<~> Chapter 144

The six of us stood outside the stairs up to the second floor of the dungeon. It had been a few days since we killed the snake monster, and after exhausting discussions, it was decided that our team would be the best to explore the second floor first while countermeasures against the changelings could be devised for everyone else. Our linked telepathy rings gave us a somewhat unique advantage since it would be easy to figure out who was real, since the monsters wouldn't be able to mimic the effects of our rings. Luckily, the stairs on the first floor had stayed in the same place relative to the entrance, so it would be pretty easy to find our way back each time.

"I guess I should turn into a changeling now to see what it's like," I said with a sigh.

("You don't have to if it's too disconcerting,") Luna said sadly.

"I won't stay in the form long, but I think it's a good idea to see what they're like," I grumbled.

The problem with shifting to the specific changeling I had eaten was that it was a male. Every time I shifted into a male, it gave me a feeling of wrongness that I could only assume was what extreme body dysphoria felt like. Even the thought of it made me a bit sick to my stomach, but it would give us valuable insight into the creatures we were about to fight. Another odd thing I realized was that this only really affected me when the creatures were humanoid. I knew some of the other monsters I could turn into were male, but they didn't affect me the same way, and I wasn't entirely sure why.

I shrugged off my thoughts and calmed my mana the way Celeste had taught me. Even outside of training, I've found the meditation techniques helpful in calming myself. Once I was calm, I took a deep breath and shifted into the changeling.

After I crushed down the feelings of revulsion that came with taking a male form, the first thing I noticed was the changeling's unique form of sight. Its eyes were larger and wider on its head, giving me a broadened field of vision, like I was looking out of a fish-eye lens. I would have expected it to feel more disorienting than it did, but it seems the transformation made the change feel natural. I could also see mana concentrations similar to the sight my blindfold gives me, but it was a bit less sensitive to my surroundings. It mostly lit up the others like burning candles in the dark.

I had become significantly shorter. I was now only up to Luna's stomach and barely the same height as Iris. I buzzed the wings on my back to life and floated up from the ground to become eye level with the majority of the group.

"So, what's it like being short?" Aria asked with a laugh.

I couldn't help but madly giggle at her joke. I don't know why, but everything felt so funny! I examined them and thought of the different ways I could prank and bully the group. A glance at each of them gave me a short glimpse of their memories and surface thoughts, things that would let me play with them and feed on their emotions before I sucked them dry of their magic. I looked at Luna in particular and giggled at all the ways I could embarrass her and make her squirm. Her mana would taste so sweet.

"Luna, you—" I covered my mouth before I could say the words that had come to mind. My thoughts and desires were out of sync. I almost blurted out an embarrassing secret... something she would have been upset about me telling the others. Her embarrassment would taste sooo exquisite... but I didn't want to embarrass her for some reason. It was confusing. I buzzed back and forth in front of them, trying to get my head on straight, but it was just too hard to think like this. After a moment of trying to organize my confusing thoughts, I gave up and shifted back into my beastkin form since I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

("Are you okay? Was keeping the male form too much to handle?") Luna asked worriedly.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. I felt disgusting. "That wasn't the problem. It's just, the changeling's... instincts, for lack of a better word, were too strong. His thoughts didn't distinguish between friend and foe. I had to stop him from trying to feed on your emotions while in that form, even though he didn't know what the problem was at the time."

Maxwell was suddenly alert. "Are you in control of yourself now?"

I nodded. "It's only like that when I'm in that form. Looking back, I feel revolted by the things he was thinking about doing. He doesn't have empathy for others at all. His entire thought process was about how to best draw out the emotions he wanted before he could feed off of them. He didn't even consider how it would make you feel. He didn't have any empathy toward any of you at all. It was scary."

Piper tilted her head cautiously. "He? Not you?"

I furrowed my brows. I hadn't realized that I disassociated from that experience until she pointed it out. "For the first time... I didn't feel like I was me when I was shifted. It's a bit similar to when I shift into some of the other people I ate, but this was different. The way the changeling thinks was too different from my own thoughts, so it's easier to draw a clear distinction. I still felt like I was in control when I shifted into one of the assassins. Their thoughts were just layered over my own. It wasn't difficult to assert my own thoughts and emotions over theirs. With the changeling, it was more like I couldn't be empathetic. It just doesn't think that way. I got really confused because my desires didn't match my goals anymore, and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do until I turned back."

"That form is dangerous. Don't use it again," Maxwell said firmly.

I nodded. "I won't. Truthfully, it also makes me more wary of my other forms as well. The more animalistic ones are easier to control, even if I feel influenced by their instincts, I usually have enough willpower to override things I don't want to do. By comparison, turning into a person feels like playing pretend. I'm still me even if I am pretending to be someone else. But the changeling... it was something else entirely."

"Does this mean that all changelings are evil?" Aria asked.

I frowned. "I don't know if evil is the right word for it... It's hard to explain, but the changeling wasn't... malicious. It simply couldn't understand the emotions of other creatures. It wasn't that it didn't care that it would be hurting others, it just had no concept of why hurting others would be bad."

