Chapter 48.1 - Building Lynnria

This chapter ended up running fairly long (around 6.2k words).  Still going to keep it to 5 subsections, though.  So they'll be a little bit beefier this time.

Cheers!

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I ran a thumb over the polished surface of the Key thoughtfully.

It was green this time, rounding out the colors mentioned in the three-by-three riddle.  Further, the hidden safe Jax had unlocked had turned out to also contain a trio of yellow, hexagonal prisms.  With the blue ones still tied to Lynnria’s waist, we had now assembled two-thirds of the puzzle pieces we needed to complete this Dungeon.

The pattern being what it was, this Key should eventually lead us to a trio of green prisms, however I was not altogether certain why we might need them.  We had sort of… brute-forced our way through large swathes of the puzzle already.  However, Xhinn’s hint had led us to this latest batch, so I had to assume they would still be of some use.

“I still says it were the door with them two Mina birds on it,” Jax groused.  For the third time.

Mina birds, at least from the depiction I had seen, kind of resembled ravens except they had a quasi-dimetrodon-like ridge of feathers running from the base of their beak all the way down their back.  Though, if they were even black, I had no idea.  It had only been a wood carving.

“What do Mina birds have to do with needles?” I asked.

“They… collect shite.  And needles is shiny.  I guess,” Jax said, clearly grasping at straws.  “But there ain’t no clearer sign of misfortune!  Seen a pair the morning afore I were bound, I did.”

Arx turned to affix Jax with a scandalized glare.  “And that was unfortunate?”

“Course not, ye crusted arsepiece,” Jax shot back.  “It were me mates what had the poor time of it.”

I sighed, dismissing the current door to seek out the next.

After recovering from my fall—with magical assistance, of course… and a bit for Lynnria while I was at it—we had elected to explore one of the hallways extending from either side of the entry door.  The structure extended in an apparently straight line without any sort of obvious end… until it disappeared over the horizon.  Which is not a thing I had ever imagined possible for an indoor area.

But here we were.

Meanwhile, the hall seemed divided into subsections rather like an open apartment complex.  Periodically, a window would appear—each looking out onto some strange, illogical vista and each completely different from the last.  In front of the window, there would be a small collection of furniture arranged into a little social nook.  Then, on the opposite side, there would be a door, each of which featured a Keyhole directly in its center.

The implications were obvious: pick the correct door.

And with the way Keys tended to work, I doubted we would have more than a single guess.

“So many puzzles,” Lynnria groaned as we briefly paused in front of yet another.

This one did not feature any of the more obvious decorations many of the others did, however from the claw marks liberally gouging its surface, it looked to have been attacked by a bear.  Unfortunate?  Arguably. Needler?  Bit of a stretch.

I continued on.

Lynnria audibly pouted, likely from being ignored.  “Seriously, does no one else wonder why this Dungeon has nothing but mazes and puzzles?  Where are all the monsters?”

“That golem not good enough for you?” I asked absently.

“That wasn’t a monster!  It was an obstacle, and if we’d had any choice in the matter, we’d never have even tried to fight it.  There was no way we could have taken that thing without the pill you had stowed, and even then we barely survived.  We should be rolling in Gems of Power and treasure by this point.”

She paused for a moment to shake out her legs, grimacing.  “All we seem to do is walk and think!  I hate thinking.  I had enough of that from my tutors.  And my calves are killing me.  How do you two walk around as if nothing is bothering you when we can’t even put our heels on the ground?  Especially with… with those massive… things on your chest!  You can’t tell me your backs aren’t in agony.”

Jax responded to exactly none of that and instead turned to me.  “Master, yer pet be hungry.”

“I am not!”

“Do you really think they’re massive?” Arx asked, predictably latching onto the most superficial portion of Lynnria’s diatribe.  Her face contorted into a thoughtful frown while she hefted them underneath an arm.  “They’re still barely even big enough to extend past my wrist.  Dearest, can you see them from behind?”

She turned away quickly and reached up to grab at her horns, then shook her front from side to side.

“Yeah, a little.  Especially when you jiggle them like that,” I reported.

Arx twirled back around, grinning from ear to ear.

“Quit showing off, ye bloated cow,” Jax protested, though her heart was not in it.  “And ye are so hungry.  We been walking for near on two hours.  I can feel it starting to gnaw at ye.”

Arx was still too elated to rise to the admittedly weak provocation and instead pranced over to ruffle Lynnria’s hair.  “Pity she can’t feed properly yet.  With all the fun earlier, I’m still brimming with Energy.”  Tail wagging mischievously, she presented herself to the younger woman.  “Are you sure you don’t want some?  It’s right there for the taking.”

From her expression, you would have thought Arx had just offered Lynnria a dead rat she had picked up from the floor.

“Must you be so vile?”

Jax rolled her eyes.  “Master…?”

I sighed, still too engrossed in the puzzle—and still too thoroughly sated—to be in a mood for handing out blowjobs.  However, like any good shepherd, it was my responsibility to tend to my flock.  The Dolilim had their needs.

Turning, I twisted my belt to one side, exposing my already rising member.

Whatever front she was putting on vanished the instant Lynnria laid eyes on it, and she practically launched herself toward me, her padded knees sliding across the polished floor as if she had just scored a match goal.  I was in her mouth not an instant later, and she began to work at me—a lamb at her mother’s teat.

From her complaints earlier, I had thought she might need some comfort but ultimately decided against it.  Her mood needed a bit of a lift.  This, I decided, was to be her happy time.

“She were right about one thing,” Jax mused—from her tone, thoughtful.  However, she and Arx were watching the proceedings like a pair of hounds during meal prep.  “Me claws ain’t pierced no lick of flesh since we got here.  Be thirsting fer Life now.  Can feel it, almost.”

“It’s not like there have been no monsters,” I said over the suckling noises.  Jax had said something about seeing them in her section, I felt sure.  “Is it really so uncommon?”

“I’ve been in my share of puzzle-heavy Dungeons,” Arx replied.  “But one with no Gem rewards?  Completely unheard of.”

“Hmm.”

It was an interesting observation but, like so many of the ones we had made, it was not one we could do much with.  What were we supposed to do?  Form up a picket line?

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Man... given my subscriber trends over the last couple of weeks, I'm guessing you guys did not much care for that last chapter...