The fight with the demon left a big mess. Blood and gore covered an ice spike sticking out of the glacial ground. A rather unassuming cloth doll with a chain sticking out of its back sat there, unmoving in a pool of blood. Now that the music stopped, everything became a bit surreal. A flamingo, a slime girl and a magical girl who looked more like a priestess took in the scene.
“You did really well against a tough opponent. I didn’t want us to cross paths with any demons just yet. And I was hoping we could start off easier with tier one stuff. Those ones tend to be small and only a real threat in large numbers. Anyway, how are Alex and Merumeru?” Fufi craned her long neck.
“Um, it hasn’t really sunk in yet I don’t think.” Alex shook her head.
“Meru!” Merumeru poked the demon corpse with an icicle.
“Gross, don’t touch that thing you don’t know where it’s been.” Alex shooed the slime girl away from the newly dead ice demon.
Fufi continued, “I think your doll might have some anger issues.”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “I’d think we should give Hero the benefit of the doubt though. That music was rather metal.” She picked up the broken panel that the plushy had kicked off and set it against the carriage. Alex frowned, taking in the damage to the carriage from all the mayhem.
“We should get out of here. The demons don’t generally have friends but if this one goes missing for too long someone might be sent out to look for him.” Fufi gestured a wing at the upside-down-impaled blue corpse.
“Hmm, maybe we should go on foot for a bit to not leave as big of a trail? The carriage got damaged quite a bit. Rose, Lily and Edelweiss all need to be repaired as well. Is there a cave or some place sheltered from the elements around here?” Alex looked to the only flier in their group.
“Yeah, we can go a couple miles and there is a ravine. Will that work?” Fufi asked.
“I hope so, it is cold just standing around out here so I’d like to get moving.” Alex wrapped her arms around herself.
Merumeru nodded in agreement.
After cleaning them off with the feather duster, Alex and merumeru put the dolls back in their places and the bits that had broken off inside the carriage. After turning the carriage back into a card they set off with Fufi in the lead.
They walked for a half hour until they reached the ravine and then another thirty minutes until they got to the rocky bottom. The walls of the deep ravine shielded them against wind though it was still quite cold.
Alex pulled out the carriage card and deployed it on some flat ground to inspect the damage further. Most of the damage was only surface deep. Sadly that meant that the furs which covered the exterior were badly shredded by the ice shards. It wouldn’t be as cute as before but some sewing could fix that up. There were a couple chips in the exterior wood but nothing made it through the exterior paneling. Those nymphs sure knew how to make sturdy wood.
The dolls were another story. Other than Edelweiss all of them were in bad shape. None of them were missing parts but the exterior shell was broken and some of the gears were missing cogs.
“Ugh, this is going to take a long time to fix.” Alex placed the dolls on the workbench and frowned. “I think the lower hanging fruit would be fixing the carriage.”
Fufi stuck her head around a wall with her long neck. “Hey Alex, I figured I wouldn’t be a good familiar if I didn’t help you improve your magical girl powers. Want to have a bit of a… what is it called, post mortem?”
“Well, post mortem implies someone died. But I guess in this case that would be correct. What do you think? How did we do?” Alex took out a needle and thread and started sewing shut some of the tears in the rabbit furs from getting hit by ice shards.
“You have some strong points and some weak points. I think by far your dance partner ability took the spotlight in that battle. You really were not anywhere near as strong or as fast as that ice demon. But because he was your dance partner and you were the cuter of the pair he couldn’t do anything to hit you,” Fufi said.
“Eh? What does being cuter than your dance partner have to do with anything?” Alex wondered.
“Well, cuteness is the most important thing for a magical girl. If you used that skill in your fight with Sakura I don’t think it would have worked. Her outfit with all those living plants was really cute.” Fufi gushed about the magical girl dryad.
“Oh, I think I get it. That demon wasn’t very cute.” Alex nodded in understanding.
“Exactly!” Fufi exclaimed. “But there is one other thing that I noticed. You can only have one person as your dance partner. So if there were two demons instead of just one then it could have been really bad.” Fufi lowered her beak.
“I guess you are right. We got lucky. I didn’t even get an empowered shot off with Lily before that ice storm did a bunch of damage,” Alex said.
“Yeah, it looks like your dolls don’t benefit from that skill either. So that is another weakness.” Fufi waved a wing.
“What else? I don’t think Rose worked well on the ice demon at all. I suppose they are strong against water.” Alex started reattaching the panel that Heroshi knocked off.
“Yeah, if we run across another ice demon it might be good for her to sit that one out. Though I suppose that in this case the silver lining is that if it was the more common fire demon thing might have gone much worse. A firestorm with all this wood and cloth could have been really bad.” Fufi stomped a webbed foot.
“Oh, everything could have burned that would have been terrible.” Alex gaped at the thought.
“Yeah, this was my fault. I didn't think we were taking a path that would get us too close to where we saw them. There must have been an observer that we, or rather I didn’t notice.” Fufi drooped her head.
Merumeru came out and offered them some hot tea. “Meru!”
