Calamity the Cursed

"I'm bored," Mirn complained as they fidgeted.

"Hey, I see someone in a green jacket," Nameless said brightly.

"We've been playing that game since we got here," Mirn said.

"Another game then!" Nameless said.

Mirn shook their head. "I don't feel like playing any more games."

"Alright. Oh, look, it's nearly our turn." Nameless pointed at the line which the two of them were nearly at the head of.

Mirn looked ahead then said, "But each one takes a long time."

"...Hug time!" And Nameless promptly hugged Mirn.

That at least quieted down Mirn.

Soon enough, by a certain sense of bureaucratic time, it was Nameless and Mirn's turn.

"What're your business?" the clerk asked.

"I'd like to register as Mirn's guardian." Nameless pointed to the slug child.

The clerk said in a bored voice, "Understood. Mirn, do you swear that this person is not forcing you to this, that there is no argument over your custody, and that you want this person as your guardian?"

"She found me in the labyrinth and adopted me," Mirn said.

The clerk nodded. "I see. I do still need you to swear that what I asked you are all true."

"I swear that all those things are true," Mirn said.

"Hmm. I've confirmed your oath as true." The clerk took out a form and began writing on it. "May I have the guardian's name?"

Crap. Thinking quickly, Nameless shoved hard at her namelessness curse. And it gave way more easily than she expected. Not bothering to check the curse's new form, she thought of the name she'd been wanting for a while and declared proudly, "My name is Calamity!"

The clerk raised an eyebrow. "Very well. I'll check against your registration."

Crap, again. "There was an issue registering my name," Calamity said.

"You don't seem to be lying, though I sense that isn't the full story," the clerk said.

Calamity blinked. "Okay, I was unable to have a name up until just now. I just forcefully resolved the issue."

"That would explain the surge of Word power just now," the clerk said, "Very well, you'll have to register your new name too. Do you swear that you are not changing your registered name for criminal reasons, that you are doing so of your own will without any coercion, and that you will from now onward use this name for all official business?"

"But I didn't have a registered name," Calamity replied.

The clerk nodded. "I understand, but going through the name change procedure is the most expedient method that I can think of for handling this strange situation."

"Okay, I do so swear!" Calamity put her hand over her heart.

"Very well, here's a form for the name change, too. Please check over any and all information in both forms and fill in any blank fields." The clerk handed over the forms.

As Calamity filled out the forms she noted that the field for her old name was filled in as Unnamed, which made sense. Finally, she handed over those forms after getting Mirn's signature on the one field that required it. "Done!"

The clerk took the forms and tossed them behind herself, to land perfectly in an inbox bin. "Thank you, the usual processing time is a couple or so days. I must say, Calamity is an interesting name."

Calamity grinned. "Yeah, I picked it because it's cute and deadly!"

"I was wondering," Mirn said.

To add extra cherry on top of Calamity's good mood, she finally felt her weakness curse give way to her prodding, resulting in a feeling of strength filling her. Checking, she now saw that she now had the Curse of Names which made any name given to her known by anyone who met her and the Curse of Lost Strength, which made her former strength unavailable to her. Frowning, she inspected that a bit more. Ah, it just meant that all strength gained after being cursed was hers to keep, but all strength before getting cursed was gone, at least for now.

