"What is it?" asked Cluma.
"It's the core of a dungeon," I answered. "Inactive at the moment, but there's something like this on the bottom floor of every dungeon."
"Wow, we can make a new dungeon with it?"
"No!" snapped Lily, causing Cluma to jump.
"This is a memento of the earth mother," I explained. "We can't treat it casually. In any case, the hour is up. We need to regroup with Krana."
"Already? It can't have been an hour yet," said Cluma, who of course had lost half her time here to memory wipes.
"I'm afraid so."
With our time up, we returned to the entrance, where Krana was already waiting.
"You are late," he stated. "And you are together. Does that imply success?"
I held up the orb in evidence.
"That is it? I sense no power from it."
Krana stared, presumably using that rank five insight skill of his, before nodding. "That is indeed the item I was bidden to seek. You have my thanks."
"What did you want it for?" I asked. "It's not alive in any way, there's no mana running through it, and it's completely inert."
"I am simply fulfilling Erryn's request," he replied, taking the core from me and holding it protectively in one paw. "What of your own task? I believe the slime stated you wished to search the place for something to help a pair of twins?"
I frowned, and felt my costume ears trying to flop over, failing miserably given that my helmet was holding them pre-flopped. "I found a solution, of sorts. It would certainly help with their problem, but I would prefer a solution with less impactful side effects."
"You speak without providing information. Elaborate on what it is you search for, and perhaps I can offer my aid."
"Sorry, but that's not possible."
Krana frowned, but there really wasn't anything I could do. "Then at least let me warn you that once we depart, the door will be forever closed to me."
Drat... So it was a password, and it was single use! I'd already placed a teleport beacon, but given how effective the exterior walls were at blocking mana, I couldn't rely on being able to [Redistribute] to it.
"Lily, did you..."
"Nope," she answered before I'd even finished asking. "I can't help. And I'm still not convinced I should even if I could."
Even bringing me here was a radical departure from her previous stance, so I suppose I should be thankful for that much. Thinking about it logically, looking at my map was no use. It was written pre-Erryn, and didn't account for her use of the space. She wouldn't have made any sort of human-accessible interface, because she didn't need it. If it did have a physical location, it was likely to be either something like the System, or else something like the constructs in the floor of the room in which she'd placed her core. Perhaps those constructs were the Law. If they were, I'd never understand them within my lifetime. It was unlikely that searching this place further would reveal anything new.
"If you leave, does the door lock, or is it fine as long as there's still one person in here?" I asked Krana.
"Access will be maintained until all have left," he answered.
Why did Erryn go into so much detail on that letter, but not mine?! Then again, she gave him all that detail on how to get in here, without actually mentioning where 'here' was. Dammit Erryn! How can a chunk of crystal be so annoying? But at least that meant I could ask the twins if they wanted to be cut off from the System, as long as I left someone here to hold the door open. But I had no teleport point there. Which meant the fastest method would be Krana.
"Krana? Could you fly me and Cluma to the Sapphire Peaks, so I can talk to the twins, while Lily waits here to keep the door open?"
Lily responded before Krana. "No way. I'm not staying here on my own."
Drat. I could see why she wouldn't want to, given the bad memories the place had, but me and her were the only ones who could walk around the place freely. Cluma could find the control crystal and get stuck in a loop again or something. All I needed to do was break my promise and use our soul bond to force her... "Okay, never-mind then. Hopefully, I'll be able to teleport in, or find some other method of entry later."
"What if I stay with you?" offered Cluma, which was a whole different can of worms from either of them remaining on their own. Watching the interactions between Cluma and Lily was one thing, but leaving them alone together seemed far more dangerous.
"Umm... I think I could cope with that."
"The Sapphire Peaks are a considerable distance from here. You wish me to fly you there and back, yet you insist you cannot inform me as to why?"
"You wouldn't have to take me back," I corrected, plucking out a lump of flesh and tossing it out through the doors before hiding it in its own little pocket dimension. "But yes, I'm afraid that there is a reason why I can't give you the details."
ding
Skill [Shelter] advanced to level 5
Oh, nice. That one had been lagging behind [Detach] and [Redistribute].
Krana was frowning again, but I had a secret weapon to deploy. "I believe there are equally reasons why you haven't told us the true reason Erryn asked you to retrieve that core."
No way had Erryn asked him to do nothing but 'protect' it. It was safer in here than anywhere, rank five dragon or not. There had to be another reason. He hadn't lied, but he was certainly hiding the full contents of that letter.
