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When he'd gotten away with the sword and armor of the Duke's son, Jake had thought he'd had it made. It was an easy escape, all things considered. He knew the castle like the back of his hand. Since his mother had left him there at the tender age of four, he'd learned the hard way about what paths in the castle were quickest, where to go to be alone, where to go to get out - and then come back just as unseen, because he'd had nowhere else to go. He'd also learned a lot of other painful lessons, about what to say to one's superiors, now to clean, how to serve, how to obey. How to go unnoticed. He'd once, at the age of eight, shyly waved to Edric, the same-aged boy whose sword and armor he'd stolen six years later. Edric hadn't replied, of course. Edric Acerquox was the heir to the duchy, and Jake - who didn't even have a real last name - was nobody, some brat who'd been deposited there by parents he didn't remember and taken in because the castle had needed another servant to train. Edric was arrogant and demanding, and was never punished; Jake would be punished if he even asked for much of anything at all. If Edric earned Jake's ire, it meant nothing; if Jake were ever to earn Edric's ire, it would mean his end. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. That was why one day, gathering his courage, Jake had quietly smuggled himself up through Edric's own garderobe in the middle of the day, taken the expensive, magical armor and sword for himself, and crawled back down the way he'd come in. He smelled like Edric's shit, but he'd smelled like that his whole life. Concealing his meager possessions - food, water, stolen equipment - under a heavy cloak he'd also stolen, Jake snuck away from the castle and then, once he was far enough away, he'd ran hell-for-leather towards the wildlands, the expanse of forest where no one dared build. The tracking dogs had had his scent - everyone had, he smelled like Edric's privy, after all - but they balked as the forest grew deeper. Domesticated animals were unwelcome in the wild places, and they knew it. Men followed, trackers, but they were beset by big cats and had to retreat. Jake giggled to himself as he ran through the depths of the forest, imagining how sore Edric must have been at that moment. Demanding that his father send in the army, most likely, but one did not send an army marching into the wildlands, not unless you wanted the very trees to tear your men apart. The wildlands were a place for monsters and adventurers, a group of which he considered himself a new member. He, too, was attacked, by unnaturally enraged wild boars, but his armor gave him protection and his magical sword largely did the fighting for him. It was a cheater's weapon, he determined. Edric had had every opportunity to learn swordplay, but it was simpler just to cheat. Well, Jake had never had such an opportunity, so he thought it a fair trade: ten years of misery, for something he'd never afford in a lifetime. He was happy, he was determined, and he was free. Five days later, he lacked the first two and was barely maintaining his grip on the third. The wildlands were no place to light so much as a campfire, and every town within reach had his face on wanted posters. He'd slept restlessly as he huddled under his cloak against the biting spring cold, drank whatever running water he could find, hunted and stolen whatever food he could scrounge up. He'd thought he would find fortune, a treasure chest around every corner - or any corner, at least! Instead, he had found nothing but enemies and poverty. So it was that he was in a farmer's field in the middle of the night, gathering tomatoes into a stolen bag to replace his rotten pork (he had been unable to preserve it), shivering and nursing his left arm. The armor was good, enchanted even, but there were too many exposed areas: the insides of the legs and arms most glaringly, and that was where the lizard-fiend had scratched him badly. He was nursing his hurt arm as he picked a tomato with the other, and then he heard a shout behind him. Jake was running before he knew what was happening, and he felt a loud snap and a hard impact directly into his back that almost knocked him over. Another shout, a curse. That had been a crossbow bolt, and now whoever was chasing him knew that he was wearing armor good enough to stop it. A young thief wearing good armor? Everyone in the duchy knew who that was, by then. Jake considered fighting whoever was chasing him, but he doubted that he could reach the man before he took a crossbow bolt to his unprotected head, and he was sore, tired, and weak from hunger. So he fled, ducking behind the trees, back into the wildlands. If he was going to die, he decided, he was going to die where his stolen armor and sword would never be found without loss, a final act of angry spite. Another crossbow bolt thunked into the tree where his head had been a split second before. An archway, a faint pink glow within, loomed to his right - he had just enough time to recognize what it was - and he dove inside, running down the stairs as fast as his weary legs would take him, nearly tumbling to the bottom. There's no way the guy chasing him could be mad enough to follow him into a Dungeon! Dungeons were crafty and dangerous things, that he knew from overhearing conversations. They had their own mysterious purposes, each different from the others. They moved, seemingly at random, their Entrances appearing as they would. Only the foolish entered them unprepared... or the very, very desperate. Jake glanced behind him and around him at the hallway. He saw a door, hoped he could sneak inside - perhaps, at such close quarters, he could ambush his pursuer - but it was locked, and he had no choice but to keep running. There was a rumbling behind him, and the Entrance behind him collapsed in an orderly fashion, the stairs leading to solid stone. Jake exhaled, both in relief and resignation. That was it, then. The Dungeon had him, and there was no path but forward. At least he was going to die comfortably warm. There was a turn of the corridor, more doors to the front and right, and as he turned, he nearly collided with the plush belly and wide feet of a monster. He screamed and reflexively swung his cheater's sword, taking off the thing's left hand at the forearm. It fell bloodlessly to the ground, and Jake jumped back, his own left arm throbbing, looking up at the thing he had just slashed. It was eight feet tall if not nine, wearing no clothes but soft, gray fur and a large pouch at its center, soft arms and hands - well, one, the other having fallen to the ground - and a face that looked both patient and matronly. "I'm sorry for startling you," it said, and its voice was gentle and soft despite its injury. Jake kept his sword raised, silent and breathing heavily, as it bent down to pick up its own severed arm, reattaching it from where it had been struck. "Nothing to worry about. No harm done." "Who... what... are you?" Jake asked, although he had some idea. There were weird things in Dungeons. Demons, devils, foul things not found anywhere in the wildlands or anywhere but within themselves. "You may call me Nanny," the creature said with a smile. "What you see is my avatar." Jake's face fell. Even a gofer servant boy like him knew what he was looking at. A Dungeon's avatar, a representation of the intelligence that guided it, and he'd directly attacked it. Under normal circumstances, he would be dead or worse, but this thing was... being nice to him? And yet... "Okay... Nanny," Jake said, very carefully and politely, his sword still defensively raised. "I apologize for cutting off your, well, your avatar's, arm. Is there, um, a reason you're keeping me here?" "Keeping you here?" Nanny asked with a smirk, and Jake quickly glanced behind him at the still-sealed Entrance. "I certainly don't think you would have appreciated it if I had allowed that man to follow you. You are always free to leave at any time, Jake. If you want me to open up an Entrance, certainly not near the man chasing you, I can do that for you. But wouldn't you like to have that arm looked at first? And perhaps a bath and a hot meal? Tomato soup," it (she? Jake wasn't sure anymore) suggested, looking down at his bag, "my treat." Jake drew in a breath. Dungeons were weird, everyone knew Dungeons were weird, but never before had he heard of a Dungeon being nice to people, at least not this nice. If Nanny had wanted to kill him, he'd surely already be dead. Either it was lying about him being free to leave, or it wasn't; if it wasn't lying, he was likely to be safe, and if it did have malicious intentions, his fate was sealed anyway. He was dirty, starving, tired, and chilled to the bone. What else but to go along? "If you're offering, I gladly accept," he said, bowing his head slightly and lowering his weapon. "Wait. How did you know my name?" "It's on every wanted poster in the duchy, isn't it?" Nanny asked mischievously with a twinkle in her eye. "Yes, we pay attention to what's outside; we found you, didn't we?" Jake wondered who 'we' was. "I can conjure an Entrance very far from here, if you'd like, but first, let's see to that arm." He scabbarded his sword and helped Nanny strip his torn cloak, stolen armor, and utterly filthy clothes from himself, and she led him barefoot on the soft, immaculate carpet towards an astoundingly large bath that was already drawn, exactly as hot as he would have preferred it to be. Dungeon power, he knew, but why was Nanny throwing around such powerful magic for such things as bathing a servant? What did she want? At the moment, it seemed what Nanny wanted most was to pamper him more than Edric had ever been pampered. The water turned dingy and gray as she bathed him, pouring sweet soap into his uncomfortably short hair, meticulously scrubbing his arms and legs with her very soft hands that somehow never stayed wet, paying special attention to the crusted- over, throbbing cut on his left arm. "My, this is infected already. Let's see what we can do here, hmm?" She ran her fingers over it, and the throbbing slowly went away. The cut just stopped being, leaving unscarred skin behind. Jake had never seen healing, magical or otherwise, that was that fast and effective. Healing potion was some of the most expensive liquid in the duchy, more precious by the ounce than gold, and it was nothing at all compared to Nanny. He was gaping at that when he noticed that the water had become clear again. The water hadn't been cycled. The dirt had simply vanished away. He realized that he'd had to urinate, a dehydrated, thick yellow, and even that vanished when he let go into the tub. Amazed, Jake remained quiet as Nanny gently lifted him out of the tub as if he weighed nothing at all, and then dried him with a very plush towel he hadn't known was there. "Much better, isn't it?" He nodded, still silent with amazement. "Now, would you like to feed yourself, or would you like me to feed you?" The question was jarring. "Um, myself, please, I'd... it'd be a little bit strange for me, that's all." "I completely understand. Come along." She led him into another room, where a row of strange chairs sat. Each was off the ground by a fair bit, with a tray in front of it. Only one was in Jake's size; others were for children of varying heights. Nanny shifted the tray to the side to