<~> Chapter 146

After we returned from the dungeon, we were brought to a meeting in Celeste's tent with the crafters. We carefully laid out everything we picked up in the dungeon on a large table and sat away from it while the crafters looked over the things we brought. Once all of the crafters had an opportunity to get a look, about half of them left when they found nothing within their niche.

A male draco with green scales picked up the thin pillar we had broken off. "Where did you find this?"

"They were all over the second floor with various thicknesses. Some were thinner, but most were much thicker. A majority of them were larger than this room," I replied.

He tilted it back and forth until he got a look at all of its edges. "How did you harvest it?"

"I didn't really have the right tools for it, so I used an enchanted axe I have. If it weren't for the repair enchantment on it, my axe would have been ruined."

"This doesn't look like it was chopped down like a tree," He noted.

I nodded. "It snapped off evenly. It took a lot of force, and it was painful on my arms to gather that way, but given sufficient strength, it snaps off cleanly."

"Fascinating... I'd like to keep a sample of this. Would that be possible?" the draco asked while turning to Celeste.

She nodded. "You haven't asked for anything else yet, Talskin. You may have this sample first. If you find you have no use for it and any of it is left after your experiments, return it to me then. We should hopefully be able to collect a few more samples soon. I received word from Bellatrix that she's working on something that should be able to make the second floor safer for delvers and perhaps even soldiers."

"Thank you, Lady Celeste," the man said with a shallow bow.

One of the beastkin cleared his throat. He was a bearkin, one of the few I've seen of his kind so far. He was a monster butcher, someone who specialized in breaking down monster parts like Maxwell, but with the additional skills to identify the parts of novel monsters as well.

He was leaning over the remains of the changeling. "As grim as it is to take apart something that looks like a person, I'd like to take custody of this corpse. The kill was clean. The only real damage was done to the spine. I volunteer to take apart this monster and distribute the parts to other crafters for additional study." He looked up from the table. "Are there any parts that people are particularly interested in working with?" he asked.

I sighed and tried to tune out the following conversation as the crafters began to discuss and argue about which pieces each of them should get. It felt a bit disturbing to watch as the crafters all begged for pieces of something like this. It seemed incredibly gruesome and macabre to me. They discussed everything from how many teeth each of them could take to how much skin would be salvageable. I understood that it wasn't personal, but it still turned my stomach to listen to.

("Are you okay, Helena? I was focused on Piper after that fight, but it looked like it also affected you too,") Luna said, thankfully distracting me from the conversation I was failing to ignore.

I thought back to the moment when I saw the changeling be decapitated right in front of me. ("At the time, I was kinda freaked out... but no, I'm okay. I was worried about Piper at the time too. But... seeing something that looked like you die right in front of me... it shook me a little.")

("I'm thankful you kept a cool head. I had been surprised to see Piper fall apart like that, so I'm glad you were okay enough to let me focus on her at the time. She refused to tell us what she saw in the Lost Halls, so I never knew how bad it was for her until now. I suspected it was hard on her. She often held me every time we made it through... but I never suspected that was because of what she was forced to do in there,") Luna said grimly.

("Did she tell you more about what happened to her in the Lost Halls?") I asked.

Luna nodded. ("The night that my father tore my neck open, I almost died. If it hadn't been for Piper saving me, I would have been killed. The Lost Halls had Piper walk through a facsimile of their childhood home while being attacked by endless corpses of me. They were what she assumed I would look like, had she failed to heal me that night.")

I sucked in a breath. ("That's horrible.")

("Yes... But what made her break down was realizing how easy it was for her to kill something that looked like me. That scared her, I think,") Luna said with a sigh. ("Dungeons can be cruel.")

I frowned. ("I think this time it was the changelings that were cruel. They feed on emotions, and negative emotions can be some of the most powerful... and tasty for them. The dungeon put them there, but it was the changelings' idea to attack us in the way that they did.")

("Maybe...") Luna replied. ("But if the dungeon put them there with the nature they have... why wouldn't we blame the dungeon for it?")

I scratched my ear while thinking. ("You know... when I ate the changeling... it reacted with the thing I ate in the Lost Halls. I've been calling it a doppelganger. I think it was a fae just like the changeling.")

Luna squinted in thought. ("Before you killed it for good, I had never really considered how odd it was for a dungeon to bottleneck people in the earlier floors like that. I knew it was strange, but I just thought it was a weird quirk of the dungeon. Usually dungeons are like baited traps. They try to lure you in as deep as you can go until you make a mistake and die. Some people think they're trying to make delvers stronger as if to 'fatten them up' for the dungeon to eat later. But the Lost Halls was a floor that made people wary to even enter it. A majority of delvers never even attempted the floor and just scraped by on the first five floors until they moved on to somewhere else. In retrospect, it feels peculiar for a dungeon to do that.")

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("The changeling that got loose in our camp left the first floor by following Jol'ket's team out. Normally, monsters rarely leave their floors, but the changeling ran right out of the entrance and left the dungeon entirely. You don't think... that maybe it's the fae that are causing all of the weirdness surrounding Fallow and now this dungeon too?") I said.

