Epic 246

I meant to get this done for fri/sat, apologies for the wait! Hope you all had a great time and are staying warm

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tOWimmhZ80ddprVx4Tqili6hZ0AAKFu9rs14yBFZlF0/edit?usp=sharing

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Delta was surprised when Alpha came to her with a request. 

He wasn’t usually one to ask for much so when he did, Delta dropped most things to pay attention.

She put away her plans for the fourth floor for a moment, letting them settle to the side as she looked over the remaining islands still unfinished and the half formed ideas attached to each of them. Most of the work ahead was structural rather than creative now, finishing the set, refining the rules, then connecting all the islands cleanly to the end goal she had in mind. She flicked a translucent display to the left, watching a stream of orange particles reorganize themselves into a neat list of inventory items.

No one had yet reached her core hidden in the sky, but instead of discouraging challengers, that fact seemed to drive them harder. Each failure only sharpened the obsession, turning the dungeon into a growing dare. It reminded her of a wager left unattended, a pot of spoils swelling larger with every attempt that fell short. 

The longer it stood undefeated, the more reckless the next challenger became. 

They treated her ‘carefully’ tuned obstacles like a puzzle box that just needed a bit more shaking. Since her dungeon ensured that every fall ended in a survivable bounce or a gentle teleportation out if things got lethal, the visitors were beginning to act with a frantic lack of self-preservation. She watched through a hovering projection as a group tried to stack themselves into a human ladder to bypass the Mudroom on the First Floor. Their wobbling efforts were charmingly absurd. 

“A stick?” Delta asked. The question just sort of sat there between them, sounding a little more ridiculous every second it went ignored.

“Well, not just a stick,” Alpha admitted. He smoothed a piece of paper against his leg, his frown deepening as he went back over the lines. The handwriting was a mess, letters all squashed together like the writer had been in a huge hurry to get the words down before they vanished. The corners being slightly charred hinted at Quiss’ influence.

Alpha held the paper with a lot more intensity than it probably deserved. He looked back up at her. 

“It’s meant to be important. I think. The description keeps using words like foundation and focus.” Delta watched him struggle with it, noticing how much pressure he was putting on himself to find the right object.

Delta leaned forward to scan the lines, her eyes following the frantic tilt of the script.

‘A wizard’s basic equipment.

Magic. One can be wise in magic and do many fringe elements of magic, but without the innate ‘touch’ of magic, you cannot be a wizard. The difference of siphoning power from outside versus outside. Borrowed magic works well until it does not, usually at the worst possible moment.

Wizard name: Pull from a Wizard’s hat, only done for mature and trained wizards as they help complete their identity. Students or the unprepared will get blank pieces of paper. A hat cannot tell you who you are, merely what you’ve shaped so far. Hats have been blamed for many things, including poor handwriting and disappointing results, but are rarely at fault.

A can-do attitude: Wizard see problem? Wizard make problem go away in spectacular fashion. Said fashion depends on the Wizard. Explosions counts as spectacle if it works and no innocent is on fire afterward.

A focus: A wand, gem, symbol, tome, familiar, tragic back story, song, boots, or best of all, a staff. A Wizard without a focus is like a storm when you really just need a light. A focus doesn’t remove your ability to use magic without it, but it does help you understand the spells you cast much better. A doctor uses instruments to understand health, a wizard uses random pieces or objects to know magic..

Any will do, but a proud wizard will have a staff.’

Delta finished reading and stared at the paper for a moment. She kept coming back to the part about why a staff was supposed to be so much better than a wand. Maybe it was just about having something solid to lean on when things started exploding?

The list of focus items was particularly baffling, and she found herself trying to figure out how a tragic backstory could be swapped out for a pair of boots in a pinch. It was a very weird set of rules, especially with Quiss’ weirdly specific defense of a hat's integrity. 

But magic was weird and Delta didn’t make the stuff happen outside of her blessings.

She looked at Alpha, who seemed to be taking the "spectacular fashion" requirement very seriously.

“Quiss was quite intent on a staff. Seth tried to argue for a wand, but Quiss threatened to make him sleep in Mrs Dabberghast’s garden and he went quiet after that,” Alpha mused. He gave a small shrug, as if this sort of outcome was predictable once Quiss entered a discussion. 

“They did seem to have a rather strong opinion on the better tool,” Delta recalled. The memory of their visit still carried the scent of ozone and the sound of frantic wings from when Quiss was nearly made bald by the Pygmies. That visit had gone wrong fast, voices raised, furniture moved, and a lot of shouting from very small people. Queen Lizzie the Bee Queen still seemed to flutter at the mention of Seth, hovering close whenever his name came up, curious and bashful in equal measure. 

Alpha kept pacing Fran’s room, boots scuffing lightly against the floor as he turned the idea over in his head. He looked at the walls, the ceiling, anywhere but Delta. He was moving with the restless energy of someone trying to outrun a choice. Every turn he took brought him back to the same spot in the sand, his eyes darting toward the corners of the ceiling as if a solution might be hiding in the shadows.

