Soulforged Dungeoneer

As I'd planned, or at least expected, when I took out two of the legs at once, my next round of boss rush was doubled, and it was a doozy--the Trance Busting Synthesizer Harpy together with my new best friend, the Gargantuan Atlantean Barbarian Thespian Marionette. Unlike the stunt double that had drooled tea all over the Dread Gazebo, this one was full size, and its spear was, too, although Merry confirmed that was temporary--probably. That spear looked like it was made of a line of doll arms and legs connected with ball joints, and I grimaced thinking that it might be some kind of nunchuck weapon, but it didn't seem to flex at all.

It shouldn't have surprised me that the Harpy immediately broke out into music, but it did, and I felt like it was immediately harder to concentrate. Her spear had neon blue glowing electric speaker around the tip, two pointed forward and one back. The melody wasn't immediately familiar to me--I might have heard it before?--but it was a trippy emo drug trip that sounded distinctly 90s. As when she joined the Hurricane Harpy chorus, she also took to the skies, intent to fly over her companion boss' head... but that was kind of up there, so she only got up to maybe shin height at most.

Now, I could have made a solid argument for taking out the Synth Harpy first, what with the fact that she was fucking with my steeze, but the truth is I kind of dug the music, for all that it was in many ways awful. I caught some of the lyrics, grinning, as I took my own two spears and just went straight up the doll's leg, defying all manner of physical law by throwing magic at it, as per usual. And while yes, that was more costly than normal, it was basically just using the Cloak for basic telekinesis, and I didn't exactly need full concentration to accomplish it.

But I'm not broken

In my dream I win

A hero of nothing

A cosmic castaway

I only went halfway up the torso before I decided that was high enough, and activated the Slendersuit's jump ability, and the gloves' Chaos Touch just for thrills, though I wasn't planning on using the gloves themselves. And again, the jump amplified my strength, and as I fell, I twisted and spun in the air, and threw one spear at each of the feet as close as I could to the moment of hitting ground.

Hitting the ground, and this also should not have been a surprise to me, fucking hurt. I'd kind of figured I'd need to throw back a potion no matter how much the damage was, to stay at full in case the Marionette turned out to be a bigger badass than before, and that was my first order of business as I bounced roughly off the ground, my gloves making small craters as I landed that had no particular use in saving my ass, because I hadn't had time to get them under me.

RUN! Merry in my head pointed at something that I could not see, and it took a moment for me to glance at my Cloak's senses and realize that I had, in fact, blasted both of the feet out from under the Marionette, and then stood--err, laid down on the ground, underneath it, like an asshole. While it should have immediately sunk onto its shins, those splayed outwards, as though the knee joints were never actually working. It was... actually gross, because human joints definitely did not do that, and properly functioning dolls shouldn't, either.

Partly in shock, and partly in awe, I turned my actual physical head to look upwards at a skyscraper-sized wooden torso fell towards me, its hands drawn to its face in a comical expression of shock, a large impact crater on one cheek where its own spear had been smashed into the wood by the action. I had a lot of options, and started off with a Blink that brought me up onto my feet, and then jammed on the cloak's telekinesis until I was far en--

The torso hit like a meteor, and I turned, thinking that that was the major threat passed, but even at the moment of impact, the Marionette, no longer the joke boss from before, was angling that giant-ass spear at my face, and instinct had me grabbing at a teleport power--somehow, I ended up grabbing the Cloak version instead just using Blink, and for some reason, Merry threw her will behind it as well. It felt... weird, as the Cloak itself floated out into the area the spear was entering, and I ended up just sliding into the space I'd just stolen, feeling like it was only natural.

Meanwhile, Merry grabbed one of my arms and jabbed the Harpsichord Harpy's spear at the Trance Harpy, pressing a mental switch to activate whatever the spear's ability was. The intensity of the trance busting aura lessened immediately after, but somehow, the music didn't, but I didn't bother to focus on that. Instead, I ran flat out up the shaft of the spear, activating the suit's Jump ability again as soon as I thought I was close enough, and did a classic Final Fantasy Dragoon jump onto the Marionette's elbow, cracking it to pieces.

The spear! Behind me, the giant spear snapped to a normal human size like a rubber band let fly, and I turned to look at it. It wasn't right next to me, and a moment later, I felt the ground under me shift--as the Marionette also transformed into a human-sized version, only deflating a lot slower. Oh, hey. That means the power that the spear has--

I didn't worry too much about that, and threw myself at the diminished Marionette, catching up to it in time to take the Caesarian spear's pointed tip and slash it full power across its face. When that didn't kill it, but definitely did a bunch of damage, I jumped up again, both spears in hand and pointed right at its chest, around where the heart would be--not that that mattered.

The point is, it was dead, but it took a minute, a minute I didn't actually realize I didn't have.

