By now the both of them had finished their meal, the slave woman having taken much longer than the fox woman. For various obvious reasons. So the dungeon added a pair of small panels to the previous 'message', one on either side. Both with a direction arrow pointing to the third mural. The one depicting a fox walking her pet human.

However, she didn't see it right away. Busy as she was, just looking off into empty space.

"What should I spend my new points on?" She asked to no-one in particular.

"I don't want to be just someone's sex doll my whole life."

A new mural appeared on the floor in front of her. No, this one didn't have any pictures. Instead it had incomprehensible scribbles etched into it. But she did recognize the pattern and placement they used. It was the same as the Attribute section from the Status screen. Next to it, a parchment, quillpen and inkpot magicked themselves into existence.

At least, from her perspective. He had merely pilfered them from an unused office upstairs with his Inventory. Since the whole first floor was now considered a part of him, he could simply grab anything that wasn't nailed down. So long as it was still within his weight limit.

It took a long minute to figure this bit out, but when she did she called out "You can give me advice? But I need to let you know my Stats first?"

*sigh* "You've given me plenty of reasons to trust you."

.

She paused as she noticed her Luck had risen by fifty points over what it was the last time she checked. Going through all the entries, she noticed a new Title: [I'm . . pregnant. With the Hero! No wonder someone's been giving me so much help.]

. . .

She eventually copied out this much:

Body: Str 26 Con 30 Tuf 27

Move:1 Dex 35 Agi 40 Spd 34

Mind:1 Int 36 Wis 40 Spi 42

Gen:2,3 Cha 69 Att 80 Luk 77

Bonus points: 4 Move, 4 Mind, 20 Gen

[Even if that 'universal language thingy' gives me the ability to read & write anything, even Farsi, Korean and Klingon, it didn't let me know which language they use. Now that I've seen the local written language, I can use it too. Not just some pictures that might not even work. But if I change my pattern up too quickly.. ]

. .

He spent a few minutes in careful calculation.

Enough that she started getting obviously impatient.

Tapping her toe-claws of one paw on the floor in time with her heartbeat.

In front of her, at her paws, he laid down a new thin stone slab. But rather than a mural, what this depicted was simply a special direction arrow. The start positioned closest to her, but splitting to the left and right to end with two arrowheads. With the left one, was a miniature copy of her Attributes, but with the Dex, Str and Agi spots raised and highlighted. The first much more than the others. With the right side, the copy had Int, Wis and Spi indicated equally.

At the left arrowpoint he placed a mural depicting her wielding a bow, a bear lying dead at her paws. At the right was one of her tossing a ball of fire from her empty hand.

Two more split arrows were then placed after these murals to give three destinations. The right-most mural has a picture with her tossing 3 balls of fire, larger than the first. In the left-most one she was still using a bow, but with two arrows nocked together and a wyvern lying at her paws. As well as her armor being much more intricate. In between, with a direction arrow coming from both of the first pair, she was using a bow again. But this time, the arrowhead was a miniature fireball.

After studying the offered paths, she interpreted them aloud. "Spread evenly in Mind for a mage. Focus on dexterity, with a bit of agility and strength for me to become a huntress or archer. Or walk both paths together. And which do you suggest? What do you think would be best for me?"

The arrow slabs were removed, leaving just two of the picture ones behind. First was the archer on the left, then the magic archer in the middle.

"But everyone always said multi-classing is for idiots and fools. Do you know something they don't?"

The rest disappeared this time. Their bulk refilling the Resource tab with stone. To be replaced by a chart of her Attribute section. But then some of the numbers began climbing higher and higher. One at a time, about every other hearbeat, they were replaced by the next higher digit. But each time the raised numbers were themselves standing higher above the slab than before.

"You can raise my Stats!?"

[Finally! now to do it too.]

The numbers were all changed back to their original value. Only for the 35 in the position for Dex to again be raised to 36. But then nothing else.

. .

With the 'conversation' seemingly over for now, she went back to her Status to spend her Move points on raising her Dex. Only to find it had already risen by one without having done so yet. She carefully checked over her Status once again. This time, finding a new Trait: .

Then a new slab appeared, this time with words: {Your slave has arrived}

"Can I get some help over here?" a voice called out from the pit-stairs.

She stood up, and went to look. "Fetch your bowl. Don't leave it behind. Then I'll help you out of there."

When she turned back away from her new slave, she read. {I know how difficult it is to have two separate conversations while you're busy with paperwork. Let me know when you are ready.}

"Who are you? Why are you helping me so much?"