Not ideal, but they wouldn't be curses if they were ideal!

~~~

Calamity stood staring at the unexpected people waiting next to the labyrinth entrance, one of which Grace and three of which were adult crocodile people like Grace, though one was covered with purple fur, the yellow one had spikes in a few spots including their tail which ended in a deadly blade, and the pink one had glowing eyes, teeth, and claws. Notably, all of them except Grace had the regular two arms. Accompanying them were four children, two of which were crocodile-like and one which was wolf-like and the last one was falcon-like.

Grace blinked upon seeing Nameless. "Oh, going labyrinth diving too?"

Calamity nodded. "Yeah, I need money plus it's good for Mirn here's growth."

"Why not join us? Giving the children enrichment for better growth and evolutions." Grace offered.

That gave Calamity pause. "Wait, aren't we on kinda bad terms?"

Grace shrugged. "Eh, ice is thin, but not that thin. Did some thinking about the situation and what you said. Decided it's likely not your fault, at least not 100%. And that's all I'll say on the matter with present company."

"Ah, sounds like a spiiicy situation." Glowy-Eyes leaned forward.

Grace pointed at Glowy-Eyes. "Kindness, my brother. Obsessed with gossip. One of the reasons why I'm not saying any more than that about our conversation. He plays a support role with his healing and strengthening Words. Lives up to his name, sometimes." Her grin suggested she was teasing Kindness a little.

"Whaaat, no juicy details?" Kindness complained, "And of course I live up to my name."

"Introduce me next," said Spiky in a quiet voice.

Grace did so. "Courage, my sister. Lives up to her name, one hundred percent. She takes the hits and comes out of them stronger."

"Yeah," Courage said.

Furry looked like they were waiting their turn, so Grace moved on to introduce them too. "Wisdom, my sibling. Failed to live up to their name, but still a very good person. They shred hostiles fast and also specialize in restraints."

"Haha, yeah, I'm kinda foolish sometimes," Wisdom said sheepishly.

Grace nodded. "Once tried riding an Aggrosaurus. Is why Kindness picked up the Restore Word. Anyways, I'm Grace as you know. More brutish than graceful, but I set everything on fire and enhance your equipment."

Calamity noticed Mirn looking at Wisdom curiously. "You don't have a gender like me?" the slug child asked.

"Kinda," Wisdom answered cheerily, "My gender situation is complicated, but I'm nonbinary, yeah."

"Cool," Mirn said.

Grace continued, "Kindness's kids Humility and Pride," she indicated the two crocodile children, "Can combine their attacks to create deadlier electricity. Now to Wisdom's kids. Hannau," she pointed at the hawk child, "Can launch her feathers to impale foes. Yanna," this time pointing at the wolf child who seemed a little older, "Can paralyze and harm with his gaze and strengthen us with his howls."

Humility and Pride struck a pose, their hands forming a circle together. "We're a good team!" they said, having clearly practiced speaking that line in unison.

Hannau just nodded while Yanna waved shyly.

Grace gestured toward Calamity and Mirn. "You two can introduce yourselves. Don't know your capabilities fully. Can guess from what you bought from me, but not fully. And unusual name, Calamity. Also unusual that I know it without asking"

Calamity did a victory pose. "I'm Calamity, yeah! And I poison, sicken, and curse foes! Plus I can keep going no matter what, even lessening any harm I suffer and protecting others! So, yeah, I'm awesome! Plus I have a cute and deadly name!"

"Humility isn't one of your strengths, I see," said Kindness with an amused smile.

"I'm a mimic with the ability to adapt my strengths to the situation. Also I use a spear Grace made." Mirn said.

"Together, we're an awesome team!" Calamity said with a confident pose, her hands on her hips.

"Usable strengths," Courage said.

Kindness cleared his thought. "Yeah, okay, let's talk tactics. Calamity, sounds like you'd work well as a frontliner with your durability. Courage, you'll also be on the front as usual. Grace and Wisdom will be midliners, ranging in and out to strike at opportunity. The children will be behind the midline, and I'll take up the back to best keep a view on who needs healing and also to protect from rear ambushes. If Wisdom manages to restrain a foe and says 'Clear', everyone including the children can approach to tear up the foe. If Wisdom says, 'Back', you better go back or we'll have a talking, kids. By the way, we're gonna stay in the shallow end of the labyrinth."

"I'm from the deep labyrinth. I can handle it," Mirn pointed out.

Kindness shrugged. "But the other kids can't."

"Oh." Mirn went quiet after that.

Calamity looked at Mirn. "I wasn't planning on a deep dive anyways. Too time-consuming and honestly kinda dangerous even for us. How many times did I almost die after I found you?"

"...A lot," Mirn said thoughtfully.

Calamity nodded. "Yeah, for deep dives you want a really solid team. Even most experienced teams only do mid-depth dives."

"Okay." Mirn looked at Kindness. "So when're we starting?"

"Just as soon as the team ahead of us has gotten some way in," Kindness answered.

Soon enough, their group of monster adults and kids were in motion, using the formation Kindness had decided on, with Grace using a strengthening Sigil on their equipment and Kindness strengthening everyone overall. After a few rooms, they ran into their first prey, a wall of muscle in the form of an three-headed thing vaguely shaped like an ox. Right away, Courage launched herself at the ox, with Calamity following right after. The ox slammed into Courage, resulting in the spiky crocodile monster's muscles budging even more as she smashed her fist into one of the ox's heads.

On the other side, Calamity began raking the foe monster with her cursed claws while biting with both her mouth and her tentacles' snake mouths. The monstrous ox shuddered, even as multiple attacks slammed into it from the rear guard who had spread enough to get clearer shots at the ox. Sharp lengthened fur from Wisdom, a wave of fire from Grace, flying razor feathers from Hannau, acidic spittle from Mirn, a frighteningly large ball of lightning from the Humility-Pride duo, all while Yanna's eyes bore into the foe and his howling strengthened the whole pack.

There weren't much in the way of mishaps other than Calamity getting slammed into the wall (which she quickly got up from) and ice covering Courage from the ox's breaths (which didn't stop her from pounding away even harder at the beast's heads). Soon enough, the ox monster collapsed as it was wrapped by furry ropes produced by Wisdom, who shouted "Clear!", after which the team all clustered around the fallen foe for the finishing blows, after which they began eating.

The rest of the labyrinth trip went much like that, with the team tearing through the hostile monsters with an irresistible momentum. There were only three occasions that gave them pause. A drake from the middle depths who had wandered into the shallows, which Calamity sensed with her scent and led the others to avoid. The non-hostile monster that had politely asked them to please go around his room, which they obliged. And the really gross sludge monster that they decided to skip, fortunately slow enough for them to outrun.

"And that's the power of a good team," Calamity told Mirn while they were counting the divided money from the sold labyrinth loot.

"Yeah, I get it now," Mirn said.

Grace leaned in to Calamity's ear and whispered, "Sexpuppy, you're a good person, Saw how much you threw yourself in harm's way for the children. Not everyone would do that."

"...Agh. Now that name'll stick and everyone'll know it," Calamity replied, "But thanks for the rest of what you said."

Grace blinked. "Whoops. Didn't know that would happen. Your curses are weird, woman."

"Yeah. They are." Calamity agreed.

"Anyways, gonna go and report that drake. Looking forward to seeing you again." Grace waved.

Calamity grinned, her tail wagging. "See you... sexgator?"

"Doesn't really work," Grace said with a chuckle.