“Thanks for getting some water boiling. It doesn’t look like it is giving off too much smoke.” Alex sipped her tea.
Fufi also scooped up some hot tea with her beak and tilted her head upside down to gulp it down. “Thanks Merumeru!”
With the rest of the day they were able to get the carriage back in working order. It didn’t look as cute as before with all the extra seams in the fur exterior. A few hours of daylight were left and Alex used the dollmaker's kit to repair Edelweiss.
The Hero plush got put on the same shelf with all the cuddle bears and other stuffed animals from the first dungeon. Hopefully those friendship creatures could wear off on the overly violent doll.
They kept a few pieces of coal in the stove to keep warm through the night. It got really cold but inside the carriage the only evidence of that was the winds blowing above them. When the morning came there was some snow that had drifted on top of them. It wasn’t enough to get the carriage stuck but it wasn’t like they could move anywhere in the bottom of a ravine.
The second day went fairly well. The trio traveled further away from the temple and back to the forest. They didn’t have any encounters.
When they stopped for the night, Alex took the last few hours of light to cook and disassemble the clockwork dolls that were going to need to be rebuilt. It took four more days to get back to the forest. When the damaged dolls had all the gears, springs and porcelain replaced to make them like new, Alex took to remaking their outfits. While it wasn’t Alex’s first time sewing doll outfits, this was the first time she had done it in the small area set aside in the carriage. In the dungeon with the game board in the middle there was a lot of space but working in the cramped carriage after traveling all day really pushed Alex’s ability to tailor.
Alex’s phone rang out: [Tailoring has reached level 4!]
Pulling up the stat app on her phone it said.
Name: Alex Parker
Class: Magical Girl
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Strength: 11
Constitution: 9
Dexterity: 17
Intelligence: 7
Cuteness: 16
Skills:
Cleaning: 2
Cooking: 1
Dancing: 2
Tailoring: 4
Toymaking: 1
Feats: Empower Doll
Spells: Animate Doll
Lesser Grow Plants
Traits: Mental Resistance: 3
“Huh, I guess this trip required a whole lot of mending and sewing,” Alex said.
Merumeru both cheered for Alex when they noticed the familiar noise and voice.
“Congrats Alex, you are really pushing your textile skills and are reaping the rewards.” Fufi flapped her wings and danced a little dance going back and forth from foot to foot.
If you're having trouble what about a cultural exchange via magic masks. Turn into an anime animal person based on the mask, could even give it a Pinocchio twist.
Could always do some robotfication or introduce some sorta ben 10 ability but with spirits. Sota how power rangers and Kamin rider can switch into older suits and use their abilities. But they need to act like the spirit to use the power.
Actually a super sentai and magical girl cross over wouldn’t be too outlandish. You could work in. A pink suit as some powerup or armor
You could use the trapped in a memory/book and must act out a rolea and just put whatever you want to turn into. Could even play an idealized princess role
Velociraptors shred them! Ok maybe not.
Rawr?
“Gross, don’t touch that thing you don’t know where it’s been.” Alex shooed the slime girl away from the newly dead ice demon.
Not nice. Teaching her that at such young age. I like Alex being less of a pushover but not if it comes at the cost of her being so callous to different species. She pulls her punches with humans but with demons she goes full murder mode. If was way more violent everywhen that would at least make sense
Something to do with the mermaid item thing for more TF stuff? Maybe Eldritch TF from the void beings that could have survived.
Yeah I should definitely follow up on the mermaid item.
@melchi lycanthropy. Some tribes are looking to integrate. Slime girls or spider people in the deep sewers. With the nymphs being more welcoming bees have come and thus honey. The neighboring nobles give the local farmers dairy products. The dungeon teaches Alex what it's like to be a clockwork doll. Remnant void beings try a cuter and more native approach to invading Terre. Fey try to kidnap the cute after turning people into tiny pixies. There's a concentration of poisonous miasma in the wasteland the nymphs are trying to reclaim, and need magical girl Alex's help to deal with the imps. Ghosts and dullahan are restless. Vampires might exist. Dragons want ownership of the Alex's literal golden heart. Lamias were a result of a certain poison that makes nobles more susceptible to mind control. Min maxing elemental status's can turn a person into an elemental, and cute is one of those stats.Alex doesn't want to be a marketable plushie.
@Grappleshot wow that is a whole lot of ideas. I was playing around with spider girl ideas a bit but haven't decided on anything.
Thanks for the chapter!
“Grose, don’t touch that thing you don’t know where it’s been.”
Gross
sewing shut some of the tears in the rabbit firs from getting hit by ice shards.
Furs
extra seams in the fir exterior
Fur
Hmm... What to do next... We have Neriad contact, maybe they need some help? We've seen Alex as a man, dryad, harpy, and woman. Something cute, something cute, something cute... A... maybe something small like a fairy? A playful pixie needs help stopping mean imps from hurting her mama and the only way to stop them is through enchanting singing?
Bah, silly author can't tell the difference between a tree and a hide.
@melchi ehh, could be worse, could have referred to those as back hares.
Makeup kit that empowers cute repairs?