Asergia, first of his line and lord of the Emerald Rabbit Clan, was troubled. A scout had returned with an unusual child, around eight or nine years old. A child with rabbit ears, like those of one of the three clans, yet one whose ears didn't match their hair.
The child wasn't a monster, though high amounts of mana constantly pulsed from their body. Nor were they a descendent of the Lord Rabbit like the three clans.
Additional reports were emerging from across the territory they shared with the Bloodskulls. First of the enslaver's fall, and the collapse of that horrid collection of goblins. Then of some grand event which had scarred a large section of forest without flame. Like something had simply burned without the inferno that accompanies the spawning of most fiery monsters.
The scouts were also beginning to return reports of a rapid rise in the mana around the Blueshine Waterfall. While the cave behind the fall would be perfect for some great beast to move into, the high-density mana without any nature essence indicated something else.
Asergia had ventured from his home to visit the location and was shocked at the sheer quantity of mana crystal. High purity too. He'd even discovered some water essence stones.
Finally, there was the rumor of bats. Bats were common across the forest, even expected. The twilight was perfect for their hunts, no matter the hour. Combined with the frequency of various insects and other vermin, the little rodents were usually ignored.
But these bats seemed to congregate around the site of the burning and spread around, seeming to be in search of something. Eventually, they began to flock to the village.
If their odd behavior wasn't enough, their eyes seemed to reflect an eerie crimson light even when the sky was the deepest purple. It really creeped most of Asergia's people out.
His musing was interrupted by the appearance of Viket, the rabbit assigned to the child. In his arms was the child in question, with cerulean blood leaking from their closed eyes. Asergia stood up from his chair. The others liked to call it a throne, but that's just because it was big enough to accommodate his weight.
Viket began to speak rapidly, "One moment I was saying… and then they just…"
The words emerged in a combination of Ilmabi, Aemabi, and Scinparic. Why he was speaking in the human common tongue at all was peculiar.
"Calm down." The chief said, pushing his aura into his words. It struck Viket like a physical object, stunning the scared rabbit into silence for a moment.
As Viket tried to find his words, a tattoo on the face of the child suddenly lit up, and a fox with two tails emerged. She growled at Asergia as fire began to loop its way around her tails.
She opened her mouth to launch a beam of flame at the chief, but with a simple flick of his wrist, the flames dispersed into a slight warming flame essence. The fox's eyes shot wide; she was stunned. But it didn't stop her from trying to flee.
She leaped off the child, landing with a scratching sound on the wood floor of Asergia's home. Her eyes closed as she turned to the door and began to run, scrambling across the floor. Asergia smiled a bit at her antics until the child dissolved into motes of blue light in Viket's arms.
The little sparks of cerulean energy flew to the little fox as she sprinted, melting into her fur and creating the mark of an island in a blue sea. The island was made from pale sand, and buried deep into it were a grand sword and axe, crossed at the hilts. Around the weapons was a dragon, coiled tightly.
Her tails exploded with golden light, and her aura exploded outward, attempting to stun the two rabbit kin. While Viket was driven to his knees, Asergia simply extended his own aura to smash the fox's into the ground.
While it was harder than he expected, considering not just the rank difference but also the clear skill gap, it wasn't hard for him. He'd clawed his way up to sapphire rank. His aura could kill tins like this fox, so of course it had the power to suppress it.
He moved like lightning, appearing above the little fox as several of his aura powers activated, making the little fox confused, blinded, deafened, and otherwise feel repressed. He picked her up by the scruff of her neck and carried her to the table.
After pulling a chain from his inventory and tying up the little fox, he released the hold he had over the room. Viket collapsed even further, trying to catch his breath.
The little fox, however, began to struggle even harder as the chains bound her. While Asergia knew that a cornered animal was the most dangerous, this was a bit extreme, wasn't it? Even so, he wasn't willing to let this oddity escape. Especially as a blue glow emerged from her back, and two cerulean tentacles of what appeared to be water seemed to simply pull free.
She began to use them to try and lash the chains binding her, but they couldn't even damage the material. Asergia simply watched as he waited for Viket to recover. The other rabbit was the only one fluent in Scinparic, though he rarely spoke it in the village for obvious reasons.
Asergia assumed the reason the younger rabbit had spoken partially in the human common tongue was because the child did so as well. He had no idea if the fox could do the same, but wasn't willing to bet on the idea that she spoke Ilmabi or even Aemabi.
The fox struggled more and more against the chains, with greater ferocity as she found them impossible to break. Asergia could feel her lashing out with her aura, too, but even the metaphysical powers were contained by those chains.
Finally, Viket stood up on shaking legs and stared in terror at both his leader and the little fox squirming against the chains.
"W- where's the child? Lost Child?"
Asergia raised an eyebrow, "You didn't get their name?"
"No, their name is Azotreh."
Asergia was even more confused as he asked, "If their name is Azotreh, why were you speaking in Scinparic?"
Viket shrugged, "They only knew Scinparic. Apparently, Azotreh means something else in their language."
Asergia let out a breath with his eyes closed before addressing Viket, "So the kid is named Azotreh but doesn't know our language. What about their spiritual companion?"
"Dunno. Didn't have time to ask. It pulled back into Azotreh only a bit after we met."
Asergia turned his eyes on the fox, panting heavily as she weakly continued to go against the chains. He asked her, "Do you speak?"
The fox didn't seem to understand, so Asergia began to ask again in over a dozen languages. While he wasn't fluent in Scinparic, that was only because humans certainly weren't common outside the Warrior's Road, which he had no interest in.
Eventually, he reached Kobish, a local variant of the Gobbish tongue, and she flinched openly. He took that to mean she at least had a basic knowledge of the language.
