Shance
Is it... Nope.
- Location
- Country of Tacos
I had not though about who the insanity skill beloged to before... It seems like Taylor has a bigger problem than QA...
It's not wrong to make Friends in the Dungeon (Danmachi / Sanctioned [Worm])
The first description is for QA the second is for Taylor.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
For me it wasn't.
I've read up to volume seven or so, and I'm pretty sure it's not in there.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They're actually both for both of them lol. For future reference, I'd appreciate it if unconfirmed stuff like this isn't phrased in absolutes in my threads (e.g. "I think that..." at the start, in this case). It often saves on fighting.
No, it's kinda not. As previously requested, please spoiler yer spoilers, dammit! Just because something is a 15+ volume series doesn't make it acceptable to spoil something that's from before, say, the latest five or the like. It shouldn't be a hardship to put something inside [ spoiler ] [/spoiler] boxes; Alpha's request was perfectly reasonable.
EDIT: You can also highlight text, then do insert (the ... next to the
) -> spoiler. That wraps it around the highlighted text.
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Interlude: Consequences
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, and my nine other patrons not mentioned here. An extremely enthusiastic pair of "Thank you"s to @Torgamous and @fictionfan for their patronage as well.
Author's Note: I know it's hard to track so many people at once. Fret not; they'll get more detailed introductions in later chapters.
Tiona Hiryute sat in the Loki Familia's main dining hall and let the happy chattering of ongoing conversation wash over her. She was contributing as well, of course, but it was nice to be somewhere that people weren't afraid to speak their minds.
"So, how were the giant murderkitties?" Tiona asked eagerly.
Lefiya scowled at her plate of greens and stabbed at them with her fork. Tiona thought that was a little unfair; food was never responsible for one's suffering.
"Ask Aiz," the elf grumbled. "Canary wouldn't let me pet them at all."
Several nearby conversations stopped as those nearby commenced less-than-subtle eavesdropping. Lefiya didn't show any sign of noticing or caring; anyone who abhorred gossip wouldn't last long around Loki or her Familia. What else was there to talk about between Expeditions, the multi-day Familia-wide trips into the dungeon?
"Oh?"
Lefiya sighed and halfheartedly glared at her food.
"I maybe somewhat slightly startled her enough to get a knife thrown at me."
Elfy Colette, Lefiya's roommate, inhaled her drink and began the painful process of coughing out her lungs even as they insisted on trying to make her laugh.
"It's not funny!" Lefiya protested. "I'm telling you, it was right at neck level! I start to make a joke from behind her and whoosh, knife coming right at me!"
"And this was a rookie?" Tione, Tiona's twin sister, asked curiously. "I like this girl already. Girl sounds like she has spirit."
Lefiya shuddered and pushed her plate away.
"No. No, definitely not," Lefiya said emphatically. "Canary's tutor from the Hephaestus Familia — new guy, not the earlier promise-breaker — said she'd been hurt and 'needed to relearn how to be a person.' It shows. No real tones of voice, practically dead eyes, her only expressions like they'd been painted on, and..."
Lefiya faltered and frowned.
"Well, she wouldn't let me pet her cats even after she threw a knife at me?" she offered lamely. "Her pets were a bit weird, too. Still cute, but it's like they thought the uncanny valley was similar enough to a box for them to sit in it."
Translation: Those are the only complaints I can think of, and she probably can't help them. Poor Canary.
"Did yooooou apologize?" Tiona asked, half-certain she already knew the answer. Lefiya could be a bit of an oblivious dolt sometimes.
"Of course not! She threw the knife at me," Lefiya insisted.
"After you snuck up on her," Tiona's twin pointed out. "You really should know better by now. How was her aim, anyway?"
Lefiya scowled and crossed her arms.
"Excellent," she grudgingly admitted. "From belt toward my head without even looking. And her tutor said she'd only started with knives the day before. If she didn't have such sweet kitties, I'd call her a future serial killer in waiting. She said it was just a warning shot and that she'd missed on purpose, but if I dodged the wrong way..."
"You're just upset she spent time with Aiz, aren't you?" Tiona teased.
She expected a blush. She earned a scowl instead.
"Don't talk to me about that — that expatriate," Lefiya hissed.
