DAY 465

"Me-dammit!"

Taina rolls her eyes at her giant friend's antics, as she sits back on one of the grassy hills belonging to Kahlia's personal paradise. "What now? Oh, lemme guess - some young slut went and joined Igtip's Church of No Fun?"

The Goddess of Fertility smiles as she sits in a more dignified manner, atop an organic throne. "Ha! You would think a man calling himself the God of Humility and Restraint would know that there's more interesting ways to use restraints, no? But, that's not it."

"You stole that joke from me, you know. What's the problem though?"

Kahlia sighs. "You know that young disciple, the one who bore the half-monster children? I went through all this effort to set her up for potentially establishing a new world record of offspring, and apparently she's backing down. And here I thought she had a kink for it, too."

The pink-haired dwarven Goddess of Love raises an eyebrow at the towering woman next to her. "What, someone who could beat out that slime who popped out like a thousand kids last millennium? That'd be pretty scary for a 'rigid', blessings or no."

"Pfft, slimes don't count. You know they're not my department, I still don't really understand how they work myself. Maybe I should spread out the effort a bit? Give Worthy a quest to get more women pregnant by monsters? Or maybe it's time to have a monster get pregnant, I think she's secure enough now that she could keep one safe for a few months."

The question mostly confuses her friend. "Hey, you know I'm all for love between all sorts, and Worthy's got 'monsters' who can fully appreciate it, so that's even better. But what's with the monster kick lately? I thought you just gave her that quest to see if it could even be done."

"Well, yes, at the time. But I started thinking of the potential, you know? The defining difference between a monster and an animal is, of course, that a monster uses magic as a major, often essential, part of its being. That means the possibilities are endless! Even if that aspect doesn't carry over to the children, if we could create some sort of...breeding-focused dungeon..."

Taina grimaces as she climbs back to her feet. "Oh, come on, not this again! Where's the connection, the love, the romance? How is a parent supposed to love four dozen kids the way they deserve? There's more to coupling than how many eggs you can fertilize! Besides, I'm pretty sure even Worthy wouldn't go that far, and good luck trying to get the dungeon gang to let you design your own."

The curvaceous goddess looks like she's about to snap back with a counter-argument, but bites her tongue instead. It's an argument they've had countless times over the years, after all, and it's one of the major reasons Taina had never joined her followers with Kahlia's and Palain's in the Church of Bounty. Instead, she changes the topic. "Well, we did finally arrange a meeting, so I'll hold out some hope that they're willing to discuss side-topics. I just hope Palain's not having any trouble."

A man's voice calls out to her, from where a newly-arrived god is making his way up the hill. "Just a small matter, my love! A fire in the goblin lands destroyed quite a few crops that were nearing harvest, I had to answer enough prayers to ensure that at least the poorest villages wouldn't starve. I hope I haven't delayed things too much?"

Taina shakes her head at the God of the Harvest, wearing his typical guise of a tanned human farmer. "We've got time - although I was hoping you'd be early enough that I could help you sow your seeds a bit, but it seems like we won't have time for that..." She sighs dramatically as the others both wear bemused expressions.

"I'm sorry for your suffering, but I'm sure you'll manage to live somehow." Palain smirks at the shorter woman before looking up at his dearest. "So the Dungeoneers have agreed to our meeting? How many of them will be present, do you think?"

"Five, apparently. Less than half of their group, which is shameful considering how long we've been requesting this gathering."

Palain frowns at the response. "It's been almost entirely a year since we started prodding them about their slip-ups! I've run into some here and there at parties, you know, but they avoid me whenever I try to bring up their dungeon work! I'm starting to think there's definitely something serious going on here."

Taina nods rapidly in agreement. "Been suspicious from the start! But if we're all ready to go now, should we hop on over?"

The others agree, and as the owner of the local pocket realm Kahlia takes the lead in creating a bridge to the agreed-on meeting dimension. As deities of the same core realm it's not nearly as major an undertaking as visiting a completely different pantheon would be, but the local realm has an above-average number of divines ruling over its aspects and navigating between all of the various paradises, afterlives, sex dens, infinite taverns, and so on filling the dimensional space like bubbles takes a fair bit of effort. It's not long though before the trio find themselves within one of the more typical meeting locations used by the local gods.

In this case, it's the top of a stormy mountain owned by Ulinda, Goddess of Crafts. The peak is flattened out into smooth stone and ringed by pillars which keep the endless storm at bay, reduced to a bit of decorative scenery, and the only other decoration marking the realm is a quintet of thrones. In other cases there might have been a round table, or perhaps a banquet, but it seems as if the local clique has decided to present themselves as rulers listening to a petition. Petty, considering all of the gods here are essentially equals, but Kahlia's not interested in making an issue of it - yet.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The mountaintop is both infinite in size and simultaneously rather cramped, and it only takes a few steps for the three guests to make their way to the thrones. As the local realm-lady Ulinda has the center seat, with her drider body resting atop a gilded couch. Kahlia quickly scans the others to see who actually arrived, and recognizes them easily enough. On the left is Erashi, Goddess of Battle, wearing her common form as an orc woman. It relieves Kahlia a bit, for if she'd been wearing the body of a fiend demon it would have indicated she was expecting a fight. Between the two goddesses sits Garre, God of Monsters, currently wearing a shifting form made of eyeballs and tendrils.

