Chapter 209

◈ Chapter 209:

Rain eased down by the fire, crossing his legs on the fluffy white rug.

The first dozen monsters Opal brought in were, unsurprisingly, extremely unhappy about being there, and they visibly trembled as Opal made them approach him. One even letting out a small shriek and trying to flee before Opal caught them and redirected them back, forcibly making them sit near him.

In the end they all clustered around, some on the enormous couch, legs dangling, their feet not reaching the ground, others sitting cautiously by the fire, others kneeling unhappily. He did recognise one of them, the blue kobold called Beryl, the one with a talent for opening up levelers. She was sitting cross legged and avoiding looking in his direction. More fear.

Rain let out a sigh and one of them screamed in fright. He felt vaguely ridiculous like this, surrounded by those who thought he was about to tear them to shreds when really he just wanted to go take a nice bath.

But Opal had asked, and really, he didn't want to make her any more suspicious than she already was. She couldn't know that this wasn't monster magic.

He allowed the Skill to start, his [Home] Skill, letting loose his own lived experience into the room as a living breathing thing. The anxious sounds from the monsters started to change, a questioning murmur rising.

Beryl in particular looked around in alarm as the stone she was sitting on began to feel like a wonderfully soft rug, and the cold light of the fireplace became a crackling comfortable warmth, changing from whiter light to a soft glowing orange-red just as all other lights in the room dimmed, creating a comfortable and safe dark.

Beryl flinched as the sound of rain on a window pane came next and looked around in alarm, trying to locate the source of the invisible droplets, but it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, a soft pitter patter. There had been weather, of a sort, in the larger caves of the dungeon, but she had never heard the sound of it hitting glass, still she recognised it for what it was, and it was… comfy.

Despite herself, and despite being so near to what was certainly the most terror inducing monster she had ever seen in her life, she found her breath calming, her shoulders easing as the tension trickled from her body.

She vaguely recognised what was happening, this felt like, well, something alien to her, and she recognised the sensation wasn't her own… but all the same, she had never felt like this before, this level of safe loving security simply did not exist in the dungeon, there was nothing even remotely close to it. Her parents had died when she was young, killed by a hunting leveler when they were out foraging, her family had been her siblings, before they too had been killed by a panthara, but all the same they had never been close. Kobolds were closer than many monsters, but still not truly close, there was always a distance. She now wondered why that was, there had always been an internal wall that never came down with any of her sisters or brothers, she would never ever ever allow herself to be truly vulnerable around them, she would always have a claw or knife ready…

But here?

A droplet of water made a small noise as it hit the scales on her thigh and she looked down in surprise. Was that… a tear? What?

She gently moved her hand to her face and brushed at her eye. She found it wet, to her shock.

What?!

But then, she hardly felt capable of doing anything about it now as the tears came thick and fast, fat teardrops rolling down her scaled cheeks as she bawled her eyes out, desperately wiping at her eyes but unable to stem the tears.

Those around her too, monsters clutching at each other, sobbing openly, one wailing into a pillow on the couch, another lying flat on the ground as they covered their eyes with their hands.

It was like every emotional defence, every hard little wall and brittle shield built up inside to protect themselves had been ripped away leaving them brutally exposed, something that could have never happened in the dungeon, this level of open trust and familial safety simply did not exist.

She looked up, her eyes blurred with tears to see a mildly uncomfortable looking wolf monster sitting cross legged as a dozen monsters had full on emotional breakdowns around him. She wanted to grab for him, to shake him and make him stop, to make this stop. But she couldn't. She was naked before this. She had lived a life that provided her nothing to be prepared for this, and all she could do was fall, fall headlong into a feeling of infinite safeness, trust, and unconditional love. Which was quite an absurd thing to feel around this freaking monster of all monsters!

She wasn't sure how long it lasted, but at some point a hand touched her on the shoulder and she realised that she had curled up in a ball on the ground, her tail wrapping around her head.

The ground felt soft, and wonderful, and then it no longer felt quite so soft and wonderful and she realised she was lying on hard flagstones.