Conversation ceased in a slightly wider ring around them, then spread as the rest of the hall decided they wanted to know why so much of it had gone quiet. Lefiya insisted she just viewed Aiz as a role model and friend, but the more romantically inclined faction of the Familia was convinced to interpret it as a crush. Either way, the hostility was unusual. Sure, 'Expatriate' wasn't that strong of an insult considering how nearly everyone in the Familia came from lands well outside Orario, but it was clearly still intended as one.
"Are you doing okay?" Tiona asked solemnly.
Lefiya looked around at the hall full of worried faces and crumbled.
"I guess I am. It's just we were supposed to be enjoying the kitties together and Aiz ditched me without a word. We weren't even supposed to say hello, only appreciate them from a distance."
Ah. Business as usual, then. For a girl who spent so much of her time thinking, Aiz could be a little thoughtless sometimes.
"And then Aiz spent all day collecting Magic Stones for 'taste testing' since Canary said her pets liked them as treats," Lefiya complained. "Aiz took a whole backpack with her. Any normal cats would've gone feral with so many. Canary insists hers won't go rogue no matter how much they're fed."
"That sounds like hubris," the redheaded Narvi Roll contributed from a nearby table. "Even people go mad if they consume enough Magic Stones. It's sometimes subtle and gradual, but always inevitable."
"I think she might be right, though," Lefiya insisted. "Canary said the entire line of her pets 'discard corruption and keep the magic.' That sounds like the sort of blessing a Spirit might be able to manage. And really, have you seen them? I don't see how else they'd get that big!"
I want one, Tiona instantly decided. A giant murderkitty that she could feed trash mobs without worrying about bringing along a Supporter? They sounded perfect for passing time.
"Where are they from?"
Lefiya's expression took on an unusually vindictive bent.
"I don't know, but 'sharing them outside Canary's family is forbidden,'" Lefiya quoted. "See? Totally a Spirit's doing."
A chorus of awwws resounded around the hall. It seemed Tiona wasn't anywhere near the only one to want a baby bundle of murderfloof.
"Why don't we have more pets?" someone wondered aloud. "I'm sure we could train them not to wreck things."
"What, Loki not enough for you?"
The hall immediately split into factions of those openly laughing and those trying not to.
"Good gods, you can't just say that!"
"Then tell me I'm wrong!"
"Hey, everyone!" Anakitty hollered from one of the entrances to the hall. "Aiz got a new skill!"
Those within the hall did their utmost to stifle their laughter as everyone nearby listened with keen interest. A snort, chuckle, or giggle still escaped them now and then. The pet-joke really had been accurate; Loki was a handful on the best of days.
"She didn't want to share details," Anakitty continued. "But Loki said—"
"I still don't," Aiz said from directly behind the black-haired catgirl. "Eavesdropping is rude."
Anakitty yelped, smiled sheepishly, and turned to face the irate Sword Princess.
"I wasn't doing it on purpose," Anakitty protested. "I could hear Loki's shouting all the way down the hall."
"I could hear your footsteps running away from the door," Aiz pointed out.
"That could've been anyone!"
"No." A wicked gleam entered Aiz's golden eyes. "Your clothes audibly complained about the new weight."
"""Oooooooh,""" a quarter of the room chorused. Aiz so rarely came out of her shell, but when she did, it was always to charge at foes with sword held high. Or to punish Loki for the usual sexual harassment. Either/or, really.
Anakitty's expression fell into the pits.
"…You really are upset, aren't you?" The catgirl asked. "Sorry…"
"I am," Aiz insisted.
Contrary to her words, she only appeared mildly annoyed. Then again, she never looked like she felt much of anything. It gave the Sword Princess a reputation for blankness that Tiona felt would be better applied to herself. Aiz was smart, if a bit quiet. Tiona knew what empty-headedness looked like; she saw it in the mirror all the time.
"Now half of Orario will know by tomorrow," Aiz finished.
"Hey everyone, Aiz got a new skill!" Loki called cheerfully, skipping into the hall without any regard for Anakitty's hanging head.
Aiz closed her eyes and sighed.
"Even you, Loki?"
"They deserve to know where you'll be," Loki said dismissively as she produced a small slip of parchment and waved it through the air. "Anyway—"
Aiz snatched the parchment out of Loki's hands, ripped it to shreds, and pointedly dropped them out of one clenched fist. Loki stared at Aiz's grim expression and pouted.
"You should still tell them," Loki complained. "It's perfectly natural for a girl of your age."
