Dungeon at the End of the Universe

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go into this search for divinity completely blind. While the divine energy that had enveloped Lapis was no longer doing anything, it hadn’t had enough time to dissipate yet.

Which gave me plenty of time to study it and remember how it felt. Keeping those sensations in mind, I turned my eyes to the rest of this solar system.

For a bit, nothing seemed amiss. Just the normal planets orbiting a normal star.

But then I felt it.

Far on the outskirts of the solar system, something caught my attention. Except that when I looked, nothing was there. And yet, I still felt it there.

I probably should have done this earlier, but I should talk to Faellen.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I sent to it.

I got a reply almost immediately, “Yes, it’d be embarrassing if I didn’t. Some upstart likely thought Lapis would be a great farm to build their power base. It’s going to be trouble, but not too much trouble.” The fairy paused for a second. “As long as we don’t let too many Sipalians become followers of Zemis.”

“Awesome. Anyway, I think I found where they are.”

“Who? Zemis?”

“Yeah, I’m just having trouble seeing it. It’s like there’s nothing there even though I feel the same divine energy that pulsed all over Lapis.”

“Alright. Good. That’s good,” it seems I’ve once again somewhat stumped it. “They’re most likely in the divine realm. If you consider the Universe to be a soap bubble, consider the divine realm to be a small bubble that’s stuck on the outside of it. Not the best analogy, but it’ll work. Try to look at that other layer of reality.”

“Got it. And then?” I ask.

“Then?”

“Do we attack, or…?”

We both paused for a bit, thinking about it. What the deity had done wasn’t exactly nice, but on the other hand indiscriminately attacking in retaliation didn’t seem appropriate.

“Maybe we… try to open communication?” I suggested hesitantly.

“Sigh, sure. I’ll start preparing stuff for it.” Oh, yeah. I suppose we would need some kind of ritual or magic to communicate, especially if I was to be a part of the talk.

Okay, here we go. Third time’s the charm. I lookout into the sky, at the spot where I was sure something was even if it looked empty.

Trying to observe a different layer of reality is not easy, but it does help if you’ve ever travelled through some before. Personally, I’d only gone to the Wyld, which was a very brief trip. I also wasn’t sure if it counted as a layer of reality, or a realm all of its own.

What I did know is the sensation of passing into* a Universe. And according to Faellen’s analogy, I just had to pass to do that in the correct spot to enter their little add-on bubble.

(*note that it is ‘into’ and not ‘into and out of’ because the Dungeon duo didn’t experience exiting a Universe before. It collapsed around them)

Well, ‘just’ is used very loosely here. Additionally, I also wasn’t actually entering, just sending my perception inside.

And then I got an idea. If my Eldritch Ability, Taste of Old Memories, was able to alter how I was perceived by others, couldn’t I also alter my own perception? To make me see the layers of reality that weren’t quite there?

Before my moment of enlightenment could pass, I acted. I felt something twist and suddenly I had double vision.

Not literally, as my Dungeon Sense was already quite divorced from human perception. What I meant is now, looking at the spot where I felt divine energy, I could see two things.

One was the normal empty space. The other was a golden palace, floating through space inside a bubble. It almost looked like a photo filter had been applied to that section of reality.

“Found you,” I muttered to myself, also letting it pass onto Faellen so that it knew.

Inside the divine bubble, I saw a person looking out at Lapis. Or me? Either way, I presumed it to be Zemis. What surprised me was that as I watched, A portal opened next to them and another person appeared. And then another. And another.

Just a few minutes later, almost a dozen people stood around Zemis.

While the rude deity was radiating in a golden glow like the palace, these others did not. In fact, I was having trouble perceiving much about them, some kind of shroud obscuring their features.

“Faellen?” I tried not to sound too panicked, “we may have a problem.”

“Hold on just a second, I’m almost done with this ritual. Then we can talk with that Zemis and settle things,” was the distracted reply.

“About that, I don’t think we can. It has reinforcements. They don’t look divine, but I can’t actually see much of them.”

Faellen looked up from its work. At its questioning face, I sent mental image through our Bond.

The fae’s face paled. “Fuck. We have to get-”

Before it could finish the sentence, we heard a voice. I looked down where Faellen was, seeing that the ritual still hadn’t been completed. Which meant this was them, they had found us, and they were initiating contact. But from I was hearing, things didn’t look too good.

“Disruptors of the time stream!” the reverberated in out minds, “Under threat of erasure, identify yourself and stop your disrupting activities.”

“Oh, um, can you hear this?” I think I got a yes-grunt in response, but even if I was imagining things this didn’t seem like a situation to dilly-dally. “Right, so, yes. Hello. I’m a Dungeon Core and this is my Dungeon fairy Faellen. And we can’t really stop it, because we aren’t really doing it.”

Far in the divine realm, I could see one of the figure’s features frown.

Then, “By the power vested in me, I decree this: You, Dungeon Core, are hereby marked as a time criminal. As for Faellen ‘you can’t mess with my time stream if I mess with my time stream’ Goldenbrush of the Forgotten Court, you’ve played this game for the last time. Prepare for erasure.”

The almost a dozen of them levitated, crossing the immense distance between the divine realm and us in a matter of second, and surrounded my Dungeon moon. Weaves of energy extended between them.

I began to feel dizzy. Something wasn’t right.

I felt sick to my stomach, despite not having a stomach at all.

I barely heard Faellen’s shout. What was it again? “-ilsafe! Failsafe! Use the failsafe! Fai-”

Oh, right. What was out failsafe? The sense of wrongness increased. I think… I was supposed to… activate… something… What was it?

Again, Faellen’s words made their way to me for a second. “-iloity! Endless End! Activate it!”

Right, yes. Activating Endless End. Here we go.