"See this? This is the Haunted Mansion!" The sun just was there in front of the building and moved hands to the sides, showing the "Haunted Mansion."

The sun had taked it around many buildings after the Pit and now showed it a weird looking building. It was also in a big place, with no buildings near it. Here too, many demons walked around.

"Obviosuly, it's not really haunted as in like, some random people died with grievances or something. No, this is a special training facility that must be built in every settlement with a population larger than 5000, by law."

What is a "law?"

"It's a rule - a thing that everyone has to do or listen to. Very important. Anyway-"

Laws. Important. Listen to "rules." Ok.

"-the house is an undead and corpses from monsters and demons are tossed in there so that it raises them as undead. Then, you go in and wait for an hour. After that, it becomes a maze and you have to fight your way out. There's lots of ways of doing it, but the main point is getting experience with undead."

It looked at some demons going in. When the gates opened, it could hear many loud sounds like graaaahhhhh in it. The Mansion moved around a bit after the demons went in and the gates closed. There were some parts of the house that dropped and made thud or crack noises when they hit the ground.

"Of course, plenty of us go for fun. That, and you can get experience with mazes and traps in the process. It's actually really fun. Mainly when you see friends get humiliated." Saying that sun seemed to think of something and started laughing loudly.

"I remember one time, a Patchwork Fleshwalker exploded and Styx was covered in its innards. Good times." Sun started laughing again, "And this other time-"

"-When this guy here fell through the floor into a pit of centipedes and freaked out. Haha. Right?" Styx hit sun's arm top again and laughed.

Sun was still. "S-so, Styx, what brings you here? I was just showing it around y'know, being a good host, see? I think that you should first relax while I give you a detailed-"

"So, while I was wondering where you went you were enjoying yourself walking around showing, it the sights. I almost got set on fire by those crazies, and here you are, without a care in the world."

"I, uh, how did you find me?"

Styx let go of sun and moved in front. "I mean, a guard walking around with a sword in one hand and a club in the other and ropes over his back. Is quite noticeable, don't you think?"

Sun laughed and moved a bit away, "Well, as you can see, I did do my share of the work. It's not like I was slacking persay. I was, uh, taking the liberty to spend my leisure time effectively. I mean, we have another couple hours until it's our turn on the walls."

"Really now? You did your job, is it?"

Sun nodded, "Yeah."

Styx laughed, "Then, why does that sword not have a sheath. Or strap to hang it with?"

Sun stopped and looked at the sword, then fastly back at Styx, "I mean. Um. Right, it's just a practice sword."

"Ah huh. And you didn't bother trying to find me and see if there's anything else you could do, seeing as I handle a bulk of the work?"

"Ok. Styx." Sun moved up and hit Styx's arm top, "Let's just agree that we both made some mistakes today. I'll help you tomorrow. So now, if there's nothing else to do, how about we continue the tour?"

"Really? Are you serious right now? That's all you have to say? You better get over yourself." Styx walked away.

"Eh, he'll be fine. Right? Right. Ok. So, where was I..." Sun stopped and started thinking.

Was that ok though? Styx sounded unhappy. It wasn't too sure, but usually, wasn't it good to keep Styx happy? So that he could keep getting Styx to do things for him?

"That's...not exactly why you're supposed to maintain friendships...you know. If nothing else, your shock treatment is quite effective." Sun moved his hands side to side.

"Shock treatment?" What was that? It was just saying the true. Styx wasn't its friend, so he was there to be used, right? Since he did stuff for him, that was why he was there, right?

"That's not how friends treat friends ok. Friends are - should be - more important than that. You can't just see them as tools. So, I guess I should go apologize. You're right." Sun said that and then started running the way Styx went.

What? That wasn't what it was saying at all though...well, whatever. This "tools" and not tools thing was too weird for it to understand. But then, were things just tools or not tools? Was that how it worked? Only not tools were harder to know right?

"Well as long as you're not seeing everyone as tools it's fine I guess...I mean, not like another psycho's gonna make a big difference. What's one more psycho to this place?" Sun dropped and went under a big thing two demons were carrying.

It wasn't sure how he didn't hit the sword or club on anything. Really weird. Well, it just had to follow under right? It was more now after some time, but still "small" enough to go under like sun.

"So, anyways. Do you have any particular likes or dislikes? Something you think you see yourself doing in the future?"

Killing things. It was fun. Or doing nothing. Or learning. Hurt was ok now.

The bad bad feeling the weird thing from the castle did was a no. For sure that was a "dislike."

"Eh, so you're fine with my personality?"

What?

"It's not like I don't get it you know. That I'm not exactly the best to be around. Styx and me became friends when Stix and I went to his birthday. It was after you left. Anyway, remember Styx? The guy who Stix mentioned? It was his younger brother. We ended up hitting it off. So since we were both going to school, we went together. Stix is cool too, but we're more like good acquaintances than friends."

Oh. Well, it just thought he was using a different name.

"You couldn't see the differences? I mean come on, Styx looks totally different from Stix!"

Wel they all looked kind of same to it. A bear and a wolf were different. A demon and a demon were only sometimes different.

"That's...really. Uh. Can you at least tell apart me and Krax?"

Obviously. Why would it be hard to tell which was sun and which was Krax. They were very different.