Krana unscrunched his muzzle with a sigh. "That is fair. Come; I shall carry you."
Lily wasn't complaining about him hiding things, despite her strong connection to Erryn. Maybe he'd told her before I'd arrived, and it was just me and Cluma he was hiding it from. Either way, I followed him out of the passage, and once more mounted the dragon express, destination: the Sapphire Peaks.
We reached the towering pillar of rock an hour later, and I was thankful I'd kept the scrap of paper with the coordinates in my [Item Box]. From the sky, I'd have had no idea which of the peaks to aim for without it. Saying that, even if I could follow [Clock] to the correct peak, I still had no idea of the cave I needed to aim for. Aside from the first time, I'd always teleported straight in. And given the vertical nature of the terrain, I couldn't easily hop off and look.
"I'm not sure which cave it is," I admitted. "Can you fly a loop around, and I'll keep an eye out." Or a something, anyway. Given that I could happily sense mana with a toe, sensory organs were obviously not required for the skill.
ding
Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 10
"That one," I called, having spotted the twins.
"Then I shall depart to my own lair," said Krana, after placing me down in the cave. "Fair thee well."
"You too," I called, watching him fly off. I wasn't the only one; as might be expected of fifteen metres of dragon, he'd attracted quite an audience during his flyby.
Tirrani was in the cave, and had already spotted me somehow, in the same way as she had on my first visit. I saw her making her way towards the door, albeit this time not bringing the twins with her. It had been a long time since she'd felt the need to keep a constant watch on them.
And watching them through [Mana Sight], it finally struck home what I was doing here. I was going to have to tell them about the soul erosion, and that if left alone, they'd lose at least a portion of their free will. And I was going to need to admit that I'd known that for a while already.
It was not a task I looked forward to.
I replaced my lost teleport beacon and shielded it with [Shelter], before making my way to the front door, meeting Tirrani as she opened it.
"Who? Oh, Peter!" she exclaimed. "I didn't recognise you in that getup. It's good to see you again. I wasn't expecting you to risk the journey for a few more weeks."
"I cheated," I admitted. "A dragon gave me a lift. Much easier than climbing."
"A dragon? You never do things by halves, do you? Is that why you're armoured? Are they still here?"
"No, he was in a hurry to get home. He just dropped me off on the way. And I'm armoured because I came via a dungeon." Although with my sword-staff, I could have made a cool armoured dragon rider. If not for the mismatch between my size and his, anyway. And my complete inability to ride in any pose other than 'clinging on for dear life'.
"Then come on in. Dennacta has been desperate to show you his progress."
And progress it was. The twins were a little under half a year old now, and both could write clearly. Not just in English, either; they'd learnt the alphabet of the local language over the winter, and although rougher than their English, they could still hold a fluent conversation. Harpy biology meant they were still far from speaking, but they weren't letting that get in their way.
I never did find out how feeding time worked for them, but given that the home had a relatively normal toilet, they probably did have to suffer through diapers. At least I wasn't completely alone in that particular shame.
Alas, I didn't have long to catch up, if only because I was worried about Cluma. "There's actually an important reason I came today," I said, wanting to get it over with. "I have... bad news."
The twins looked at me quizzically, as did Tirrani. Ideally, I wanted to send Tirrani out, but that was only for my own peace of mind. It wasn't necessary, since she wouldn't remember the conversation.
"Remember I mentioned the Law. What I didn't want to tell you, because I didn't want to scare you, is that before Erryn sacrificed herself, she set up something to apply the Law to any new reincarnates. Each time you gain stats, skills, titles, or traits, it gets closer to affecting you. I've been looking for some way to protect you since then, and I finally found one."
Tirrani went blank, as expected. The twins glanced at each other before Tennacti started writing. It was nice that they trusted me enough that they weren't panicking, but once they heard what my solution would entail, that might change. And then I read what Tennacti had written.
"Thank you, but you should have said before. It wouldn't have worried us, and you don't need to protect us. It's a good thing."
"A good thing?!" I exclaimed in shock. They want to... No, they must have misunderstood. "(Are you sure you understood what I said?)" I asked in English.
"Yes," she wrote.
"But... I mean, look at your mum right now! She's not even allowed to listen to this conversation!"
