A good family makes your life; a bad one can ruin it. If you are making one for yourself, choose wisely. When dealing with the one that fate gave you, be kind, be helpful, and stand your ground. Above all, seek harmony, whenever possible.

  -Priestess Aldskia Madiesh

  ==Caden==

  Stopping Tarrae’s execution had been an almost reflexive action. Not entirely, but almost. A quick thought and a bit of teleportation, and then the stone wasn’t a problem anymore.

  No, now I have an entirely new set of problems.

  Fuck, I hope I don’t regret this.

  I had only caught the last of what happened, and Zidaun’s plea that I would forgive him. Well, a plea to the dungeon, but that included me.

  I reached out, acting as quickly as possible, spending mana to both shift and add stone until I had made a stone statue. A couple of shards took care of the imitated musculature and form, while another focused on crafting the clothes. My normal clothes didn’t feel formal enough for this, but fortunately I had both absorbed, and designed some of my own, patterns.

  Robes were one of the easier options. White and black had connotations back to the clergy on Earth, and I didn’t feel like invoking those, so I skipped those options.

  Well, my crystal was red…

  I remembered the deep crimson ruby of my original crystal, thinking about the exact shade. The same ruby shade that still made up a part of the crystal I shared with Exsan.

  Sure, why not?

  Thick crimson silk spilled out over the forming stone like crashing waves of velvet blood, seeming to stain the newly emerging limbs and pseudo-flesh.

  Okay, so the color of blood might not have been the best choice when I am meant to be stopping an execution.

  Well… who knows? I have no idea what the symbolic colors are here, anyway. There is blood when you are born, too, and plenty of cultures on Earth had blood as a symbol of life.

  Regardless, it was too late now.

  As soon as the body had formed enough, I slipped my avatar into it.

  Hope this works…

  It did.

  Despite the size disparity, my presence expanded to fill the entirety of the giant form. It became more than a statue, it became me. Though my presence felt… thin, for lack of a better word. I suspected I was close to the maximum size my ability would allow.

  Probably can only manage this because controlling earth is one of my primary abilities.

  I inhaled and spoke my forgiveness.

  My voice came out like gravel bouncing inside a steel drum, the echoing booms enhanced by the surrounding stone. It was like water inside a bathtub, splashing from one side to the other, before bouncing off to do it again.

  Need to add more plants and things in the grotto, stone reflects too much sound.

  Later…

  I had a number of things to handle later, not the least of which was my notifications. They weren’t blinking, they were throbbing. They demanded my attention in a way that sent phantom pains through my head.

  Almost like a migraine. How nostalgic...

  For now, my attention couldn’t be spared.

  Sure, I could assign a shard to handle them, but there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t get something disruptive. The last thing I needed was some title related to language sweeping me away again, or something equally distracting.

  No, my attention was firmly here.

  It might be distributed into a dozen shards, but all of it was focused on dealing with this problem.

  I watched the crowd, whose reactions to the vanishing of the stone varied between joy, shock, and a dozen other emotions. I was not particularly pleased to see disappointment on some of them.

  Bloodthirsty bastards…

  My own appearance had engendered plenty of shock, but the adventurers who looked older had also reflexively grabbed onto their weapons, or readied mana.

  Tarrae finally came of his shock, swiftly turning to look at me. Only to be shocked again…

  I issued my forgiveness again.

  Not that I knew what the hell I was forgiving him for.

  I swear, if he started murdering other adventurers or something…

  Well… I would feel like an idiot.

  If I need to kill him myself, I am going to be pissed.

  For a moment my thoughts flickered back to the bodies that were already waiting, before I buried the thought.

  I didn’t think that was the case though. The crowd didn’t seem angry enough for that.

  It would be great to blame him for the waiting corpses, but I suspected that was firmly my fault.

  I pushed that off to the side.

  Gee, isn’t compartmentalization great. Yep, no repression here. Nothing to see folks, move along.

