As one might reasonably expect, these events sparked quite a lot of conversation. By which, I mean confused shouting. None of my corporeal companions had ever heard the true voice of a goddess, even if it was just a simple little chuckle. So they had not been prepared for the uncomfortable weight of Her attention.

Of course, I was hardly immune, but I was at least getting somewhat used to it. Some of that could have stemmed from my advancing Wisdom stat, though. Ahnbe had told me it was critical for anyone who wanted to look upon Her. I assumed that worked both ways.

Maybe that’s why Clerics need so much Wisdom in D&D. Gotta survive your deity cramming all those spells into your head every night somehow.

While the others ‘talked,’ I snatched up the Key and ensconced it within my Coin pouch. Then I gave the scraps of cloth a mournful second look. Attempting to make anything out of it would be a fruitless waste, but I simply could not shake the idea that there might be people out there!

I remembered some of the stares I had collected the last time I had been seen in public, and my Charisma had not exactly halted its advance. If I were to march out into the corridor with my dingus flopping around, there was a distinct possibility one of the Dolilim might kill someone.

That was my justification, anyway. So I set to tying.

“You’re certainly taking this calmly,” Lynnria said eventually. “That was a goddess just now. A goddess!”

It was an effort to school my face. We all had our own traumas to deal with, I was sure, and I did not want to appear too condescending. However, having experienced mental oblivion via divine congress, I was finding it difficult to sympathize.

“I try to keep busy. It helps to keep me from thinking about it,” I explained just as I was putting the finishing touches on my new garment. To be honest, the thing was more knot than belt, but I at least had a bit of a flap covering my package.

“I can still see the tip of yer banger, ye know.”

“Yes, Jax. Thank you,” I intoned flatly.

“At least he’s trying,” Lynnria said in my defense, doing her utmost to look at anything else. And obviously failing. “Which is more than either of you can say. How can you two can be so totally relaxed without a scrap of cloth on?”

Arx shook her head tiredly then turned to open the door. “Come on, Lesser. We’ve got Dungeon to explore.”

“You say that as if it means something,” Lynnria said, trying to be dismissive. However, I noticed her wince from unconsciously balling her hands into fists—and poking herself with her own claws. “Why should I be insulted by something Mia just made up?”

Jax just chuckled and threw a companionable arm around the young woman’s shoulder. “We’ll let ye know when ye can feed from more than knob.”

“More than—? Agh!” Lynnria quickly shied away from the redhead and bolted for the door. Pausing outside just long enough to shudder, she yelled back into the room, “I do not eat… those! And can you please not press your nakedness against me?”

Jax did not reply save to reach down and casually flip my flap, giving Lynnria a very brief flash of what was underneath. Despite it having been in full view—and conspicuously not—for the better part of the day, she still gasped on seeing it and took an unconscious step forward.

I felt for her. In that moment, we were kindred spirits. However, the cloth quickly resettled, and she seemed to realize what she had just done. Blushing scarlet, she turned and chased after Arx.

“You know,” I commented as we slowly made to follow, “she used to be so self-confident. She was determined to make me her lover from practically the moment we met. But now that I am, she can barely look at me.”

Jax chuckled. “Can’t say what it were before. Weren’t there, more’s the pity. But it ain’t ye she be feared of. Were it just the two of ye again, she’d be on ye like fleas on an arse.”

“Maybe if you’d quit teasing her, she’d stop being so intimidated.”

“Ah, but that be her place, ye see? She knows it, too. Deep down. Instinct-like. But it ain’t one she be used to. That’s got her flapped. Not just me having a bit of harmless. That one can scarce control it when she looks on ye. Scares her.”

The door slammed shut behind us, as if to punctuate her words, followed by the sound of a deadbolt heavily sliding into place. I had to hope we would not need the room again. We would not be returning.

The safe room door had deposited us upon a now-familiar mezzanine. Across the way was the broken clock and its adjacent doors which had led me to Lynnria’s island and the adventure of the dark maze. Meanwhile, directly to our left was the exit to the other maze Jax had recently escaped from. Everything we had thus far experienced had been from this one, central hub—very similar to the tutorial Jax and I had experienced, now that I thought on it.

I turned back to my first companion. “Instincts aside, I really wish you wouldn’t put things like that, Jax. When you talk about people and their ‘places,’ you make it sound like there’s some sort of caste system at work.”

