Dungeon Beast Pet Queen

Jessie squirmed in her chair, clutching the orb in her hands between sweaty palms.

On one hand, the rising to a new rank was a special occasion. Even more so than a simple graduation or a birthday, it was a notch of one's own dedication and perseverance to their cultivation that made it a much more personal rewarding experience. Jessie would love nothing more to help celebrate her best friend's achievement by doing something special for her.

But then...

Gods have mercy, why did she have to want Jessie to make a beast for her? If it was like before, Jessie would have gone out and bought Mel the beast she could get on the market. The thought of personally making a beast...

Jessie felt a cold, clammy feeling swirl in her c.h.e.s.t as a sordid memory started to raise its dark head.

A cloying darkness enveloped her as she pounded blindly on the walls... The only source of light, a glowing blue core sitting on a pedestal alit by a pulsing blue glyph on the floor... Time passed by so quickly in that room. Or did it pass by slowly? She can't remember. She'll be good, the girl in the memory promised. Just please. She wanted to leave...

"Jessie."

She felt a soft hand wrapping over the back of her own clammy hand. The warmth coming from the tips of the callused fingers reminded her where she was. Jessie blinked and her eyes focused back to that little room.

Mel's living room was plastered with her favorite posters. The fixed poses of characters and actors cut out on top of favorite scenes from movies to form a tacky collage on the walls. Some may have called it tacky, but Mel insisted it to be grungy street art. The small TV on the far side of the wall served as a focal point of the space as the coffee table and the sofa and chair were set forth around it. Behind those seating furniture was Mel's mat where she would spend her time cultivating in tandem with Dru. Overhead, the dim lights pressed into the ceiling illuminated the room.

It's probably not much bigger to that room in her memory, but still. It was filled with life and color.

Jessie took a second to collect herself before looking Mel in the eyes with an abashed lopsided smile on her face.

"Sorry," she muttered softly, brushing the hair away from her eyes. "Got s.u.c.k.e.d into some bad thoughts there for a second."

She sighed and exhaled, sitting straighter in her chair and puffing up her c.h.e.s.t. "F.u.c.k it, I'll do it. Just for you not nagging me more than anything else."

Jessie smiled mischievously. The fake confidence was enough to put a temporary dam on the clammy sensation in her c.h.e.s.t. "But at least give me a direction to start with! Come on! If you're going to bond with another beast, you should at least be set on what you want!" She exclaimed.

Nexx, as if getting a read on her emotions, jumped up to Jessie's side before laying down to rest on her shoulders, his four-pronged tail sweeping gently over her left arm.

Mel smiled as she sensed Jessie's consent as well as the need to broach another subject. "I really don't know, okay!" She laughed as she stabbed her spent cigarette into the ashtray. The smoke rolled off the cherry, dissipating by the gentle wind coming from the windows.

"Maybe a Braided-Vine Snake? They're good for a mortal body to adapt to poison as well as building constitution, you know. Good for me since I need something to offset all this smoking." Mel said. She rolled the circular ashtray around in her palm, trying to get the last life out from the dimming cherry.

"Or you could just quit smoking," Jessie proposed.

Mel snorted in response. "With all the stress you put on me? Not likely. I'm lucky I'm not putting on stress weight."

"Looks like you're putting it all in one area." With that, Jessie gave Mel's b.o.o.b.s a playful slap.

The brunette with the brown eyes let out a mock indignant gasp while she covered up her b.r.e.a.s.ts. "Hey! Eyes up here, you pervert! And it's better than those weaksauce funbags you're carrying!"

It was Jessie's turn to look indignant and she slapped the other girl's shoulder once more in play. Though she might have used a bit more force than necessary for that last hit.

"Ow! That one actually hurt!"

"You deserved it!"

For the next half an hour, the girls tumbled around in play fight around the perplexed beasts, giggling at meaningless things before getting back on topic about Mel's selection of her next ranking beast. Jessie's mind, for a moment, was cleared from the events of the past night and her own unseen future. She didn't have to worry. With her best friend at her side, she was feeling good to just tackle on the present step by step.

Theatrics.

Lucinda elda Diamante loathed the insipid call for drama that the people in her society seemed to employ ever so often. The hushed words of scandal spoken by the so-called women of high birth. The cloak-and-dagger subterfuge the males enjoyed playing with as if entertaining their own fanciful thoughts of adventurous espionage. It was all so needless that the new head of the Diamante family found tiring to try to keep up with the plot.

Still, she knew how to use it to her own effect if it calls for it.

That's why she called for the conversation in her meeting room with all the lights extinguished save the one on the table in front of her as a roundabout power play.

An icy cold glare from behind a face hidden behind intertwining fingers was all it took to make the man standing before her shiver. She decided to let him stew for a while before questioning, "You lost track of her?"

The man in the shadows trembled before bowing his head. "Please, milady. The error was all mine. My subordinates' only fault was following the orders of my failure."

"It is a simple question," She said tersely, cutting him off any further apologies. "A yes or a no would suffice."

"... Yes, milady. I have lost track of the lady, Jessaphel."

The family head said nothing and only leaned back in her chair, her hand strumming on the table. The low thuds of her fingers only adding on to the tense atmosphere in the room.

"She has taken the dungeon core with her as well?"

"... Yes, milady."

Upon the reply, the woman said nothing and her body was still, preventing the man from reading anything that would help him in forming an appropriate response.

"... Very well. I want the dungeon core and my niece returned as soon as possible. Before Great Grandfather returns. Can you do this?"

The man bowed deeper, his head almost parallel in to the surface of the desk's surface.

"Yes, milady. I will not fail you a second time."

Lucinda waved her hand off, already clearing off the issue. She has other priorities to tend to. Her niece's performance has set her back, yes, but the Garrin family knows what's good for them and the marriage proposal was just a formality that would best easily explain their merge.

"Idle words," she said as an afterthought to the man scurrying for the door. "Bring her back or you will know my disp.l.e.a.s.u.r.e."

She could hear him trip over in the dark before picking himself up. The door opened, casting his shadow over the floor for a second before slamming back shut with him behind it.

She smiled.

She may hate the principle of the need for drama, but every once and a while, it proved entertaining.