"Uh. Sure. Oh, hey, there's Styx! Ok. I just have to say I regret my previous actions. Not that hard. Right?"

Sure.

"Ok." Sun stopped and then fastly walked up to Styx.

He turned around. "What? Done already? Ok, let's go."

"Huh?"

What?

Sun looked just as not sure as it was.

"Look, I'm not that mad. I mean, I get that you're not a people person. Relax." Styx hit the sun's arm top once, and then turned around. "Right, so ready to die? Ecromina's gonna kill us."

"Ugh. Let's hope it's not the same punishment as last time. Cleaning the walls is stupid, and very, very tedious. Especially the arrow slits." Sun looked scared when he thought about it.

Was it really that bad?

"You're right! Styx! The spirit can just use that corrosion to clean everything! We don't have to struggle and figure out how to clean the arrow slits!" Sun looked very happy and after hearing it so did Styx.

But, was it really that bad? Even if taked lots of time, time was never not enough anyway. Why feel bad about it?

"You're the abnormal one here, ok? Please don't assume you're the standard."

It should be though.

"You seem to be enjoying yourselves?"

"Yea - no, no. We're actually very busy. And uh, crushed under the weight of our workload."

Ecromina was there somehow, it didn't see when it came, and sun tried to look very sad. Styx actually unfastly started moving away, towards one of the sideways through the buildings.

"We," sun holded one of Styx's arms, "were just looking for you! Really! No lie! We wanted to take responsibility for our actions and...apologize. Of course, we are willing to do chores to make up for it, such as, say, last time's punishment."

Styx also did the head up and down, "We're very serious about this. As well, it was a complete accident as a result of the spirit's, er, curiosity. It was responsible for the accident. We, actually, didn't cause it, and instead participated in containment."

Sun fastly added, "It could have been a lot worse. We may have even lost the spirit, but thanks to our timely actions, we were able to save it."

Ecromina just was there not talking until then and then after moving its head up and down once, it talked. "It's not a major loss. Since even the seal only costs mana rather than material resources. It's no loss. Unlike our weaker brethren, I'm not handicapped here nearly as much."

Sun and Styx looked happy to hear this, and started to talk, but then Ecromina continued, louder now. The other demons around had become not there at some point. It could still see some of them looking from away though, from behind buildings.

"But. But! Do you know, how long it takes to make that stupid sealing circle? Do you know how much paperwork and other nonsense I have to deal with in this stupid town? I have to file the reports for the daily deceased, I have to do the finances, I have to deal with negotiations with other bases, merchants, towns, and the idiots who rule them. Do you really think, I have the time, to deal with some stupid sealing circle on top of everything else?"

Styx and sun looked around. Down, up, sides, and then just down, but not at Ecromina. Though it could feel it wa smore fear than bored.

Which it could get. Ecromina had a really scary feeling right now. Not that it felt that bad. Since, it wasn't the one being talked to here, and well, it was pretty sure Ecromina couldn't hurt it. Or wait...sun could. Ecromina...could?

"The spirit's fault? Of course it's stupid. You were there! It's your job to make sure it doesn't do anything stupid. Not mine."

Eh. Stupid? It was? Well, it was true that it did something without knowing what would happen, but that was no reason to say it was stupid. No, it was intelligence. Very intelligence. And maybe a little scared of Ecromina now too. A little.

So. Maybe asking sun before doing things with void mana. Yes.

"The walls? You think I don't know what you're planning? No, the spirit will clean the walls under the supervision of the Vice Commander. You two, are going to learn how to do paperwork. Come come, you can even put it as a skill in the future. I'm sure most places would be glad to employ demons skilled with paperwork."

Sun and Styx looked like they were going to die. Nice knowing them. It, on the other hand, was just going to clean walls, which sun said it could do easy. Good. Now who was this "Vice Commander?"

"You. Head to the walls. Follow this."

Ecromina moved its hand and a red thing started moving towards a way.

It didn't think more, and fastly went after it. It didn't feel like making Ecromina talk more, since it seemed like it would be bad.

It's body was srill mostly not there, and moving it that far up seemed like it would use too much mana. The easy way was to let its body go along the ground and pull it instead of move the whole thing.

It started pulling its body along the ground, using its actual body, and its arms, which didn't have hands but already had parts of the up arms back. Hitting them on the ground and pulling itself forward was actually also kind of fun.

As it went along after the red thing, it moved unfaster so it could stay after it, and other demons moved around it. Some stopped to look at it before going where they were going.

They were obviously thinking of its too intelligence moving way and why they weren't doing it. After all, compared to that walking up thing, going along the ground seemed to take less work. It would have to remember this for when it had to go to a place next time.

Spoiler: Status Unnamed Pseudo-void Spirit Level: 1/10 Species: Pseudo-void Armor Avatar of Soul Bewitching Shadow Domain Spirit (C-) Affinities: Darkness, Death, Pseudo-void, Pseudo-Space Age: 664 years

Titles:

Body Status:

Missing hands

Missing abdomen

Missing legs

Status Points: 46 Health Points (HP): 0/467 Mana Points (MP): 123/343 Intelligence 74 Wisdom 16 Strength 10 (5) Dexterity 5 (0) Endurance 15 (4)