Derp unleashed

John returned to Arcadia to find that Anna and June were waiting there for him. Moira had warned them that things would drag in length, but it didn't stop them from being a bit worried to see him gone for so long.

"Hi, girls, how did your afternoon go?" he asked them once he entered the dining area where they were. Anna ran to him and hugged him, quickly pushing him back.

"Eww, you reek, John. School was boring without you, not used to have other girls be jealous of me. But it isn't the same without my boyfriend to flaunt around. I almost wish I had your cleaning spell borrowed; the locker rooms were disgusting, actually the toilets and hallways were too, I don't know what happened. Remove these smoky clothes and I'll get you something to eat," she told him.

John simply stripped down and used Clean on himself to remove the sweat and smoke smell from his body. He sat down at the table next to June who smiled at him. She had a bunch of paper and was making sketches of sculptures, buildings and various decorations for the kingdom. The heavy, magic proof puzzle box was still on the table from when he showed it to Moira, not being able to lift it with magic or store it in inventories or magic chests was a real pain.

"I brought some more art supplies, and Anna gave me one of the empty rooms of the basement to store it. I wouldn't say no to one with windows though. When were you thinking about expanding the tower above ground levels?" asked the lovely art teacher.

"Very soon, I have enough for an extra level now, but I'd like to finish unlocking the mine before building more. It will unlock a whole new tier of buildings, and I'd rather not be out of stone when that happens," he explained.

Anna came back from the kitchen empty handed and then, enjoying the perks granted to her by her ring, covered the table with food with a swipe of the hand.

The weekly tests of the next day wouldn't be a problem for either of them. Anna had spent the afternoon re-reading her text books now that she had the Scholarly Mind ring perk to help her memorize their content.

"I exchanged a few texts with Tricia this morning. She is looking for ways to expand the elixir production. She also proposed another thing. She wants to take us shopping Saturday; there's a giant mall in a barrier in New York where there are thousands of stores selling magic or high tech stuff. I was thinking that, since I don't have to save every cent now, we could see what we can find. I need some new gear," he announced.

Suddenly, he spotted a red hand grabbing some food from under the table. He looked under it to see Dargon munching on a piece of deer meat.

"Wait? How did you get out?"

"Dargon was hungry. The food smells good. I like food."

"How did you get out of the vault?"

"I... got out?"

"How? You are not supposed to be able to open the door."

"Oh, don't worry. I didn't open the door. I just got out."

John had begun to realize that getting straight answer from the derpy creature was a lost cause. He did not know if it was playing with him, didn't understand the questions or was just unable to answer them for some reason. John lifted the small creature in the air with Move and put it on the other chair next to June. He had to stand on the chair to reach things on the table, and after a few tries, he simply pushed a few plates away and sat on the table, voraciously eating whatever he could grab.

"Vesta and Daphne have something that they want to show you in the forge, my love," said Anna, giving no further explanation than a smile.

"I'll go see what the surprise is then; I was going to work on finishing the lab equipment upgrades anyway. The sooner we get it running, the sooner we can begin to help Algernon and his people."

John immediately spotted the surprise when he entered the forge. Huge, thick panes of reinforced glass were propped against the wall, and a mass of molten sand was being spread in a rectangular dip in the ground by Vesta. She had disabled the camouflage of her suit, so her skin was fire engine red the moment. Even that way, he could see that she looked flustered, and the presence of Daphne in the room soon became more clear. Vesta would heat up the more horny she was. And as he had discovered this morning, the slime girl had many hidden talents.

"You did all of that today?" he asked them, truly impressed.

"Anna helped us to make the floor molds. We dump the sand, I heat it up, mix it, spread it. Then once it cools down, Daphne slips under it to lift it up. When it is still liquid, we can pour water over it to cool it down faster. What do you think of it?" announced Vesta, very proud of what she had accomplished.

