Final Dungeon Dragon Quest: Search for the Dragon Dungeon

Space, the final frontier. Will not be the setting of this story. Instead, it takes place in a magical land called Parodia. It was once a peaceful land, settled by several peaceful species who ran several peaceful kingdoms. But now, strange things are happening throughout the land. EVIL things. But there is hope, for now a group of heroes has risen up to stop the vague evil things that are somehow endangering the kingdom.

This is where our story begins.

It was just another unimportant and bland day in Insignificant Village. The birds were chirping a loop-track of general bird noises, the people were walking around in groups and speaking loudly in an indistinguishable manner, and some guy was preaching about both salvation and everyone's imminent demise at the hands of vague evil.

Syou was enjoying every moment of her new-found freedom. While her armor kept people from getting too close, along with her weapon and her short but tough-looking companion, she still tried to indulge herself in the various going-ons of the townspeople. After all, she barely got out to see her own city when she was back at the castle, let alone see the inner workings of a town she had never been to before.

Walking around, she picked up pretty much everything at any stall she went to do look at it, and even bought a couple of knickknacks, one of which was a small cup-and-ball toy. This seemed to keep her quite entertained, as she stood in one place and tried to get the ball-on-a-string into the cup, succeeding just enough times to keep her from getting angry, but failing enough to keep her from stopping. "I will conquer you.. tiny ball-and-cup.."

"That's a kendama, Master..." Nezrin muttered with an exasperated sigh. The mouse girl for the hundredth time that day, wondered how she ended up having to watch over this odd tiger. She acted nothing like her regal mother whom Nezrin had once served faithfully. Oh how she missed those days. Oh well, Syou wasn't that bad... when she wasn't trying to hug her to death...

"Potato, potahto.. kendama, kodama.." The tiger girl replied absentmindedly, still trying to get the ball to land on the spike. She got it in the big cup, and even in the little cup a couple of times, but never on the spike! In her concentration, she leaned in too close to the toy, and manged to bop herself, hard, on the nose with it. Tearing up, the arm holding the toy went limp, and she rubbed her nose with her free hand. ".. ow."

Sniffling, ears and tail drooped, she looked over at the mouse-girl. "Neezzzriiin.." She whimpered, leaning down so she was right in the mouse's face. "My nose hurts, will you kiss it better?"

Fujino, meanwhile, was napping in the middle of a street, and holding up traffic.

"Should we move her?" said one of the people stuck, as he sat on his carriage.

"Steve already tried that," said the woman sitting next to him. She pointed to the unconcious man also laying in the middle of the road.

"Try to run her over again," said the man.

"No; we can't risk it," said the woman. "And we can't really move till our horse regains conciousness anyway.

Nezrin felt her face heat up instantly as her Master got into her personal space. Scratch that, Syou really was that bad sometimes. Completely embarrassed by the situation, she took a step back to further the space between them while yelling, "No!"

Only to slip on a loose rock and fall on her behind with a small mouse-like 'eep'.

"Ow..."

"Nezrin!" Syou frowned as her companion fell backwards, instantly crouching down next to her and looking her over to make sure she hadn't hurt herself. "You need to be more careful!" She reprimanded the swordswoman, frowning with her ears flicked back in irritation. Because this definitely wasn't her own fault, obviously.

Huffing, she helping the mouse-girl off and took it upon herself to brush the girl off, including her bum. Standing back up when she was finished, she nodded in satisfaction. "There, all better." She tucked the toy into the sash around her waist before she seemed to notice something, ears perking up. "What's going on over here?" Turning, she scampered off in the direction of a stopped cart.

Peering around it, she noticed someone laying in the road. "Oh my goodness!" Running over, she kneeled next to the woman and lifted her up, placing one hand behind her head and the other behind her back to hold her up. "Are you okay?! Speak to me!"

Fujino shot up, accidentally headbutting Syou.

"Ow, sorry," she said. "You ok?"

The mouse girl frowned. Like this was her fault, if a certain tiger wasn't so insistent on being so affectionate with her, things like this wouldn't happen! In any case, she let the tiger help her back up but let out another mouse-like 'eep' when she felt her Master brush her bum. Nezrin was now doing a pretty good impression of a tomato and her mouth seemed to stop functioning properly.

Then her master ran off and her brain finally caught up with her body as she ran off after Syou, "W-wait up, Master. Just don't run off like that!"

Then Syou got headbutted and Nezrin winced, "Ouch, are you okay Master?"

"Agh!" Syou grabbed her nose, again, as she was headbutted, causing her to drop the girl back onto the street. "Ow. Again."

Syou sniffed and looked at her hands, touching her nose again to see if there was any blood. "Not bleeding so.. yeah. I'm fine, you two." She rubbed at her nose and looked down at the now-awake girl. "It's alright, it was an accident, after all." Standing up, the tiger-girl held out her hand to help the girl up.

"Why are you laying in the middle of the road? You're kind of blocking traffic for these people. I thought you were injured or dead."

Fujino shrugged, and took the hand.

"Seemed like a nice place to take a nap," she said.

Melody's wings buzzed gently as she flew towards where Fujino had been sleeping.

