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(DHF)Chapter 186: Paranoia's eye
🕑 Added 2025-05-06 15:47:55 +0000 UTCI didn't try and go back to the dungeon even after the others insisted that they had it covered. I knew it simply wasn't feasible for someone to always stay home guarding Hestia with the size of our familia. That said I happen to be something of a mad crafter who could absolutely make something to prevent a situation like this from EVER happening again. Until now I hadn't thought it necessary as attacking a god was right at taboo but clearly that was fucking loosely interpreted when it was another god doing it.-
Ares had inspired me with his actions and anyone stupid enough to attempt something similar was going to pay for. I already knew exactly what I was going to make when I walked into my workshop. A necklace that would rest around Hestia's neck that would react the moment anything threatened her. Three things it will do when triggered all bad for the one who did it. The first was cause the veins in their eyes and ears to burst. The second was summon my cursed spirit familiar to Hestia. The final was covering her in a violently reactive protective bubble of energy that'll try to stab anything that tries to touch it without permission from me.-
I started the necklace out by grabbing a handful of empty mana stones of the level two and three kinds. Using my technique I reduced them to liquid that I fused and condensed down into an orb the size of a cherry that looked like an eyeball. From there I socketed it in an adamantite claw that served as the holster for the necklace's "string". It was better to call it a chain really as I created a thin thread of green dragon bone and mithril that I gave the [Durandal] property making it effectively unbreakable.-
The only way this necklace was coming off was if I or Hestia tried to remove it but I didn't see that happening after this. Once I set all the cursed techniques into the necklace the eye seemed almost like it was a real thing staring in every direction simultaneously with it's intense purple gaze. Hestia was not exactly happy with the necklace as it was really fucking creepy but I was quite insistent. Ironically you couldn't even see the thing once she put it on as it vanished between her boobs with only the string being visible.-
It was only after she had the necklace on that I relaxed and chose to return to the dungeon. I didn't bother keeping up a mask of calmness once there as the first goblin I found got ripped in half using my bare hands. The shower of blood and gore satisfied and soothed my mind but I wanted more, so much more. I wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not but more than the usual amount of monsters found their way in my path of carnage as I descended the floors. -
If it wasn't for me taking the stones as I went there would literally have been a trail of gore behind me. It was only after skinning a minotaur alive that my blood thirst was satiated and I returned to my standard way of thinking, mostly anyways. I was still rather ornery at the moment but I wasn't likely to try and rip out your tongue for using the wrong tone in your speech anymore.-
'Being part curse has got me acting like a moody child. I'll need to see about repressing that side of things soon before it causes problems.' I thought seriously.
I was about to enter my base in the eighteenth floor when I found something that made me pause as my mind sharpened. There near the entrance caught on a low branch was a slip of dark colored cloth that had likely snagged without the person wearing it realizing. Someone had been here and stealthily at that. There was no broken sticks or footprints at all to tell me that someone had been here even as I circled the base looking closely. Putting my hand on the wood of the wall I extended my senses into the trees that made up the base and then further seeing if someone was within it.-
My senses told me there was a slight weight on some of the trees that made up the bed inside as though someone was on it. Oddly the weight was FAR too fucking light to be a person oddly enough. This clicked a light bulb on in my head as I just so happened to know of one being who fit that description quite well. Fels, the undead servant of Ouranos whom I had only seen once but spoken to several times recently.-
I breathed a sigh of relief at this discovery and knocked on the door of the base, waited a moment and then walked in. Thanks to my soul gaze I saw where Fels was sitting cloaked on the bed.
"Lyd must have told you about this place after he left. Why are you here?" I asked curiously.
"Lord Ouranos was concerned by the sensation the dungeon was sending out after you reentered it. It actively sped up monster production in the areas you passed as though it sought to appease you for some reason. It even fought against Lord Ouranos for this purpose." the lich said seriously.
"I was wondering why I was finding so many monsters to take out my blood thirst on. As for why it would act this way that's not something I can say for certain. He did say that the dungeon was fond of me, perhaps that it?" I offered just as surprised by the information.
"Hmm, it's possible but hard to believe. What makes you so different from all the other adventurers who delve this place?" the lich asked confused.
I shrugged "Dunno." I lied without hesitation.
There was no way in hell I was going to explain my theory about the nature of cursed spirits and how monsters seemed suspiciously similar. I knew damn well that if I did there was only so long before a concern came up with Ouranos that would be highly problematic. Should a "monster" be allowed to become a god? While the Xenos helped this question out they didn't do much considering the closest the world had ever seen to divine level monsters were the things of nightmares that needed to either be sealed away or killed. The Behemoth, The Leviathan, The one eyed black dragon, Antares, The Knuckelavee, The Nidhogg and The hundred hands giant.