“I dunno nothing about that. There’s just me, what’s yer First. Then them what’s bound. Then the lesser servant types—they’s new, but their place be clear. After, be those what’s unbound yet follow, like Arx and Lynnria was before. Below them types be the lowest of the low, everyone else.” Pausing to favor me with a sultry little grin, she sidled close and pressed her softness to my skin. “And above all, there be ye. My master.”

My aching manhood throbbed for a brief moment at those words despite my better intentions. It was times like these that I wished Jax did not find my baser instincts so enticing. Maybe then, she would not keep teasing them out.

“That’s exactly what a caste system is,” I said, forcibly pushing those thoughts away. “And I doubt anyone outside our little group would agree with your assessment of the situation. There’s plenty of people out there who could grind me into paste.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled. “Says the man what’s got a pair of goddesses fighting over him.”

“That’s speculation.”

“Maybe.”

“And what about Mia? How does she fit into this paradigm you’ve imagined?” I asked. “For that matter, what about these goddesses? If they really are after me, how would they fit in?”

Jax pushed away and turned. For a few seconds, she was silent, pondering the question. “We don’t know,” she admitted finally. “Arx be unsettled, though. I know ye seen it. She don’t want to be below them, but she can’t think how she might not be.”

Funny. I’d have thought a deity would be above me in the hierarchy, but she didn’t even consider that possibility.

“You’re sure it’s only Arx that’s worried?” I asked instead.

She spun around, growling. Daring me to contradict her. “I be First!”

Uh huh… In other words, yes. More than worried. But she did not intend to go down without a fight. Ah, my Jax. So fierce. So confident. But she had good reason to be. I strode forward, heedless of her bared teeth or splayed claws, and cupped her chin.

“Yes, you are,” I whispered softly.

The kiss I planted on her lips was a soft one. Tender. Reassuring. And as the tension drained from her body, I knew that was all it needed to be.

When I straightened, I glanced over at the other two. Lynnria was busy checking the stairs down for traps, but I caught Arx watching us from the corner of her eye, despite her act of studying the displays along the wall.

“Personally, I’m not a fan of caste systems,” I said, offhand. “But I can’t see how anyone could rate above my Dolilim.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Arx’s lip, and she looked away, satisfied.

“I agree with your assessment completely, my lord,” Mia said privately. “There is no need to be so formal about these things. But since you brought it up, my own place could not be more clear. We are one, after all.”

I resisted the urge to snort my derision. We were about as ‘one’ as a wart and a genital. But perhaps that was for the best.

I still vividly recalled those few disorienting moments of oneness I had experienced with Arx. They had been… interesting. In a lot of ways. But ultimately unsustainable. Without perfect coordination, our every action had been met with debate and hesitation. There had to be a dominant personality in the mix, or else we would never get anything done.

And thinking further, it was a bit of a cruel comparison. No one would ever describe genital warts as hot, and my mental daemon had that going for her in spades. She could even be helpful.

When she behaved herself.

“Come look at this, Master Dearest,” Arx called, saving me from having to comment. “There’s something strange about this painting.”

“How so?” I asked, then quickly strode forward, glad for the change in subject. All this talk about the complicated web of relationships spreading out from me was starting to make my head pound.

Then I jumped. But when I glanced back, I found Jax studiously examining her claws. Little minx just goosed me!

“Look. See?” Arx said, pulling my attention back. “I probably would have walked right past it if it hadn’t been for that note.”

With a smirk still on my face, I came to stand beside her and focused on the painting she had pointed out. There were actually quite a few of them around, liberally decorating the walls. Thus far, I had not detected much of a unifying theme beyond simple decoration. They were the sort of artworks one might hang to fill the space.

Mostly, they depicted various scenes in a naturalistic style. Battles. Mountains. Forests. Exotic animals.

A tasteful nude sprinkled here and there.

This particular one seemed to be a depiction of a dinner party. All sorts of people from various of the races were gathered together in a stately manor, all dressed to the nines. Most of them were simply mingling with one another over drinks.

What jumped out at me, however, was their location. “It’s the stairs,” I said, gesturing below us. “It’s like the painter is standing at the front door to the mansion. And look here! You can even see your statues.”

That got Jax’s attention.

“Statues of us? Where?” she asked, crowding closer. Then, realizing the real things must exist somewhere, she twirled and looked over the landing. “Hochmagandy, would you look at them! Think we could cut ‘em loose? I never had a statue before.”