To the right of Ulinda sits Sandem, the God of Enchantment. There's several gods of magic in this realm, but Kahlia knows that Sandem in particular was vital to the design of dungeon cores, and that the entire dungeon project would likely not have worked if not for him. The dwarf-shaped man squirms a little at the upcoming social engagement, and Kahlia tries not to smirk - the man had always had a crush on Taina and yet failed to ever act on it, even when the bold Goddess of Love would walk right up to him and ask to be 'enchanted'. Then finally at the right end of the row sits...no. Kahlia's eyes grow wide.

"Dice!? What brings the Goddess of Games to a serious meeting like this?"

The alabaster-skinned human smirks as she lounges sideways in her throne, black circles dotting her face in irregular patterns. "What's the problem, Ka-Kah? I'm part of this gang too, you know! How'd you think we'd keep the dungeons in line, without someone like me to enforce the rules?"

"I thought..." Kahlia trails off as she eyes Sandem, who she had imagined had carved those rules into the cores themselves...but perhaps she had been mistaken. "Never mind, my apologies. If you're not here as a prank, then I'm happy for your presence."

"Hey, just because I know how to have a bit of fun doesn't mean I don't know how to get a job done. But this ain't my show, so I suppose I'll stop talking...for a little bit, at least." She gestures towards Ulinda, and the drider goddess tries not to sigh at the exchange.

"Yes, thank you for being so kind, Dice. So - as your host, I welcome you to my realm, Kahlia, Palain, and Taina. You are welcome and safe here...although we do not appreciate your recent prodding into our affairs."

Taina and Palain both look towards Kahlia, who they had previously agreed should be the spokeswoman for their clique. While her towering appearance does nothing to intimidate the quintet, who are all fully capable of taking more impressive forms of their own, Kahlia does have a capability for occasional ruthlessness which the other two lack. It's something that rarely comes out, but it does lend the goddess a slight bit of authority which Love and Harvest would struggle to display.

"While we all respect the authority of a divine within their own affairs, such a thing becomes weaker when a project involves so many, does it not? The 'Dungeoneers' working group contains a dozen or so gods, if I'm not mistaken - and I admit we're a little disappointed so few have heeded our request for a meeting. I believe we have been rather patient."

"While there were that many involved in the initial creation of the dungeons, not all are still involved in their maintenance and upkeep. We here are among those still most active in the project. But you haven't answered the question - until this recent matter of a monster impregnating a mortal, Fertility was not associated with dungeons at all. So we fail to see why you have been asking for a meeting since before that event even occurred."

"It's how that occurred - how it was even possible - that concerns us! Surely you must be aware by now that Worthy Dungeon is capable of manipulating and even creating divine-aspected mana directly. Fortunately it's not nearly in a large enough scale to make her a demigod, let alone a deity, but it still makes her unique upon the mortal plane. We have been asking for a meeting quietly so as to avoid a scandal by announcing it loudly!"

The gods remain seated firmly, but Kahlia can sense it as hidden aspects of them squirm - save for Dice, the ever-unflappable woman with the excellent poker face. They do indeed know of Xenia's discovery, yet seem to be embarrassed by some aspect of it?

Surprisingly, it's Sandem who answers the charge, although not without a stammer in his voice. "It's - it's all quite safe and contained, Kahlia. As you've seen for yourself, even the direct offspring of a divine-aspected dungeon monster do not inherit divine properties. And the dungeon cannot - can't influence the world beyond its boundaries."

Taina speaks up, unable to ignore the chance to prod at a potentially vulnerable member of the opposite group. "It's not the containment we're worried about! It's more like - how is a dungeon even capable of doing that without exploding!? Xenia's practically one-of-a-kind, sure. A serial reincarnator, super cursed and all that. But none of that explains how she can handle divine energy without going crazy! Or how the original dungeon there was able to manipulate it to begin with! We put a ban on spawning demigods for a reason, you know? It took two thousand years for the planet to recover the last time we let things get too wild!"

Erashi takes over with a growl, perhaps only to avoid allowing Sandem to say too much. "Who said that it's Worthy who possesses the divine spark? A dungeon is made up of a multitude of components, little lover."

Kahlia furrows her brow. "Now I admit that I am not privy to the details of dungeon design. But the Worthy is the dungeon core, yes? Physically? If it's not the core which contains the divine spark, one of Sandem's enchantments, then what is it?" She turns to face Dice. "Is it one of your obscure 'rules' that allows her to access divine energy?"

The raven-haired goddess grins at being addressed. "You're getting warmer! It's true, enchantments couldn't account for everything we wanted dungeons to be able to do - that's why I was brought in, after the prototype had...well, that's a whole other can of beans. And I was definitely able to smooth things out quite a bit! But I gotta admit..." She raises her hands in mock surrender. "In order to get the job done, I had to cheat."

Palain almost chokes at the declaration. "What!? Prankster you may be, Dice, but we all know that cheating is antithetical to your entire being. Explain, if you would."

Garre burbles at his fellow goddess, a warning to stay silent, but Dice waves him off. "C'mon, it's obvious if you think about it for half a minute. But everyone always overlooks the quiet ones, don't they?"

"The quiet ones?" Kahlia is confused for a moment, as she quickly reviews what she knows about the dungeons. Then finally something stands out, something that she should have perhaps paid attention to earlier. "Wait, you're referring to - "

Dice nods. "Yup! To get the job done, I had to go to the SGA."

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