Half of the latest slab vanished. Leaving this much behind: {you're busy with paperwork. Let me know when you are ready.}

*sigh* "Alright." She put her 4 Mind points all into Int. Then her 4 Move points in Dex. Bringing both up to 40. The 20 general points were harder to decide on though. They could be put into anything except Luck. Though the idea of putting a focus on Dex, to allow an archer or huntress class, brought back fond memories of her youth. Training each day with her mother.

That brought a smile to her lips. And a tear to each eye.

Yes, she decided. 15 more into Dex brought it to 55. The last 5 free points raised her strength to 31. [I'll need it to drag her ass out of there.]

And just in time, as her slave began wailing for help. "Gityer ass over hear an git me out already!"

"Not til you ask nicely."

. .

"Please help me out?"

"Oh Gods! You're actually capable of politeness!?"

"No need fer actin out all weirded."

"I'm serious. I really never knew you were able. But as hilarious as it would be to just watch you try, I have things to do."

With that, the fox nimbly strode down the series of massive steps. Easily hopping down their 40cm height with her double-jointed digitigrade legs. Stopping right before reaching the human to say "Oh, right. I order you to not ever betray me, nor try to harm me or my property. Which now includes yourself." [As much fun as it would be to order her to torture herself, it will be just as fun doing it myself. Plus she might have decided to kill herself as an escape. Well, she still could. But with this she'd now have to fight against debilitating pain to merely try.]

"Hrg. (Damn.)" She whispered. But the other's fox ears were dozens of times more sensitive than any human's. Eliciting a slight smirk from the vixen.

The two women temporarily set aside their differences to hurry up the greatly oversized stairs. The injured human having no chance to climb up the 40 cm tall steps without significant help. This required the fox to be pushing her from behind. They were greatly helped by her recently boosted strength Stat. Without that, they would have had to take a rest break at the third switchback. As it is, the process only took some time and plenty of elbow grease.

Once they were out, the open pit was capped off just like two of the traps. Smoothing out the floor to leave no trace of the excavation's existence.

"I left the bowl down there." *appear* "Thank you."

"Tha hells!? Spacial magics! 'E's more'n jus a stone mage?"

"Who?"

"Tha's wha I wanna know!"

"So what's the plan?"

{I don't yet have the ability to get any of you out safely. For now, stay there and hide yourself until I contact you again.}

"What's wit tha chicken-scratch?"

"Old vulpine. My parents taught me to read before those butchers left me an orphan in the slave pens."

{Oh, good. She can't read this. Then I don't have to obfuscate.}

"What's that last word mean?"

{To unnecessarily make something really confusing and hard to figure out. But that's not important right now. Give your new slave the following orders. 1, keep the slave collar she's wearing hidden and secret from everyone else. 2, let you hide in her room. You get the bed, she sleeps on the floor. 3, get herself to the healer to fix herself up, suggest having some of her other slaves bring her there on a cart. 4, on the way back from that, visit the guild and tell them exactly this: "the tunnel dug into the basement was trapped. I fell in a pit and hurt both my legs, needed a healer to fix them. The other guys were crushed by falling rocks. I pulled myself out and barely crawled out of there before the whole thing got closed up somehow. You're welcome to come check it out, but without a stone mage you'd be wasting your time." 5, keep everything else what happened here a secret. 6, other than all that, keep on with business as usual until I say otherwise.}

"What about the other slave girls?"

{What I can do is very limited. For now. I could probably remove their collars like I did yours, but it would quickly be found out. I could hide them, but with no food or exit. And maybe even no air to breathe either. I could get them free from the brothel, but not the town. Either they would get killed in the escape, or be recaptured right away. Right now, I can't even do any of that for just you. Every day we wait, I can do more. Eventually I could give all of you an exit from this whole stinking town. But not if we're found out first.}

"Who are you?"

{After my death, my soul was pulled to this world by two of the Gods. In doing so, they split my soul in half. One of the halves was made to reincarnate as the next Hero. The other half of me was placed into a new dungeon core, to control it. Then when that was done, the Gods realized their mistake. And my two halves were made into one whole once more. Now I am both a dungeon, and the next Hero. I was able to do these things because of both being who and what I am, and through my connection to you, Mother.}

{They gave me three missions: to train the beastkins for fighting against the next demon invasion, defeat the Demon King, and end humans keeping beastkins as slaves.}