"Can you bring out your partner?" He asked in Kobish.
She thought for a while, seemingly parsing his meaning. She flinched again a moment after, and though he didn't know why, he could assume what caused it. He didn't know why system advancement would ever be something to flinch at. Even so, it seemed his meaning had reached her, and she shook her head.
He sighed. "Why not?" He asked in the same language.
She moved her head a bit to lay it flat on the table and closed her eyes to mimic sleep. Then she suddenly perked up.
The tattoo on her back lit up as something blue pulled itself free. A thin tendril of the stuff emerged from the fox's back before pooling on the ground. It was certainly a strange way to emerge from a familiar fusion, but he'd seen weirder. At least it wasn't blood again.
The pool slowly formed into a humanoid form, yet not that of the child carried in by Viket. The form before him was clearly another rabbit-kin, from the ears. It also shared the child's strange black, blue, and white hair. But this form stood even taller than Asergia himself at nearly seven feet. The form was gangly and a little too thin.
It was dressed in a black coat of some kind, reaching to just below its hips. It buttoned twice in the front, and what looked like a rose rested in a pocket on the coat's right breast. Beneath the coat was a plain but clean white shirt, and some kind of neck garment was visible as well. Formal black pants and tall boots finished the look.
The figure leaned forward just a bit before turning piercingly green eyes onto Viket.
Nicholas looked down at himself in wonder. Fuzem had assumed that when he took control of the body in Azotreh's absence and in scenarios where they didn't have to return to their proper slimy form, that he'd have a body much like his own within the soul space.
Even so, it was uncanny. Feeling that the coat and pants weren't clothes pressing against his skin, but instead a full part of his body. As if the clothes themselves were his skin. If he were any less freaked out by other things, he would likely have some kind of panic about it. But now wasn't the time.
Instead, he turned his gaze onto the rabbit-kin Azotreh had met before. He knew the man had some capacity to communicate with Azotreh, and while he wasn't truly comfortable in what the skill system called Scinparic, he still knew he could speak it. He shared awareness with Azotreh, and with the magic reinforcing his knowledge, it was as if he were fluent in a language he'd never heard before.
"Can you free our companion? She has bad memories with cages and restraints. If you don't, I'll try to free her anyway."
The rabbit-kin turned to the much larger and muscular rabbit-kin in the room and spoke something in Ilmabi or Aemabi. Nicholas didn't have a good grasp on the differences.
The larger rabbit reached out and touched the item, and it simply vanished. Ruby looked confused for a moment before shaking it off and leaping at Nicholas. He caught her deftly and let her climb up to wrap around his shoulders. She glared daggers at the other rabbit-kin, and he couldn't blame her in the slightest.
Nicholas reached up and scratched her behind the ears as he looked back at the rabbit-man.
"Now to business. Azotreh and I are currently suffering from an issue. However, while they are out cold for right now, I will serve in their place."
It was a plan Nicholas, Fuzem, and Errazorrus had cooked up when Azotreh passed out. To let someone else out as a proper avatar of the dungeon, and to continue operating in the world without Azotreh being directly required. It would allow them to keep advancing to their goals, and give the kid some time to recover from the latest, most traumatic thing.
He really was sorry for the kid, suffering so much in a little more than a week. But that's why he was here, along with the others. To support and progress.
The rabbit-kin relayed the words to the other rabbit-kin before they engaged in a short conversation. Finally, the communicator spoke to Nicholas.
"Serve in their place? What exactly happened to Azotreh? And why are you speaking as if the pair of you are the same person?"
Just as Nicholas was about to answer, he felt something. More foreign sensations, yet one in his body told him was a fluctuation in the magic. Ruby panicked and fused back into Nicholas, before pushing herself a little into his aura. She began to relay what she sensed, which wasn't a lot. Only that the mana had shifted for some reason.
A rabbit-kin entered. Even larger than the other two. He was a towering mass of muscular power, yet still lean and agile. He stood more than nine feet tall, excluding his ears. Unlike the other rabbit-kin Azotreh had met, this one had fur down his arms and across his shoulders.
His chest was bare, revealing more fur. The man even had whiskers. Proper whiskers! At least he had the decency to wear pants. Though they truly served to show how inhuman this person was. Their legs stretched a bit behind them, and their feet were padded and elongated like a rabbit's.
The rabbit's hair was a mix of emerald green, sunset purple, and almost neon orange. His ears shared the colors.
As he stepped in, both of the other rabbit-kin fell to their knees without hesitation. The new entrant waved his hand casually.
"Stand. I'm not here to harm. Just to chat."
The man's voice echoed without being loud. It resonated through Nicholas' entire body, and even echoed through the bond Azotreh shared with Ruby.
The other two rabbits stood up, though the translator was visibly sweating. A moment after the other two rose, Nicholas realized that the new entrant hadn't spoken in any of the strangely large number of languages Nicholas knew now. Even so, he'd understood.
The new entrant grinned as he looked at Nicholas, but simply pulled a chair from thin air and sat down in it. While the chair itself looked old and rickety, it didn't even creak under the towering mass of muscle.
The other two rabbit-kin sat at either end of the table that… wasn't there before. As if the new rabbit man had simply made it appear from empty air and altered Nicholas' memory to make him think it had always been present.
Even so, Nicholas took a seat. At this point, he was beginning to doubt that he was powerful at all. He assumed Azotreh, and by extension, himself, were powerful. Especially considering the work he was beginning to unravel magic.
The rabbit man smiled and popped his knuckles with a few too many sounds before speaking, "Now, we have much to discuss. Specifically about the four of you and joining my clan."