Aiz shot her Familia's head a look of purest betrayal as half the hall began loudly speculating about possible love-related skills. Tiona would've joined them if she didn't already have such a good show. Going by Loki's smug expression, it wasn't love-related at all.
""""""Tell us, tell us, tell us!"""""" nearly all of the Loki Familia cheerfully chanted, Tiona and her twin included.
Aiz's eyes flickered from participant to participant in a manner they'd long since come to associate with crumbling willpower. In Tiona's opinion, she really could use a bit more social backbone. The Sword Princess crumbled way too easily in the face of peer pressure.
"I just wanted to cuddle the cats," Aiz protested. "I wasn't aiming for this."
The chant continued as Lefiya gasped with apparent horror. Whatever she'd realized, it was enough for her fork to gradually bend under the pressure.
""""""Tell us, tell us, tell us!""""""
The sword princess panned her gaze across the sea of curious faces and crumpled.
"'Teacher of Heroes,'" Aiz quoted reluctantly. "'Greatly enhances growth of user as they nurture the growth of select others. Effect scales with strength of purpose and achievements of students. Most effective if a chosen pupil was at level 1 when nurturing began.'"
Lefiya's fork snapped in half. Her roommate and Tiona both reached over to pat the elf's shoulders sympathetically. Aiz was the only one oblivious to her idolization and now it seemed yet more barriers would be established between them.
"And Aiz won't let me bring in her chosen pupil!" Loki whined. "Even though the child is stuck with that midg–"
"Taylor is perfectly happy with Hestia," Aiz interrupted firmly. "And given her condition, I believe a stable environment should be maintained. You cannot tell me this Familia qualifies."
Aiz swept her gaze across the cheerfully chaotic dining hall and its cheering inhabitants.
"It would be good for her!" Loki protested.
"No," Aiz repeated.
"But—"
"No."
Tiona scoured her memory for the Hestia family. That's the loud midget who just descended, isn't it? The one with no members and…
She shook her head and refocused on the present.
"We can still invite her to stuff even if she's not in our Familia," Tiona called. "Get to know her, but don't push her, yeah?"
An uncharacteristic hush of silence swept the hall as nearly everyone stared expectantly at their irresponsible leader. Loki initially maintained her stubborn expression, but Aiz wasn't the only one weak to pressure from her family. The goddess quickly crumpled under the pressure from her Familia.
"Fine! But I'll still offer now and then!"
A resounding cheer swept the hall.
"Dibs on the cats!" someone called.
"Fuck your 'dibs' you halfwit—"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Alexander Cleftson, the Guild representative placed in charge of disseminating the results of their Dungeon investigation, stared out at the comparatively small number of attending deities and sighed. This was exactly why he'd said the Guild should start putting subject headers on their summons. So many of the gods assumed that if something were important, then they'd inevitably find out about it via their more responsible peers. To be fair, they were right, but that didn't make less than fifty percent attendance sting any less.
"The Guild has completed its investigation into what is being called the 'First Floor Monster Mansion,'" Alexander announced. "I would've expected more deities to be interested in such an important announcement, but apparently not. We will begin with the rumored allegation that the so-called 'Canary' initiated it. We considered that accusation–"
"Well maybe if you put a subject on the summons–" a god called belatedly, his brain apparently only just catching up with the jab.
I know. Believe me, I know.
"—And we have found that she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," the representative stubbornly continued. "The Guild discovered that Magic Stones can be planted in Dungeon walls to spawn monsters of a lesser type. Frog shooter Cores placed in the walls of the first floor will spawn a single goblin apiece. The excess energy is used to spawn part of one of the original monsters — frog shooters, in this case — on their normal floor. This effectively means that evil individuals can set up artificial traps triggered by the approach of adventurers. Given the recent Magic Stone thefts, we find it likely this is what the thieves were aiming for.
"Any Familia found to utilize this tactic will be blacklisted by the Guild and their names announced to Orario as a whole. In particularly heinous cases, bounties may be issued on offending—"
A particularly loud minority in the room all began shouting at once, drowning out the rest of Alexander's sentence. Everyone could still guess: Offending adventurers and possibly their Familia.
"What?"
"You can't be serious!"
"—Supposed to be neutral—"
"We were very careful in our studies," the representative said loudly, "and verified that you will still lose vast amounts of money when it comes to the increased spawn rates, even including any and all possible drops. It is not worth it. Most of you have known better than to feed Magic Stones to monsters; do not attempt something far worse."