allow him to sit, and then snapped it closed around him, setting down a bowl and spoon upon it, alongside a clear cup full of pure water with a strange opening at the top, one that seemed designed to protect from spills. The soup had somehow been made while she was bathing him. That was not much of a surprise; he'd overheard from three separate sources that Dungeons could do many things at once. It was a very strange experience, one of the strangest of Jake's life, as he spooned tomato soup, rich with milk and crackers, into his mouth, taking sips of pure, clean water at regular intervals. It felt almost as if this Nanny, true to her name, was determined to mother him, to take care of him, to treat him like precious nobility. Perhaps that was what this Dungeon did? Asking seemed like an enormous folly, but he had to; if Nanny was truly as nice as she seemed, she wouldn't be offended by a simple question, but he didn't feel like asking as much as he felt like eating, and he reached the bottom of the bowl just as he could eat no more. "What do we say?" Nanny asked him, and he blanked. "When someone does us a kindness?" "Oh, I'm sorry! Thank you, Nanny. For the food and the bath and for giving me a place to stay the night." He knew his courtesies, if nothing else, and he was absolutely not dumb enough to be impolite to this powerful creature. "You're very welcome, dear," she said, and she unlatched the tray and gently guided him down. She reached into her pouch and pulled out a set of purple pajamas, a shirt and pants made of some very soft, flexible material that Jake had never seen before, in a color that Jake had always secretly wanted to wear but had never dared try. It was the color of nobility, after all. There were words on the shirt, but no one had ever taught him how to read. "Um, Nanny... I don't mean to be rude, but why are you doing this for me?" he asked as she dressed him for the night. "We all have our needs, dear. What I need is love," she said, very kindly, and gently kissed him on the head. She took him by the hand and led him into a room full of children, all much younger than himself, all sleeping peacefully in various cradles and bassinets. His bed was a much more adult affair, although it did have a small section that lifted up a couple of feet, and the blankets were very soft. If this thing, this Nanny, wanted his love, she certainly had the right to it. Jake wondered if this was all just some clever ruse, if the bed would eat him in his sleep, but he was resigned to his fate anyway; if he was going to die, this was how he'd rather do it. "Hey, is sleepyhead still asleep?" a little boy's voice asked loudly a couple of feet from Jake's ear, startling him. The boy in question looked to be about six years old and was wearing a yellow, footed one- piece with a stylized picture of a duck on the front and something soft underneath, covering his groin. "Barney, I really don't think you should annoy him," another little boy, looking about eight, said, wearing softly striped pajamas similar to Jake's, but with another soft thing around his groin. "He's new." "And I wanna meet him, Wally!" Barney said, climbing over the low railing and into Jake's bed. Jake, surprised and even a little bit offended over this unwanted approach, reflexively pushed the young boy away from him, sending him over the railing, and he twisted in mid-air to avoid landing on his head, instead landing on his arm with a muted thump. Barney began crying, and Nanny was suddenly right there. A gaggle of other children were watching the scene. "He pushed meeeeee!" Barney screamed, holding his lightly banged arm as if it were broken. "He crawled into my bed!" Jake replied indignantly, retreating backwards on the bed, still confused and alarmed. Nanny just nodded. "And we will deal with each of these in turn. Barney, he arrived here well past bedtime and you know very well that our new visitors often need their rest. Jake has had a very difficult time before I was able to rescue him, and he certainly did not deserve to be woken up that way. Come along." Nanny touched the boy's arm - healing it, Jake supposed - but then picked him up, sat on a chair, and placed him over her lap, where she began to rhythmically spank him. Those weren't real spankings, they couldn't be, they were Nanny's soft, bare hands on the sleepsuit and directly over the soft thing, but yet Barney wailed like he was being seriously caned, the way Jake had been more than once. Right in front of the other children, as well. Wasn't crying over something like that embarrassing, even for someone his age? Barney didn't seem to care about that as he cried. Was Nanny using some kind of pain magic? Jake certainly hoped not. He had seen a pain magician once, from a distance, and that had been one too many times. Ten smacks, and Nanny stopped, and Barney held his bottom as if it were on fire. "Are you going to...?" Jake asked nervously, instinctively eyeing the door. "That isn't your punishment," Nanny replied gently, conjuring a pair of small, purple bags. "You'll wear these until after lunch." Jake partially opened his mouth, possibly to protest, possibly to ask what they even were. "If you don't want to accept a punishment, you're always free to go and never come back," she said firmly. "Just take them," Wally advised, in a tone much more mature than Jake was expecting. "Lunch is in a couple of hours." Jake had been asleep longer than he'd been for a very long time, which wasn't nearly as long as he wanted; he also wanted more food and answers both. Nanny lowered the side of the bed, and he sat up, expecting them to be for his feet; instead, she put them on his hands, where they tightened themselves around his wrists. They were surprisingly comfortable and certainly magical; he moved his hands around in them, but their outsides didn't change. He couldn't even begin to get a grip to take them off. Cursed equipment. He'd heard of it before but certainly never expected to be wearing any; even if someone had wanted to punish him with it, it would have been too expensive to waste on the likes of him. He'd received much less comfortable punishments. "Now, what do we say when we've wronged one another?" Nanny asked, looking first at Barney. "Sorry I climbed into your bed," Barney said, looking downcast. "Sorry I pushed you so hard," Jake replied in turn, although it hadn't been that hard at all, certainly not like what he'd done to other children who had bothered him and nothing at all like what had been repeatedly done to him. "Now come along, dear," Nanny said, holding Jake by the mitten and gently guiding him from the elevated bed. "Now that you're awake, we might as well get your day started." She led him into another room, pulled down his pajama pants, and sat him down upon a comfortable seat atop a bowl of water. He had no idea what he was even supposed to be doing. "It's a latrine, dear. What we call a potty." The idea of excreting things into clean water, other than a river or stream, offended his sensibilities a bit, but after that trick with the bathwater, it was obviously no problem for her. He did his business easily, bladder and bowel, even with her standing there watching him. Some other boy might have been outraged at the lack of privacy, but he hadn't usually had privacy for this to begin with. "Good boy," she told him, producing a small square of some soft material and gently wiping him clean. He froze at the intimate touch, extremely bad memories coming back. "Oh! Oh, dear, I'm so sorry. I wasn't aware that you had been hurt that way." "He never hurt me!" Jake snapped back. "He didn't get that far. I didn't let him." The man might have been a knight of the realm, and Jake a penniless servant, but sodomy was a crime against the gods and the man would have been brutally executed. He'd thought that Jake had been into it, as the boy had accepted advances that he didn't understand were advances. "Wait, how did you know? Are you reading my mind?" "Not your whole mind, dear," Nanny said. "Only some things are clear to me. It's all right. You're safe now." She gently eased his pajama shirt over his head. "Now, what would you like to wear?" Nanny opened a hand and a panoply of outfits appeared on a translucent projection in front of her palm, surprising Jake. What couldn't this creature do? There were so many, too, shortalls and very elaborate dresses, all in purple (his favorite color must have been one of the clear things), and he kept glancing at a shortall set with a skirt sewn into it along with cute stitching of pink flowers, but eventually he chose a pair of regular overalls because he didn't want to be embarrassed any more than he already was. "Is that the one you really want, dear?" Nanny said with a knowing smile. She'd been watching his eyes. Thinking that he would get in more trouble for lying, he immediately said, "No, sorry, I do want this one, just to see what it's like, but if I'm seen wearing it..." If any of his old acquaintances of any age had seen him in anything like that, he would have been the laughingstock of the castle. "Sweetheart," Nanny said very gently as she reached into her pouch and produced what looked to be a soft purple loincloth, "remember where you are." She had Jake step into it, and it felt very fluffy around his groin. "No one here will make fun of you, and they all want to be here too," she said as she dressed him in the outfit he'd picked; even if he weren't wearing the mittens, Jake could never have guessed how the fasteners worked, especially since they were at the back. He couldn't have agreed that he actually wanted to be there, but he was driven by a combination of curiosity and safety. This Nanny was weird even by Dungeon standards, and he had no idea what she had meant when she said she needed his love, but he was clean, rested, warm, and fed, and he felt a lot better than he had in a very long time, possibly ever. Even if he asked to be placed far from the duchy of Acerquox, he'd still have people and monsters trying to kill him from time to time, and he didn't think he was ready to go back to that just yet. There could also be valuable things in this Dungeon, things that he could steal... but the idea didn't sit right in his mind. Jake had never had a problem with stealing from people before, but only a scant few had been actually nice to him. Perhaps he could just ask and would be allowed to leave with more than he had coming in? Later, he decided. Once he knew this Dungeon and its inhabitants a little better. He'd been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't even quite notice what she'd put on his feet until she took him by the hand again and his booties began squeaking against the soft carpet, and he giggled, despite himself, at the absurdity of it all. She led him to an expansive, noisy playroom with the other children, and he blinked, trying to even understand what he was seeing. There were dozens of children there, all prepubescent but none younger than Barney, attended by a few of Nanny's avatars. Of course Nanny had been right in that no one would make fun of him for his attire; many of them were wearing similar clothes themselves and some were dressed even more childishly, in elaborately designed short sets and over-knee socks. Some of them waved cheerfully at the newcomer, and others were too engrossed in what they were doing. And the things they were doing! Some of