  I did my best to ignore my own brain. Humor was a weapon I wielded in the darkest times, even against myself. A single shard handled my inner demons while another smiled and nodded gently at Tarrae. Others kept me upright, since this much stone was not supposed to move like this, and required active strengthening. My soul manifestation skill handled most of the heavy lifting, but it still needed some supplementary assistance with a body this large.

  I looked out over the crowd with my stone eyes.

  Guess I better get this over with.

  “I am Caden,” I introduced myself.

  Mana moved through the dungeon, shaping and moving in the way that only I could. Well… me and one other.

  Exsan had decided to weigh in.

  Come on! Really?

  I did my best not to show my shock or exasperation.

  The last thing this situation needs is a semi-intelligible dungeon intruding.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  I could imagine it now: Exsan making a statue like mine and speaking: “I Exsan, you all prey. Come enter, die. Have good bait.”

  Well, a statue like mine did appear, though Exsan used black for his robes, and his body was obviously modeled after the first human biological pattern I had received.

  Well, it wasn’t like he could use the same pattern as me, mine comes from my soul. And did he notice my robes were the same color as my core, and then choose the same color for his?

  Right, that was something to remember. Exsan didn’t speak amazingly well, at least not most of the time, but he wasn’t stupid. I was more worried about his lack of social awareness than I was anything else.

  Internally, I rolled my eyes at myself. I wasn’t human any more, I could communicate with him at the same time as I dealt with everything else.

  ‘What are you doing, Exsan?’

  His statue spoke before he replied to me, “And I, am Exsan.”

  Huh, that wasn’t bad.

  ‘I should have thought that was obvious, dear brother. I am joining you in our introduction to the masses.’

  A number of variations on “holy shit,” were uttered by a dozen shards, some of the exclamations substantially more explicit.

  How long was I out? And I suppose brother is probably the closest description of what we are…

  Turns out that, yes, surprise actually does process faster when you are doing it with a dozen minds. Fortunately that allowed me to plan the next steps

  ‘Fine, might as well speak this next part together then.’

  A brief communication ensued, before we both spoke simultaneously.

  “And together, we are the dungeon.”

  Even as I kept in communication with Exsan, I reached out toward Zidaun.

  ‘Zidaun, we will speak later.’

  ‘Of course, my God, whatever you wish.’

  If I didn’t have my shards as an emotional buffer, I would have physically cringed.

  ‘Caden, just… call me Caden.’

  ‘Of course, Caden.’

  It had kind of been obvious before, but hadn’t wanted to really admit it.

  Ugh, I’m not ready to be a God.

  ‘You know, Exsan, the Adar seem to think we are Gods.’

  ‘Entirely appropriate,’ Exsan replied, his words practically dripping satisfaction.

  Tell me you are megalomaniac without telling me you are a megalomaniac…

  ‘I don’t feel particularly godlike,’ I said wryly.

  Exsan managed to snort at me telepathically.

  ‘What, exactly, would you call us? We reshape the world freely within our domain, are reborn when we die, and are ageless.’

  I could have pointed out that we could only reshape the world when we had mana, but honestly we had so much that the argument fell flat even to myself.

  ‘Eh, I suppose we kind of fit the role of mythical demigods…’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we don’t fit the image from your head. Not exactly old men with long white beards who stare disapprovingly at the universe.’

  ‘How… I mean, can you read my mind?” I struggled to put my questions into words. ‘I cannot read yours, but… you seem very different.’

  ‘A gift from you, brother. It wasn’t just English that pulled me into meditation, it was you. I gained your knowledge, your understanding… Not really your memories, but the knowledge they contained. Earth… such a different world. No wonder you are so different. That mercy holds no place here, but hold your ideals as you must.’

  ‘Oh… I suppose that would make sense.’

  Even as I continued to think, Exsan took the moment to speak aloud.

  “So far,” Exsan spoke, “most of the dungeon has been Caden’s work. He… is more merciful than I. Soon, however, I shall open up my own section.”

  ‘What do you intend to do?’

  ‘You plan has worked well enough, but we should be able to kill more of them. You coddle them with your protection.’

  ‘It already sickens me… that I have killed some. You know I’ll fight you if you go too far. Besides, how will you entice them, when I already offer them a safer way?’

