Soulforged Dungeoneer

I really don't know what Merry did to swap our positions, but I found myself sitting on a pile of spears in front of the Dread Gazebo. My spirit--my soul--still stung from when Merry had pulled on me in a desperate fight for resources, but for now, I could successfully put that thought off. Well, mostly; the fight had awoken an old instinct once more, one that had resurfaced a couple times now. Fear, anger, and hatred of the paranormal and the spiritual world... but not, I was relieved to note, a fear or anger at Merry. Just more... of an instinct.

For now, this was no time to think about it. This fight had been in the back of my head for a while, ever since I noticed that there was an extra non-spear in addition to the eight spears, in the forms that had come after the original Arachne. The eight bosses made sense, and the Avatar herself made sense, but the extra... the only piece that didn't fit had been the Gazebo itself. It was a challenge boss in its own right, but it hadn't become a spear. But what did that mean?

The legend of the Dread Gazebo told me absolutely nothing about what this monster was going to do. By fiat of the guy who wrote the story, as soon as the Gazebo awoke, the player that pissed it off died. Now that Merry was safe, and I could take a moment to think back on it... the clearest indication of it was probably the brief moment when she had been Athena, and the four spears she had left were joined by a shield. A gazebo, after all, was a building... and in the world, before the fight started, the Dread Gazebo had been on the burning-atmosphere side of a meteor, weathering friction and temperatures that would destroy rock.

I mean, in theory. In practice, it was all theater, but... whatever.

I flexed the cloak and picked up all the spears, noting that the collection seemed a little off, but I didn't care that much. We were now at six spears, and while I figured this was going to be a challenging fight somehow, I was a lot less scared about facing it myself than I had been scared of Merry facing it.

So I poked the bear and awoke the Dread Gazebo.

Even coming into this fight with no expectations, it was still a complete shock when the distance between the Gazebo and myself vanished without either of us moving. I flung myself away, but it was like I had done nothing at all--the ground didn't move, the Gazebo didn't move, I didn't move, and yet... the world between us vanished. It was a like a horror movie special effect--a thing that shouldn't have been possible, that just became possible because of a horrible, ravenous hunger, something more supernatural than supernatural had ever been before.

The Dread Gazebo didn't have to move to destroy me, and I couldn't escape it.

I threw the Vampiric Cloak out and teleported away, and in the moment where I was slipping between places, I could swear that there was a screaming face, blind and insensate, just existing there in the... the world beneath the world, whatever that meant. Combining that with the surreal, soul-level pain from Merry's bite... I began to feel an old, familiar chill, a particular kind that spoke of something worse than death. Fear of being trapped alive in a hole with a monster for eternity.

Fear that something else would come out of this wearing my skin.

I grit my teeth, because I wanted to throw myself immediately into that deathtrap in a suicidal rage. I wanted to scream defiantly and beat it at the game of spiritual combat, old and savage instincts crawling their way up my spine... except that I wasn't here in a purely spiritual form, and even if I was, it was no longer the un-powered world that had existed before the Dungeons arrived. The chances of real and final death were a lot higher now than they were back then.

So instead I flicked the Cloak out again and again, putting distance between it and me, distance that evaporated all too quickly... and all too literally.

Observing it for a few extra moments helped. As near as I could tell, the space that was being consumed was limited to the area around the entrances, though it seemed to be able to warp space in order to turn the nearest entrance to face me--or else, it turned the world around it while remaining fixed in place. But--having a moment of inspiration--I used my cloak to throw myself into the air, and then at its roof, and I was able to land there without being torn to shreds.

Now that I'd seen it, every flick of the Cloak only reminded me of the thing blindly and ravenously screaming, but I didn't react to it by collapsing. Because, as I'd seen again and again lately... that was the point. I'd seen this hell before, and I'd survived.

I found myself grinning madly, and I couldn't stop myself from thinking back. I laughed, and I felt the Administrator's attentions on me, doubtless confused. "You know," I said, barely able to hear myself although the Gazebo made no sound at all. "There was a fight in Pearland that I hated because he--the Administrator and the boss itself--pretended that ghosts were a comedy act."

There was a dim sense of humor, but no reply.

"He made a big old quote-unquote Evil ghost that could have been played by Robin Williams, a larger-than-life spectacle only pretending to be horror. This," I placed the tip of a spear on top of it. "This is what ghosts are. This is evil. I remember this."

For some reason, I could swear that I felt the entire dungeon shiver when I said that.