Like a kid at a candy store, Jax placed a hand on the railing and kicked her feet over, dropping to the floor below. “They’s gold, too!”

Lynnria shook her head and leaned down. “They’re clearly bronze.”

“Aww, really? How can ye tell?” Out of sight, I heard a sound that brought to mind a claw scratching at metal. “Hmm… I think they made yer chebs too small, Arxie-love. No tail on ye, neither.”

Arx scowled but refrained from comment. She must have felt a little like someone who had been going to the gym for months only to be confronted by a bunch of her old, fat pictures in her family’s photo album. Only cast in bronze. And nude. And on display in a complete stranger’s house.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I assured her. “Who cares about some hack sculpture?”

She shrugged as though trying to pretend indifference. “My likeness has never lent itself to art, anyway.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always considered your backside something of a work of art,” I said, then playfully grabbed a handful.

At my touch, she sucked in breath and, before I had even realized what had happened, her fingers had encircled my wrist, capturing my hand where it was. Almost uncontrollably, she rolled her hips back, as though my touch had ignited a fire within her.

“It’s yours for the taking,” she whispered fervently. “Any time you want it.”

My manhood pulsed—and much more strongly this time—to my chagrin. I was in no shape to continue with these shenanigans, which was the main reason we had decided to abandon the safe room in the first place.

“Don’t hold yourself back,” she pleaded. “Touch me. Feel me. Use me! Tell me to cum! Please?”

I swallowed. “Can you really do that? Just from me asking?”

“I don’t know… maybe,” she breathed. Her tail had begun to flick back and forth, brushing against my fingers. “If you ask me the right way.”

I felt measurably torn at this.

On the one hand, I was still uncertain as to whether I wanted to encourage this sort of behavior. But more than that, allowing myself to succumb to the Dolilim’s constant provocations would only set a bad precedent. If they had their way, we would have never left the bedroom.

On the other, what she was suggesting was intriguing me in all the worst ways.

“How close are you to full?” I asked, mostly to stall.

All of us had been completely emptied out by our recent ordeal and, while I had gained the ability to absorb some of their Life Energy through various acts, it did not compare to the flood that came once they had their fill. But it could take quite a while for them to achieve that without outside sources. No matter how industrious we were.

Once things got serious, I would need all the Energy I could get. So it was not a totally impractical question.

“I’m not sure,” she replied coyly. “Taste me if you want to know.”

For a handful of seconds, we simply stared at one another. I still was not altogether certain it worked that way but, with how dry my mouth had suddenly gotten, finding out had become a high priority.

“Tempting,” I admitted. Then, with some difficulty, I forced out, “But why don’t you tell me about this painting first?”

She started to pout, but then her eyes widened slightly. “First, huh?”

She licked her lips and turned, though her hand did not move from her captured prize, and her hips began to gyrate in slow, sensuous cycles. I did not fight her. It was a comfortable hand-rest.

“All of the paintings here have very muted color schemes,” she began. “Browns and greens and oranges. They all blend together if you don’t focus on them.”

I nodded. “I think that’s the point?”

“It would be if this was something like a Clan house, but in this place, the more mundane the appearance, the more suspicious you should be. Particularly, if there is ever a change in the pattern,” she explained. With her free hand, she gestured back to the painting. “This one has three, bright spots of color. And all yellow.”

“Yellow like the Key?” Lynnria asked, coming around to my opposite side—probably to distance herself from whatever Arx was doing. However, when she looked closer, she exclaimed, “Hey, wait a minute! I know some of these people. They’re all from Raialie.”

“Really?”

I only had a passing familiarity with a few of the townsfolk, so I had not noticed. The only person I could have picked out of a lineup might have been Tips, the barkeep. Or possibly that Tailor we had fruitlessly—and expensively—hired, but I was pretty sure we had never gotten his name. Neither of them were featured in the painting.

“Yes,” Lynnria confirmed with an absent nod before pointing. “All except this woman here. The one in the yellow dress?”

Arx and I crowded closer, though what we hoped to see that Lynnria had not was a mystery. All of the people had been depicted with rather detailed features, save this one faceless woman. Other than the dress, her only distinguishing feature was a shock of messy, red hair. It was almost like her visage had been deliberately blurred. Like a censored newscast.

I might have thought it was meant to be Jax, save for the lack of horns. That, and Jax would sooner die than dress like a Disney princess.