She jerked back and scrambled to her feet, frantically wiping her eyes in the process.

"I- I- Don't—"

"You don't feel as dungeony any more?" said Opal brightly.

Beryl stared at her. She had no idea what in the abyss was going on, but things did feel different, emotionally wrung out, the air was cool on her wetted eyes.

"What did you do to me?" she managed to croak.

"Nothing. You just experienced something I felt a long time ago." came a low rumbling voice, the wolf.

Beryl licked her lip and looked toward him. That was something this monster had experienced in the past? WHAT?! Beryl tried to imagine that in her head, she really did, this terror of a monster with its family, doing… loving family stuff… together… trustingly…

…

Nope, couldn't imagine it.

But… Maybe, maybe it was a little easier to look in his direction now without feeling like she was going to pee herself in fright.

Opal patted her comfortingly on the shoulder.

"This is a kind of monster magic to show what you've been missing out on by being all dungeonified, I, uh, think. But the point is, that you can now see that this is a real thing, and that means that you can try get that for yourself!"

"...m-me?"

"Mhmm! Now just imagine curling up with Red after jumping his bones and then lovingly falling asleep as you—"

"I can hear you!" came a squawk of outrage outside from a certain red kobold.

Beryl was having trouble controlling herself, and she couldn't prevent a blush coming to her cheeks hearing what the goblin girl was saying. Her! Blushing! She didn't blush! That was not a thing!

But still, she did, even as Opal shooed her away, and she was left to simmer with her own thoughts in what was apparently her new house, as mind breaking as that idea was.

The next group to get the [Home] treatment came and went, Opal herding the sniffling weeping monsters away as they clung to each other, shuffled out the door where they stumbled back to their newly acquired homes.

Rain did his best to ignore the sounds coming from around him as he relaxed in the spell himself, in fact he sunk so deep into his own meditation that it felt like it took no time at all to get through all the monsters.

Yet when he heard the last group, he couldn't help but open his eyes, turning his head to see…Ravoure, Triskian, and Quistis.

He tilted his head in question.

"It's not my idea," muttered Opal, "It's sheepy's."

"I just wanted to see if it had some effect" said Lyra quietly, "I've been watching monsters stumbling around crying their eyes out for the last hour, and well, it's not like levelers don't have their own traumas."

Quistis was frowning at Rain, as though trying to recall something. "This monster… did something to me…"

"Correct, and now it's gonna happen again, so sit you three," said Lyra.

The three levelers awkwardly moved over to the couch and sat down, Quistis in the middle with triskian on the left and ravoure on the right.

"I say is this really necessary, it's bad enough that you- you…"

Ravoure's voice trailed off as he noticed how things had already begun to feel different, in fact all three of the levelers were glancing around with a mild look of confusion, clearly unsure what was happening.

"Again… I thought it was just a dream…" mumbled Quistis looking around at the darkening room, the rising sounds, an unfamiliar feeling flowing into her.

"This is really quite strange," frowned Ravoure. "How is it possibly raining down here?"

It didn't take long for the effects to take hold. Of the three Ravoure seemed to be handling it by far the best. He simply wiggled and relaxed, closing his eyes with a content smile, far from any tears on his face.

Curious, thought Rain, his guess seemed to have been correct that this Skill was just unusually effective against dungeon monsters because of how dungeon monsters were. It did very little to a leveler with a comfortable life except make them more comfortable and relaxed.

But then he glanced to the side.

Triskian was clutching at Quistis's tail which was wrapped around his body as he silently wept, the name of the giant snake, Peirene, repeatedly mumbled. Quistis herself lay back on the sofa with one hand covering her eyes, her arm around Triskian, holding him tight. Surprisingly, she might have been affected the most of them all, although maybe that wasn't that surprising, from what he had seen life in Wranvyre's family was extremely cold. He pondered how much of an effect this Skill would have had on Rose…

…He also noted that none of them seemed to have realised it was a Skill and not some kind of monster magic. Perhaps he had been underestimating the rarity of the Skill, it was easily the rarest one he possessed he was sure, but perhaps it was far far rarer than that for none of them to have recognised it.