them were hitting a ball back and forth across a table, others had some magic devices in their hands that allowed them to control images much like the ones Nanny had shown him, some of them (including a couple of boys, Jake noticed) were having a tea party of the sort he'd only seen Edric's little sister conduct, and still others were playing with lights and sounds in a way that he didn't understand even a little bit. "Don't be too surprised, dear," Nanny said gently. "I can only be in this world, but I can see many others. Here. You're best off playing with Wally for now, he's taken it upon himself to introduce newcomers," she said gently, guiding him. Wally and Barney were sitting near a pile of brightly colored blocks with strange circles on the tops of them. "Sit down and play with us, it's all right," Wally said, and Jake, confused and amazed that he was actually being invited to play with toys, decided that he'd be best off just blending in with the group, even though he was much larger than all of them. He tried to grip one of the blocks but there was no gripping anything in his mittens. "You can hold the larger ones between them," Wally suggested, and Jake found that he could. It was embarrassing, but the sheer absurdity of everything around him was muffling that. "Really, Barney, that was incredibly foolish of you. He might have even really hurt you, and it wouldn't have even truly been his fault. When he first saw Nanny, he was so scared, he cut off her hand!" Barney gasped in shock and shrank back from Jake. "It's all right. I'm sure he won't be hurting any of us any more, will you, Jake?" Jake shook his head, and it felt strange somehow, some softness moving behind his head. "I don't want to, I really didn't mean to," he said, putting the blocks between his mittens and moving them into a base pattern he thought appropriately castle-like. Oh, that was interesting, they interlocked if he pressed them down atop one another. He'd have to be careful, he'd find it difficult to separate them. He took a breath, trying to find the question he wanted to ask first. Forget it - best to start with the obvious. "You're not really children, are you?" "We are too really children!" Barney replied with a pout, putting together smaller bits of the strange blocks. "You know what he means," Wally told his friend gently. "And no, not in the sense that you mean it, Jake, I'm celebrating my two hundred and twenty-third birthday in four days." The claim was entirely believable in light of the absurd things that Jake had seen that day. "I was the first to discover Nanny, a bit less than two centuries ago. She didn't understand people as well as she does now, but I wasn't willing to attack something that wasn't wishing anyone harm. Like you, I'd just been through a rough battle. She healed me, practically begged me to stay, but I was on a rather important quest at the time. I did promise to come back, though, and I did so sooner than I expected, my party members had behaved like a gang of thieves over a reward and the rogue ran away with all of it in the end." He sighed, shaking his head, putting blocks together the way Barney was as Jake found a sensible way to stutter-step the large blocks he was using for the wall. "But I'd found a better treasure, I and others." He smiled. "There's nowhere I'd rather be than here, although it took me a while to admit it to myself. I'm still a hero, but only in what the world calls 'times of dire need.' Ten greater demons, five undead incursions, and an honest-to-badness demon king, although I still don't know how he got out." A small group of connected blocks had fallen from between Jake's mittens in his surprise. "YOU'RE the Returning Hero?!" The Returning Hero was a semi-mythical figure, an unaging warrior who appeared whenever the world was beset by a great evil. Even a servant boy like Jake had heard of him. It had always been rumored that a Dungeon was involved somehow, and now Jake knew for sure. "Walter Brightblade, at your service. I'll admit, I quite enjoy that reaction. Seems everyone's read the tales." Jake hid his illiteracy with a nod. "But now I'd rather know your story. Where did you come by that sword and armor?" Jake winced, pursing his lips. "Relax. No matter what the answer is, you won't be punished for it, not here. I know you're not an evil person. Just the truth, please." Haltingly at first, still slowly putting the castle together, Jake told him a condensed but unembellished version of the truth, about his life, about Edric Acerquox, about the sword and armor he'd stolen and his misadventures after doing so, and the anger and bitterness welled up again as he talked. Barney and Wally both stopped building as he kept talking, baring his soul to these not-really-boys he'd just met. Halfway through, he realized that Nanny had grown out his hair, and there was a brief interlude as he patted his new shoulder-length locks with his mitten, his new friends taking the opportunity to smile in the middle of his depressing story. Acerquox servants weren't allowed to have long hair, as it picked up lice. He hadn't even had a proper barber; the head cook had always just chopped it with a sharp knife before sending him off to do something else. Nanny had picked up on how Jake hated his hair short, just like she'd picked up on his favorite color. Jake finished his story, and Wally solemnly shook his head. "I hadn't known Acerquox had fallen so far." His eight-year-old's voice had lost its usual exuberance, and Jake heard the ancient warrior he actually was. They returned to their building; the castle was starting to look a lot like a castle, and Jake had put together some long, flat blocks for a road going in. "I knew... it would be Edric's great-grandfather, and although he wasn't entirely upright, he wasn't such a fool as to let his duchy get to such a state, where they have young boys doing work best left to magic and professionals." Jake blinked; other places had magic and professionals for kitchen help, cleaning, and other menial tasks? "Your tale is absolutely horrible, everything about it, completely unconscionable, and frankly, stealing his equipment was the least that fallen family deserves. But I have to warn you, what you stole is almost useless." Jake stared at him. "You have no experience, you couldn't have known, but think about it. There's no helmet. There's no mail and no shield either. There's so much unprotected skin that it's no wonder you got hurt. And that artificial skill, the cheat as you call it, is a poor excuse for real swordplay. It's a waste of an enchantment. Whoever sold this to Acerquox took advantage of him." Jake hung his head. "Stay here, Jake. At least for the time being. If you go back out there the way you are now, you're going to die. No one's going to try to hurt you here." Jake didn't express it, but he felt a growing sense of inner worthlessness. The Returning Hero himself had explained to him in detail just how foolish and ill- prepared he truly was, and he'd never even had the ability to realize it. "Almost no one!" Barney piped up mischievously. "Barney, you-" He sighed. "All right, I know you want me to tell him, I'll tell him. There are runes, wards, that people can use to mitigate a Dungeon's power." He sighed again at the bad memory. "They'd managed to force open an Entrance, I'm not familiar with the magic, but there were four of them. They'd come in like they were invading hell, cut apart Nanny's avatar without listening to a word, they broke down a door, were about to kill someone, but Nanny had woken me up before that, turned me back, basically grew me into my armor, and put my sword and shield in my hands. I shouted at them to stop, and they chose to attack me." "And you cut them to mincemeat," Jake finished for him, setting out another large block; their castle was coming along nicely, at least. There was no accusation of wrongdoing. Those idiots had forced their way into an unknown Dungeon that had turned out to be the Returning Hero's sanctuary and refused to listen to reason. What did they think was going to happen to them? "Not quite mincemeat, but yes," Wally affirmed. It had taken him three sword strikes to kill four people. "It was much less traumatic to everyone than you'd think, Nanny disposed of their remains and Barney just asked to have the blood washed off him. Few of us are strangers to violence, Jake, most of us are from backgrounds similar to yours. Some better, mine is, but some worse. Hard as that may be to believe." "Wait.... if Barney is like that," Jake started, turning to the other boy, "then why were you crying about that little spanking?" Jake asked him directly. Barney gave a weird smile and turned away. "She wasn't using pain magic, was she?" Wally looked offended at the idea. "Pain magic?! Gods of Good, no! Barney just tends to get deeply invested in the role, that's just his attitude towards this life," Wally replied. "Except when he decides that he wants to be free of all this, find a wife, raise a family. He raises his children to grown-ups, he sets his affairs in order, he goes on a long journey from which he is not expected to return, and then Nanny finds him again. He's done it twice now. Twenty years at a time, and it's like he never missed a day." Barney was following the conversation, smiling and nodding to what Wally was saying about him, but instead of talking, he was putting on the finishing touches, crenellations atop the castle, with the small blocks. "Some of my family members are here," Barney said in an unusually adult tone, inclining his head towards the children using their handheld things to control illusions. "The others, I give them guidance towards avoiding their graves, as any good daddy should. But they choose their own path in the end." His voice was a very strange mix of proud and resigned, especially coming from his little mouth. "I'm surprised you're sharing this with me," Jake replied. The castle was almost done, and with his mittens still restricting him to the larger blocks, there wasn't anything left for him to do. "Forget just the Returning Hero's secret, do you know what Duke Acerquox would do if he knew how to be immortal?" In a world of magic, there were many ways to reverse aging or enjoy an indefinite lifespan some other way, but few were remotely this pleasant. "Never mind the obvious fact that no one would believe you, and never mind that this path isn't for him or others like him," Wally said with a gentle smile, "you aren't the sort of person to go sharing such a thing to the wrong sorts of people. Nanny directly told me before you woke up, and she is a very good judge of character," he continued as he set up more blocks. "She has had people run away immediately, one less-than-gentleman even tried to set her on fire on his way out, but she wouldn't have opened that Entrance if she didn't think you could love her." "That's the thing I've been wondering about," Jake said. "She said she needs love. Why does a Dungeon...?" "She means that literally," Wally replied. "The fundamental rules are different here. To her, transformation, creation, modification, healing... all of those powerful magics are, well, they're not completely free, but they're relatively inexpensive for her. There are Dungeons - well, were Dungeons - that would do terrible things to real or transformed children, but Nanny is powered by real, heartfelt love." Jake wondered