As for the other spots of yellow, one was a simple flower whose pot had been precariously situated on the balcony railing opposite from us. The second—placed on a table just to one side of the hallway below us—was an unfamiliar type of bird with long tail feathers resting in its cage. Whatever it was, the thing was almost completely uniform in its color and an identical shade to both the dress and the flower.

“That is suspicious,” I agreed finally.

However, what we were supposed to make of it was eluding me. I was not even totally sure this was the display the note had been referring to. We had scarcely begun exploring the hallway below, after all. And it seemed a little too convenient for it to be placed so immediately next to the safe room.

Although… it was positioned directly across the way from the clock, and it had been a puzzle. A puzzle for Arx and a puzzle for Jax?

That made a degree of sense. And there was a certain poetry to such juxtapositions. However, were that the case, I would have expected a continuation of Her three-by-threes riddle and, while there were three splashes of yellow in this painting, I saw no sign of esoteric poetry hidden anywhere.

Hmm… maybe because I broke it? My attempt at improvised magic had bypassed a fairly significant portion of the construct. Plus, Jax had ended up escaping through her own efforts—with a dash of help from my little mind-virus. So it was possible the puzzle had been altered to compensate.

Now that I think about it, that whole thing never made sense, anyway. I was supposed to have found three sets of crystals and, I assumed, used certain subsets of them to unlock my Dolilim’s prisons. However, I had also needed to find Keys to unlock the containers the crystals were hidden within.

How that was supposed to be accomplished had thus far escaped me. The only Keys we had found had been handed to us either via Faen having a laugh or divine fiat. And after the point where we would have even needed them. That was no way to construct a proper puzzle.

Maybe I’ve been missing something? That was a distinct possibility. And it would be just the sort of thing to happen to me, too. I had never been particularly lucky with my perception checks.

Briefly, I allowed my eyes to wander the painting, hoping to find any other identifying markers. Three spots of identical yellow were interesting but not much to go on. And besides, a person could not be unlucky all the time.

“Look,” I said finally, pointing to the bottom of the frame. “The title, I’m guessing.”

“It’s the same as the alphabet the card used. Oh, I like this puzzle!” Lynnria said with growing enthusiasm. Bouncing on her toes, she clutched at my arm and looked to Arx. “Quick. Translate it for us?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Arx replied with a prim, little sneer. “I’m getting awfully dry.”

“No, ye ain’t, whore,” Jax said from behind us.

When I looked, I found her casually hanging on the rail by a single arm. She had apparently decided avoiding the stairs entirely was the safest course of action—by somehow jumping up an entire story.

“Now, quit trying to make the master give ye commands,” she growled as she performed an effortless muscle up—quite an eye-catching feat considering her lack of a shirt. “He’ll do it when he pleases and naught else!”

Arx flashed her fangs briefly… but then her eyes seemed to glaze over and a delighted shiver rolled up her spine. “Yes, my First.”

That’s new. For her to react that way even to Jax…

Maybe she was right. Maybe Dolilim really did have some kind of instinctual pecking order they sorted themselves into, and it was only now the instinct was beginning to settle in. On the other hand, being my First came with an ability which made people under my influence drawn to her.

Wait… is that why Lynnria reacted so strongly to Jax touching her?

I glanced to my left, but at that moment, the youngest of our quartet was staring wide-eyed at Arx.

“Are you really a… a prostitute?” she asked eagerly. “I’ve never met a man who would actually pay for that.”

“You lived too far into laoi territory,” Arx replied with a soft hiss. “And no. I feel disgusted just thinking about letting some man ever touch me again. Unless…”

She paused and gave me a significant look.

“Absolutely not,” I said into the silence—provoking a deep gasp of enraptured delight from my gray-skinned companion. “And frankly, I’m a little insulted that you would ever think I might ask you to do something like that.”

“Oh, Master!” she gushed, leaning heavily against me. “It’s so good! Don’t stop!”

Jax rolled her eyes. “Yer too easy, Donum. Ye know that.”

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered, then poked Arx in the ribs. “Now are you going to translate this or not?”

“She certainly isn’t dry anymore,” Lynnria quipped. “Even I can smell it.”

“Oh~?” Arx panted, grinning. “Want a taste, pet?”

“Eww, no!” Lynnria said with an almost immediate scowl—there might have been a fleeting hint of hesitation, but I was not ready to read too much into it just yet.