  Exsan laughed in my head.

  ‘They are almost as greedy as me, brother. And you cannot fight me all the time. Though I would rather keep the peace…’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I… care for you. It is an emotion I don’t think I am meant for, but it exists, even so. Still, my needs cannot be denied. I need to hunt, to kill; it is part of me. The tameness of your false paradise fails to satisfy, even if it has caught a few of the unwary.’

  ‘I am a dumb beast no more, however. We can negotiate.’

  I thought frantically.

  The problem was, Exsan was right. If he needed to kill, then it wasn’t my responsibility to change that. No more than I had worried about wild predators stalking and killing their prey to survive, or even domestic cats. That didn’t change my own desire to preserve those I could.

  I hadn’t felt too bad about forcing the issue when I was sure I understood more than him, but now…

  ‘How about a higher cost to being saved?’

  ‘You have given away too many tokens already. No doubt countless more will rain down on adventurers in the future. I would require more than the three you already give away to compensate. No, a true limit is the only way.’

  A brief thought flickered through my head, imagining clones generated by my power, and shortly after killed by Exsan.

  No, that would be more monstrous, not less. It would essentially be killing children. At least the adventurers made their choice to enter.

  With that thought, I knew what Exsan could offer people to get them to come inside.

  ‘I know something you could offer to draw in adventurers. Something that I couldn’t offer without causing issues. I… could offer something on my end, too… It would help drive them your way.’

  ‘Really?’ Exsan said, ‘Tell me brother…’

  ‘What concession will you offer me for the information?’

  ‘Good, be greedy,’ Exsan said, and I could practically feel him smiling at me. ‘What do you want?’

  I tried to think of what he would accept. Well… this was a negotiation, wasn’t it? Better to aim high.

  ‘Three lives for anyone who enters your dungeon, but they cannot replenish them themselves, except… they replenish periodically when enough time has passed.’

  ‘Still you would swaddle them,’ Exsan sighed. ‘One life, no more. And fine, I suppose I can let their chance return after ten years have passed. In exchange you will not interfere. My dungeon, my rules. It will be mine to set up as I please.’

  I… hadn’t actually thought of that, what would his dungeon actually be like? I needed to negotiate that as well.

  We were speaking incredibly quickly, but time had started to drag on. Best to address that. At least I knew some of the parameters we would be working within.

  I spoke aloud again.

  “My tokens will not preserve your life within the bounds of Exsan’s domain. He shall offer a more limited shield against death.”

  ‘Two lives, resetting every 180 days, and your dungeon cannot be unfair. No sudden jumps in difficulty, at least not without some warning.’

  ‘No, a single extra life. That will let them know what they are dealing with, if they continue to delve beyond that… Well they know the cost.’

  ‘And… I enjoy the hunt. I have no problem with keeping it fair. No doubt you shall nitpick my decisions, but fine…’ There was another sigh before Exsan continued. ‘I shall allow you some input. Your knowledge has let me understand them far better, but you still know them best. And… once per year, when the cycle of the world switches back from ice to fire, all lives shall reset.

  It… wasn’t as much as I wanted, but it was probably also more than Exsan really wanted to give. His latest sigh had reminded me of dealing with extended family. Of giving concessions out of duty or irritation, rather than desire.

  My family was gone; Earth was behind me. My mourning was equally behind me, with Earth nothing but a memory.

  I suppose he is my family now; we are kind of stuck together. That’s practically the definition of family, the people you get stuck with.

  Better to make it a good one.

  ‘Agreed, brother,’ I said. ‘And, you can offer the tokens that work in my dungeon. They would unbalance mine, if I offered them as possible loot. And… in exchange for your concessions, I can offer tokens in my dungeon. Ones that only work in your dungeon. Things that they can exchange to gain more in yours.’

  Exsan understood what I was going for immediately, having absorbed my own limited knowledge of psychology. If we gave them something they could only spend in Exsan’s dungeon… then they would go there. Whether he was right, or not, about people’s inherent greed, people couldn’t stand to have a resource go unused.

  So, Exsan’s laughter was his only reply.