"I remember fighting this," I said, and I drew the point of a spear across the roof of the gazebo. "I remember facing this hell for the first time. I remember voices screaming wordlessly for years and years, telling me that the world deserved to no longer exist."

I raised the six spears I had, and manifested my sword, too, for kicks, wrapping it with as many destructive auras as I could put on it, and folding the full weight of the vampiric cloak around every blade edge I could reach.

"I beat it, and I'll beat this. I'm not afraid." To my surprise, I found that it was true, but it was the reason why it was true that upset me. Because I had needed to accept the madness in order to beat it. I had to experience that hell--not be its target, but be the one who lived it--in order to conquer the mind that created it. You couldn't just pretend the world was sane and sanitary after being dragged through a tortured mind. You knew.

Six spears and a sword crashed into the gazebo, and for some reason, I could hear my own voice screaming.

The world stopped being consumed, and I understood that it had all been an illusion--no, a powerful domain, like the one produced by my cloak, that just didn't have any sanity to it. It didn't care whether things were possible, and it had been unopposed, until now.

So I threw as much power as I could into the cloak, but not to attack anything. Instead, I surrounded the silly little wooden outbuilding and the malicious spirit within with the power of my skill, and I could feel its fear. Not fear of me--well, yes, but no. Its insanity had always soaked itself in fear, only now it had something to crystallize around. It had told itself that it must, and now it realized that it must do more, and better, and it didn't know how.

As the cloak closed entirely around it, I felt its fear peak, as it started to know a new kind of darkness, and I flexed the cloak to pick the entire building up, and then smashed it down again. As I did, a part of my brain was surprised to note that it felt heavier than the tanks I'd picked up outside Armand Bayou. Fewer in tons, but weightier in purpose, somehow. In identity, or willpower, or spirit.

The building's health bar twitched downwards when it impacted the ground, but not by a lot. I had done more damage with the spears, because the dungeon items and abilities were damage incarnate, but that didn't bother me. In fact, I found myself not even paying attention.

I picked it up and slammed it down over and over again, less in order to break it physically as breaking the will of the thing that possessed it. For me it was catharsis--a thing that I was supposed to be afraid of was afraid of me, and it had every reason to be. That fear was correct.

I was aware that I was smiling, and took a break to take a deep breath. The Gazebo seemed to think that was a moment of weakness, and it threw its will into trying to reach me, but I flicked the building end-over-end like a coin. I barely even noticed just how deep I was in a trance until I found myself wondering just how I'd chased after the tumbling thing, the distance evaporating like when the gazebo had been attacking in the first place.

This time I did swing the spears again, and flexed the cloak to reduce the Gazebo's defenses from the inside, as I'd done against the Slenderman and Dracula. Unlike those dungeon creatures, I was more than half-sure that the spirit of the Dread Gazebo felt me ripping apart its mind, that it was aware on the same level I was, but I found I just genuinely didn't give a shit.

I woke up from the trance some time later, remembering the fight but not having really been there for it. There was an octagon laying on the ground where the gazebo had been, and I picked it up with the cloak without thinking, more wanting to discover the mysteries of the item I'd found than really thinking about the consequences.

Of course, picking it up brought me back to where the main fight was, and I blinked up at the Sphynx as it looked down at me, both of us more than a little confused and upset.

"Jerry!" Merry rushed over to me. There was something different about her--she was still the same size as always, but I could swear there was something about her body, in the proportions or the details, that was... different. "That didn't take too long. Are... you okay?"

I turned to look at her, still coming down from a high--or maybe coming back from a deep, deep low. It was hard to tell the difference, sometimes. "I'll live," I said, and started to reach for her, only to hesitate. The wound in my soul itched, recognizing her as the one who had bitten me. A sensation like tearing, of something leaking...

"I know," she said, and moved closer and touched my hand. "I won't do that again, I promise."

I believed her, and a few moments later, she was back in my head--and she started pushing and pulling at my thoughts just a bit, trying to get me focused back on the world outside. She didn't stop me from remembering or change my will, she just... was there, a sister and a friend, pointing out what was in front of us, bringing me back into the world. Despite the itch, I also felt better, having her with me again.

So I finally shook my head and looked up at the Sphynx, who looked back at me.

"I'm impressed," she said, imperiously. "I had intended that fight for your fairy companion, because she can fight on a spiritual level, but you... you truly, truly are a terrifying individual, Jerry."

