11 ) I spy

  Before I could ask about my Skill Enhancements… or how many Merits points it took to advance my level, how many levels I could get in the same Ranks, how to advance to my next Tier or any number of other questions I could have thought to ask…

  I was back on the floor of Nictob’s lair, with my Fairy rolling several brightly colored orbs, some stained with the Vile Anarchists blood, all together underneath a table.

  She had thrown a rag over some of them in an attempt to conceal them, and she was whistling.

  Badly. “Viola?”

  She leaped into the air with a sharp scream, her transparent wings fluttering as she spun around in mid air to face me, one hand pressed up against her chest. “What the Pit Fell! Don’t scare me like that. I was working like a dwarf. Clear your throat… er, make a throat clearing sound next time.”

  The Dungeon Fairy, still short of breath, giggled softly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to remind you of the whole don’t have a body thing. I promise the next time I mention it, it’ll be on purpose.” More giggles.

  One of us had to die sometime right? I couldn’t be stuck with her forever?

  I focused my attention on the Cores she had been collecting. With the rag covering some of them I wasn’t sure how many she had over there. Although I had been given a count before… I wonder if I could pull that information back up again…

  Later. “Viola, how long was I gone?”

  The Fairy gave me a baffled look. “You were gone?”

  I started to lose my temper but stopped myself from lashing out at her. She had been busy collecting the scattered remaining Cores while I was talking to Unity, but even she must have noticed if I had actually vanished from the room. But the Liaison had mentioned people coming to the tower of Asention in their sleep.

  Normally traveling in your sleep meant leaving your body behind, I think.

  So I must have still been in the room, physically at least. I had been sitting there, helpless to defend myself… other than having an armed Dungeon Fairy, and ten summoned creatures along with Caeser to defend me.

  Except Caeser wasn’t here with me, looking through his eyes I could see that was still in the Tower with Unity giving him a pleased but curious look as she ran the feathered end of the quill she had been using to write with along the top of his head.

  It felt… alright. I tried saying something to the winged liaison through Caesar, but the salamander didn’t have the ability to speak, and I doubted I could have him pantomime any of my questions.

  So, “Summon Caesar. I mean Salamander, oh never mind.”

  As the fire lizard appeared next to me, I learned that I could call up my Innate Summons while using his proper name. Did I even need to say it out loud? What about my normal summons?

  Summon Cockroach.

  A relatively tiny Dread Cockroach appeared in front of me, after silently staring at me for a moment, it began idly roaming around the room.

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  “Well, that worked.”

  Viola popped up into the air from behind Nictob’s body. “What worked?”

  “I can Summon my Totems without speaking out loud. What are you doing anyways?” She brightened up and gestured to the half covered Cores rolled away under the table. “I was hiding-” She froze in place as her eyes went wide. All aglow with the reflection of burning letters. “Hey., I can show you what I can see within your Summoning range now! I'm the greatest Dungeon Fairy ever!”

  I started reminding her that she was the only Dungeon Fairy, but then she finished fluttering over to me and pressed both of her hands on top of my Core…

  And my vision began to expand, in all directions at once.

  Through the walls, I began to see into the solid stone, and through the door, I saw the hallway that was outside this room with stairs going down at the far end.

  All around I could see the areas of densely packed dirt, gravel, and uncut rocks that filled the spaces behind the stone walls, as well as the contents of the furniture around me. Every item on every shelf, in every box, that filled the room was there for me to see.

  In the maze of passages and rooms, cellars and shafts, Dread roaches scuttled, rats lurked, and a flat headed reptile wadded along on its short legs, with a belt of tools around its waist. The array of chambers and tunnels that appeared around me within the limits of my vision sat well below what I could vaguely sense was open sky far above me, and cold solid rock that had never known daylight deep below.

  Some of those rooms were blocks of solid darkness, somehow shielded from my sight, and from one of those, I felt like something was looking back…

  Then Viola’s hands slipped off of the top of me as she slowly fell backward to sprawl out on the ground with dark purple colored blood leaking from her nose and both ears.

  “Viola? Viola! VIOLA!” No, no, no “Don’t die on me you stupid Fairy1” Don’t leave me… Alone?

  The tiny Fairy opened her eyes and then narrowed them into a pained glare. In a weak voice, she called out “...Fell?” and then she proceeded to chew me out.

  “Stupid rock!”

  “I’m sorry Vio-”

  “My brain isn’t made to look at things like that!”

  “I’m sor-”

  “I got two eyes. Two! Right up front where they both always look the same direction at the same time!”

  “Sorry”

  “And you had to go and… mush them together and then pull them out so it was like I had one big eyeball that was looking every which way all at once. That hurt! I’m bleeding here.”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry…”

  Eventually, she calmed down, but… somehow I felt like she was still going to be mad about this, and would keep bringing it up again, whenever she felt the need to win an argument. Even ones that had nothing to do with it.