what had happened to the evil Dungeons and realized he was probably looking at the answer. "The more she gets, the more she can do. If she ran out of people to love her, she'd weaken and perish. That's why she can never force anyone, even if it would be for their own good in the end, she'd hardly get real love that way. She can't use any kind of drug because that isn't real either, and she can't directly insert feelings because that would be like her trying to lift a plank she's standing on." Jake wanted very, very badly to love Nanny; if this was the price of having his life saved and being actually cared about, for the first time he could remember, he'd gladly pay it. "Don't try to force it, dear," Nanny said from behind him. "I see your castle is complete. You're very hungry. It's time for lunch." Jake hadn't even noticed; he'd spent his life eating what he could when he could and had learned to ignore all but the most ravenous hunger a long time ago. He eagerly let Nanny guide him by the mitten into the feeding room, his shoes squeaking as he walked. Climbing into the highchair, he realized why Nanny had said that she'd take his mittens off after lunch instead of before. He couldn't possibly feed himself with them on, and she obviously wanted to do that for him. He supposed that a more well-bred boy would have kicked up a fuss or asked to be let go, finding this all demeaning and humiliating, but the servant boy Jake barely even felt that sort of thing anymore. For him, this was all just weird. He knew he was taken care of like this at some point in his life, but he couldn't remember it; one of his earliest memories was of a loud, angry woman shouting at him that he had no right to expect anyone else to take care of him. Now he was in a Dungeon that was using everything except actual threats to do exactly that. He couldn't have said that he liked being treated like a little kid, per se, but he knew what he did like. He liked getting a good night's sleep in a soft and comfortable bed. He liked not having to do repetitive, rote, and pointless chores like washing blankets in river water with no good soap or sweeping a stairwell that he'd never seen anyone actually use. He really liked Wally - the Returning Hero himself! - treating him like a friend. He liked the strange sense of health he'd had all day. He liked being able to play with actual toys - and of such strange make! - for the first time that he could ever more than vaguely remember. And he loved, absolutely loved, being able to eat his fill of warm and savory stew, even if it was being gently spooned into his mouth, bite by bite, by an enormous not-quite-creature, as copies of her did the exact same for a few other children around him. He suddenly realized how he was being treated, in another light. Edric had a sister a few years younger, Genevieve, and her father doted on her, treating her like a precious flower that could be let outside only under very strict supervision. The headmaid had enlisted Jake in helping to clean the girl's room more than once, sure that the boy would have no interest in girls' things. And he didn't, not really, they were mostly just bits of sewn stuffing and cloth, but he had seen Genevieve, lost in her own imagination, playing with them, pretending to feed a doll she called Melody. Jake felt exactly like that doll, except Nanny was a magical Dungeon and the food was real. And then, to his utter surprise, she gently lifted him from the highchair and began to breastfeed him. Jake didn't understand at first. He was simply being presented with a nipple to his mouth, and he didn't immediately grasp that he was encouraged to suckle on it, only doing so when Nanny placed the nipple directly in. It was only a couple of seconds after he'd started drinking her milk, which was more delicious and filling than anything he'd ever drank in his life, that he realized what he was doing, what she was doing for him. She really was treating him just like a baby, and the sensation was mystifying, strangely exhilarating. That wasn't the only thing very weird; he was enjoying this, feeling deep and abiding affection for this thing that had decided to take care of him, and something was gently siphoning away the feeling itself in a way he could never have described. That must be Nanny, feeding off his love for her. She gently pulled him away from her breast after a while. "You didn't have to stop," he said, smiling a bit. Was that embarrassing to say? He didn't even know anymore. "Dear, you're full," she told him gently. "If I feed you any more, you'll get a tummyache." Jake nodded, believing her - he'd seldom had the opportunity to eat that full before. She patted him on the back, and he burped loudly - a couple of the other children giggled a bit - and he felt a lightness around his wrists. Oh, right, the mittens. They'd felt nice on his hands, but he did want to try some of the other toys, and so he held them out for Nanny to slide them off his hands. "Now, no more shoving or hitting, or I'll do things you really won't like," Nanny said, but her tone was gentle. "If you want to wear them again, you have but to ask." Jake blushed slightly but did not reply, and she led him by the hand back into the playroom. Nanny - another avatar - was carrying Wally out as she led Jake in, and he looked around for the only other boy he knew there. "Barney's in another room playing tag, which you're too big for right now," Nanny told him, and he immediately grasped the words 'too big for right now'. If he wanted to play physical games with the other children, he would have to be regressed to match, and she could apparently just do that the way she just did everything else. Despite the fact that Wally had no problem with it, and she could clearly turn him back within moments, having his body magically shrunk wasn't something he felt ready for. "Why don't you go make some new friends, sweetie?" Nanny asked him kindly. "There really isn't any need to be shy." Jake looked around. Oh, that toy with the moving images was showing letters on it that quickly appeared and disappeared; clearly, the children playing with it were really educated sages. The tea party girl had invited friends, although he'd look badly out of place if he tried to join that. Ah, there was another girl, wearing a modest green dress and soft socks, looking about nine years old or so, petulant at a game she was playing. "Hi," Jake timidly greeted her with, and she turned to look at him. "Jake." "Oh, hi, Jake!" the little girl said, spreading her dress for a curtsey. "I'm Marilyn! Welcome to our Dungeon!" She giggled as she said it, but Jake understood what she meant. This wasn't just "a Dungeon", as in a location owned and controlled by a magical entity. This was a home, their home, and Jake finally, truly realized that it could be his home, if he wanted. It was hard to even think about. "What are you playing with?" Jake asked instead. It was clearly controlled by magic, whatever it was. Four different combinations of shapes and colors went down the screen, accompanied by green and red lights. "Oh, something Nanny found out about. See, the idea is to guess what the secret is. All of these here are guesses. If you get one right one in the right place, it's green, and if you get one that's there but in the wrong place, it's red. Press this thingy here to move back and forth, and this thingy to pick." After a few fumbling starts, Jake understood how to play it and what a good strategy might be. The game tickled a part of his brain that he loved to use but so rarely had the chance to. He'd been feeling smarter somehow, although he wasn't sure why, and he approached the game with determination. Within twenty minutes, he had something of a hang of it. She showed him another game, a game in which he had to fill boxes and lines with numbers, and fortunately he had managed to pick those up, although he couldn't remember where. Pleased with his performance, she asked him about himself, and he hesitatingly told her of his origins; there were elements to his story about which he didn't really want to go into detail with a girl. In return, she told him about her life, one in which an impoverished, misruled city was beset by insane arsonists and she'd fled with as many books as she could fit on her carriage, but her planned escape route had been blocked by inclement weather and a collapsed tree. She was in the middle of despair, eating the very oxen that had been supposed to be pulling the carriage, when the Dungeon's Entrance had opened up, inviting and warm. He enjoyed listening to her story, but - a librarian! Of all the people he could have met! He'd only heard of a 'library' by overhearing conversations, the same way he'd learned almost everything else he knew about the world. And she, of all people, thought he was smart! How could he possibly undercut all his hard work in front of such a person by admitting that he had never learned to read? "When she asked me to be a kid again, I... wasn't so sure. Obviously, I did take it in the end, but she never offered me the compromise she gave you," Marilyn concluded her story with. "Compromise...?" Jake was confused. "On your physical age." "All she did was grow my hair a little," Jake said, still confused. "Wait, you're actually- oh, I'm so sorry!" Marilyn put her head in her hands, embarrassed. "I didn't realize you were actually a teenager. She has taken in people your age before, even a couple of actual little kids, but she doesn't usually do that." "I wish she took me in ten years ago." He didn't realize that he actually meant that until he said it, but it was absolutely true. Ten years in this kind of paradise over pointless servitude in a castle ruled by morons? What kind of choice even was that? Marilyn smiled at him. "She's far from omniscient, Jake." He didn't even know the word but could guess from context. "But now you have all the time in the world, if you want it. Not everyone does." Jake nodded, thinking about Barney. Clearly, this Dungeon could be stifling after a while. "Yeah, I... I just thought I was going to be an adventurer. I didn't think it was going to be as awful as it was out there. I just thought I'd find stuff a lot more easily." He looked around him. "I guess I kinda did." "You did. If you want practice adventuring, why not just ask Nanny?" The idea would never have occurred to him. "She's got a lot of practice, testing areas." "Indeed I do," Nanny said, walking over towards them. "Would you like to try one? There are rewards for success and penalties for failure, and what happens there won't be a secret, but I promise that any consequences won't have to last longer than a night." Jake almost laughed. In the outside world, in any other Dungeon, the consequence for failing that kind of challenge was surely death, instant or agonizing. The worst Nanny had done to him was put soft mittens on his hands for a short time. The rewards for victory probably weren't great either, but why not? "Okay, I want to try it," he immediately agreed. "This way." His booties squeaked along the soft carpet as she led him by the hand again, this time down another corridor that he'd never seen, as a handful of other children, Marilyn and Wally included, followed them. She placed a long stick in his hand, made of something soft wrapped around something flexible. "This is all you'll need for this one," she said with a smile. "Make