I felt a weird snap as the Synth Harpy broke out of the... charm? Probably Charm, that Merry had put her under with the Harpsichord Spear, and I turned to look at it, feeling ready to take the bird on. But to my surprise, when I turned to look at it, the Harpy only grinned at me for a minute, and then turned and dived at something on the ground... something right over where the Marionette's spear had fallen.

"Oh," Merry and I said and thought at pretty much the same time, "fuck."

In the end, I didn't get there in time to stop the boss rush from getting out of hand, instead getting to listen to the Synth Harpy scrubbing through the song to the nearest chorus.

But I'm not broken

In my dreams I win

A hero of nothing

A cosmic castaway

For some reason, although the Harpy was a natural flier, she snagged the spear with her mouth and tuck and rolled as though she was a natural walker, which... she wasn't, she had chicken legs, but whatever, I guess, Administrator. The motion left her turned to face me, a look of challenge in her eyes, and suddenly she started to Incredible Hulk in front of my eyes, her keyboard wings distorting and the musical accompaniment twisting into non-musical chaos in the moment of the transition. At the point where it was clearly inevitable, I slowed, taking the moment to rest and also take in the spectacle, because jeez, either the Administrator or the base magic of the Star had put a lot of thought into very dramatically growing a Harpy to one like a twenty times normal size (but still far smaller than a skyscraper, thank the Administrator for small miracles), one muscle pack and one bone at a time.

Also, and I can't stress enough that this wasn't actually a huge distraction for me in the moment, and if it was don't judge me, but yes, her boobs became fucking huge.

When she stabilized, her electronic keyboard wings expanded into enormous platforms out behind her, and a new song started up, one which I belatedly realized was from the same movie, or something, as the last one, because I was pretty sure I'd heard it, too.

It's my turn to fly

My proving ground tonight

Try to be the best that I can

I've grown to be woman

Only harpies can understand

I fill my lungs with fear and I

Exhale

I'd started moving up, since she didn't seem eager to actually... you know, fly, maybe because of all the weight, but when the first verse transitioned to chorus, an intense wave of magical energy lifted her, and the two spears flashed towards me with the driven intensity of an anime hero that was out to prove that they weren't the loser everyone thought they were. Because yes, I dodged the first spear, using the Cloak to get under where it was aiming, but then the other spear, the one held in her mouth, aimed right for where I'd ended up, and I had to blink away, ending up less composed on reappearing. But unlike the giant puppet, she had qualms immediately reversing both spears.

Her level went up, pointed out Merry unnecessarily, because I didn't honestly give a fuck what the numbers involved were. I just did my best to throw myself into the Cloak, taking this opportunity to learn how the fuck to use the skill I'd created out of old dreams and half-forgotten myths of my own past, this time successfully chaining two dodges, slipping past both spears but not feeling like I'd made much serious progress. Oh... okay, this one's important. She's not trance-busting, anymore.

I paused, and glanced up at the Harpy, noting that indeed, her species ID had shifted to [ Trance Riding Synthesizer Harpy - Lv 150]. And, I realized, that fit with her sudden aggression, but if anything, that thought just made me grin. Again, though, she reversed on both spears and came at me again.

This time, I threw the cloak in the other direction and backed up away from the battle, and... I dunno. I was feeling calm, and I knew I shouldn't, but it felt right, and I looked up at the ceiling, and called out, "Hey."

There was a pause.

"If you want to give her arms so she can use those things properly, I don't mind."

I waited for a long moment, and then, with an intensity that I had never felt from any spiritual encounter in my life... I felt the Administrator laugh. A long, relieved, insane laugh. And as though she was standing in front of me, I could see actually use a hand to lift the curtain of hair out of her eyes, and there was a real smile there. If only, she said, giving no context, and vanished.

There was a twist, and the harpy grew a pair of arms like it was nothing, her species ID switching again to [ Trance Riding Synthesizer Harpy Queensguard - Lv 125 ]--clearly having lost a little bit of levels in exchange for being able to more correctly use the weapons. I watched as she snagged both spears with those arms, and launched at me, the harpy's own eyes a manic mirror of the pained joy that I'd just sensed in the Administrator's own.

It's my turn to fly

Mother be with me tonight

Oooh, I'm right on target

Keep the dream alive

It's my turn to fly

Gotta prove this tonight

Of course, we couldn't actually, like, duel with spears, since she was still twenty times my size, but when I slipped through her attack pattern and landed a pair of spear thrusts on one of her legs, it felt like a duel. Like a... like a really, really fucked up duel between people who were too weird to ever be understood by normal people. I felt, as I backed off and dodged two entirely-too-fast spear thrusts, like I understood. And I felt like I understood, too, the appeal of stupid anime protagonist bullshit, because it was right there, sitting in front of me, in front of both of us.

