Dungeon Menagerie 37 (Patreon)

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRei

Dungeon Menagerie

Chapter 37

-VB-

The Menagerie acted up but quieted down without getting anything. At the same time, she felt like it had a lot of essence stocked up, which made her wonder just exactly what it had tried to get that it either missed or was too big for her to have despite the large stock.

No matter.

The little standoff with the Freya Familia didn’t stop her. 

Vanessa headed straight back home with her Friends and friends and came to the shed where Chrysalismon was waiting. Her goddess met her right outside the house and followed her toward the shed.

“He’s not in a good shape at all,” Athena hummed noncommittally. “I had some of my fellow gods over, and they couldn’t make head or tails about what was wrong with Chrysalismon. It didn’t help that your Friend wasn’t all there.”

Vanessa was tempted to stop and question her goddess about what exactly who those gods were and what they saw, but she didn’t. Instead, she hastened.

She didn’t notice how Athena looked behind them at Vel’Koz, who was too big to fit through the walled backyard and chose to sit in front of the house. Or the way Vel’Koz’s eye brightened as he stared at Athena. 

“Okay,” she muttered as she brought out all of the magic stones. “How am I going to feed this to him?”

Chrysalismon was unconscious. Wouldn’t wake up even when she shook him. If he wasn’t awake to eat the magic stones, then how she was going to help him get better? 

She couldn’t possibly have to grind up the magic stones, infuse them into sterile water, and then IV it into him… right? 

Right?

Then as if to answer her question, Chrysalismon shifted. His eyes fluttered open and he groggily looked around before his eyes landed on her.

He crooned, barely. 

“Hi,” she whispered as she caressed his metallic body.

He crooned again. Again, tiredly and barely. 

The once studio purple shell was now almost all void tainted black. Everything below his head was completely black while his clawed whips and head were crisscrossed with void tainted marks reaching upward to claim his entire body.

“Eat. You have to get stronger to beat the Void,” she whispered as she helped him up and brought the first magic stone to his jaws, a very thin and long crack underneath his eyes that stretched from literal one side of the head to the other. “Come on. Eat.”

He crackled, and she could feel that it was him being on the verge of giving up. It wasn’t just weakness plaguing him. It was also pain, hallucinations, and so much more. He wasn’t even sure with 100% certainty that she was right here next to him. 

“Eat,” she told him again.

His eyes looked up at me, fraying and shaking with how weak he was. 

Her lips thinned. Could he even swallow in this state?

Not knowing what else, she put down the big stone and picked up something smaller. It was barely bigger than her pinky nail. 

She closed her fist around it and crushed it. 

Then she pried his mouth open and slid the broken pieces of the magic stone in. 

He gurgled and crackled but he didn’t spit it out. 

He swallowed. 

And she felt it. 

She felt just a miniscule improvement in his health but the Void was trying to claw its lost territory back and did so with fervor. 

This was a race now. 

-VB-

Athena watched as Vanessa methodically began to use her improved strength to crush magic stones and feed them to the cocoon. She could see that the thing was getting better, but he was also not left without the mark of the curse he had suffered. 

“Will he be okay?” 

She glanced to her left and saw Bell and Lili, Hestia’s children.

“I believe so,” she replied for their sake. “Come. Let’s leave Vanessa to her Friends. I’ll also get you some cash for the work you did.”

Her words and quick action to carry those words out made Bell pull his attention away from the scene of Vanessa caring for the “digital monster.” 

“Wait! We didn’t do this to get payment!” he said hurriedly as he chased after her. 

“It is not about you doing this for payment. You did it to help her. We all know,” she said as she opened their familia house’s backdoor. “But you and your friend have been gone for over a week, and the moment you left the Dungeon, you came to our house instead of going back to Hestia to tell her that you two were alright. Do you even know what your Goddess feels right now? Or would feel?”

She didn’t like being serious or talking about things like this. This was supposed to be a moment of triumph, after all. 

“A-Ah… I didn’t think about that…” 

“Thankfully, I did because I knew you wouldn’t,” Lili huffed. 

She liked the sassy girl. 

“If you don’t take even a slightest bit of payment to show something when your familia is currently living out of an abandoned church, then it will impact you all negatively. That negative impact will carry over to your feelings. Make you feel more reluctant to help. Make you think about the consequences more,” she replied as she reached a box deeper inside the house and pulled out one of the bags of valis she knew Vanessa stored here. “I’m doing this so that next time we need help, you won’t feel reluctant to help my girl again. That’s all there is to it.”

She roughly counted its content with her eyes. Maybe a few thousand valis or so. She turned around … and gave it to Lili. The girl would accept it without fuss. 

And she did. 

“Now go and tell your goddess you are back. Take her out to dinner or something.”

And if she helped out her aunt-friend on the side, then that was good, too. 

“And warn her that I will be taking her out for shopping to pay her familia back for the help her familia gave mine, got it?” she threatened. “And before you object, the more you object, the fancier dress I’ll get her.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll reject it, then,” Lili droned. 

Bell quickly understood what was about to happen. He bowed, grabbed Lili, and ran out of her house. 

Athena snorted. 

Too bad she couldn’t have that girl as her own.