Piper shrugged. "I don't see a lot of difference between the two. You could argue that intentionally hurting others is worse than not being aware of hurting others, but they're still hurting others. If they can't understand that their actions have negative consequences, they would never have any reason to avoid them. That's almost worse in my eyes. It means they can't be reasoned with."

Maxwell nodded in agreement. "It makes the morality of killing them easier too, despite them being intelligent. They would continue to hurt others to get what they want without a second thought. Letting them go free will just mean that they'll hurt someone else later."

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I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "Talking this way makes me feel like we're making excuses."

Maxwell shook his head. "I'm not trying to make excuses. Until now, I've been worried about fighting intelligent monsters. I've killed people before, but I don't like doing it. The people we've fought in the dungeons... they could have been friends in another situation. They could have been people we drank with at the bar. They could have been people who fought alongside us if things had gone differently. They're still people, and I hate killing them every time I have to, even if I'm not afraid to do it anymore. Monsters that don't care who they hurt aren't the same. If the changeling's instincts made even you not care about hurting us, then I don't feel like I need to worry about killing them."

I frowned and looked up at the moonlit sky. "When the time comes, let me shift into another one to see if they're all like that. I don't want to condone their killing based on a singular example."

Maxwell shifted uneasily on his feet. "I think that's fair, but you'll need to be careful. You're just as likely to hurt yourself by doing that as any of us. You don't want to do anything you'll regret while you're not thinking straight."

I nodded. "Yeah... I know. I'll be careful when the time comes."

Luna grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to add, so she just silently supported me.

Aria turned to look at Iris. "Anything to add, shorty?"

Iris pouted. "I'm not short! I'm still growing!"

"Sure, kid. Well?" Aria said with a chuckle.

Iris glanced at me before shaking her head. "No. I don't really get the problem. The monsters in the dungeon are always trying to kill us. Why would it matter?"

Aria laughed. "There you have it! I agree with the kid."

I sighed and rubbed my face. "Maybe you two are right. Maybe I'm just overthinking all of this."

Maxwell turned back toward the stairs up to the next floor. "We should get moving. We've spent a lot longer talking about all of this than I would have liked. We might get stuck on the next floor for a while if we need to wait for the rain and flooding to stop."

I shifted to my armored umber hound form, and we all gathered at the stairs with me in the lead again. It was almost always the safest bet, even if I wasn't too worried about being ambushed right away. It shouldn't be too challenging to tell them apart from us, but there were always unknowns. Even my own peek into the mind of a changeling wasn't enough to completely remove the anxiety of facing a new floor. Our group quietly ascended the steps while preparing ourselves.

I let out a small gasp when I stepped out onto the second floor. It was beautiful. Large pillars of reflective stone towered into the sky like shining glass. A house of mirrors was a pretty apt description now that I was seeing it for myself. That effect you got when you put two mirrors up next to each other was on full display in the mirrored pillars ahead, reflecting images across each other in endless paths. The pillars came in varying sizes, some as wide as a building, others as thin as a pole. They seemed to jut out of the ground in clusters that formed patterns that didn't look entirely random. I wouldn't be surprised if the area looked like a giant fractal from the air. The thought of flying around as a hawk crossed my mind, but it didn't feel like an appropriate time to experiment with a form I hadn't practiced before.

"We should make a point to stay in pairs. It'll be easier to avoid getting lost or separated," I said.

"What if a whole pair goes missing?" Aria asked.

"Then it would be better to be lost together. Let's hope this floor isn't anything like the lost halls," Maxwell said in a guarded tone.

I grabbed Luna's hand. "I'll stick with Luna."

Aria put her hand on Iris's head. "I'll watch shorty."

"I'm not short!" Iris complained.

"That leaves the two of us," Piper said to her brother, taking his hand.

("Are you sure Iris shouldn't be with me? We can combine our magic together,") Luna asked everyone.

Aria ruffled Iris's hair. "Nope! We've been practicing our combined marksmanship too, so we should be fine. I'm also the fastest runner, outside of Helena, so I can scoop her up and run with a tailwind if it comes down to it."

Maxwell nodded. "Try not to get separated. Staying in pairs is just a precaution."

"What if a pair of changelings shows up?" Aria asked.

Maxwell glanced back at Aria with an amused grin. "Then we'll check them."

"Uh... what if a pair of people we don't know show up?" Aria asked, suddenly less jovial.

I turned in the direction she was looking just in time to see a pair of draco turn a corner and disappear in one of the reflections. I didn't get a good look since it had only been a second, but they were red and blue, a pair that I hadn't recognized.

"We'll assume anyone else is a changeling," Maxwell said. He was squinting his eyes at the mirrored pillar they had just disappeared from. He must have seen it too.

Aria sighed. "This floor is going to be a nightmare once there are other delvers on it. I hope that crazy Bellatrix dragon lady comes up with something good."

Maxwell quickly slipped his bag off his back and dug through it before handing me and Aria each a guiding rod. "Hold onto these. You might need them to find your way back to the stairs if any of us get separated."

I nodded and put it into my storage ring. We stepped between two pillars and began to search the maze.

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