Alexander stood up and tried not to look as though he was fleeing the room. Being around so many angry deities never got any easier.
"—Know it'd be dumb, but bounties?"
"—Stupid things happen when you're drunk—"
"—Back to your damned tower and shove—"
The door shut on the last shouts. Still, Alexander hurried through the next set of locking doors before he felt comfortable collapsing against a nearby wall.
I really hope telling them doesn't come back to bite us. Like damned children, every one of them.
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You have to cut Taylor some slack, her current occupation hinges on her not recovering, IIRC from Sanctioned.
- Location
- Tbilisi, Georgia
I'm dying here.
How did Lefiya know that? Has Hestia been tattling on her?
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, crap. Mistake on my end. Fixing the planet bit.
EDIT: Fixed. Sorry about the inconsistency!
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Ah, she was probably thinking about Hestia's boobs that Loki frequently complains and self destructs on.
Ooh, a sick burn. And reinforces the notion that privacy is only an illusion when you have higher leveled adventurers living with you.
It's mentioned in the original Japanese volume five.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
It is even more then that
Terpsichore: Receives at least equal Falna-related combat benefits as long as they, or one of their Friends, have significantly contributed to a given battle.
If QA helps in a Aiz level battle both of them would likely level up on the spot. Or at least max out their stats.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's still fairly far in. Anyway, the problematic relative in question could also be called Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, so please, spoiler mentions or only allude to it. (That goes for all o'yall.) People who want to avoid Danmachi spoilers won't see it. Everyone else will still read it just fine, and spoiler tags take <15 seconds to implement.
floppy_seal99
D-O-G-A-R-S DOGARS!
- Location
- snooping as usual
You're not wrong buddy.
I'm surprised nobody's called up Yahweh Familia to erm regulate the other idiot gods for crackfic purposes at this point. That wouldn't work here, of course, since Zion/Scion Familia can do the same thing with Great Golden Beams of Kill Fucking Everything
- Location
- A Table Near You
Possible, but notice how Friends is capitalized? The skill likely doesn't apply to normal friends; it's intended to let QA grow from battles, even if her constructed Friends do all the fighting.
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I'll accede to your request of any future volume 'spoliers.' Although if he's not appearing it makes this line of lore rather superfluous.
Not arguing against spoilers, just the "fairly far in" bit here. Volume 5 is episodes 10 to 13 of the first season.
94000130FFF70000
Absolutely the Worst
- Location
- Midwest USA
NOW Loki is trying to recruit Canary, even if only on the down-low.
Poor Aiz, floundering in front of the crowd. Poor Lefiya, not getting to spend time with her idol (but srs lefiya maybe calm down). Poor Alexander, having to deal with all the angry yelling deities.
Still, I eagerly await Aiz-senpai.
Also, OP, any plans on including
down the line? (knowledge of the very existence of the subject here is something of a spoiler)
Poor Aiz, floundering in front of the crowd. Poor Lefiya, not getting to spend time with her idol (but srs lefiya maybe calm down). Poor Alexander, having to deal with all the angry yelling deities.
Still, I eagerly await Aiz-senpai.
Also, OP, any plans on including
xenos
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*insert image of Loki wearing Groucho glasses here*
No comment. Sorry, saying one way or the other would be a spoiler for this.
If it does show up, though, odds are good that QAylor will have gummed up the works enough to avoid spoiling most of the original plot-parts with the subject and obfuscate the rest.
VC Project
Infinite Possibilities at the Point of No Return
I'd expect Ganesha Familia to visit, to compare "taming methods" or even just Ganesha himself just suddenly appearing to "chat". As God of the Masses he would surely have heard enough rumours by now to get interested.
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
This sounds like an invitation to join up with Hestia if you want cute murder kitties lol.
Or kidnap Canary and force her to join your familia. Either or.
LocalCatHybrid
Now I am become floof, the floofer of floofs.
- Location
- You know where...
- Pronouns
- Il/Lui
"Ganesha-sama, what do you think about the rumors of a new Tamer appearing outside of your Familia?"
"I AM GANESHA!"
"Wow, what a deeply insightful comment from the god Ganesha."
"Indeed, that god truly is a fount of wisdom."
"I AM GANESHA!"
"Wow, what a deeply insightful comment from the god Ganesha."
"Indeed, that god truly is a fount of wisdom."