“So, you want a stick from the dungeon?” Delta asked, her avatar floating along aside Alpha as he paced Fran’s room. She kept her tone level, as if she were asking about spare tools rather than magical equipment.

Alpha nodded slowly, trying to look nonchalant. He was playing it cool, but the way he avoided eye contact suggested he knew exactly how weird this sounded.

“I would take any, but Quiss and Seth both said I would ‘know’ when I found the right thing,” Alpha said. He waved his hands as if the shape of the answer might appear between them, then stopped when nothing did. He looked at his empty palms for a second, looking a bit disappointed that a legendary staff hadn't just materialized out of thin air to save him the trouble of looking.

“Wasn’t Gamma meant to be ‘suited’ for you?” Delta asked curiously, mostly wondering how their systems were behaving.

Alpha shook his head, a quick shiver running through him. “I don’t think I could walk down the street without wanting to disappear if I had to wield Gamma. Gamma has no inside voice so if they think something, they say it. They do not seem to care about how most people take it.” 

It was easy to imagine the public embarrassment that came with Gamma's total lack of a filter. They were teasing, to just the short point of being mean, but always teasing that line.

Alpha paused, frowning as he searched for the right words. “They like to push people. Not to be cruel, I think. More like they want a reaction. Like if they upset someone enough, it proves something about being human. Like they still know people.”

“Gamma has been at this longer than the rest of us. People have spent years turning them into a legend or a warning, usually depending on which side of the fight they were on. It’s hard to think about how many people looked at Gamma and just saw a weapon they could point at a problem. They just expected Gamma to keep swinging, like it didn't cost them anything to stay in the thick of it,” Delta said, thinking of the expectations put on her as a dungeon, so she could only imagine what Gamma had experienced. 

Delta gave Alpha’s arm a small, grounding nudge.

She stayed close as she spoke, voice steady. “We can try to understand what happened. We can learn what we can. But we can also stick around and show them they are not on their own anymore. Pushing people away is how Gamma dealt with everything piling up. You did something like that too when you shut down inside your system.” She watched him, seeing the way the comparison landed. 

Alpha winced, his shoulders hunching as he looked away from her. 

“We can’t go back and undo what happened to Gamma,” he said, his voice barely more than a murmur. He let the silence hang for a few seconds before adding, “can we?” He looked like he was bracing for a 'no' that he already expected.

“Even if we had that kind of power, I don’t think it’s our place to just wipe out Gamma’s history. Doing that just so we feel better or get the ‘old’ version back isn't fair. It definitely isn't healthy to treat someone's life like an edit,” Delta said. She dipped her head, moving into his field of vision to catch his worried look. She gave him a bright, encouraging smile to break the mood.

“What we can do is drag Gamma along on our adventures, and bring Deo and the rest of the group into the mix too. They can help show Gamma that being so distant isn’t the only way to survive anymore. We just give them the space to figure out how they want to fit into this new world,” she explained.

Alpha blinked, looking a little surprised by the suggestion. He stopped fidgeting and actually looked at her. “So we just… make room for them?” he asked slowly. He looked like he was trying to visualize what that actually meant in practice.

“We make a home and keep a room ready for whenever they're tired of being alone,” Delta corrected, clearly satisfied with that plan.

“But we can deal with all that later, we need to find you a magic stick!” she decided. Her mind was already racing through the different biomes she had built, weighing the thick vines of the Jungle against the glowing spores of the Mushroom Grove. She considered the rocky outcroppings in the Troll territories and the manicured, quiet corners of the third-floor Garden.

There were definitely a lot of places for a stick to… stick out.

“You are chuckling to yourself,” Alpha said. Delta quickly smothered the sound, smoothing her expression into something that looked professional and focused. She tried to look like a dignified architect of a massive dungeon instead of someone far too easily amused with themselves.

“Let’s stick our noses to the ground and get hunting,” she said, pointing toward the staircase leading down to the second floor. Alpha stopped and stared at her, his expression going completely flat as he processed the second joke in under a second.

“You can’t help it, can you?” he asked, though his voice had lost its heavy edge. Delta gave a casual shrug, her grin widening.

“Nope, the jokes just stick to me,” she said. Alpha shook his head and walked on without waiting for her to finish. He moved toward the stairs with a determined stride, leaving her behind in the center of the room.

“Alpha? It wasn’t even that bad! Wait for me!” Delta cried, her avatar darting through the air as she chased after him with a broad wave of her arms.

---

“Dragons… dragons…” Cois muttered. He used his staff as a machete, shoving aside thick, oily reeds and weeds that seemed to grow back the moment he passed. The secret garden wasn’t a garden; it was an overcrowded field of life that wanted to eat him up and spit him out Goblin gum.

It was a chaotic soup of environments that made no sense. Burning coals sat right against frozen rocks, and stormy cliffs nestled against patches of warm, drifting sands. Navigating the place was a nightmare because the space was so warped. If you took one wrong turn, the path behind you simply stopped existing, and you’d find yourself turned about so fast it was almost insanity. The air itself felt like it was trying to fold in on the people walking through it.

