"Lucy!!! It’s really you!!!!" The woman shouted out loud while pulling herself back to look at Lucifer’s face fully.
"What happened to you!!? Did the others not take kindly to you after I was taken away? No worries, you’ll be fine once you sleep. It’s always been like that hasn’t it?" Lucifer’s mother embraced him tight again.
"You’ll be my little boy in no time once again!!"
Lucifer quickly wiped his tears with his half burnt, half broken hands that were still holding the scimitar and the pendant and sniffled all the snot leaking.
He then asked the question that mattered to him the most in this moment.
"Ma... what’re you doing here?! How did you survive in here for so many years? Doesn’t the warden see everything inside the dungeon!?"
"Oh!! As soon as I was brought to the dungeon even I thought I’d die!"
"But it turns out that one of the previous people brought into the dungeon was an artificer, he crafted a ring to lift the mana restriction curse on people and survived."
"But how is he hiding from the Warden? How did he allow people to cross over their own instances of the dungeons!?"
"Well..." His mother started, "...the artificer has the light property and so he’s set up a counter illusion to fool the warden about what’s actually going on in here!!"
"And after that, well I don’t understand how but he did some artificer things and stopped the dungeon from forming instances to gather us all over the years, forming one large army!"
"Woah... he must be really powerful then... and an army!?" Lucifer asked with surprise, believing his mother’s explanation since she would never lie to him.
"Yes, an army! And once we have the right opportunity, we will break out of the dungeon and take over this place!"
"Then the right opportunity is now!!" Lucifer immediately exclaimed. "There’s a war going on outside, the humans have attacked the city hoping to take over it by sunset today!"
His mother’s eyes widened as a large expression of shock took over.
"Is that so!? That’s great news!!! We should share it with everyone else!!"
"Everyone else..." Lucifer muttered softly, slightly unsure if he should go into their fray since there were no prison bars here to keep anyone from killing him.
Especially since his magic could do jack all to protect him for now, leaving him unable to protect himself.
Lucifer’s mother clearly noticed Lucifer’s hesitation and spoke with a gentle smile, "Don’t worry. No one will even touch a hair on you as long as I am with you..."
Lucifer frowned, his eyes wandered and immediately found what he was looking for on his mother’s hands.
There were two rings on her hands, one on her index finger, a regular copper ring, and another on her ring finger that was made of iron and had a small mana crystal embedded inside it.
"Did you marry the artificer?"
Lucifer’s mother blushed and punched him softly on the shoulder, it brought him pain but he bore with it.
"Of course you figured it out so quickly... He’s a good man... What else can I tell you about him... you’ll meet him soon enough, then you can tell me if the man is worthy of the title of your father or not!"
Lucifer’s frown only deepened before he asked his mother a question, "What if he is not worthy?"
"Hmm... then I promise you I’ll leave him and marry you like you used to tell me when you were young!" His mother joked.
Lucifer’s frown slightly eased and he nodded, "Alright then... lead the way."
"Ok! You’ve got to tell me what happened during all the time I was away!!" his mother said as they started walking with her supporting him to walk with her.
They walked a little faster since Lucifer’s mother wanted him to quickly find a bed to rest in and heal up but since Lucifer couldn’t walk too fast they settled for a moderate awkward shuffle.
"Well... it wasn’t anything great..."
"The Warden still came into the cell occasionally to beat me up... the guy across from our cell often tried to spit into my cell but when that didn’t cross the gap between our cells he’d try to piss into it."
"Of course the guards beat him up since it stank... and the other humans booed him since he was also pissing on the corpses in between, but he’d get a good spoonful across every few days or so."
"Oh... my poor poor baby boy..." Lucifer’s mother hugged him deeply from the side before tiptoeing and giving him a smooch on the cheek causing him to blush.
He felt he was grown up now and didn’t need to be babied anymore.
"Well the interesting thing is my property!" Lucifer said proudly.
"What is it! Tell me already!! Don’t keep it a secret!! How did you get access to mana in that accused place to know your property!?"
"Light! I awakened the light property too! It seems both the important people in your life currently are light property mages."
"I grabbed this pendant from one of the human soldiers that was trying to kill me and awakened it."
"Someone was trying to kill you!! How appaling!! Did you run your horn into him like I taught you to!?"
Lucifer chuckled, "I’m not a bull ma, I simply used this broken sword to slice his neck."
"Alright, alright, as long as he got what he deserved for touching my baby." Lucifer’s mother nodded with a huff.
"What were you doing in that part of the dungeon today Ma?" Lucifer asked softly.
"Well, there are only a few places that the dungeon sends new people in from... and I knew that you’d eventually be sent here too..."
"So I basically took up the duty to check all those spots each day for any new people arriving... and look after seven years!! It paid!! Today I finally found you!"
Lucifer felt his mother tighten her grip around his waist as if she was afraid of losing him again and smiled softly.
Soon Lucifer and his mother reached the edge of a cliff from where only a narrow pathway could take them down, however the view from the cliff was breathtaking.
Inside the cavern was a small village with several thatched huts and trees.
A glowing ball of light hung in the sky to emulate the sun and several people could be seen making themselves busy by either learning how to swing a weapon or maintaining the village in general.
There were even a couple of kids in the dungeon that could be seen running around that Lucifer realised had grown up entirely inside the dungeon itself.
’Hopefully I don’t have any annoying little brothers and sisters yet...’