"Are you sure you left enough money for the food?" Melody asked nervously. "I thought I heard the owner yell..."

"Relax, I covered it." Elijah lied, sitting atop Melody's back. How she could fly with him there was a mystery. "Oi, is she STILL sleeping there?"

"I think she's just waking up." Melody flew closer, and yes, Fujino had indeed just woken up.

"OI, LAZY BITCH! CAN WE GET GOING SOO-" Elijah was cut off as Melody spun around, throwing him squarely into Fujino's chest.

"...getting comfortable?" said Fujino, not at all suprised at having a little person land in her cleavage.

"Yes, very, thank you." Elijah nuzzled deeper into her chest. "Warm..."

Melody huffed and, blushing all the while, pulled him out of Fujino's cleavage, grabbing him by the leg and holding him upside down.

"Do you HAVE to be like that? She's not even your species!" Yelled Melody

"Yeah, neither are you." Elijah retored, lifting up her dress and peeking under it. "Though I like it better when you aren't wearing underwear." The small demon was immediately dropped on his head, and fell over onto his back.

Melody flew away, still blushing, muttering something along the lines of 'stupid pervy demons.'

"What odd creatures..." Nezrin commented to herself before turning to Syou, "We should go now, Master. Too many weird people are gathering around here."

Syou blinked as the person she was helping up suddenly had a tiny person in her cleavage. "How cute! He's even smaller than Nezrin!" She watched as the tiny man was pulled free of the girl's chest by another small person, this one a girl. She chuckled a bit at their antics, then kneeled down next to the fallen demon.

Picking him up, she cupped her hands and lifted him up to her face. "Aww! Hello there~!" She looked back up at Nezrin, wagging her tail. "I like them though, Nezrin! They're so interesting!"

Nezrin sighed. She should have known her Master would find these oddities, interesting. And what was with the tail wagging? Was she a tiger or a dog? "Master, it would be wiser for us to move on..."

"Heeeello, kitty. M'name's Elijah. And what might your breasts b- NAME, I meant. What might your NAME be. Yeah." The small demon said, shaking his head to clear up his minor headache.

"Perv." Melody said.

"That fairy there is Melody. She's a bitch." Elijah was suddenly hit in the face with a wand. "Case in point."

"Since when do I do the wiser thing?" She asked, smiling but completely serious. "This is just the kind of thing I was looking for, you know! An interesting group of people to travel with, and see the world!"

Looking back at the small person in her hands, she seemed to either completely miss or ignore the breasts comment. "My name is Syou Tora. The mouse-girl next to me is my subordinate, Nezrin Maus."

She chuckled at Meldoy, holding Elijah in one hand and reaching out with a finger to shake Melody's hand. "It's nice to meet you both!"

"Master! You cannot be serious!" Nezrin protested, her hair standing on end in annoyance, "Traveling with such people...! Master, you must think this through carefully, one's a demon for goodness sakes!"

"More like an imp," said Fujino.

Melody shook Syou's hand and put on a smile. "Nice to meet you too. I apologize for Elijah's... rude behavior."

"I regret nothing!" He shouted, causing Melody to facepalm. "Honestly, he never learns."

"I AM NOT AN IMP!"

"SHUT UP, ELIJAH."

"Of course I'm serious!" She huffed, standing and putting the small demon on her shoulder. She suddenly got this serious air about her, now looking just as noble as her mother. "Are you attempting to go against my orders, Maus?" Ears pinned against her head, she crossed her arms. "That's not a good idea."

She instantly calmed back down as she turned to smile at melody. "It's alright~ He's funny~"

"I-I apologize Master... I was out of place," Nezrin flinched back at Syou's tone, her ears folding back and her tail curling up between her legs. Something a cornered animal would do. Her posture didn't change even after Syou changed her tone back, only sighing. Nezrin was never good at disobeying that authoritive tone, always getting extremely submissive because of it.

"How rude of me, I forgot to introduce myself," said Fujino, bowing to the two of them. "My name is Fujino Fukimora; pleased to meet you,"

"Also, I think I'm seeing spots." Elijah said. Melody merely sighed and flew over, retrieving her wand and healing him. "Pervy pervy demon..." She muttered.

Syou felt bad for using her stern voice on Nezrin. She tended to use it when she didn't want to be argued with.. but perhaps it was a little overkill for something simple like this. Reaching over, she gently hugged the mouse-girl, hating seeing her looking so uncharacteristically vulnerable. "I'm sorry, Nezrin. It's okay."

Looking over at Fujino, she smiled pleasantly. "It's nice to meet you, too! You three know each other, huh? Are you guys travel-buddies?"

Nezrin, for the millionth time that day, flushed and tried to wriggle out Syou's grasp. "M-Master! W-what have I told you about hugging me?" The mouse seemed to have returned to normal after the hug.

"You could say that," said Fujino. "Travelling alone gets boring,"

"Not to? And I always ignore you, of course." She smiled, glad Nezrin was acting normally again. Leaning down to nuzzle the mouse-girl's cheek, she let her go after and stood back up, looking at Fujino. "Would you mind if we joined you? It's my dream to see the world! And help people! And fight things!"