Cois didn’t believe in going insane. In his mind, that was a luxury for weaker beings who couldn't handle a bit of geographical instability. He just adjusted his grip and kept his eyes on the shifting mana currents.

But still… he’d like to find some primordial fire to study soon. He was tired of the humidity and the smell of wet earth. He wanted something that burned with enough intensity to actually challenge his focus.

“This could be useful,” Fera announced. She didn't wait for an opinion, just leaned down and chopped a tuft of coarse hair off a sleeping monster. The creature was a round, massive thing with bony tusks and a long, twitching tentacle where a nose should be. Its grey, rippled skin looked as tough as old leather, layered in deep folds that seemed to trap the heat of the garden.

It had huge ears that fanned out over the dirt and small, knowing eyes that stayed shut, but still felt like they were watching. Fera called it an ‘Elephont’ or something equally ridiculous, but Cois knew better. To him, it was a master of evil. It didn't have to attack; it just stayed still and seemed to… remember things. That thought alone made Cois shiver. 

Fera didn't care about its memory. She looked right at home in the middle of the mess, moving through the shifting climates with a bossy, efficient energy. She was busy chopping, collecting, and hunting, filling her sack until the seams started to groan. She was clearly planning to condense it all down into some foul liquid she’d eventually force someone to drink.

The idea of drinking anything made from the hair of an Elefat sounded too rough for Cois, but Fera wasn't the type to take suggestions. She threw the hair into her bag and kept moving, her flat tone making it clear that her collection was far from finished.

“I’m looking for a powerful dragon, not some oversized brute,” Cois complained, his voice sharp with irritation. He wanted something with dignity, something that matched his own magical standing. Fera didn't bother looking at him; she just reached out and plucked a glowing red lizard off a stone. The creature was literally smoldering, radiating enough heat to singe fabric, but Fera held it with the casual grip of a dungeon chef who spent her life elbows-deep in magical ovens.

“Scales? Check. Breathes fire? Check. It’s a dragon,” she said, her tone as flat as a kitchen counter. Cois stared at the tiny, smoking reptile for a long, quiet moment.

“It doesn't have wings,” he finally pointed out, certain he had won the argument. Fera just sighed and manipulated the lizard’s limb, stretching out a thin, veiny membrane designed to catch rising heat and funnel hot air. It was built for flight, even if it wasn't impressive.

“Dragons are supposed to be big!” Cois countered, his pride refusing to accept a dragon that could fit in a soup pot.

“Size queen,” Fera muttered, rolling her eyes. She tossed the lizard back onto its rock with a dismissive flick of her wrist, already bored with his standards. She didn't look back as the little creature scurried off, her mind already moving on to the next ingredient she could harvest from the muck.

Cois let out a long sigh. He really should have brought one of the other Goblins along for this trip. Numb was always reliable bait when things got hairy, and Billy actually knew how to keep his mouth shut. Being stuck with Fera's flat-toned bossiness was starting to wear on his patience.

He came to a halt in front of a strange, fallen log that looked like a massive pink ringed vine. It was blocking the only clear trail through the muck. Cois tried to nudge it out of the way, but the thing was surprisingly heavy, anchored by a weight he hadn't anticipated. 

He set his jaw and grabbed hold of it with both hands, putting his back into the lift. He wanted to make sure Fera saw that he had plenty of brawn to go along with his looks, smarts, and magical talents. He managed to heave the mass to the side, standing tall and dusting his palms with a smug bit of pride.

That satisfaction lasted about a second. The pink thing suddenly recoiled, the entire length of it sliding back into position with a wet, heavy thud. It caught Cois square in the back on its way down, nearly knocking the wind out of him as it settled right back where it had started.

“You dare! I am the mighty Cois and I shall cook you!” he warned, raising his staff before Fera very calmly put a hand on his shoulder. Her grip was firm, grounding him before he could start throwing mana at the scenery.

“Don’t,” she said. Her tone was soft—the clearest sign of something dangerous lurking about. When Fera dropped her grumpy attitude and became quiet, it was never a good sign. The air in the garden seemed to go still, the humidity thickening into a heavy, suffocating silence.

Cois slowly turned around to see a massive furry face peering out of the reeds. It was a nightmare of mismatched parts: crimson glowing eyes, teeth of gold that glinted in the dim light, whiskers of silver and moonlight, and a crown of bone fused into its skull. Tucked back into the reeds was the rest of that massive, pink-ringed tail Cois had just been wrestling with.

A Rat King.

“How welcome it is for food to come to me for once,” it rasped, the sound like dry parchment being torn. It made a delighted noise, its gold teeth clicking together.

“...You’re not a dragon,” Cois announced. The threat of being eaten seemed to take a backseat to his disappointment. There was a long, heavy pause.

“Dragon?” the King asked, tilting its crowned head.

“Drag on th—”

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“Hm, the jungle wood is okay,” Alpha said, weighing a branch in his hand. But Delta was distracted by something like karma running through her system. A sudden, sharp sense of... earned punishment.

She was sure it was nothing.