it to the end without falling down, and you win. Be careful, there are challenges ahead." The first challenge attached him almost immediately as his booties squeaked on the walkway. Flying things swarmed down from the ceiling, and he swung his weapon, but he could not have possibly deflected them all. It took a few impacts before he realized that they weren't trying to hurt him per se; rather, they tried to distract him, blind him, and push him over into the darkness below. He slashed with his toy sword, hitting one at a time (he didn't think he was having much real effect, but they fell down when he did that), trying just to hold his ground, and as one lunged at him, he reflexively punched it. It felt like hitting a cotton toy, which is what it probably was. He'd seen a wooden golem only once, owned by the same guy who'd sold Duke Acerquox that shitty sword and armor, and he was sure that these were cloth golems. Jake laughed mirthfully. You couldn't injure someone with cloth golems... which was exactly the point. Swinging his sword and his fist, pushing against the swarm, he methodically walked across the bridge, and the few remaining bats retreated back upwards. In front of him was a series of large tiles, but they made no sense to him. There were letters on each tile, arranged in certain ways, but they didn't even look like words anyway. He simply ran across them, occasionally making diagonal steps in an attempt to fool whatever was going on, and then the entire floor collapsed underneath him. He incoherently screamed in surprise before he started falling through what felt like syrup. He could still breathe somehow, but his sword was pulled from his hand and his clothes melted away. Something was happening to his body in the pitch blackness, his reach felt shorter, his head larger in comparison to the rest of him, and he realized what was happening. She'd promised penalties for failure, and one of those was apparently being transformed in the way that the others had been transformed. The sensation of being shrunk, made into a little child, growing in reverse, was utterly strange and disconcerting, and he would have been screaming had he not already known that so many other people had no problems with it. Wally was fine being regressed, as was Barney, and Marilyn, and every other single not-really-child he'd seen there. He had to remind himself yet again that if Nanny really wished him ill, she would have simply put spikes on the bottom instead of putting forward the time, effort, and magic to make him little. Something else began to surround him, first a fluffy garment encasing his groin and then more fluff around the rest of him, everything but his face thickly covered in softness. And then he was being lifted and carried, and when he next saw light, it was the familiar ambient glow of the Dungeon. Nanny was holding him, her enormous size making his regressed body truly toddler-sized by comparison, and he looked down at himself to find that he was wearing a plush, purple toy suit, a hood firmly affixed over his face and the arms and legs ending in stumpy, soft paws. The room was occupied by other children and a magical window showing the pit that had opened beneath Jake's feet. They'd all known, then. Nanny had warned him that his success or failure would be no secret, but he hadn't known that his new friends would watch him fail, and humiliation welled up within him. "Sweetheart, when you stepped on those tiles, you should have been aware of the different words you were spelling," Nanny chided him gently, about to explain that his random approach had spelled out TRAP and could have also spelled PIT and HOLE with the various letter combinations on each tile, but her mental senses told her that something was very wrong and it showed on her avatar's face. "I CAN'T READ!" Jake yelled out to everyone, surprised at the high pitch of his six-year-old's voice and tears welling in his six-year- old's eyes, not wanting the additional humiliation of having Nanny figure it out. He should have told everyone earlier, he realized, he shouldn't have tried to hide it, it was going to come out eventually, and knowing that he could have avoided this just made everything worse. The mischievously smiling faces of the other children fell. Many of them, including Wally, looked genuinely surprised. A boy in a colorful robe took two steps back, his hands over his face, making the mortification even worse. Marilyn was beyond shocked, her hand to her mouth. This was the worst he'd ever felt in that Dungeon by far. He'd thought his whole life that illiteracy was a normal thing, and in the duchy of Acerquox it was for nobodies like him, but he was among people who took the ability to read for granted. They'd all agreed to become little kids, yet they were all so much smarter than him. "No one ever taught me!" he yelled to the shaken group. "Who ever would?!" "Oh, dear, sweetheart, I am so, so sorry, I should have realized sooner, that was truly unfair of me," Nanny said, moving to take off the plush suit and possibly restore his size. The apology meant a lot to Jake. People had done awful things to him, and very seldom did they ever apologize for them. In the castle, when he'd been given a task he had no idea how to do, and had (predictably) failed at it, he was the one who had been punished and made to apologize instead. "Leave it on," Jake told Nanny, sniffling. "It's soft." It was like being hugged, and he needed to be hugged. It prevented him from doing anything, and he didn't want to do anything. She had made him little, making him one of the children she took care of, and that's what he really wanted to be just then. "You're sure?" she asked him, and he nodded. "All right, then. Children, any one of you who makes fun of him for any of this will be punished severely." Her saying that was entirely for Jake's benefit - none of them would ever have considered it. He was one of them, after all, a lost little child who needed Nanny's attention and love. She picked him up, hugging him softly, and he sniffled even more. The Dungeon hadn't turned him into someone incapable of adventuring. Wally and Nanny had simply shown him that he already was. The sniffles grew, and tears dripped onto Nanny's plush body. "It's all right, Jake. Just let it out." Jake did let it out, then, despite so many years of being forcibly taught that crying was something that would simply make adults hit him more. He had been made small and dependent and he finally could cry, cry at the horrific conditions he'd lived in, not even knowing that they were horrific. A lifetime of resentment, of bottled anger, came out in a flood of tears as he hugged Nanny fiercely, and he cried even more at his own complete helplessness at every level. Why had he ever thought that he could be an adventurer? "You asked who would ever teach you to read," Nanny said in his ear. "I will. Starting tomorrow." He drew in a breath, about to ask if she would really do that for him, but of course she would, she did everything else. Finding her had been the greatest fortune in his entire life, and he loved her so very much. "Right now, what you need is supper and sleep. An early bedtime will do you good," she said, carrying him to the dining room. Jake had overheard other, more well-off, young castle residents getting early bedtimes as punishment. As a servant, more sleep had never been a punishment for him at all, and he welcomed it after everything he'd been through. "They all think I'm stupid..." Jake quietly whined in the corridor, his own voice making him even more upset. If he'd sounded like this when he was actually six years old, he would have had his teeth knocked out. "There isn't a single person here who thinks that," Nanny told him directly. "Jake, I read emotions," she reminded him. "There is not one individual in that room who had anything but honest sympathy for you." He was being pitied, and he wasn't sure if that made him feel better or even worse. "I'm also aware of everything that goes on here. As of this moment, Wally has taken it upon himself to consult with Marilyn and some others about how best to establish a new, more humane, rulership in the duchy of Acerquox with a minimum of bloodshed." Jake was blown away. The greatest hero in the world was his friend, actually his friend, and he would even do something like that? The nobility mistreated him, so Wally's response was to find a way to replace the nobility? "Not only is he your friend, you suffered a life of injustice," Nanny told him as she fed him, spoon by spoon. "The Returning Hero does not abide injustice, and neither do I." Nanny punctuated her statement by kissing him on the head. She breastfed him again, and this time he did not hesitate, eagerly nursing from the avatar that he was increasingly starting to consider his actual mother, in practice if not in fact. He had no idea what confluences of magic, of divine intervention, could create this sort of Dungeon, but he was very, very happy that she was there for him, and she drank of his love once more. "I think I know where to put you tonight," she told him with a smile, burping him gently. She led him farther down the corridor, to a room clearly meant for one child, with personal toys and true-to-life pictures along the walls. Jake had actually seen a photograph before, created by magic no one in Acerquox understood, but this room's owner had so many, many of different families, different lives. Enough were of the same boy that he realized that this was Barney's room, and that Nanny was putting him in Barney's crib, raising the bars after laying him down and giving him a kiss on the head. She left the room and he managed to stand up in the suit's soft feet, and he probably could have managed to climb over the bars even in his plushie suit, but his body was unfamiliar and encumbered, and he decided to fall back down (floomph!) and lie there. He'd chosen to stay that way, after all, and the suit was very comfortable. Barney entered shortly thereafter, carried in by Nanny and placed in his crib, where he happily cuddled the oversized plushie in it and Nanny tucked him in for the night, kissing both of the children on the head and dimming the odd ambient light. Jake contemplated how much had changed so quickly. Just that morning, he'd pushed the boy out of his bed. Now he was in that boy's bed, being used as a soft, cuddly pillow. It would have been much weirder if they were in bigger bodies, but as little children, it was comfortable, and Jake had never been able to do anything like this as an actual child. There was only one sensation that was bothering him, one that he didn't want to speak aloud but knew that he'd have to soon. "Barney..." It was embarrassing to even ask, so he spoke quietly. "...can you help me use the potty?" Barney was completely confused. "The potty? Seriously? You really don't want...?" Suddenly, he laughed. "Oh, right. You don't even know! Sorry, I don't mean to make fun of you." He patted Jake's plush- covered crotch, chuckling a bit. "Yup, you're diapered up. You're wearing your potty, Jake. It's okay. It's what it's for. It's magically absorbent, don't worry." No wonder. That was the garment they'd all been wearing, that he'd been wearing. He'd seen women put cloth around their very small children before, but he'd thought it was for modesty, and he'd seen little, un-breeched kids just let go under their