Tennacti looked away, unwilling to look me in the eye, but Dirrana took over the writing. "We lived long lives on Earth. At first, they were happy, but things were taken from us. Things that couldn't be replaced. When you explained the Law to us, our shared thought was simply to ask why Earth couldn't have worked that way too. We understand that you, or even most people, would disagree, but to us, this world is a miracle. We've already discussed this with each other."
I stared in disbelief. I'd been murdered, and I still valued my free will. Although, I'll admit, perhaps that had some amount of influence on why I'd never been bothered by others being bound. But they were outright turning me down before I'd explained the downsides. I hadn't even explained that there was a downside. They wanted this.
"To be clear, if I could click my fingers and prevent you being affected by the Law, with no side effects or cost, you would turn me down? And you understand that this will cost some of your free will, and leave you with things you literally can't think about or imagine. You might even lose some of your Earth memories, if they aren't compatible."
""Yes,"" they both wrote.
"Our personalities will not change," added Dirrana.
"Forgetting would be a blessing," wrote Tennacti.
They thought their personalities wouldn't change, that the Law would only force them to take actions that they would have willingly chosen anyway. But wasn't it the choice itself that was important? I'd made assumptions again. Just like my assumption that had driven me to finding a way to teleport Cluma, I hadn't asked the opinions of the people that mattered most. I'd thought telling them would scare them, when in fact it granted them relief. I'd told Erryn I'd wanted to keep my memories of my violent Earth brother, and she'd been surprised. Was she the correct one all along? Was I the weird one for wanting to remember? Or had whatever happened to these two defeated them so thoroughly that any alternative seemed better?
I looked over them with [Soul Perception], and could see their growth, and the tightened chains. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. They were still unaffected so far, but how long for? At the current rate, it could easily be a decade or more, but once they started buying skills, the process would doubtless accelerate.
"If that's your decision, then I have nothing else to say. I've replaced my teleport beacon, so I can come and visit anytime, but for now, I need to get back to Cluma. I've left her alone with a rather unpredictable slime."
I left the cave in something of a daze. Of all the people I'd met in this world, I'd at least thought I'd be able to understand the thought processes of my fellow reincarnates. What happened to them on Earth to make them like that? Or was that just their natural beliefs? I felt a bit silly for worrying about them for all of winter, but as long as they were happy...
What an anticlimactic and unsatisfying end to my quest.
"What is it?" asked Cluma.
"It's the core of a dungeon," I answered. "Inactive at the moment, but there's something like this on the bottom floor of every dungeon."
"Wow, we can make a new dungeon with it?"
"No!" snapped Lily, causing Cluma to jump.
"This is a memento of the earth mother," I explained. "We can't treat it casually. In any case, the hour is up. We need to regroup with Krana."
"Already? It can't have been an hour yet," said Cluma, who of course had lost half her time here to memory wipes.
"I'm afraid so."
With our time up, we returned to the entrance, where Krana was already waiting.
"You are late," he stated. "And you are together. Does that imply success?"
I held up the orb in evidence.
"That is it? I sense no power from it."
Krana stared, presumably using that rank five insight skill of his, before nodding. "That is indeed the item I was bidden to seek. You have my thanks."
"What did you want it for?" I asked. "It's not alive in any way, there's no mana running through it, and it's completely inert."
"I am simply fulfilling Erryn's request," he replied, taking the core from me and holding it protectively in one paw. "What of your own task? I believe the slime stated you wished to search the place for something to help a pair of twins?"
I frowned, and felt my costume ears trying to flop over, failing miserably given that my helmet was holding them pre-flopped. "I found a solution, of sorts. It would certainly help with their problem, but I would prefer a solution with less impactful side effects."
"You speak without providing information. Elaborate on what it is you search for, and perhaps I can offer my aid."
"Sorry, but that's not possible."
Krana frowned, but there really wasn't anything I could do. "Then at least let me warn you that once we depart, the door will be forever closed to me."
Drat... So it was a password, and it was single use! I'd already placed a teleport beacon, but given how effective the exterior walls were at blocking mana, I couldn't rely on being able to [Redistribute] to it.
"Lily, did you..."
"Nope," she answered before I'd even finished asking. "I can't help. And I'm still not convinced I should even if I could."
Even bringing me here was a radical departure from her previous stance, so I suppose I should be thankful for that much. Thinking about it logically, looking at my map was no use. It was written pre-Erryn, and didn't account for her use of the space. She wouldn't have made any sort of human-accessible interface, because she didn't need it. If it did have a physical location, it was likely to be either something like the System, or else something like the constructs in the floor of the room in which she'd placed her core. Perhaps those constructs were the Law. If they were, I'd never understand them within my lifetime. It was unlikely that searching this place further would reveal anything new.