"I can beat you without beating the other spears, can't I?" I didn't really need the confirmation, as I raised the six spears I had in her direction. "Without the Gazebo on defense..."

"That's right. This is the end of our little match." Suddenly, the sphynx--a large cat with the body of a woman--turned into a catgirl carrying two spears, once again wearing the Administrator's face. That is to say, she turned into a woman with fuzzy cat-ears and paws, plus oversized cloth paw-shaped slippers on her feet, and a T-shirt and hot pants with paw-prints all over them. Her hair had all been pulled back into a ponytail, this time, except for two very long fringe bangs that hung down framing her face, fully displaying the emotionally broken look on her face, her lips curled back in a mad grin of challenge, showing sharp teeth. There were other things there, things that certainly some people would have gone crazy over the details of, but... no. No, at this point, she could have been naked, and I'd still be done. "So whenever you're ready, nya...?"

When I put the Vampiric Cloak behind my attacks, the damage they did to her was severe, and I discovered quickly that I just wasn't in the mood to talk anymore. It might have been one stab or ten that it took to win the fight, but it wasn't anything worth talking about. Yes, she dashed--nearly teleported--repeatedly, made a lot of quick strikes, jumped, cried, and said entirely too many catch-phrases ending in cat noises, but I just... I just was done.

The last strike was straight through her heart, and the last two spears dropped from her hands and joined with the six I already had. The starry special boss arena shattered to pieces around us, landing us back on the burning meteor, but--obviously--without a Gazebo to shelter us from the burning wind.

"You're ready to fight him, nya" the dying remnant of the Administrator's avatar told me, still looking like a ridiculous and unstable weeaboo. "With these items, you'll have no trouble at all, nya."

"I thought I told you I don't need a reward," I said, suddenly bitter for a reason I really couldn't put a finger on.

"No rewards here--ah, I should give you experience, at least, nya. But the Eight-fold Spear will destroy itself if you try to take it out of the dungeon, nya." The catgirl grimaced, blood leaking from her mouth in a way that I was pretty sure was all theatrical and not real at all. "There's nowhere else to go, no Fairy Dungeon entrances between here and there. If you don't want to fight him today, you lose this bonus, nya..."

"Stop it with the cat noises," I said, and I knew my voice was very tired. "And, no. I'm... I'm not mentally prepared..."

"I'm not saying you have to run off and become an administrator today," I could tell the Administrator had to actively focus not to add a cutesy noise to the end of her sentence, since that had been an instinct she planted in the monster itself. "But you can free me from this hell." She reached forward, and I found that her hands had claws as she grabbed my arm. "Do it for me, nya. If any of this meant anything to you."

And then the avatar died, and two very large bottles of experience appeared in my inventory.

I stood there, grumpy, and then--ignoring the burning wind and ground around me--found a place nearby to sit. "Merry, how are you?"

I'm good, Jay. Merry came close, and I could feel her sympathy. You went all-out.

"It's..." It should have been good, should have felt good, but I wasn't sure that it did. Again, after years and years of depression, it was hard to tell the difference between a high and a deep low. Because of that, I wasn't really thinking about what I said, though maybe I was... listening, to something inside. Looking for answers by just saying whatever came to mind. "I feel like when I actually showed my cards, even monsters were scared of me. What does that make me?"

Merry interrupted my thoughts. There's a difference between 'even monsters are scared' and you trying to hurt your enemy. You know that, right? I'm not scared of you, Jay. And I don't think Louise is, either. Or your friends, the ones who know you.

They don't know me. The thought was instant, bitter, and clear, reflexive, but I don't think it was wrong. I sincerely doubted that Jenna and her group were really... not scared of me. Michelle, the random Kensei I'd run into, was definitely scared of me. I'd even tried to make sure of that.

You don't think that I know you? And you think Louise doesn't understand after connecting with you? Do you think telepathy is nothing but words for everyone but you?

I... I found my thoughts sliding away from what she said, and tried to take a deep breath, finding that it was more erratic than I'd intended. I couldn't just ignore what she was saying, but it was hard to make that thought quiet down. Louise doesn't know me, not yet. You... I'm not sure. I really have no idea.

So show me, my fairy insisted. If you think I won't like you when I know you, then show me.

She and I had a mental staring contest for a long minute, and I shook my head, suddenly. And then I sighed, and looked at the sky, and, after gritting my teeth for a moment, said, "Administrator... I need a favor."