dresses, whenever and wherever. His life had been so full of filth that he hadn't even really known what a diaper was. Jake let go into his diaper, pushing a bit harder than he should have, trying to will himself to let go. It was easier at six than it would have been at fourteen, but he had once soiled his pants at the age of five, out of sheer terror, and he'd received multiple, terrifying slaps to the face. (He suddenly realized that he wanted Wally to slay the vile bitch who had done it, but Wally was a hero, not an assassin.) "Bad memories?" Barney asked suddenly, and Jake gasped. Did Barney read minds, too? "It's all over your face. Remember what Wally said. A lot of us didn't have good lives. I'm gonna guess, somebody hit you for wetting the bed?" "I was so scared one time, I peed myself," Jake admitted, as he continued to intentionally pee himself. "And then, yeah, someone hit me. It wasn't just one, it was all of them. They did that a lot. For everything." A lifetime of abuse, all for a job that a professional could probably have done in fifteen minutes a week. Barney's response was to hug him, the plush suit spreading the hug to his whole body, and Jake was very glad he'd kept wearing it. "Did you leave anybody behind?" "No. There was nobody to leave. I had no family, no real friends, girls wouldn't even look at me, they were trying to marry knights, or travelers, just anybody who could take them away from there. I don't blame them." "Oh, it must have been horrible being a girl there," Barney said with surety. "Feel lucky you were born a boy, if nothing else." "Somebody tried to do stuff to me, even as a boy," Jake quietly said, and he could tell that Barney was silently cursing himself for not considering the possibility. "It's just that whole stinking place." A wild thought occurred to him, a thought that would have been suicide to say out loud in his previous life. "It wouldn't be bad, being a girl here." Chuckling slightly, smiling widely, Jake's new friend cuddled him to sleep. Being held while softly encased was soothing, calming. He couldn't have imagined that Barney, of all people, would make him feel comforted and protected, but a lot had changed. He was being introduced to things he'd never even considered, and he was enjoying them all, and he smiled as he fell asleep. "Good morning, children," Nanny said, just as Jake was waking up. His dreams had been pleasant but very weird. He'd dreamt that he was Genevieve's toy, and then he'd dreamt that his Nanny and new friends had gone back through his old life and replaced everyone in it. "Good morning, Nanny," Barney and Jake said together, and laughed, although Jake's voice felt kind of strange in his throat. It didn't sound like it had last night. Actually, all of him felt different, and he wasn't sure how. It even looked like everything was a different color. "Communal bath for you this morning, Barney," Nanny said, and Jake noticed that there were two of her there. Right, avatars, he had to keep reminding himself. 'Nanny' was just a creation; the whole place was the Dungeon. She lowered the side of the crib and picked each of them up, carrying them in two separate directions. Jake was happy to be bathed again, and that room had gained a long, reflective pane of glass since he'd last been there. The plushie suit had been comfortably warm all night rather than hot (more magic, he figured), but he felt like he needed a washing anyway. Nanny gently took off the suit and the thick diaper between his legs, and he looked down at himself as a six-year-old. Wait - there wasn't a - "I do recall someone saying that being a girl here wouldn't be bad," Nanny told him gently, next to his ear. Jake was thunderstruck. Of course she'd heard it, he'd just been remembering that this was all her, of course that was how it worked. "Did I misjudge you?" Jake, paralyzed with indecision, had no idea how to reply, and she picked him up and gently lowered him into the tub, which felt much larger than the last time he'd been in it. She washed his hair, and he felt that it was longer, much longer, than the previous shoulder-length locks Nanny had given him. He continued looking down at himself in the tub, still too shocked to say anything, his emotions conflicting. He was so much more vulnerable this way, but that was okay, there was no one there who would hurt him or even pick on him. He knew what he should have wanted, what other people might have assumed that he'd want, but he didn't know what he actually wanted, and he passively sat on a ledge in the comfortably hot tub as Nanny scrubbed his lithe little body. "Let's get you dried off and then you can take a good look at yourself," Nanny said, very gently and with complete understanding, and she lifted him out of the tub and onto a very fluffy towel. She dried him meticulously, summoned a gentle stream of warm air to dry his oh-so-long hair, and stood him up in front of the mirror. What looked back at him was a girl of the age of six, her long, blond hair flowing down past the small of her back. Perfectly framed eyebrows sat atop her angelic face, her skin almost pearly, far from the swarthy, weather-beaten boy Jake had been, her unnaturally deep blue eyes shining in the soft light. The girl reflexively smiled, showing rows of perfectly straight and pearly white teeth, nothing like the mess Jake's had been. A slim torso ran down to dainty, slender legs and arms, with perfectly manicured fingernails and toenails. Jake's many scars were totally gone. Naked, he performed a few tentative leg lifts and jumps in his new body in front of the mirror, finding his new self graceful and limber. Seeing and moving his altered body was a very weird experience, somewhat scary, a somewhat wonderful, a lot simply ineffable. "Would you like to stay this way? Or would you prefer some other form instead?" Nanny asked the little girl. Being reminded that he had a fast way out, that Nanny wouldn't keep him this way if he didn't want to be, dampened the fear a lot. 'Turn me into the 14-year-old I should have been,' Jake might have requested, and Nanny would have remade him without scars or the long- term effects of malnutrition. He could have asked to be just a little older, back to a boy again, someone like Wally. He could have even asked her to make him big and tough, although he'd surely have to leave in that case, and he didn't want to stay illiterate, if nothing else. Jake looked at the little girl in the mirror, and he - no, she - did not want her to go away, at least not then. Maybe later, maybe never. Nanny had freely offered her an extremely rare opportunity and she did not want to squander it. "I want to stay just like this," she proclaimed, her new sing-song voice sounding childishly cute even to her own ears. "I suspected you would," Nanny said, smiling. "I don't think we should go on calling you Jake. Do you like the name Melody?" The little girl laughed, understanding the limits of Nanny's mind reading. The Dungeon had plucked the name out of Jake's mind without the context. A doll's name was exactly the sort of name she felt appropriate for being in Nanny's care. "It's perfect! Please call me Melody, Nanny!" Melody squealed, clasping her little hands together. Nanny chuckled. "All right, Melody. Up onto the changing table." Melody eagerly hopped up to let her Nanny put her in a lavender daytime diaper. It was a little thinner than what she had been wearing last night but still very soft and comfortable. A pair of lavender tights came next, patterned with pink flowers, the soft, silky material hugging her tender skin. A long slip came next, gently keeping her legs together. Nanny showed her an image of the dress she wanted to place her in, and Melody squealed with unrestrained glee. It was floor-length, in multiple shades of lavender, with pink musical notes all over and letters adorning the center. "That's your name, sweetheart," Nanny told her. "That says 'Melody'." Melody was overjoyed. Not only did she get to be a little girl with her only concern being learning to read, all of her friends would know her new name. She eagerly lifted her arms for Nanny to put the conjured dress on her, and it was firm around the waist and flowy all the way to the floor. A pair of supple, low-heeled violet slippers completed the outfit, and Nanny adorned her with an amethyst necklace made of a very shiny metal that Melody had never seen before. "It's platinum, dear," she said, smiling. "As far as I'm concerned, precious metals are for making little girls look pretty, nothing else." Melody couldn't have guessed its value, but that didn't matter; she was almost certainly never going to have this precious trinket outside the Dungeon anyway, nor would she want to. Nanny began working on her hair, the avatar's overly large fingers somehow expertly putting it into a long pair of braids. "Be careful you don't sit on them, dear," Nanny warned her with a smile, as she adorned their beginnings and ends with bows of purple ribbon. Melody could never have done this herself, but she didn't need to; that was what Nanny was for, after all. Melody looked down at her bare fingers. "Nothing for your hands for now," Nanny told her. "You'll be practicing with them. But there is one thing I can do." With ten expert, magical strokes of a small brush, each of Melody's perfect fingernails was painted in a soft lavender to match her outfit. Melody giggled happily, and Nanny took her by the hand rather than carrying her, letting her enjoy the feel of the slip around her legs as she pushed her floor-length dress out of the way with her feet so that she wouldn't trip over it, mimicking the careful, dainty steps of a nobly born girl. Marilyn was in the dining room, feeding herself with a bowl of milk and grain flakes that Melody didn't recognize, and she looked somewhat worried as she ate. "Hi, Marilyn!" Melody greeted her, waving delicately and smiling. "Who are... oh! Jake?" Melody nodded but gestured to the word on her chest, which she couldn't read but Marilyn could. "Hee hee. You're really cute as Melody," Marilyn said, understanding immediately, and Melody smiled at the compliment. "I forgot to tell you last night, it's not your fault. None of it is. It's terrible that no one ever taught someone as smart as you to do something as basic as reading." Her voice was earnest. That's what she had been worried about: that she'd missed the chance to express sympathy. "Thank you, Marilyn," Melody replied, just as earnestly, as Nanny helped her into the highchair, smoothing out her pretty dress. "You're so welcome, and your voice is sooo cute! It matches your name." Melody was confused. "A melody is the main part of a song," Marilyn explained. "I know someone who can teach you to sing them." Melody stared at her friend, amazed. First Nanny would teach her to read, and then someone else would teach her to sing. Skills that were reserved for the nobility, all hers for free. "By the way," she continued, occasionally taking bites of cereal, "Wally doesn't do politics himself, but he's getting people to start a big anti- stagnation campaign throughout the Empire. The whole reason that the duchies up there are like that is because the smart people leave but the dukes don't have to worry about being conquered, there's the wildlands and the Empire's peace. Nothing's pushing them to advance, the Empire doesn't really care, and almost all the dukes are