"If you leave, does the door lock, or is it fine as long as there's still one person in here?" I asked Krana.
"Access will be maintained until all have left," he answered.
Why did Erryn go into so much detail on that letter, but not mine?! Then again, she gave him all that detail on how to get in here, without actually mentioning where 'here' was. Dammit Erryn! How can a chunk of crystal be so annoying? But at least that meant I could ask the twins if they wanted to be cut off from the System, as long as I left someone here to hold the door open. But I had no teleport point there. Which meant the fastest method would be Krana.
"Krana? Could you fly me and Cluma to the Sapphire Peaks, so I can talk to the twins, while Lily waits here to keep the door open?"
Lily responded before Krana. "No way. I'm not staying here on my own."
Drat. I could see why she wouldn't want to, given the bad memories the place had, but me and her were the only ones who could walk around the place freely. Cluma could find the control crystal and get stuck in a loop again or something. All I needed to do was break my promise and use our soul bond to force her... "Okay, never-mind then. Hopefully, I'll be able to teleport in, or find some other method of entry later."
"What if I stay with you?" offered Cluma, which was a whole different can of worms from either of them remaining on their own. Watching the interactions between Cluma and Lily was one thing, but leaving them alone together seemed far more dangerous.
"Umm... I think I could cope with that."
"The Sapphire Peaks are a considerable distance from here. You wish me to fly you there and back, yet you insist you cannot inform me as to why?"
"You wouldn't have to take me back," I corrected, plucking out a lump of flesh and tossing it out through the doors before hiding it in its own little pocket dimension. "But yes, I'm afraid that there is a reason why I can't give you the details."
ding
Skill [Shelter] advanced to level 5
Oh, nice. That one had been lagging behind [Detach] and [Redistribute].
Krana was frowning again, but I had a secret weapon to deploy. "I believe there are equally reasons why you haven't told us the true reason Erryn asked you to retrieve that core."
No way had Erryn asked him to do nothing but 'protect' it. It was safer in here than anywhere, rank five dragon or not. There had to be another reason. He hadn't lied, but he was certainly hiding the full contents of that letter.
Krana unscrunched his muzzle with a sigh. "That is fair. Come; I shall carry you."
Lily wasn't complaining about him hiding things, despite her strong connection to Erryn. Maybe he'd told her before I'd arrived, and it was just me and Cluma he was hiding it from. Either way, I followed him out of the passage, and once more mounted the dragon express, destination: the Sapphire Peaks.
We reached the towering pillar of rock an hour later, and I was thankful I'd kept the scrap of paper with the coordinates in my [Item Box]. From the sky, I'd have had no idea which of the peaks to aim for without it. Saying that, even if I could follow [Clock] to the correct peak, I still had no idea of the cave I needed to aim for. Aside from the first time, I'd always teleported straight in. And given the vertical nature of the terrain, I couldn't easily hop off and look.
"I'm not sure which cave it is," I admitted. "Can you fly a loop around, and I'll keep an eye out." Or a something, anyway. Given that I could happily sense mana with a toe, sensory organs were obviously not required for the skill.
ding
Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 10
"That one," I called, having spotted the twins.
"Then I shall depart to my own lair," said Krana, after placing me down in the cave. "Fair thee well."
"You too," I called, watching him fly off. I wasn't the only one; as might be expected of fifteen metres of dragon, he'd attracted quite an audience during his flyby.
Tirrani was in the cave, and had already spotted me somehow, in the same way as she had on my first visit. I saw her making her way towards the door, albeit this time not bringing the twins with her. It had been a long time since she'd felt the need to keep a constant watch on them.
And watching them through [Mana Sight], it finally struck home what I was doing here. I was going to have to tell them about the soul erosion, and that if left alone, they'd lose at least a portion of their free will. And I was going to need to admit that I'd known that for a while already.
It was not a task I looked forward to.
I replaced my lost teleport beacon and shielded it with [Shelter], before making my way to the front door, meeting Tirrani as she opened it.
"Who? Oh, Peter!" she exclaimed. "I didn't recognise you in that getup. It's good to see you again. I wasn't expecting you to risk the journey for a few more weeks."
"I cheated," I admitted. "A dragon gave me a lift. Much easier than climbing."