Luna pursed her lips. ("I think that's actually a very plausible theory. I think we should discuss this with Celeste. But the crab monsters leave through those stairs too if they aren't blocked off, so it could just be a coincidence.")

I looked around. ("It looks like this is wrapping up anyway, let's talk to her about it once everyone else leaves.") The only crafters that were left were splitting up the mundane rocks we had collected. They were planning on testing to see if the minerals inside would be useful for anything alchemical or otherwise.

Once all the other crafters had left, Luna and I pulled Celeste to the side and ran through what exactly happened in the dungeon, how that connected to the fae, and how eating the changeling had recontextualized my fight with the doppelganger. I also explained what being a changeling was like, but also told her that it had only been a single changeling that I had experienced, and I wanted to get the perspective of other ones before I made any judgments about them as a whole.

"There's one thing you may be missing about that," Celeste said. "The changeling you ate was a dungeon creature, despite its intelligence. I can't say I've knowingly ever talked to a changeling, but it's possible ones born outside of a dungeon may behave differently too."

Luna nodded. ("Oh! Why hadn't I thought of that?")

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "So... we're just back to the dungeon makes things evil again, then?"

Celeste shook her head. "Not evil precisely, just primarily concerned with killing those that enter the dungeon. As you said yourself, they don't appear to have the capacity for evil. They aren't truly malicious at all. In a sense, they're no different from territorial beasts."

I nodded. "That... makes a lot of sense. What do you think about the fae being involved with the issues surrounding the Fallow dungeon? And how the changeling was able to leave this dungeon?"

Celeste sighed. "I'd love to dismiss it if I'm honest, but I think you might be on to something. However, it's too early for me to say that they are not another symptom of an underlying cause. We'll continue to gather information and keep an eye out for other suspicious happenings. I'll pass this on to Bellatrix. She may have a better idea of how these events connect."

"I suppose," I replied.

Celeste glanced at something on her desk for a moment before nodding. "Alright then, that's enough for today. Go get some rest. I have to take care of something."

We were shooed out of her tent and made our way to Alto's cooking station, which has sort of become our unofficial hangout spot. The others were already there, and it looked like Piper's mood had improved considerably as she was eating some of Alto's cooking.

"What's on the menu?" I asked as I sat down across from Piper and Maxwell.

Piper paused and looked down at her food wistfully. "Alto baked me some bread in the style of our hometown. I haven't had it since we left a few years ago."

I looked down at her plate. Next to the bowl of crab stew she was eating, she had what looked like a doughy flat bread with something similar to green onions or chives mixed into it.

Alto smiled as he set down another plate of bread on the table. "I figured you two would be along, so I made some for you as well. It looks like all of you had a hard time in the dungeon today, so I asked Piper what kind of food would cheer her up. I haven't baked bread in this style for a long time, so it was a nice change of pace."

Piper looked down and fiddled with the piece of bread in her hands. "Thank you, Alto. I'm feeling a bit better now..." She tore a piece off and dipped it in the stew to cover up the subtle blush on her face.

Alto beamed. "I'm glad! Sometimes a childhood meal is the perfect thing to lift your spirits. Bread like this is great for dipping into stews! I figured it would go well with this crab stew I've been experimenting with. I'm finding that crab is quite a versatile ingredient, even if it does take a lot of prep sometimes."

I noticed Piper looking at Alto a bit more closely now. She was a lot more aware of him, even if she hasn't entirely put together the confidence to make a move yet. I tore off a piece of the bread and took a bite. It tasted really great, light and fluffy, with an interesting blend of seasoning on it. Glancing back up at Piper, I got the impression that cooking for her while she was feeling down had gone a long way toward bringing the two of them closer together. I don't think Alto knew it yet, but that had been a smart move if I was right about him having a crush on her.

"Ah, I almost forgot! I wanted to get your opinions on how cheese went with the crab meat. Would any of you be willing to try some on your stew for me?" Alto asked while pulling over a block of cheese and a cheese grater.

"I'll try some," I said while pushing my bowl toward him.

"Great! I'll start with a small amount to make sure you like it." He grated the white colored cheese onto the top of my stew. I took a piece off the top and popped it into my mouth to see if it was similar to any cheeses I was familiar with. The mild taste brought a smile to my face. It tastes a lot like mozzarella. Not exactly the same, a bit tangier, but close to what I was used to.

"Hey, Alto? If I describe how a dish is made, do you think you could try to make it for me?" I asked.

Alto smiled. "I wouldn't mind giving a unique recipe a try, and chances are I've made something similar before. This isn't going to be like the crabs again though, is it? You actually know a bit about how to make it this time, right?"

I laughed. "Yeah, it's something I've made myself before, though with mostly preprepared ingredients. I can't give you specific measurements, but I can give you the gist of how it's made and eyeball the amount of ingredients. It's my favorite food from back home, a bit of a guilty pleasure. I'd love to share it with my friends."

Alto sighed, but he still had a smile on his face. "Fine, let's give it a try. What's the dish called?"

"Well, I don't know if it has another name around here, but for me, it's called pizza."

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