lazy, so everything just kinda ends up like that." Melody tried to process that. It wasn't just her; it wasn't even that duke or even that duchy. The problem was beyond her comprehension, and nestled in this Dungeon were people who might be able to fix it. "Before you even think it, I won't let a thing like that happen to you," Nanny said immediately as she fed Melody her cereal. It was sugary, soft in the mouth, and absolutely delicious. "Immortal boys and girls are not allowed to fall into any mental loops or behavioral ruts." "Thank you, Nanny," Melody replied, getting the impression that this was very important but not really understanding why. "You're quite welcome, dear," Nanny said, as she continued to feed her - as they fed each other. Marilyn carefully swung her own tray away from her, hopping down out of the highchair, and Melody gave a little wave. And then she was finished, and Nanny helped her down, leading her by the hand again, down long halls. It was taking a short while to get there, with Melody taking her sweet little steps, but Nanny did not pull on her hand nor rush her at all. Jake, in his past life, would have needed to walk quickly or even to run - a servant was not allowed to dally - but Melody was a genteel young lady who had no need to hurry. Elegance and poise were much more important for her, and she would arrive when she arrived. If Nanny decided that haste was important, she would simply pick the little girl up and carry her. They did arrive, and three things struck Melody at once. The first was the wall-to-wall books, shelves reaching high to the ceiling, ladders positioned for their retrieval. The second was the musty, heady smell of so much aging paper in one place. The third was the unnatural silence of the place; some magic was dampening even the sound of her light footsteps on the carpet. "It's so quiet," she said, and she knew her voice was not carrying. "A library is a place where silence must be maintained, to keep from disturbing people's reading," Nanny told her gently. "Even when the largest source of noise is the librarian herself." Nanny pointed to the far end. Jake could probably have never made out the details with his old eyes, but Melody saw them clearly: behind a pane of glass, Marilyn was working with what looked to be strangely shaped golems, moving pieces of paper through a thing that Melody had no meaningful words for. "When it is finished, it will be a device to copy books without human intervention," Nanny explained, and Melody was awed. Every scribe she could think of - and Jake had only met two in his entire life before arriving at the Dungeon - would have given his writing hand to have a thing like that, or even to use it. "Can you guess what book she wishes to copy first?" Melody had no idea. "A guide to adventuring," she ventured. "Survival, mapping, the areas and monsters of the world, maybe something on Dungeons too." It seemed like the most valuable information that could be put on paper. "That will be a future project, I'm certain," Nanny said, "but her first book will be on how to create a book copier." Melody was absolutely floored. This device was priceless, valuable beyond any measure. She doubted even the Imperial capital had a thing like this, and Marilyn simply wanted to tell everyone how to make their own? "Melody, what need do you think she has of wealth?" Nanny asked gently, still holding Melody's hand, but her other hand was reaching over to gently brush against Melody's platinum and amethyst necklace. "None," Melody understood. "You provide us with everything that could be purchased, and then some." "The only things that I will not provide you are things that would harm you," Nanny said, smiling. "I simply wish for you to be virtuous, and your own generosity is a virtue. Ah, here we are." Nanny took a seat on a soft, large chair in a small alcove, helped Melody sit on her lap, produced a child's primer with colorful illustrations, and began to teach her to read. Melody was expecting Nanny to dive right in with whole words, to show her what combinations of letters meant what, but her caretaker was taking a much more methodical approach. Melody needed to truly understand the Imperial tongue, which some of the infinite worlds called "Brittanian" and others called the Common tongue and still others called "English" (she wondered what "Engl" was like), and to do that, she needed to know the forms of letters, the sounds of letters. Nanny began with A, not because it was the first letter but because it was the first vowel, and she taught the fascinated little girl how the same letter could have many different sounds, depending on what word it was making. A couple hours of explanation and recitation later, Melody realized why Nanny had left her fingers unencumbered. She was expected to write the letter herself, in both its capital and lowercase forms. Jake had never held a pen a single time in his entire life, for any reason, and Nanny carefully placed Melody's fingers around the small twig she called a 'pencil', which Melody saw as a strange, grey version of a charcoal rubbing stick. Proper young ladies like Melody would be expected to write in both printed and cursive forms, and she enjoyed Nanny's careful teaching and her delicate, precise fingers picked up on it immediately. The lesson had gone so well that she was able to progress to the second vowel, the letter E. Melody was utterly confused as to why a letter at the end of a word changed the pronunciation of the previous vowel while being silent itself, but Nanny told her that it was pointless to ask 'why' regarding any aspect of the Imperial tongue; as a conqueror's language, it contained elements of many of the languages it had subsumed, making it a patois of random word origins. "There is no point in getting 'mad' at how the Imperial tongue is 'made'," Nanny said, writing the two words for comparison, and then needing to explain that "made" was different from "maid". Melody's head was starting to spin, and Nanny decided it was a good time to take a break until tomorrow. "That duchy truly wasted you," Nanny said as she led Melody out of the library, holding the little girl's hand as she minced along with the short, dainty steps to which she was swiftly becoming accustomed. "By now, you should know three languages and have a good grasp of magic besides. In my two centuries, I've never seen anyone with as much wasted potential as you have. You're so sharp, even though so much damage was done to you. I hadn't told you this, but you've taken hard hits to the head that have slightly damaged your brain, and that is absolutely unforgivable. Fortunately, it's something I can regrow, and I have been." Melody stared at her, torn between gratitude and deep fear. She remembered some of those hits, some accidental, others not so much, and she realized why she'd been feeling smarter. The love- siphon was okay, that was the price of all this, but if Nanny was actually messing with her thoughts- "I can understand some of your thoughts, dear, but I cannot alter your mind. It is too inscrutable, too delicate, even for me. It's only your brain I can diagnose and heal." She smiled down at Melody, and Melody smiled back up at her. "This is why I don't make children here any younger than they are; if I were to make your heads any smaller, I'd risk damaging you." She reached over with her other hand and patted Melody's head gently, the avatar's fluffy hand soft against her long, pretty braids. Melody made no move to feed herself at the highchair. She was getting used to have Nanny doing everything for her, which was how both of them liked it. It was just so nice to be cared for and doted on, and when the meal was done, Nanny led her back into the playroom. Every moment was a comfort, a joy. Jake, in his previous life, would have been expected to be doing some menial tasks, sometimes sensible and other times absolutely unnecessary. Melody's only job was to be a good little girl, and she intended to do it well. "Hi, Melody!" Barney greeted her, turning backwards and smiling, and something in her heart leapt for joy on hearing his voice, although she wondered how he knew she'd walked in. (Secret powers, she supposed. Probably a lot.) He and Wally were playing with handheld somethings that connected to one of the magical screens, which showed moving images that Melody just had a hard time grasping at all. Pictures were doing things involving other pictures, but it was so hard for Melody to understand that it just slid right off her mind. Later, she decided. She'd figure out what that was after she learned to read. "Hi, Barney!" Melody eagerly chirped back, her dress swishing as she minced over to her friends. "Barney, leave her alone for now," Wally said, to her surprise. "Melody, there's someone else who wants to talk to you." Of course there was; she was still the new girl, after all. The wizard boy that Melody had seen earlier called for her, beckoning her over to the tea party set, the open seat on the square table a clear invitation, and Melody eagerly swished her way to it. "Hello, Melody. My name is Julie, and this is Millie," she said, gesturing to herself and the other girl. Julie was wearing an ankle- length dress of green velvet; Millie was wearing a knee-length white dress of simple, comfortable cotton. "I was just telling Enthir how I was surprised he'd have wanted to meet you here of all places," Julie said, a slight smirk on her lips. The boy looked very much out of place, sitting there in his wizard robe among the pink sparkly furniture and dolls with two other girls for company, but he quietly sat down anyway. "I simply wish to take tea with Melody today," he said, neatly pouring a cup for himself and Melody. "That's real tea, by the way, the leaves are from outside." Melody had a palate for tea - the Duchess normally made too much of it, and the servants got the remainder - and after taking a sip (her pinky extended, as she had seen Genevieve do), she could tell that it was extremely well-brewed. "It's delicious," Melody complimented. "Thank you," Millie said shyly, with a faint smile. "I've never even seen a real tea party before," Melody admitted. "What do you usually talk about?" "Us? The state of the world, normally," Julie said, chuckling softly. "No, really. Everything's just so different everywhere, some places are just way more advanced than others. And that's just this one world." She chuckled again. "We just get to be kids while we're doing it." "But today, I want to talk about you," Enthir said to Melody directly. "Now that I know you're going to stay, there's some things I want to tell you," the wizard-boy said. "I was the one who... well, I wouldn't say recruited, but I told Nanny your general location. I reasoned that if anyone would need her help, it was a kid who had the whole duchy looking for him." Enthir shook his head. "I knew things out near the wildlands were bad, but I didn't know they were the 'illiterate children used as slaves' sort of bad." Melody recoiled a bit at being called a former slave but couldn't argue with it. "Nanny was looking for you for a while, but until your fear flared up, she only had a general idea." "She sensed my fear?" Melody asked, surprised. "Yeah, that's why she found you just in time, because you were scared and she picked up on it," Enthir explained. "It's kind of her thing, she knows when someone really needs