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“Hello?”
Hiroto had no idea how long he had been dead. After some extended period of time with little activity in his area of the Warrens, he had, he supposed, gone into a sort of trance.
“Hello?” the voice repeated. Hiroto felt his consciousness re-forming, focusing on the greeting. The speaker was a woman standing a few paces in front of him: grey eyes, pale skin, straight brown hair pulled into a tidy knot at the back of her head, and a stubborn set to her jaw. Her clothing, form-fitting pieces of black fabric fastened with violet ribbon, bore little resemblance to that of any region he’d seen. However, judging from the tasteful embroidery, understated bits of gold jewelry, and the iridescent feathers trimming the hat she wore at a jaunty angle, Hiroto guessed the woman to be some minor aristocrat.
It was the creatures with her that were unsettling. By her side, in a guard-like posture, stood a swordsman dressed in a black-and-red striped jacket and trousers, black hair loose around his shoulders. His eyes were sunken like a dead man’s, and his brown skin was waxy-looking, with a greyish tinge to it. His once-handsome face had been scarred—no, not scarred, but cut , and stitched back together in a way that only further distorted his features. One hand rested on the pommel of a short sword, the other on the handle of a long dagger.
Perched on the woman’s shoulders was a mechanical spider made of black metal, but with a mask resembling a childlike porcelain doll’s face. Its glassy eyes blinked at him.
Alongside and slightly overlapping with these two creatures were a pair of ghosts. The warrior’s ghost looked much like the body he’d inhabited, bearing what Hiroto presumed were his death-wounds. The spider-thing, though, was accompanied by the ghost of a little girl, perhaps nine or ten years old… just a few years older than his daughter Yoko.
The woman had the sort of warm glow that Hiroto instinctively recognized as the aura of life, while her strange companions had… a faint version of it, as though they were half-alive.
“Are you a necromancer?” Hiroto tried to keep the alarm out of his voice.
The woman drew herself up. “I am a scientist , sir. My name is Dr. Lydia Frye. This is Lacey—” the girl-ghost waved shyly, and simultaneously, the metal spider raised one of its forelimbs to echo the gesture “—and this is Shamshir.” The swordsman’s ghost tossed him a casual salute, but the arms of his corpse remained stiffly at its sides. “I have been able to perceive and communicate with ghosts since childhood. I took note of your presence, and wondered if you might wish to talk.”
“If you are no necromancer,” Hiroto said carefully, “Then what are your companions, exactly?”
Lydia looked pleased. “Well you see, I have discovered that certain alchemical reagents, when combined with galvanic energy—”
“Give him the short version, doc,” Shamshir said wryly.
Lydia huffed a bit, but continued, “I can reanimate, and even enhance , certain cadavers. Lacey and Shamshir are two of my, ah, constructs.”
Hiroto folded his arms and tried to look imposing, despite being one of the footless dead. “And this is your intention for me? To become one of your constructs?”
“Only if you consent to such a procedure,” Lydia said firmly. “If not, I shall perform whatever burial rites you deem appropriate, to the best of my ability, for both yourself and those beside you.”
Hiroto turned to look at the bodies of himself and the other two samurai who had descended into the Warrens with him. He sighed heavily, feeling the weight of grief and shame. “Would you…” he paused, shocked that he was even considering such a thing, then went on, “...could you do this for my companions here?”
“I am not confident that I can, sir.” Lydia crouched down and examined the fallen corpses with a clinical eye. “This woman’s skull is completely caved in, likely from some blunt implement such as a large club, while this fellow here—”
“Yes, I understand,” Hiroto interrupted. After a moment, he said, “In that case, please gather up our swords and return them to Lord Saito. And convey apologies from his humble servant Ishida Hiroto, for failing to rid my lord’s lands of the Warrens’ monsters.”
“Ah…” Lydia grimaced as she rose to her feet. “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Your party came down here well over an Age ago.”
“That… but…” Hiroto felt himself floating back and forth. “How can that be? Our bodies would be skeletons, or dust!”
“We recently encountered someone else from your era, whose cadaver was also surprisingly well-preserved,” Lydia told him. She shrugged and raised her hands palm-up. “Who knows why the Living Dungeon does anything? You needn’t feel so bad about failure, though. You made it to the eighth level and, if I’m not mistaken, were facing what we call the ‘level boss’. I’d say that’s a pretty good show.”
