With Sir Flufflykins the First, riding atop my shoulders I was invincible... No seriously. I actually was able to steamroll small groups of the goblins and kobolds that made up the first floor due to the fact that the damned squirrel's acorns did not miss. He was literally Tom Brady and Peyton Manning rolled into one as he beamed the monsters with his soccer ball-sized acorns of doom.
Granted sure the nuts didn't do much actual damage other than occasionally breaking the monsters' noses but try getting a light hollow bowling ball chucked into your face at full force and try to continue fighting... Yeah, you can't, which allowed me to easily harvest the lives of the dungeon mobs to the point that I was considering getting rid of the Squirrel as it was just that overpowered.
Unfortunately, my fantasies of world domination using my squirrel staff were cut short as I heard a gasp from behind me and I turned around with Sir Fluffykins chittering as he took out another large acorn just in case, as we looked at what seemed to be a Pallum boy just staring at the massive squirrel that had been riding on my armor.
"Uh... This last tunnel is a dead-end you should turn around." I said pointing with my thumb to the right tunnel behind me which did in fact lead to a dead-end.
"Why do you have a monster on your shoulders!" He yelled pointing at Sir Fluffykins the First and I perked my head to the side with Sir Flufflykins the First doing the same as we looked at the Pallum in confusion before we looked behind us for the mysterious monster he pointed to.
Finally seeing nothing I looked up to Sir Flufflykins the First and he looked down at me, Sky-blue human eyes met tree bark soft brown eyes, and then we looked to the Pallum who looked about ready to scream.
"Chitter pak!" Sir Flufflykins the First, spat towards the Pallum dropping his acorn to fold one of his arms across his chest and point at the Pallum and then... He flipped off the Pallum.
"No fuck you! I won't be... I won't be flipped off by a damned squirrel, screw you both!" The Pallum yelled and turned around on his heel and took off sprinting down one of the side tunnels and for a moment I held up my hand to stop him as the scene and interactions happened entirely too damn fast for me to react or get a word in.
Taking Sir, Fluffykins the First off, my shoulders I held it in front of me, and as I stared into the summoned sentries' eyes, I realized something chilling... These summoned beings had personalities so should I throw the summon stuff into the little trash icon in my inventory, would that kill the soul or whatever that was bound into the staff?
"Sir Fluffykins, the First, can you understand me?" I asked and just as I feared... The squirrel nodded making eye contact with me and that clearly told me was he anything but a dumb animal.
"Can you speak the human language or something?" I asked dryly as I respectfully put the squirrel, I had been hauling around on my shoulders for like the last half an hour down onto the ground.
But thankfully the squirrel shook his head and began chattering to me as though to prove through the act and his chittering didn't mentally translate to me or anything, he was just a squirrel with a lot of character that could understand me.
"So... Next people we see you, you can't flip them off alright." I all but ordered and the squirrel seemed to deflate at the order but still nodded and then with it agreeing I straightened up and took in my day's work. I had a small chunk of my inventory filled with monster stones and with there only being two types of monsters down here, to begin with, obviously the monster stones would only take up two slots in my inventory and then there were a couple of kobold teeth and goblin claws I got that took up there up their own slots.
"Thankfully everything stacks," I muttered as I saw that Sir Flufflykins, the First was making grabby hands at me to obviously pick him up and put him back on my shoulders making me roll my eyes while chuckling.
"Before we get back to work, I got one last question. If I summon you again after you get hurt or I get separated, will it actually still, be you?" I asked and he nodded while pointing at the staff and then himself several times while making several other motions and chattering noises.
'Hmm, seems like his soul or whatever is bound to the staff itself... Well, I can talk to Seshat and see what she thinks after we are done today.' I thought before looking back at the squirrel
"You aren't getting tired, or anything are you?" I asked and the squirrel actually nodded and pointed at me and back to himself before a thought struck me and I took back out his summoning staff and he clapped his hands in excitement as I so easily caught his meaning.
"Ah you mean I need to top you up every once in a while?" Yeah, apparently that wasn't the case as he made the 'kind of' meaning with his hand moving back and forth.
Just to be sure I resummoned Sir Flufflykins the First and seeing him still making the grabby hands motion for me to finally get done with the questions so the sadistic squirrel could get back to pelting monsters to death I felt assured of his condition as I felt the tiny drain on my Mana/Mind I don't know what energy source I was using for my magical Terraria stuff dip down slightly.
Then Sir Flufflykins and I's adventure in the dungeon continued with us harrowingly surviving by the slimmest of odds, we dodged death with each encounter... Yeah, nope I was still a cheating cheat who had every intention of surviving as I used every trick to kill the monsters without putting myself in dangerous ways.
Granted making things more difficult for myself simply using my sword and dashing gloriously into life-and-death combat may have given me a couple more stat points on my Falna, but in the end, it was the monster you were killing that gave your Falna the Excellia the energy it needed to make you gain stat points for the most part, not the experience in doing so unless I was far more powerful than the actual monsters.
But finally, after another hour of grinding in the dungeon and with the first floor starting to get filled up with weak adventures just doing their best to earn a living, I decided to head back up to the surface so I could go speak with Seshat and see how much killing these monsters did for my Falna and then with being around my workbench I could attempt to make even better gear with the goblin and kobold drops I got.
"Chitter! Squeak!" Sir Flufflykins the First chattered as we were making our way up the staircase out of the dungeon, and I steadfastly ignored all the people's reaction to myself powerwalking out of the dungeon with a stony face with a 'monster' riding my shoulder even as Sir Flufflykins the First, for whatever reason loved to point at any elves we passed by which garnered... Reactions to say the least.