The spell eventually broke and Ravoure let out a wistful sigh.

"Well that was quite a pampering, although I'm not sure what I did that to deserve that, Quis-"

He turned his head to find Triskian and Quistis hugging in a deeply intimate way that was more than a little awkward to watch.

Ravoure coughed into his hand, "Uh right, uhm…" He fidgeted before hopping off the sofa. The motion seemed to snap the others out of their senseless state and they blinked and looked around in surprise, realised they were embracing, and jerked apart, eyes wide.

Lyra put her hand on her chin and looked between the three as they hurried out, avoiding each other's gaze.

"Hmm. A partial success then?"

"It will work on too few." growled Rain.

"Maybe, but then that's better than nothing."

With those last it was done, all the monsters had been given a taste of something they could not have imagined before. Rain had his doubts that it would make any difference at all, but Opal seemed to be happy about it, which was good enough for him.

He rose to his feet and cracked his paws, and then he went hunting.

Hunting for something very important.

That is,

A bath.

He passed into a hallway, and peeked through the nearest door. A large room with a long table down the middle… was this Opal's idea of a council? It seemed vaguely familiar and then he recalled something, it was almost like a smaller version of the council hall in Lynthia. The goblin girl had apparently taken note.

He moved onto the next door and peered through, and nearly fell as he found the floor did not exist. He looked down in surprise to find a room, or maybe a pit? Either way it had clearly been some kind of drawing room at some point, the remains of shattered chairs and desks and shelves lay at the bottom of what was, what he now realised, a room turned on its side. The wall across from him was made of floorboards, and below his feet a chandelier hung awkwardly from the wall.

Apparently Quistis had made some mistakes. Having a brain-damaged lamia build your town might not have been the smartest of ideas.

A terrible thought crossed his mind.

What if the bath was like this?

He rushed forward, checking door after door, until, finally, he found what he was looking for.

To his relief the bath house was completely normal and not sideways or upside down or anything crazy like that. Even better, the water had been heated by someone, likely Opal or Lyra, and steam rose from its surface, heated by what looked like a furnace at one end.

Of course a house customised to his size would also include a bath house customised to his preferences and an almost giddy sense of glee filed him as he stepped inside the great tiled room with a pool, like the mansion in Lynthia's except scaled up for his size.

He quickly stepped forward and without preamble sunk down into the warm waters, water washing over the tiles in a minor tsunami as he displaced it with a sigh.

Cleaning potions were one thing, but baths were baths. He'd built an ever higher appreciation for the things, even more so with access to cleaning potions, they just couldn't beat the feeling of a nice bath.

He soaked away the last of the aches and pains from his battle with Quistis like that, the weariness seeping from his muscles, recovering all but his partially charred lungs. He lazed like that for a time and then once content and refreshed he climbed free. He dried himself by the furnace, then shaking the last of the water from his fur he draped and wrapped himself in oversized towels and went in search of a room he had spotted on the way in.

As he approached, a gasp made him slow. A gasp that sounded decidedly feminine.

Brow furrowed, he prowled forward, pads coming down soft on the stone floor leaving slight wet prints until he came to the source of the noise, a door. He brushed his paw against it and it opened lightly, allowing sight into the room.

There he found Opal, spread eagled on a truly enormous bed and… completely stark naked.

His brow rose as Lyra raised her head from between the goblin girl's thighs, her chin slick with Opal's juices and dripping down onto her breasts.

"I- I didn't know you wanted this kind of thing when I said I'd make it up to you!!"

Opal stretched her hands over her head like a cat and let out a pleased groan, her back arching.

"You think I forgot about that one time at Wranvyre's sheepy? I didn't drink as much as you think I did, 'cause I remember everything… and what you could do with that tongue."

Lyra's mouth fell open in surprise, a lewd liquid string of Opal stretching between her lips.