"It's amazing; we should have enough for the containment unit and the treatment tank. And we will be able to use what is left for windows or things like that. Did you forget the part where Daphne helps you get hot enough for you to do this?" he asked. He didn't know if it was possible to make someone that was already red blush, but if it was, he just did. "Let's get them up and in place."

It took several trips to the lab to get them all upstairs. The panes of glass were so big that each was taking multiple inventory slots, and they didn't stack.

John used some stone and leftover metal to create an enclosed area with a thick glass wall and a door with a simple lock, opening only from the outside. He also assembled the treatment tank, connected to the various devices provided by Tricia; it was simply a long rectangular bathtub that could be made air and watertight using a lid lined with a slime material seal. John was busy connecting the various tubes, cables and gizmos following Tricia's diagram when he heard June scream in the basement.

"John!!! Come, quickly!"

Without losing a second, John ran down, equipping his armor while getting down the stairs as fast as Parkour and his magic boots allowed him.

There was no threat in sight which was a relief, but something strange had happened, the puzzle box had unfolded five of its sides to reveal a crystal dodecahedron with a cantaloupe sized pearly sphere in its center. June and Anna were around the table looking at it, and Dargon was still sitting on the table.

"What happened? How did it open?" he asked. June pointed at the small creature sitting on the table next to piles of empty plates.

"He was fiddling with it, and suddenly, it clicked and opened like that," she explained. John knew better than to ask the creature how it solved a near unsolvable puzzle in an indecipherable language.

The crystal was not showing anything on observe. John tried to scratch it with his sword, but it didn't leave a single mark. Vesta and Daphne had followed him and arrived in the room.

"What the fuck is this thing? I really want to know now," exclaimed John.

"You can't interact with it either?" asked June who remembered what she heard about the box.

"I have nothing on Observe. Let's try something else. Maybe I can steal the pearl now that I see it?" he replied. He used Theft on it. It didn't work; the pearl did not disappear. On closer inspection, it seemed that it wasn't a block of crystal; the pearl inside wasn't perfectly motionless. John tried to use Move to get it closer to the surface. It did not move the way he tried to make it do, but it had a clear effect: the pearl began changing shape and swimming around in the crystal. John tapped the surface of it with his left hand fingers, and it reacted violently.

The shape projected itself from inside towards the point where John's fingers were and went through the surface of the crystal like it wasn't even there. It brushed against John's hand and landed on Dargon's face in a pearlescent mass of jelly. June tried to get it off, and it landed on her chest before flowing to the ground. There it began to turn red and ran on four stumpy legs toward the stairs, bumping on Vesta’s shin.

John ran after it as it jumped in the stairs to the second basement. Move failed to hold it off as it ran into one of the maze entrances. John continued to run after it, but at the first split, he had no idea where it went.

Walking back out of the maze, he noticed that the shiny ring that gave him a small relationship boost was no longer on his finger, the same finger that the creature had brushed against.

"What the fuck was this thing?" asked Anna.

"No idea, but I won't take any risks." He entered the former rat den and found a few tall rats in armor, eating some leftover food. "Do you have anyone inside the Maze on this end?"

"No, pack master. All here, need anything?" replied one of them.

"I'm going to seal the entrances, don't send anyone, there might be something dangerous in there. They will need you at the village," he explained. He turned to Anna next. "Call Sylvia, explain the situation to her; she needs to help the rats secure their end of the tunnels; they have to seal the parts they use from the rest and get sentries. I'm going to make doors for access here."

John asked Vesta to watch over the entrances while he went up to gather materials. Soon after, each of the five tunnels was sealed off by a heavy wooden door with metal bracing and small panels of thick fused quartz to see what was behind it. John had put no door handles on the inside of the doors for now, and the door had a bar sliding inside the wall to lock them.

As John finished, he sat down on the floor, looking at what he had just accomplished in a few moments, and glad to have secured his castle, only one thing was on his mind:

What the hell did he just unleash on his kingdom?