We were sane. We just didn't belong in the world as it had been, the world where all of these instincts meant nothing, where all of the fury in our hearts, all the pain that had driven us to evolve, where our brains could turn concepts around like they were physical objects and throw emotion and meaning around like weights, these were not skills that existed in a world without magic.

I appeared in midair in front of the Harpy and threw the Harpsichord spear straight into her eyeball, and she screamed. I used the suit to leap, again, and rode the Caesarian spear into the air, and back down, spearing the Harpy in the lower abdomen, which was a suitable distance below where I'd started to get more of the falling boost to my strength. All this use of the Cloak was seriously depleting my mana, but at the moment, I really didn't care.

A few moments later, there were three spears before me, the Harpsichord spear having dropped straight down when the Synth Harpy was defeated.

As I considered the three spears in front of me, though, the warm glow in my chest faded. Because yes, it felt like a dream, like a wonder, to realize that being a Dungeoneer meant I get to be the person I had always dreamed of being. But the Administrator... the person who I was going to become. She had the same spirit as I did.

Coordinating phantom limbs with the cloak and grabbing all three spears at the same time, I reappeared suddenly in front of Arachne. I'd defeated four bosses, and like she promised, this would be the moment the fight shifted into a new phase, but I interrupted her before she could speak.

"You hate it, don't you?" I said. "Being an Administrator. It's not just that you can't be real, it isn't you."

"It'll be different for you," she said, and I wondered if she wasn't avoiding the question.

"Can you really not do this--well, something like this, for more people? Getting involved, getting excited, "

The giant spider monster threw up her hands and gave an exasperated sigh. It seemed to deflate her momentum for the moment, but it didn't break her. "Think more about what that means," she said, an edge to her voice. "Right now, Administrators are the enemy. Right now, it's your job to kill and replace us. We aren't supposed to win. We aren't even supposed to look like we can win. You're supposed to be the heroes that hunt us down like the monsters we were born to be. You want to make us seem human? Personable?"

Suddenly, the creature twisted, and what stood there was a goddess--Athena, according to the nameplate above her head, but the appearance felt fake to me. Beautiful, yes--ten feet tall, dressed simply in pseudo-Roman fashion (or Greek? I was no expert), with four spears and a shield hanging in the air behind her. "You would want, what, to make us seem like heroes ourselves, heroes that must still be hunted down and replaced? Gods that must be torn down from the heavens? People that must still be slaughtered like pigs?" Suddenly, the goddess vanished, and the crooked old woman from the skill book library stood there, glaring at me as she leaned heavily on a walker, with four very short spears as the legs and a flat plate on top. "You want us to be pitied? Cared for? Cherished until the very end?" The old woman turned and spat. "Stupid brat. My old Marv, he knew better. Good women need to be chased and conquered, that's what he said. Anyone you can crush ain't strong enough t'handle you. Like you and that priestess. Pfeh!" She turned and hobbled back a ways, then turned back again, halfway. "You go gooey on her now, but someday when you need her to be strong, she'll disappoint you, boy."

I felt a sudden burning in my chest, an intense anger that the woman who'd basically forced me into bed was now insulting my girlfriend, but before I could make an argument, the woman shifted again, to a four-tailed fox that didn't even bother to look human, each tail a different color, and a massive ring around the base of her tails. Her voice was edged with a little bit of an animalistic growl, but not enough to interfere. "No," she said, "I was created, human. I will play my role, just as that other creature you've parlayed with is playing his. We are the opposition. It is your drive to overcome the challenges that we represent that will save humanity. If you let yourself be softened because you see us as humans, then you will miss the point."

Suddenly, the creature began rapidly shifting forms, in each form four spears and one extra piece appearing somewhere. "And the point," hissed a naga, "is to grow," growled a dragon, and the forms came faster, so fast they blended together. "Overcome us, defeat us. Reach ever higher. Only mastery can save your world."

Suddenly there was empty space, and then the Administrator's avatar was there, hanging in midair, her bangs parted, but her eyes both entirely sober and more serious than I had ever seen them. "Even I am too weak," she said. "You will be, too. People will see your powers as limitless, but they must exceed you. We are only Administrating a test."

"This is the one true thing that I figured out myself without having been told," she said, and seemingly deciding on something, her form twisted once more, into a giant stone sphinx, an enormous winged cat-woman with four wings and a twisted halo above her head. Each of the wings was one of the four spears, I recognized instantly, and the halo was whatever that fifth thing was. The species ID over her head called her the [ Eternal Sphinx, Guardian of the Queen's Tomb - Lv 200 ]

The Administrator's voice came out of the sphinx, a note of pride in her voice.

"Those that can, do--those that can't, teach."