help. Dungeons are incredible sometimes. I still can't match her in some areas, and I've been improving for decades. But, Melody, there's something you must remember. She loves us, she actually loves us. It's not just the Dungeon thing. It took me a while to truly understand that." "You should tell her your story," Millie shyly suggested. "Yes, I should. About sixty years ago, there was a princess who was forced into an arranged marriage with a complete prick. I mean, this guy was the worst possible, a middle son of the emperor, wasn't really going to inherit much of anything, but he was just... a rapist, among other things. The princess did not want to marry this man, but her father insisted. The princess decided she really, really did not want to marry this man, and she was about to take a ship to some far-off continent until she realized that it was run by slaver rapists who were going to sell her to the highest bidder after they were done with her. By the way, before you ask, all of these people have met their ends, some anonymous hero took a longsword to the whole ship's crew and Prince Charming Prick later received a lightning bolt to the back of the head, when surrounded by his guards, even. Anyway, the princess had nowhere to go at the time, and she pawned off a ring to get hunting and camping supplies, that was sufficient for a little while, until she got very tired of needing to set traps every time she slept, the winter was getting worse, and she was in the middle of calculating how many inn stays she could afford when a Dungeon opened up right in front of her." "You were the princess," Melody was sure; if Nanny turned boys into girls, of course she would do the reverse. Melody also had her suspicions about who vanquished the evil crew and who assassinated the prince. "That I was. Once in a while, I go back to being a girl, but I turn back, every time, I just can't stand it anymore. This is me transforming myself, by the way. Nanny's taught me a lot." Enthir smiled at Melody gently. "Nanny does this all naturally, and it's really easy to protect yourself from hostile transformation if you know magic at all, but there's just so much about the body I had to learn, about anatomy, about cells and something called genetics and how all the organs work, you have to know all that stuff before you can really, safely transform someone." Of course, Melody didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about. "Enthir, she's just learning to read," Julie reminded him. "I know, sorry. Anyway, Melody, I hope you can enjoy being a girl more than I could. I hope it stays pure and innocent for you. Maybe you'll find your perfect prince." He smiled again. "Or maybe you already have." Melody opened her mouth, but couldn't reply, and Julie giggled gently. They were just kids, they'd been turned back into just kids, she couldn't possibly mean Barney! "Don't tease her," Julie said gently, "you were much worse on your first day as a boy." The tone was gentle, though, and very understanding. These two had history together, Melody was sure. "That ship she was talking about, I was unwillingly aboard," Julie said, but no more. She didn't need to; that explained everything, right there. Millie looked like she was going to say something but just shook her head instead. "You're new here, too," Melody ventured. "Yeah. Just four months." Millie said quietly. "She's not ready to talk about her story," Julie said. "She was avenged, but that's a cold comfort." Julie's mood brightened instantly as she saw Marilyn and waved her over. "Marilyn! How's the book printer coming along?" Melody wondered where Marilyn was going to sit, seeing as how the square table was full, but things altered themselves right before Melody's eyes and the table was five-sided with very little disruption to the contents, a chair emerging from the ground to allow the librarian a seat. "On schedule," Marilyn said. "Actually a little bit ahead. I could actually have it going right now, but I want to make something reproducible by people who don't have our materials." Melody found something simultaneously comforting and bizarre about an ostensible nine-year-old talking so casually about something so arcane, but she figured she'd get used to it. "How's our newest addition?" she asked, smiling gently at Melody. "I'm doing great," Melody said, chipper and happy. "Nanny's going to go through vowels, and then consonants," She was surprised she remembered the word. "and then short words, and then she wants to read kids' books with me." Marilyn smiled. "That's how she taught Millie," she said, and Melody was expecting either an explanation or a warning never to talk about it, but instead Marilyn changed the subject. "Julie, do you hear how cute her voice is? I've never heard Nanny just give anyone a voice like that. It's beautiful. Julie, I'm surprised you haven't offered to teach her." "She's new, Marilyn. She hasn't even been a girl twelve hours, give her a rest!" Julie theatrically rolled her eyes. "Can you believe this girl?" she asked Melody. "Literally all the time in the world, and she can't wait for things to settle down before she starts jumping into things." Melody was delighted, not just at the interplay but at being included in it. "Teach me what, jumping into what?" Melody asked, smiling. "She's the one I was telling you about, she would be your singing teacher," Marilyn said. "Yes, I would. And if really you want to jump right in, I'll indulge you," Julie said, and Melody saw the telltale signs of anticipation on the girl's face. She, too, badly wanted to hear Melody sing, and everyone could tell. How was Melody ever going to deny her? She had friends now, and she very badly wanted to make them happy, as happy as they were making her. There was something altogether attractive about the idea that she should have a pleasant voice that everyone wanted to hear. "Let's try it," she suggested, smiling. "This way to the music room," Julie said, and Melody eagerly followed along. Julie, glancing back at her, grew a wider and wider smile. "Everything about you is just so precious," she squealed, watching Melody sway her slim hips slightly as she took her little steps. "Your face, your clothes, your hair, your voice... Nanny doesn't usually start people off like that, especially not people who used to be boys. This must really be you." "It is," Melody admitted, happily and with no hesitation. There was no need to deny it, no need to hide behind any false pride. If she didn't want to be that way, she would have asked Nanny to alter her, and everyone knew it. She was proud of who she was, who she got to be, and her friends were happy for her. "Being innocent is such a blessing," Millie said softly. Melody gave a little smile in reply, not sure how to respond. She was very, very certain that someone, or many someones, had stolen Millie's innocence, and she hoped that whoever had avenged her had been thorough about it. The music room was spacious, more spacious than Melody would have imagined, with several glass-paned sub-rooms branching from it. A violin-playing boy sat in one, and Melody couldn't hear a note. "The acoustics are better in the main room," Julie said, and led Melody up the stairs to the central stage. "How much do you know about music?" "Nothing at all," Melody said honestly. "Perfect," Julie replied. "It'll make this so much easier. You're obviously a soprano, but we're going to check your range, and then we're going to work on pitch exercises." Julie walked Melody through her range, quickly discovering that Melody's practical low end was nearly a full octave higher than that of an ordinary soprano singer and that her high end was utterly, ear-piercingly stratospheric. Millie and Enthir continued to sit and watch as Julie taught her how to sing one note at a time, showing her how to read music and setting out a metronome to help her get the timing correct. Halfway through the lesson, Melody had to go to the... no, she actually didn't have to do that, she remembered, and let go in her diaper instead. Julie then brought forward "A Child's Opera", an Imperial musical piece written a few centuries ago, and while the various words were beyond Melody's ken, she quickly picked up on musical reading, and Julie only had to interrupt her a couple of times to point out where she'd gone wrong. Enthir and Millie looked at each other, whispered something, and left the room midway through; Melody was confused and a little bit hurt. Her singing wasn't that bad, was it? As she made her way to the end, her friends returned with smiles on their faces, followed by many of the other children, Wally and Barney among them, along with one of Nanny's many avatars. The violinist emerged from his room to listen as well. "Again for all of us, please," Nanny requested, and Melody would never say no to her Nanny and all her new friends. Hesitating at first but quickly reaching her stride, Melody sang the simple tune again, turning whatever lyrics it might have had into pure musical notes. Some of the more complicated series of notes gave her trouble, and she was sure that a couple of them were off-key, but her audience clapped heavily for her anyway, Barney the loudest of them. Melody smiled at her fans and gave a dainty curtsey, pinching the sides of her pretty dress, before rubbing at her sore and itchy throat. Her technique probably had some flaws, she was sure, and she really wasn't used to singing for that long. "You've overexerted yourself," Nanny told her, picking her up from the stage. "Here. This will soothe you." Nanny produced an object with a bulb on one end and a wide spot after that, followed by a ring. She placed the bulb into Melody's mouth and the little girl suckled on her soother, tasting delicious mint that eased the ache in her throat. "Can you just heal her, Nanny?" Julie asked. "I really wanted to try sharps and flats today." "You know that leads to bad habits," Nanny gently admonished her. "You may continue tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Although you may wish to punctuate it with dance instruction as well." Melody smiled behind her pacifier. Nanny was right, as always; her legs shouldn't be restricted all the time, as much as she enjoyed her silky slip and floor-length dress. She was absolutely certain, then, of her future. That night, she would ask Nanny to place her back in the plush suit or something like it, so that she could enjoy her soft helplessness while Barney cuddled her to sleep. Tomorrow, she would learn to read, sing, and dance, and the day after, she'd try some of the toys she had never played with. Maybe after her daily writing lesson, she'd ask to have soft, slippery mittens on her hands again; they were comfortable, and she didn't need her hands to sing or dance, after all. Maybe one day she would be the end goal of one of Nanny's practice dungeon runs, eagerly playing the role of the captured princess, cutely tied by a (cloth, of course) giant spider so that Barney could rescue her. Maybe Enthir would teach her powerful magic, magic that she could use to protect the innocent herself or possibly find others who would be willing to accept Nanny's care. Maybe, once she had learned many more things, she would ask to grow up and leave the dungeon with Barney, raising a family together before returning to once again become children themselves. But all of that was for later, and she had forever.