“We are down a fighter,” said Shamshir. “Now that Dolly’s not Dolly anymore.”
“Tessa,” Lydia said. “She’s going back to her old name.” To Hiroto, she explained, “My party encountered a spring with miraculous regenerative powers. Dol… Tessa decided to take a risk, and it not only restored her fully to life, but shaved off a few years. She’s over with the rest of my companions.” Lydia gestured some distance away, where Hiroto noticed a small group of other living people. Two were men in brightly-coloured entertainer’s costumes, one tiefling and the other human, exchanging jokes. Near them sat a golden-scaled dragonborn in undyed monk’s robes, meditating. On the other side of their firepit was a pale, waifish elf clad all in black, cleaning some unknown weapon without looking at it, quietly conversing with a teenage human girl dressed in ill-fitting clothes. Lydia made a rueful face. “It’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to perform further experiments with that stuff.”
Hiroto frowned. “If you had access to a resurrection spring, why did you not let the child be brought back to life?”
“There aren’t enough bits of me,” Lacey said, in such mournful tones that Hiroto was immediately sorry he’d asked.
Lydia reached up and patted Lacey’s spider-abdomen, a little awkwardly. “The only parts of young Lacey that were salvageable were her brain and a short section of spinal column.”
“There was an earthquake and my whole apartment building fell down. I got squished and my mom and dad and grandma got squished, but they didn’t leave ghosts and I did,” Lacey added.
Lydia nodded. “Treating a piece of dried beef with the spring water yielded a raw steak, but not a whole cow. If the water had flushed out all of my additions…” She shuddered. “I shan’t dwell upon that.” She took a breath, composing herself, and continued, “Normally I would leave Tessa to tell you her tale herself, but now that she is amongst the living, communication between you would be difficult. She had been a talented ballerina, until she was strangled to death by her fiancé. We met while I was examining her in the city morgue, and she agreed to become my first patient. I dressed her in the costume of her art, and, as she’d expressed a wish never to feel helpless again, installed hidden blades in her arms. Those blades must be at the bottom of the spring now.” Lydia looked pensively at the one who appeared to be a teenager. “She did show a keen interest in my medical procedures, and we could use someone to administer treatments to the living…”
“As for me,” said Shamshir, “I’ve gotten used to being an unstoppable badass.” He gestured at his body’s face. “And just so you know, this isn’t a statement on Dr. Frye’s seamstress skills. I asked her to sew me up this way. They wanted to disfigure me? Fine, I’ll look like a nightmare.”
“Who wanted to disfigure you?” Hiroto asked.
Shamshir quirked up his mouth. “Jealous husband, I’m certain. Wanted me gone, but didn’t want to challenge a professional duelist, so he sent assassins.”
“Ah.” Hiroto decided not to inquire further, especially with a youngster present.
“One thing I must inform you of,” Lydia said, “is that your construct-self would likely not have much agency. Thus far, the only one able to operate with a degree of independence is Lacey; I suspect that this is due to the adaptability of a child’s brain. All others, I have had to activate through vocal commands.”
“A samurai,” Hiroto mused, “is meant to be an extension of his lord’s will.”
“Oh! Oh! Lydia!” exclaimed Lacey. “We could sew more arms on him! Then he could carry all their swords!” She waved her spider-limbs at Hiroto. “It’s fun having lots of arms.”
“Lacey, dear,” Lydia admonished, “We can’t just sew new arms on. Each arm would need its own shoulder structure, which…” she trailed off thoughtfully, then finished, “...would be a challenge.” She pulled a notebook out from her pack, sat down on a nearby rock, and began making sketches, mumbling to herself. “Perhaps two more, if they came from the same subject... certainly not more than that, but…”
The girl’s enthusiasm reminded Hiroto of little Yoko. She had loved to run around the garden, looking under leaves, searching for insects. Sometimes she would lie on her belly just to watch ants and beetles moving about their business. Not even centipedes had frightened her. He felt a stab of sorrow as he realized that she must be long gone now.
“Very well,” he declared. Lydia looked up from her sketching. “I shall carry my companions’ swords, and we shall continue to do Lord Saito’s bidding.” Thinking once more of his daughter, Hiroto said, “You may call me Kabutomushi.”