"A dragon? You never do things by halves, do you? Is that why you're armoured? Are they still here?"
"No, he was in a hurry to get home. He just dropped me off on the way. And I'm armoured because I came via a dungeon." Although with my sword-staff, I could have made a cool armoured dragon rider. If not for the mismatch between my size and his, anyway. And my complete inability to ride in any pose other than 'clinging on for dear life'.
"Then come on in. Dennacta has been desperate to show you his progress."
And progress it was. The twins were a little under half a year old now, and both could write clearly. Not just in English, either; they'd learnt the alphabet of the local language over the winter, and although rougher than their English, they could still hold a fluent conversation. Harpy biology meant they were still far from speaking, but they weren't letting that get in their way.
I never did find out how feeding time worked for them, but given that the home had a relatively normal toilet, they probably did have to suffer through diapers. At least I wasn't completely alone in that particular shame.
Alas, I didn't have long to catch up, if only because I was worried about Cluma. "There's actually an important reason I came today," I said, wanting to get it over with. "I have... bad news."
The twins looked at me quizzically, as did Tirrani. Ideally, I wanted to send Tirrani out, but that was only for my own peace of mind. It wasn't necessary, since she wouldn't remember the conversation.
"Remember I mentioned the Law. What I didn't want to tell you, because I didn't want to scare you, is that before Erryn sacrificed herself, she set up something to apply the Law to any new reincarnates. Each time you gain stats, skills, titles, or traits, it gets closer to affecting you. I've been looking for some way to protect you since then, and I finally found one."
Tirrani went blank, as expected. The twins glanced at each other before Tennacti started writing. It was nice that they trusted me enough that they weren't panicking, but once they heard what my solution would entail, that might change. And then I read what Tennacti had written.
"Thank you, but you should have said before. It wouldn't have worried us, and you don't need to protect us. It's a good thing."
"A good thing?!" I exclaimed in shock. They want to... No, they must have misunderstood. "(Are you sure you understood what I said?)" I asked in English.
"Yes," she wrote.
"But... I mean, look at your mum right now! She's not even allowed to listen to this conversation!"
Tennacti looked away, unwilling to look me in the eye, but Dirrana took over the writing. "We lived long lives on Earth. At first, they were happy, but things were taken from us. Things that couldn't be replaced. When you explained the Law to us, our shared thought was simply to ask why Earth couldn't have worked that way too. We understand that you, or even most people, would disagree, but to us, this world is a miracle. We've already discussed this with each other."
I stared in disbelief. I'd been murdered, and I still valued my free will. Although, I'll admit, perhaps that had some amount of influence on why I'd never been bothered by others being bound. But they were outright turning me down before I'd explained the downsides. I hadn't even explained that there was a downside. They wanted this.
"To be clear, if I could click my fingers and prevent you being affected by the Law, with no side effects or cost, you would turn me down? And you understand that this will cost some of your free will, and leave you with things you literally can't think about or imagine. You might even lose some of your Earth memories, if they aren't compatible."
""Yes,"" they both wrote.
"Our personalities will not change," added Dirrana.
"Forgetting would be a blessing," wrote Tennacti.
They thought their personalities wouldn't change, that the Law would only force them to take actions that they would have willingly chosen anyway. But wasn't it the choice itself that was important? I'd made assumptions again. Just like my assumption that had driven me to finding a way to teleport Cluma, I hadn't asked the opinions of the people that mattered most. I'd thought telling them would scare them, when in fact it granted them relief. I'd told Erryn I'd wanted to keep my memories of my violent Earth brother, and she'd been surprised. Was she the correct one all along? Was I the weird one for wanting to remember? Or had whatever happened to these two defeated them so thoroughly that any alternative seemed better?
I looked over them with [Soul Perception], and could see their growth, and the tightened chains. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. They were still unaffected so far, but how long for? At the current rate, it could easily be a decade or more, but once they started buying skills, the process would doubtless accelerate.
"If that's your decision, then I have nothing else to say. I've replaced my teleport beacon, so I can come and visit anytime, but for now, I need to get back to Cluma. I've left her alone with a rather unpredictable slime."
I left the cave in something of a daze. Of all the people I'd met in this world, I'd at least thought I'd be able to understand the thought processes of my fellow reincarnates. What happened to them on Earth to make them like that? Or was that just their natural beliefs? I felt a bit silly for worrying about them for all of winter, but as long as they were happy...
What an anticlimactic and unsatisfying end to my quest.
