan pulled the mana out of the fire quickly before anything happened just like Torien said. 15 minutes later and we hadn't come across any more mimics despite there being clutter all over the place.

"Where did they all go? Are there really that few?"

"Aside from the talking one we only know of two for sure, one was the candelabra that you fought, the other was the mattress that ran away."

"Are we sure the mattress wasn't the talking one?"

"...no."

As we continued down the hallway Bella just froze in place. I turned to look at her in concern but didn't see anything wrong.

Bella rushed up to me and whispered into my ear, "D-did that candlestick watch us having sex too?"

I also froze. Wait, The first time I saw that peculiar candlestick was in the room we had sex in. "I- I don't know..."

Bella's ears turned red and she stomped ahead of us. Well, it seems exhibitionism isn't one of her kinks. ...Though with this series of events it could happen. I'll have to keep an eye on her.