Such as. "What kind of squirrel is that?" "Why the hell are you taking a squirrel into the dungeon?" And of course, my favorite. "Why does that squirrel look like it should live on my people's World Tree?"
Yeah, I don't know, miss half-elf with Amazon skin tone and the same dressing habits, I am just trying to turn in my monster stones and no, I will not sell Sir Flufflykins the First, as he is my best friend and trained supporter...
Anyway, dealing with the people who were curious to all hell about the animal riding my shoulder wasn't that much of an issue once people noticed he didn't have the same all-present glowing red eyes all monsters had.
So even the Guild Employee watching the front of the Dungeon entrance itself didn't give me issues, as there were no actual squirrel-like monsters up till like Rivira and its heavily forested floors that came up after that safe zone.
"Alright Sir Flufflykins the First, I am going into the guild, so I am going to dismiss you as this is going to be super boring," I said taking on his staff and quickly dismissing the squirrel from my shoulder after I went into an empty alley so I could sort out the summon and add some of the monster stones I got into a backpack I kept in my inventory to act as an excuse.
As I went into the Guild, I saw the lines to the receptionists were filled with it being around lunchtime with lower-level adventures turning in their early haul so they could get a meal or just turn in yesterday's haul.
Seeing Eina working her own line I decided to take a different line rather than deal with her possibly exploding on me for not wanting for an advisor to teach me about the dungeon which was honestly a fair concern. But I wanted monster stones to work with and see what they could be crafted into.
"This is my first solo turn-in, do I need to do anything special?" I asked the pink-haired kind petite receptionist running the line I joined.
"Huh? Uh no just show me your adventurer ID and your set!" She said cheerfully giving me a thumbs up.
Happy that it was so simple I just emptied my sack of tiny goblin and kobold monster stones into the divider between us and then the receptionist's face twitched before she smiled and gave me a look. "Hey, it's alright with Kobold and Goblins being worth the same but when you get deeper into the dungeon, you need to sort out the monster stones or the Guild charges a fee to use the magical sorter. Otherwise, it will take hours for us little civilians to sort all your monster stones!" She said fiercely and I nodded in understanding making sure to keep other sacks for just that.
"Alright, I will keep that in mind," I said raising a hand in surrender as honestly, I should have probably already done that, but I simply didn't think of that. "Anyway, thanks for the help, and have a nice day," I said wryly as I took the two thousand Valis I got for like four hours of farming which was far less than the prescribed twenty-five thousand a group of five new adventures could get in a day but I had to spend like forty percent of my time actually just getting the monsters stones out of the monsters as it took me a whole like forty seconds at best to extract each monster stone compared to Lilli's precise like five second to wrench it out of the corpse of a monster.
While I was walking home, I was deeply pondering on how the hell I could get past this whole little supporter issue as I honestly couldn't be bothered to get these damned monster stones out of the corpses of the monsters until it hit me like a ton of bricks. My summons.
I needed to summon an actual summon and not a sentry-like Sir Fluffykins the First that could actually move around at will and what better than a flying little drone with tools on it that could shoot weak lasers to extract the monster stones for me?
Once I arrived back home to Seshat's store I went straight in and saw that very goddess lazily lounging on her couch she had set up in her shop so she could watch over it in comfort.
"Hmm? You are back so soon? I thought you would have camped out in the dungeon with how gung-ho you were about it haaa..." Seshat sassed me with a rather stereotypical cat greeting while she yawned at the end.
"How does your shop even stay open I haven't seen anyone buy anything?" I asked dryly as I looked around at all the little knickknacks she had out on the display.
Seshat scoffed and threw a hand in front of her as though to point at all the objects in the room. "Bah, all this? Yeah, I literally have sold like half a dozen things in here all together in the weeks I've been in Genkai, I just get commissioned to decorate and build my fellow deities' homes if they even have the money to afford it." Remembering how Seshat had only been here in Tenkai for like a couple of months at most I had to shrug.
"So how many such projects have you gotten?" I asked curiously as I threw the Valis I collected into my inventory seeing as I was now in a safe place then with another thought I took off my Squire Squirrel Staff and resummoned Sir Fluffykins the First onto my lap as I sat across from Seshat.
"Hmm I got a wine-tasting room project from Loki for three million Valis that took me like a whole week to do, and then I had some weird project from Dian-Chet where he wanted to me make a kind of bathing house and that got me a whole ten million Valis. So, I am set for money for like the next human lifetime unless I decide to buy a bottle of Soma... Then I guess I will have to go to work again." Seshat said as though she having to actually find work would be the most terrible thing in the world.
"So... What's with the furball?" Seshat finally asked as she watched me holding Sir Fluffykins the First, in my lap.
"I made a friend... Can we keep him?!" I asked childishly holding out Sir Fluffykins the First in my hands as though to show Seshat how cute my summon was.
Silently Seshat and Sir Fluffykins the First stared at one another until with a loud series of thunking noises rang out as Sir Fluffykins the First looked up to me and rapped his knucks on a seemingly empty acorn he summoned and then kept pointing at Seshat whose caramel dark eyes tightened in there slit shapes as she hissed. "Are you calling me empty-headed you damned overgrown Rat?!" She demanded and at Sir Fluffykins the First shameless nod, my goddess leapt from her perch like the cat she was.
"I am going to skin and make a damned Cossack hat out of you!" She yelled as I ran away from her before Sir Fluffykins the First could brain my poor goddess in the head with one of his acorns and possibly kill her which would be just my bad luck.