“Are you sure? It’s almost as good as his,” she persisted.

Stiff as a board, Lynnria twirled and marched to the end of the landing.

I sighed heavily and fastened my second with a glare. “Arx, quit screwing around.”

“Oh, alright,” she said, favoring me with a sly, little smirk. Leaning forward, she wiggled her bottom like a cat that had just gotten the cream. “Let’s see what you say, shall we?”

Her free hand extended and traced a freshly glistening digit over the inscription along the bottom of the frame. She frowned at it for a moment before straightening again, idly sucking the excess from her finger.

“It just says, ‘Where am I?’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she confirmed.

My eyes squinched in confusion. “Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with—?”

However, before I could finish the thought, Lynnria let out a sudden shout of jubilation. “Grandfather!”

In the instant it took the three of us to turn, Lynnria had already vaulted over the railing… and crashed to the floor below a bare second later. Nor did it sound like a particularly easy landing—what with the cracking wood and light tinkling of broken pottery.

The three of us still above quickly ran to the edge just in time to see the backside of a man striding down the corridor. He was lightly armed and armored and carried himself with the easy, practiced grace of a man long used to the sword.

Not that I had known what that looked like prior to seeing him. There was just something… dangerous about him. Something that sent the hackles to stirring in back of my neck.

But if he was anyone’s grandfather, I was a moose! The guy looked all of thirty years old if he was a day… though he had given zero indication of having heard any of the chaos going on behind him.

Deaf as a stump…

“Ah, fffffuck that hurts!” Lynnria wheezed, painfully rising to her feet.

“Language,” I muttered absently.

“Course it hurts, ye howling bampot!” Jax yelled down at her. “Ye can’t go jumping off anywhere ye please just because ye seen me do it. I got a 14 fer Toughness and a skill what makes me lighter’n a shadow’s fart, besides!”

Lynnria ignored her in favor hobbling after her heedless kin. “Grandfather!” she yelled again.

The man continued on his way, totally oblivious, but he was moving with a slow, cautious gate, as though expecting danger. Which made sense given our location, but he had also failed to clock the 1812 Overture going on just behind him. So I could not see how that would help.

Despite her injury, Lynnria managed to close the distance between them fairly quickly. However, at about the same instant he rounded the corner, hiding him from our view, she froze. Hesitant at first, her eyes began to dance around, baffled.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Where did he go?”

I frowned. “What do you mean? Can you not see him from there?”

“No, the second he passed the entryway, he just… vanished,” she said, then hobbled forward with a determined look.

“Wait a second,” I called.

I sent Jax a look, then jerked my head forward. She nodded and, summoning her ax, she leapt back to the floor below. Cautiously, she glided past Lynnria and rounded the corner.

A moment later, I heard her voice. “Nothing here but hallway and furniture… Can ye still see me, lass?”

“Yes?” she replied with mounting confusion. “How could he be there one second and gone the next?”

“A domain line?” I hazarded.

“I doubt it,” Arx replied. “If he was in the stadium, like Lynnria said, he shouldn’t be in our section of the Dungeon at all. More likely, it was some sort of projection. Or even an illusion.”

“It was no illusion,” Lynnria returned. “Besides, I was in the stadium. And here I am.”

“Only because I pulled you here,” I reminded her, deliberately not mentioning where I had pulled her from. For both our sakes. “And how can you be sure it wasn’t? Did you smell him? Touch him?”

“Aye,” Jax agreed, coming into view, barehanded once more. “Don’t be a twally. Did he turn nor so much as flinch when ye called his name? Nay! Like he weren’t here, were he?”

Lynnria seemed to deflate a bit. “Then I don’t understand. Why show him to me at all? You would think… if it was an illusion, it would be to lead me into a trap. But nothing happened.”

Jax shrugged, sauntering past and back toward the stairs. “Who knows? Would nay be the first time such as the Faen took to footering with us.”

For a few moments, Lynnria stared at the floor, rubbing at her bicep with an anxious little frown. “I hope he’s okay. He’s been stuck at his Boundary Cap so long, he doesn’t have a lot of time left before—”

Abruptly, there came a faint yet quite noticeable vibration in the floor. It did not last long. Nor did it seem to have any apparent effect.

“Donum, did you feel—” Lynnria began, glancing up.

And froze.

For a few, bewildered moments, she scanned the room.

“Donum?” she called with growing anxiety. “Where did you go?”